Abstract
This chapter’s research captured a onetime (Summer 2014) collection of data from ever-evolving, continuously updated website homepages from the Western Balkans public and private universities. Using a sequential mixed methods design, data revealed many factors about how each institution wished to publically position itself within the constraints of all the immediate stakeholders. The Western Balkans regional definition in this, as in other studies, includes the countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Data indicated a competitive, online marketplace where each institution sought new stakeholders though graphics, logos, special identity icons, and use of social media for advertising in local languages. Document analysis revealed exotericism and quality messages as well as the use of English, however not in all HEIs.
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UNESCO omits Kosovo.
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Papadimitriou, A. (2018). Using a Mixed Methods Approach to Examine the (Re)Imaging of Higher Education Institutions in the Western Balkans. In: Papadimitriou, A. (eds) Competition in Higher Education Branding and Marketing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58527-7_5
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