The Internet websites of these 37 universities were visited in April 2005 wherein the published strategic plans were identified and downloaded. Only 34 strategic plans were obtained and these were arranged to show universities in the manner developed by Marginson and Considine, the five-tier classification which included Sanstones, Redbricks, Unitechs, Gumtrees, and New.
Data was analyzed using the complete set of public strategic plans. In order to proceed with the content analysis, the Leximancer was used in order to provide an objective reading of the strategic plans which is also automated and systematic. According to Bradmore and Smyrnios (2009), Leximancer is "a data-mining tool that can be used to analyze the content of collections of textual documents' (as cited in Smith, 2005, p. 4, p. 4; p. 499 & 501). The results of the study showed that in terms of the level of concern the Australian public universities have on the rapid intensification of global competition among higher education institutions, only one university included competition in the 10 top-ranked concepts. Furthermore, competition is only among the 100 top-ranked concepts in just 25 universities. These findings led Bradmore and Smyrnios to propose that Australian public universities have indeed lagged behind the 'race' to become competitive in achieving globalization in the "higher education movement" (p. 205). With regard the extent to which universities respond to the increasing competition, findings showed that there is a...
The prominence in these concepts suggests their feasibility as elements that would be most recommendable to developing globalization plans competitively (Bradmore & Smyrnios, 2009, p. 509). This led to the proposition by Bradmore and Smyrnios (2009) that the "Australian public universities are conscious of threats posed by rapid intensification of competition and are implementing strategies to protect
market share and position" (p. 509). Bradmore and Smyrnios (2009) conclude that:
"there are inherent difficulties in all studies based on content analyses of strategic plans which, by their
nature, are sensitive documents and not usually available -- in their most meaningful form, at least -- to any but the top-echelon of an organization. Findings of this paper raise the possibility that the identification of threats posed by competitors, a vital aspect of
strategic planning, may have been ignored or at least given inadequate attention, in a majority of Australian public universities to date." (p. 506)
Reference
Bradmore, D.J. & Smyrnios, K.X. (2009). The Writing on…
