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EVALUATING THE COMPETITIVE PRESSURE OF UNIVERSITIES IN THE MARKET OF TERTIARY ECOLOGICAL EDUCATION

Artemiy Kozachek

Abstract

Background: To choose a strategy for its educational and economic activities, an ecological university needs a clear understanding of the competitive situation in the education market. This problem is of great importance for the Russian Federation, which has the largest reserves of natural resources and pollution-free areas. High-quality professional training of ecologists in Russian universities has to ensure preservation of the environment and rational nature management. Therefore, to make the right choice of its behavior in the market of tertiary ecological education, the university has to evaluate the overall competitive pressure, which determines the universityпїЅs facilities. Methods: Current methods of evaluating the effect of competitive factors for different industrial markets are primarily aimed at determining the competitiveness of an economic entity itself in terms of its internal resources or potential consumers. So, they can not take into account all the features and factors of competitive struggle in the market of tertiary ecological education as a whole. Moreover, they do not always allow assessing these factors in a numerical form, which is of great importance for mathematical prediction, modeling and development of strategic decisions. Therefore, we have developed a new method for assessing the competitive pressure of suppliers in the education market. By service suppliers in the market of tertiary ecological education we mean the universities. The activities of such suppliers are proposed to be characterized through their competitive power, that is, their impact on the increase or decrease in the competitiveness of organizations in the market. Results: The method developed has been tested with the aim of evaluating the competitive pressure of universities-suppliers exemplified by the real situation in the market of tertiary ecological education of Russia for the period 1996-2015. The initial numerical values were the data of official statistical reports. Conclusions: Calculations based on the proposed method have shown that the period 2007-2009 was critical for universities-suppliers of tertiary ecological education in Russia. Presumably it could be caused by a drop in the number of entrants. As a result, universities were forced to intensify the competition, which led to an increase in the competitive pressure of universities-suppliers and a decrease in the average strength of their market positions. On the contrary, in the period 2009-2015 there was a reduction in the competitive pressure of universities-suppliers and an increase in their competitive power in the market of tertiary ecological education. One of the possible reasons for such an increase could be the integration of universities followed by a reduction in their total number. It could be also caused by greater individualization of the content of professional training in each university, individualization of the methods of instruction organization, as well as taking into account the local and regional characteristics of graduate ecologists.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2017/54/s22.008

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