https://doi.org/10.53656/str2024-4-4-man

2024/4, стр. 433 - 452

MANAGERIAL ASPECTS OF COOPERATION AMONG HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS AND THEIR STAKEHOLDERS

Резюме: The article is devoted to the rethinking of modern approaches to the organization of management, which is aimed at a comprehensive solution to the multitude of problems facing higher education. The article proves that the main direction of the university’s efforts should be career guidance management. Single attention is paid to the definition of the essence, place and tools that must it include and use in order to achieve a common goal - to increase the efficiency of the university. In addition, the article includes an expert stakeholder’s analysis of a higher education institution, which were separated into 9 groups and ranked according to the level of priority to work with them.

Ключови думи: stakeholder; stakeholder management; educational management; career guidance management; PEST analysis; higher education; career guidance work

1. Introduction

In modern economic conditions, any organization cannot be considered as a closed system. Regardless of whether it is an enterprise, a small company, a private enterprise or an institution, organization, ministry, etc. (Hurzhyi et al. 2022; Prokopenko & Kornatowski 2018) they cannot organize normal work without taking into account the influence and interests of the parties involved in various relations with them. Such parties, in the theory of modern management, are considered to be the stakeholders. Stakeholders, by one or another way, not only effect on the efficiency of the economic system, as well as the decision-making process, but are often those subjects, satisfaction of whose interests is a priority task to build the main activity.

According to this logic, the priority goal of the economic system is to obtain an economic effect (commercial or non-commercial) by satisfying the interests of stakeholders.

Despite their historical importance to public welfare, institutions of higher education have not always adapted to the demands of external stakeholders (Ivanova & Filipova 2022, p. 341). At the same time, it should be noted that the organization of effective stakeholder’s management within the framework of commercial activities is a question, in essence, that has been largely resolved. Market research, research of needs, research of target audiences and organization of activities according to them, is the key to financial sustainability.

However, speaking about the institutions and organizations of the budgetary sphere, the stakeholder’s management is an ambiguous and often contradictory issue. On the one hand, everything is also very simple: there is the charter of the institution; there is ministerial subordination; there are standards necessary for performing, which implementation is sufficient for it. At the same time, practice and experience show that ignoring the interests and opinions of stakeholders even in the public sector can lead, as well as in the field of commercial activities, to a drop in demand for the services of such institutions and, as a result, to nullify any of them. Moreover, the influence of stakeholders in the public sector is intensifying and deepening every year, covering more and more new areas.

The modern system of higher education is not an exception and is quite specific from this point of view. On the one hand, the education sector is still the same budget system with its own tasks and subordination, but on the other hand, due to the competition among educational institutions, their administration should take care of ratings, deal reputation, marketing activities, as well as the formation of a development strategy, taking into account the variability of the financial and economic environment. And in this context, it is worth noting the scale of educational activities. If for preschool and school education now there are tasks connected with modernization, re-equipment, enlargement, then in the field of higher education, the problem of management activity is more multifaceted.

An important condition is that universities are also aware of the changing requirements for the qualifications and competencies of employees in this uncertain and difficult period of drastic transformation (Yuleva-Chuchulayna 2022). Scientific, research, educational, organizational, international areas of activity, as well as cooperation with former graduates, employers, the media, local government bodies, form a whole complex of tasks to establish an effective balance between the interests of universities and their stakeholders. At the same time, it should be noted that the concept of stakeholders` management in higher education can hardly be considered like innovative. This concept is reflected in many documents: starting with orders of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and ending with directions provided by heads of departments for the teaching staff.

At the same time, each structural unit has its own interests, functions and scope of activity. Each of them performs the functions assigned to them for the benefit of the university as a whole. But the question of what exactly is considered a beneficial for the university is still open.

The basis of our proposals for improving stakeholders` management at universities is the increased demand for university services. First of all, here, indeed, we are talking about educational services. With all this in mind, we propose to consider career guidance work as the basis of modern stakeholders` management in the higher educational sphere.

Purpose of the article. An article dedicated to defining the main aspects of interaction between universities and their stakeholders as well as researching the place and role of career guidance work in this process.

2. Presentation of the primary material

Before presenting the results of our research and the conclusions that we made based on them, it is necessary to clarify our understanding of stakeholders` management in higher educational institutions and its connection with career guidance work.

The sphere of higher education is gradually, but rather confidently, transforming from a logical continuation of secondary school education into a system of providing the educational services. A university that positions itself as a closed system, that is, a system that does not feel the influence of the external environment and exerts only a limited influence on it, today is doomed to an unenviable position. The administration of such a university simply cannot know about the modern requirements of the market, to be oriented by the needs of modern young people, independently evaluate the effectiveness of their activities, or simply inform third parties about their successes.

From this point of view, building a university as a closed system is the path to nowhere for modern management (Kvitka et al. 2019).

Therefore, a modern university should move towards greater openness, attract the genuine attention of many stakeholder circles, and develop as a center for the provision of educational services that are adequate to the needs of both students and the employment market.

In accordance with the definition provided in Article 1 of the Law of Ukraine “On Education”, “educational service – a set of defined by law, educational program and/or by contract actions of the subject of educational activity, which have a certain value and aimed at achieving the expected learning outcomes”1. In other words, any university activity aimed at acquiring the relevant competencies by higher education recipients considered as a educational service. Indeed, a closed type university, by definition, cannot provide educational services. This is the fundamental role of stakeholders` management in the higher education development (Lugar & Novićević 2021; Yereshko et al. 2022).

At the same time, the connection between the university, its stakeholders and career guidance work, often and for many, remains unclear.

According to the definition given by the State Employment Center, career guidance “is an assistance to a person in choosing or changing of a profession or a new job” (Professional, 2022). By another approach, career guidance work considered to be “a system of measures aimed at helping young students to choose a profession in accordance with the interests and needs of society in personnel” (Professional, 2014). In fact, different authors focus on the psychological impact, personal responsibility, professional training of people involved in career guidance work (Chipriyanova et al. 2022).

We believe that career guidance is, in fact, a deeper, more strategic task. This conclusion is based on the fact that such work can be considered not just as a purposeful activity to provide assistance in choosing of a profession, but also as an important factor in assessing the university effectiveness.

The core point here is not about a trivial comparison of universities by the number of students, which can be made on the basis of published open information (using the example of Ukraine - on the portals as2. Such information in itself, of course, is extremely important, but it only reflects the results of the efforts undertaken by hundreds of university employees: from the administration to the research and teaching staff; from various services to ordinary workers.

That is why, the university is involved in systematic work to study the needs of the market; trying to attract positive attention to themselves can be judged by the effectiveness of career guidance work. The only question here is on whom such activities should be directed. In our opinion, such reference points should be those parties that can exercise influence on the university and on which the university itself, in turn, has an impact – on its stakeholders.

This approach allows us to schematically represent our management concept in the form of a triangle, the tops of which are: General University Management, Stakeholders` Management and Career Guidance Management (Figure 1). As the resultant indicators, we chose the effectiveness of the university, which, of course, should be assessed in the number of accepted and taught students.

This approach makes it possible to consider the university as a center for the implementation of various research, organizational, educational, financial and other tasks, the fundamental goal of which is to attract students. For a deeper understanding of our proposals for improving stakeholders` management, we propose to introduce the term “Career guidance management” into scientific circulation.

Career guidance management, in our vision, is a set of management measures aimed at working with stakeholders in a way that would maximize the effectiveness of the university. Since we take the number of students as a measure of efficiency, we can also distinguish clear terms within which it can be assessed according to Admission requirements for higher education in 20213. In accordance with the paragraph V of the Admission requirements, September 30th is the last day when there is still an opportunity to issue orders for student enrollment. Thus, September is the month when it is possible to fully summarize the results of the university’s effectiveness and assess the career guidance management that was provided before and during the last admission campaign. It is also an important period for the formation of goals and objectives for the next year.

At the same time, the concept of an interested party or “stakeholder”, especially for a university, is a rather broad concept. As a rule, the analysis of stakeholders in the literature on management, corporate governance, and social responsibility is usually assessed on the basis of only expert assessments, using only basic calculations based again on personal research or the experience of the same expert.

We believe that this approach, when assessing the stakeholders of the university, should be modified. Since for a university, a stakeholder is a rather multifaceted concept, the assessment of their influence also cannot be limited to the opinion of only one or a couple of experts.

We divided our research into several basic stages, deciding to go a little nonstandard way:

Stage 1. We created a group of experts, which included 6 representatives. The number 6 was chosen based on the PERT (Program (Project) Evaluation and Review Technique) assessment (Project, 2017). In general, it is calculating by the following formula:

(1)\( E=\cfrac{1}{6} \times(P+4 M+0), \)

where

E – estimation (result obtained);

P – the most pessimistic assessment;

M – most likely estimate;

O – the most optimistic assessmen.

Such an approach was chosen in order to find a solution if and when there will be emerged some debates among the participators. Also, such an approach helps to minimize the influence of abnormal estimates (too high or too less).

Elected group of experts included representatives of different universities of Ukraine (\(80 \%\) ) and Uzbekistan (\(20 \%\) ): 10 representatives of top universities’ management (as Rector and First Vice-Rector), 10 representatives of university executive departments (as Head of the Public Relations Department and Head of the Career Guidance Department), 10 representatives of teaching staff, who are the experts in career guidance work as well as in corporate governments and social responsibility (such experts were chosen based on a previously made an analysis of their publications).

To quantify the peer review, we asked the experts to determine the resulting indicators (strength of influence and stakeholder interest) in the range from 0 to 1 (where 0 corresponds to the lowest value and 1 corresponds to the highest value) according to the scale used for the Pearson Linear Correlation Evaluation Coefficient – Chaddock’s scale (Table 1).

Unlike traditional methods for assessing stakeholders, where their composition is first determined, we decided to give for the experts a task of identifying the most relevant groups of interested sides.

Experts have identified 9 most relevant stakeholder groups to target career guidance management. After identifying of such groups, the experts got a challenge to assess them on the Chaddock scale, in accordance with following parameters: the influence power of the stakeholder’s group (P) and the estimated level of their interest (I). To clarify why we chose these particular criteria, it may be explained that they are used to build stakeholder matrix when evaluating any project. We asked to evaluate the stakeholders according to P and I indicators to determine the nature of their influence on the career guidance management of the university. The results of research are presented in table 2.

It is necessary to provide some explanation to the results obtained and presented at the Table 2. For the purposes of our research, we are takin into account only the data from P and I rows, as they will be used like the coordinates to build a matrix of stakeholders. FI indicator was only used by us in order to get the possibility of ranking the stakeholder’s groups obtained according to their priority. By our opinion the FI indicator could not be taken for another kind of tasks to be solved.

Stage 2. At the second stage we`ve decided to build the matrix of stakeholders. However, we were building it with nonclassical reason. Mostly, the practice of stakeholder’s management believes that such matrix helps to divide interested parties into separate groups and helps to intensify the efforts only on those, which are the most significant among them. At the same time, we decided to build this matrix based on another idea. The matrix of stakeholders helped us to prove that 9 groups got are obtained correctly and that they are truly reference (Figure 2).

Corporate governance theorists believe that the stakeholder matrix should be divided into 4 quadrants. The transition line from one quadrant to another (along the x and y axes) is carried out at the transition of the 0,5 mark, which corresponds to half of the scale.

Thus, 4 quadrants are formed:

– The A quadrant includes stakeholders who are not only have less interest in the activity of the system (in our case, the university), but also have no influence on it. It is believed that their interests can be neglected.

– The B quadrant represents those stakeholders, who has a strong interest in the system, but do not have significant influence over it. It is believed that the interests of such a group can be partially neglected. At the same time, it should be noted that the matrix may contain points close to the border of the quadrant (closer to the D quadrant) and we believe that the opinion, as well as the interests, of such stakeholders cannot be neglected either.

– The C quadrant contains the stakeholders who have, or may have, significant influence over the system. However, they are not interested in it. Adopted to believe that such a group of stakeholders can already be worked with. The only task here is the work aimed at increasing their interest.

– The D quadrant accommodates the stakeholders most influencing and most interested in the operation of the system. The interests of such stakeholders should be taken into account by first order.

We see that the matrix of stakeholders, which were built on the basis of the expert’s selection, as well as our PEST analysis, show that these groups have been chosen correctly. It is possible to make such a conclusion as all of 9 groups being selected are included in the D quadrant. This is what distinguishes our approach to assessing the role of stakeholders from existing ones. We do not use a stakeholder matrix to identify those parties whose interests and influences can be neglected. For us, this is just a tool to determine the correctness of our work.

This approach forms the basis of our vision for career guidance management. It includes three main positions:

1. Taking into account the interests of as many potential groups of stakeholders as it possible. However, here we`re talking about those stakeholders, who can have or already have at least a minimal impact on the university and whose interests, in principle, may relate to its activities.

2. Their ranking is not according to the degree of whether their interests will be taken into account at all. But according to the degree of their priority.

3. If a stakeholder has even a minimal interest in the activities of the university, it is already necessary to focus on cooperation with him.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that since we have defined that group 1 (Recipients of education services), we therefore defined our management concept as career guidance management. We believe that schematically it itself and its place in general management can be displayed as follows (Figure 3).

The diagram shows that the task of general management is to administer and coordinate the efforts of all faculties, departments and services to achieve the greatest efficiency of the university (which we have taken to measure in the number of students trained). The specific marking of the “Ambassadors” Group we are going to explain further.

The stakeholder’s management is a systematic work to attract all interested parties to cooperation with the university. The direct performers of such work should be the structural divisions of the university. It is necessary to orient their staff in such a way that they will understand the importance of their personal contribution, by fulfilling their professional tasks, to the overall goal – the effectiveness of the university.

Career guidance management should be understood as part of the overall university management, which integrates work with each stakeholder through connections (orange arrows in Figure 3) with Recipients of educational services.

This is what distinguishes the widespread approach to the organization of general management, in which career guidance work is considered only as a separate task, from the one proposed by us, in which it (career guidance management) itself becomes the result of general management efforts – the spearhead of all activities at the university.

Stage 3. Determination of the content within the stakeholders` groups and the main types of cooperation with them based on career guidance management reasons.

Group 1 – Recipients of educational services. Content:

a) high school students. They are preparing for graduation and orient themselves more towards the study of those subjects that they will need when studying at a university;

b) school graduates. Those who are directly involved in the admission campaign; c) graduates of secondary vocational education institutions, who have a possibility to enter the 2nd or 3rd year of the university;

d) graduates of a bachelor’s degree. Bachelors of the same or different specialties, who, thanks to cross-entry, can receive a master’s degree in a different specialty; e) people who want to get a second higher education: adults who have life and professional experience and who want to get additional knowledge in certain fields of knowledge.

Explanation. It is obvious that here we see almost the strongest connection and the highest interest, since these are the people for whom the university carries out its main activities. Consequently, this group were considered the resulting target group.

Examples of activities. Here we do not single out many different types of activities, since the effectiveness of work with this group directly depends on how effectively the university cooperates with other groups. Here we include the classic career guidance work:

– meetings with representatives of this group to clarify the importance of higher education in general;

– assistance in psychological adaptation to new conditions;

– assistance in choosing a profession;

– explanation of the admission procedure and assistance in the course of its passage.

Group 2 – Parents and friends. Content:

a) parents and direct relatives. parents and direct relatives. They are extremely interested in the fate and further development of their children, have a certain (strong) influence on them, and, in addition, are often customers of educational services. A contract for education of a child is most often concluded with the university by his parents.

b) Friends if they are not the ambassadors of the university. Classmates; older friends, that is, people who can have a significant impact on a potential student and are interested in his/her success (in a positive or negative sense).

Explanation. Working with this group of stakeholders, although it is difficult to consider it extensive, is, if not the most difficult, then one of them (Bodnar et al. 2019; Frumkina, 2023). And if access to work with parents can be obtained through Schools (Group 3), mass media (Group 6) or social networks (Group 7), then with friends the situation is different. Friends often have a very large influence on the decision to choose a university, but they may not be part of the group of its ambassadors. Therefore, only work in schools, social networks and with parents can outweigh the possible negative influence of friends.

Examples of activities. The main types of cooperation here must include:

– attendance at parents’ meetings;

– holding various kinds of mass events, the task of which should be to convince parents of the correct choice of a particular specialty;

– personal meetings of parents with teachers, heads of departments and deans of faculties;

– creation of a feedback system between the university and parents in the form of consulting centers.

Group 3 – School administrations and staff. Content:

a) school directors and their deputies. People who carry out general management, are directly involved in the formation of the strategy for subordinate educational institutions, and are also authorized to build partnerships with their stakeholders, which include universities;

b) teaching staff. Employees who work directly with children. Their influence, their example, the quality of their work (performing of their duties) can influence by such or another way on the choice adopted by pupils in the questions of future career.

Explanation. For 10 years of schooling, teachers (and administration) become partners for schoolchildren. This means that how effective they teach their subject, how they can interest a pupil in it, how they relate to a particular university, depends on their gradual, but rather strong influence on the choices made by children. An important clarification, in this group we include neutral and negative-minded teaching staff of schools.

Examples of activities:

– assistance in conducting thematic lessons. University opportunities in this are much broader. Thus, by helping the teacher, the university will stimulate the child’s interest in a particular area of knowledge.

– conducting thematic excursions

– carrying out various kinds of intellectual and/or practical events

– holding common events – between university students and schoolchildren.

The main challenge in this context is to transform the teaching staff (and school administrators) into university ambassadors.

At this stage, we consider it necessary to skip the analysis of Group 4 for now.

Group 5 – Mass media. Content:

a)newspapers and magazines (print and electronic);

b) radio;

c) television;

d) video hosting (YouTube for example);

e) Internet sites (stores of films, applications, games, sale of cryptocurrency, etc.).

Explanation. In this context, of course, we primarily mean advertising. Advertising today has spread in all spheres of human activity, it has become all-encompassing (Bodnar et al. 2019; Frumkina 2023). And since it is so, then the advertising activity on the polarization of higher education in general and certain specialties (universities) in particular, should also be like this. In addition, such activities should not only cover as many sources of mass information as possible, but also the maximum of target groups. We can say with confidence that professional, relevant, unobtrusive advertising can reach all other Stakeholder Groups we have identified. On the other hand, it is worth considering that such services should always be financed. Free advertising from the media is often sensational (negative).

Examples of activities:

– attracting genuine attention of various media kinds to the university. This can be done through joint projects; invitation to significant events (not only as information collectors), but also direct participants; highlighting in respected media only the most important and interesting (for target groups) events;

– commercial advertising activities;

– support of public relations through adequate feedback to the media.

Group 6 – Social networks. Content:

a) work in social networks focused on all social networks we have selected, except for certain components of Group 1 (Facebook). Working with parents, teachers, senior students, etc.;

b) work in social networks adapted for schoolchildren (Instagram, Tik Tok). Here, indeed, there is a certain problem - how not to cross the line between efficiency and inadequacy. Students should understand that the university wants to help them, it is important and serious. Flirting with the audience is not always a good solution.

Explanation. Today, people spend a significant part of their daily life on social media. This means that the work to draw attention to the activities and specialties of the university today must be present there mandatorily. According to Yuleva-Chuchulayna (2021), online social networks are a leading trend on a national, European and global scale for all universities and businesses in the countries. The only limitations here are unobtrusiveness, adequacy and sufficiency. If the work is too visible, it can have a negative impact on the target groups. Target groups may give themselves the impression that the university is overly unpopular.

Examples of activities:

– thematic groups and accounts;

– posts and comments;

– informing, consulting and answering to questions;

– forming of perfect image.

Group 7 – International partners. In general, this Group contains:

a) foreign universities (scientific, educational, project partners); foreign companies as employers, consultants, advisers, consumers of services;

b) foreign contractors – organizations that provide services for the selection of educational facilities for foreign citizens

Explanation. Modern higher education in the world is not limited to the provision of educational services only to citizens of their own country and only in their own country. Today the university is a center for the development of international communication and cooperation. But in our context, it is worth noting another aspect. It is necessary that all this work be covered in a convenient and understandable way for schoolchildren. Only then will it have a positive career guidance effect.

Examples of activities:

– conducting presentations for schoolchildren and teachers on the international activities of the university and the opportunities that schoolchildren can get for themselves;

– attracting schoolchildren to the simplest scientific projects or creating special international projects designed for schoolchildren. In this case, further admission to such a university for a student will be a logical continuation of his education;

– presentation of the experience of students who, during their studies, acquire new competencies (parallel education, practical activity, volunteer activity, grand projects etc.) by participating in international projects.

Group 8 – National partners. Content:

a) national companies – employers and partners;

b) partner universities;

c) local government bodies.

Explanation. In this group, we included only those stakeholders who may be of interest to Group 1. Such partners can act, firstly, as examples of how you can put your knowledge into practice in a particular specialty. Secondly, they provide an opportunity to travel around their country and create friendly ties between students, which in the future may turn into business ties.

Examples of activities:

– excursions to enterprises, acquaintances and their employees – graduates of this university;

– holding common events between university students from different cities;

– creation of practice and internship bases;

– conclusion of agreements on the first employment for students.

Group 9 – Customers of university services. Here, the approach to identifying stakeholders will be slightly different. We include all interested parties who are consumers of the university’s services:

a) consulting (in the fields in which students are trained);

b) scientific;

c) project;

d) educational (training and retraining of employees); e) production (if the university has such opportunities);

f) engineering.

Explanation. Within this group, we are not talking about the commercial successes of the university as such (although it is also important). In this context it is necessary to carry out a work on informing representatives of Group 1 about those, who are the clients of the university, with whom it cooperates in terms of providing its own services. For example, if the customer of engineering services is a well-known transnational corporation, then this is already an indicator of university’s competence as well as of its employees.

Examples of activities:

– advertising activities;

– information work – informing Group 1 about what the university, its staff and students are capable of, about future plans for the implementation of projects;

– presentation of a portfolio about completed projects.

Group 4 – Ambassadors. Extremely specific group. In its structures, we would include:

a) students who are currently undergoing training;

b) university graduates;

c) university employees (scientific and teaching staff, researchers, employees of management and administrative departments);

d) others.

Explanation. Obviously, this group includes every party who already had or has experience of cooperation with the university. However, this is not the key position. Such stakeholders mustn’t not just have some experience, but a positive experience. And not even just a positive experience, but one that they would agree and are ready to share – to popularize it further.

We suppose, the main ones within this group are students and graduates. This, in turn, means that the overall, comprehensive contribution of people working directly with students is fundamental factor in this context.

Indeed, a disgruntled, incompetent, offended (possibly) stakeholder from this group cannot be a popularizer of the university.

In addition, it is worth mentioning a certain item in the list of “others”. Among them, in our opinion, there may be the separate representatives from all other groups we have identified, but only those who have already formed a genuine loyalty to the university and are ready to act as its unofficial representatives in their field of activity or life.

In this context, it is worth noting one more specificity of this Group – the possible types of activities aimed at them.

Examples of activities:

– management and organizational work of the university;

– educational and scientific work;

– quality control of the provision of training services;

– feedback system with students.

Thus, these are all general approaches. There can be no specific tools for turning stakeholders into ambassadors. These are all the functions that the university has; the goals that he achieves; those tasks that he performs. Moreover, all this is systematic and permanent work. Then such a mechanism of transformation will be organized independently, without any manual influence. This is the most difficult task for the university and that is why we have highlighted this group in red at the Figure 3.

We would like to clarify that the groups we identified did not include all possible stakeholders of the university. We included only those who:

– Firstly, they have an interest in the work of the university and have sufficient power to influence its work;

– Secondly, those who may be of interest for the purposes of career guidance management.

In addition, it is worth determining who should be responsible for achieving the goals of career guidance management and be the direct executor of its functions. In fact, it becomes obvious that all university employees should be responsible for achieving the goals of career guidance management. Since its achievement does not depend on the effective implementation of only one separate type of activity.

At the same time, based on practical experience and theoretical knowledge in the field of corporate governance, we realize that collective responsibility is irresponsibility. And we’re not talking about irresponsibility here. In this aspect, the main task of general university management, in our opinion, is creating of a conscious responsibility for each employee on the effectiveness of functions, he performs.

In other words, each employee (regardless professional tasks at the university) is obliged to understand his role in achieving the resulting indicator of the university effectiveness – the number of students. Even now, this is a serious management problem. Not all employees, even teaching staff, are aware of their role in this fundamental challenge.

Speaking about the coordinator of career guidance, it is necessary to mention the work of departments of pre-university training. Such departments have constant contact with the main group of stakeholders (Group 1), as well as with representatives of Group 2. Also, they are taking the functions of monitoring the educational services market and the market conditions on it. Therefore, they should report on changes in demand in the educational services market and inform top management about this.

In this we see the purpose, significance and tools of career guidance management in modern higher education. At the same time, specific tools for working with each of the individual Stakeholder Groups identified by us are of separate scientific and practical interest. This will be the focus of our future research.

Conclusions and summary

A modern university can no longer be regarded as a closed economic system. Today it is the center for the development of scientific thought, educational work, building communications both in the country and abroad, as the performer of the most important practical tasks and projects. From this point of view, working with stakeholders is the most important, systemic task for the modern top management of the university to be solved.

Within the framework of this study, we have proved that stakeholder management is a part of general university management, the purpose of which is to coordinate efforts to achieve the highest-level goal – to increase the number of students. We called the process of achieving this goal career guidance management.

Career guidance was chosen by us as the central idea, since the PEST-analysis carried out by us on the basis of expert assessments showed that the most important group of stakeholders is “Recipients of educational services”.

We have proved that working with representatives of other selected groups of stakeholders should also be based on the tasks of career guidance management and be aimed at transforming them into university Ambassadors.

In addition, we have determined that career guidance management cannot be considered a specific task for an individual employee or department, and also cannot be considered a collective responsibility. We have proven that such a management concept should be based on the conscious responsibility of each employee. Formation of such responsibility is an additional task to be solved by general management.

We set the definition of specific tools for working with each among the groups of stakeholders identified by us as a task for future research.

NOTES

1. The Law of Ukraine “On Education” [Zakon Ukrayiny “Pro osvitu”]. https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2145-19/print [Viewed 2022-8-20].

2. Admission.osvita.ua [Vstup.OSVITA.UA]. https://vstup.osvita.ua/ [Viewed 2022-8-20];

APPLICANT SEARCH SERVICE [Servis poshuku abituriyentiv]. https://abitpoisk.org.ua/ [Viewed 2022-6-30].

3. Admission conditions for higher education in 2021 [Umovy pryyomu dlya zdobuttya vyshchoyi osvity 2021 roku]. https://mon.gov.ua/storage/app/media/vishcha-osvita/vstup-2021/Nakaz%201274.docx [Viewed 2021-12-30].

4. Compiled by the authors on the basis of Economic research (methodology, tools, organization, testing) [Ekonomichni doslidzhennya (metodolohiya, instrumentariy, orhanizatsiya, aprobatsiya)] A. A. MAZARAKI (Ed.), Kyiv: National trade and economy university, 2010. ISBN: 978-966-629-431-2.

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