Competing in the Marketspace: Incorporating Online Education into High Education - An Organizational Perspective

Higher education traditionally has been very slow moving, with change being measured in years, or even decades. Recently, external forces have combined to challenge higher education’s resistance to change. These forces range from the growth of the Internet to the emergence of a new student population to a continued decline in governmental support. Together, these changes have caused institutions to re-examine how they function and how they interact with the outside world. Distance education has become a concrete manifestation of the changes in higher education; however, the incorporation of online education often has far-reaching effects, impacting the organization financially, structurally and culturally. This paper will examine the external forces that are challenging higher education. It will further examine the managerial, organizational and cultural issues that arise as colleges and universities seek to move from the physical “marketplace” to the virtual world of the “marketspace” through the integration of distance education programs.