An excerpt from A Memorable Experience: A Strategic Approach to University Reputation, by Santiago Fernández-Gubieda, published in 2025 by CASE

Reputation can be viewed as a compass to help university leaders navigate the waters of university governance. With this guide, reputation can serve as a governing principle to help clarify the university’s mission and ensure its integration across all management tasks. Ensuring consistency between identity and image—between the declared mission and lived culture, public discourse, and actual performance—must be an ongoing commitment for any good leader. To achieve this, it is essential to understand the dimensions of reputation and its role in managing crises of trust and overcoming the most challenging situations.

Reputation is the responsibility of all members of the university community. They are all brand ambassadors. If we view the university as a network of meeting points, then individuals act as one of these points: they embody the university’s identity, thereby creating culture, expressing values, sharing stories, building relationships and projecting an image in the minds of others. All these people help cultivate trust, which gives them a sense of belonging to the university.

And yet we know that what belongs to everyone belongs to no one. The ultimate responsibility for protecting and cultivating reputation must fall on the university’s highest decision-making body: presidents and vice presidents, deans and senior academic leaders. They must safeguard the principle of integrity and ensure that the perceptions of all stakeholders correspond to the university’s true reality. Reputation is not merely about projecting a corporate image but is directed towards its ultimate goal: preserving the organisation’s integrity. Only then can leadership be truly credible.

Reflections from Leaders

What do today’s university leaders mean by “reputation”? Are they aware that a reputation-driven approach can enhance university governance? These were the two questions that guided my discussions with the experts during the qualitative research phase of my doctoral thesis on reputation.

My aim was to gather expert opinions on two aspects: firstly, whether governance decisions can have a positive or negative impact on university reputation; and, secondly, whether cultivating reputation could itself be considered a principle of governance. As expected, the first question generated unanimous agreement. Not one participant said that governance decisions have no impact on university reputation. However, when considering whether these effects are positive or negative, a recurring theme emerged in the experts’ responses.

One former rector shared an example of how an inappropriate governance decision can have a negative impact:

I once approved a research proposal without realising it was funded by the tobacco industry. When it became public, a storm of protests erupted and the damage was extensive. You have to be extremely cautious when making decisions today.

This broad consensus on the impact of governance decisions contrasts with the responses to the second part of the question: whether reputation can serve as a principle of governance. While none of the leaders I consulted dismissed this idea, the answers were less consistent. Most offered arguments in support of the notion, yet these lacked a common rationale to explain the governance approach from a reputational perspective—exactly what it entails, the boundaries of this supposed principle, and how it should be carried out.

The experts I consulted, largely rectors and vice-rectors, acknowledged that a reputational focus aids in understanding the university’s environment and managing risks, thus equipping governance and leadership with the contextual intelligence needed to address social demands. However, their responses placed less emphasis on the reputational implications of identity, culture, and commitments made to stakeholders.

One university leader shared an experience at his university aimed at incorporating the university community into decision-making:

In the past 10 years, my university has designed a strategic plan with input from all stakeholders: centres and services, directors, deans and students. We organised discussion groups, debates and presentations to gather feedback from the community. We received many comments, which of course helped us improve the initial plan. The result was a strategic, inclusive plan that incorporated suggestions that were grassroots-driven, bottom-up and even top-down. This approach to governance was truly decisive for our university’s internal reputation. 

The debate underscored the different university traditions and cultures and how these influence reputation. For example, experts from English-speaking countries highlighted the composition of leadership teams. One vice-rector from a renowned university commented:

The composition of our governing body carries many risks. If members lack a foundation in higher education, we run a risk. It’s also problematic if the team is too uniform or prone to groupthink. We need diverse governing bodies that are well connected to their stakeholders and capable of making inclusive decisions.

Others, however, advocate for broadening the scope of how reputation is perceived. There is no doubt that reputation is closely tied to rankings, but it clearly goes beyond them, said a former university leader. In his view, reputation serves as a principle of governance with a fundamental orientation:

Communicating and managing image are important, but reputation is something deeper. It is linked to indirect, long-term strategies that help universities become better institutions, offer their students an outstanding experience, and foster excellent relationships with alumni.

This shift in argument brings us to view reputation as a positive expression of university performance. Noted one rector:

Everything we do affects our reputation, the quality of our teaching, the experience of genuine and holistic student training, scientific output, innovation and transfer to industry, and the effectiveness of our services and facilities. Everything has an impact, provided we have the means to communicate it effectively to the public and to each specific stakeholder group.

From their perspective as leaders, the participants described university reputation as a credibility that builds up over time, legitimised by the excellence of its performance and the quality of its relationships, with the ultimate purpose of aligning the organisation internally, with its stakeholders, and with its environment.