How Do Prestigious Universities Remain at the Summit: A Bourdieusian View of their Business Models

Abstract

This study investigates how the specificity of a university business model supports the dominance and persistence of a handful of elite non-profit universities, while considering the implications this phenomenon has on social responsibility. Despite their longstanding positions at the top of academia for over four decades, these universities often struggle to actively embrace social mobility, diversity and inclusion. The existing literature on business models lacks a comprehensive conceptualization that captures the ability of some institutions to establish and maintain their domination within non-economic fields, such as higher education. Drawing on Bourdieu's framework and a unique dataset comprising 192 private non-profit American universities, the study uncovers two fundamental mechanisms of accumulation and conversion of forms of capital (economic, social, cultural and symbolic) behind the perpetuation of dominance among non-profit universities. This research contributes to both business model and higher education studies by introducing a novel conceptual tool for investigating the business models of non-profit universities. Important managerial and social implications, including a call for leading non-profit universities to enact socially responsible and diversifying measures, follows.