The Impact of Coopetition on Student Recruitment in Higher Education: A Study of French Business Schools' Admission Strategy

Student recruitment is essential for higher education institutions. There are various strategies to consider when organising student admissions and meeting recruitment objectives. Coopetition, which can be defined as cooperating with competitors, is one of them. Our qualitative study examines the elements at stake for French business schools that adopt a coopetitive admission strategy and the effect of coopetition on student recruitment. Our research indicates that coopetition has a positive influence on the number of applications received and leads to the standardisation of applicant profiles. Additionally, it reveals a significant disparity in recruitment performance between leading and non-leading schools. By applying a coopetition lens to HE admission, our work underlines how positional competition, reputation, legitimacy and soft power logic can explain why some French business schools keep on favouring coopetition for their admission despite its contrasted impact. It demonstrates that coopetition can have a negative influence on student diversity when admission is based on a selective model that depends on traditional meritocratic equality of opportunities. Finally, our study shows that coopetitive admission strategies reinforce the dominance of leading institutions by increasing the number of applications, thus improving their selectivity and helping them preserve their leadership.