Knowledge and Social Economy Model and Higher Education Institutions’ Ranking: A Grounded Theory Approach

Higher education institutions (HEIs) face crucial challenges due to education internationalization, complex ranking systems, and financial support . However, stakeholders (i.e., industry, alumni, and government) expect pragmatic results from those HEIs like research, innovation, entrepreneurship, employability, and social responsibility. To address this issue, this study investigates outcome-based factors and offers a framework for HEIs to overcome those challenges. To accomplish this goal, we relied on stakeholder and academic capitalism theories and used data triangulation approach (i.e., interviews, observation, and archival literature), Delphi method, and content validation index. We analyzed the data in NVivo software. The data revealed four aggregated dimensions: knowledge economy development, social economy development, entrepreneurship development, and education internationalization. The findings indicate a strong need for comparing HEIs to identify a holistic view of their direct contribution to HEIs in general and Oman in particular. The study’s findings may assist HE systems in other contexts in identifying strategies to meet some of the needs of their relevant stakeholders. The paper makes theoretical, practical, and policy contributions.