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<p>The study of organizational image has been on the ascendancy in higher education for the last ten years or so; however, previous research has yet to investigate the extent to which dependence on external resources explains variation in university organizational image. This paper addresses this gap. To assess organizational image, we conduct a quantitative content analysis of 21,961 WeChat social media posts by 66 China’s centrally affiliated, research-comprehensive universities in 2024. The analysis reveals that the three most frequently cited categories of images are “organization”, “student”, and “staff”, followed by “bureaucracy”, “education”, “research”, and “third mission”. Results of subsequent regression analyses show that (i) dependence on government appropriations is positively related to differentiation in bureaucracy-oriented images and that (ii) dependence on research grants and contracts is not related to differentiation in research-oriented images. Findings support a partially resource-dependent perspective of organizational image management at research universities in China.</p>

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Resource Dependency and Organizational Image Management: The Case of Research Universities in China

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年3月19日

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  • Chao Xu,
  • Shiwen Wang,
  • Peipei Zhu,
  • Haifang Zhu,
  • Leyan Qiu

摘要

The study of organizational image has been on the ascendancy in higher education for the last ten years or so; however, previous research has yet to investigate the extent to which dependence on external resources explains variation in university organizational image. This paper addresses this gap. To assess organizational image, we conduct a quantitative content analysis of 21,961 WeChat social media posts by 66 China’s centrally affiliated, research-comprehensive universities in 2024. The analysis reveals that the three most frequently cited categories of images are “organization”, “student”, and “staff”, followed by “bureaucracy”, “education”, “research”, and “third mission”. Results of subsequent regression analyses show that (i) dependence on government appropriations is positively related to differentiation in bureaucracy-oriented images and that (ii) dependence on research grants and contracts is not related to differentiation in research-oriented images. Findings support a partially resource-dependent perspective of organizational image management at research universities in China.