Adapting university strategies in a virtual environment for sustainable development

With increasing transparency of business processes and accessibility of information,
consumers (participants in education field) are turning from passive recipients of goods and services
into active participants in formation of universities’ corporate policy in social responsibility’s field.
This creates strong economic incentives for universities to integrate sustainability practices into their
business models. Digital transformation of business processes opens up new channels of interaction
between consumer and company. Digital platforms enable two–way information exchange, which
allows consumers to actively express their preferences in sustainable development’s field, and
universities to quickly adapt their strategies to changing societal demands. Thus, article presents
conceptual model of interaction between consumers of educational sphere and universities in virtual
environment that ensures effective implementation of principles of sustainable development of
universities’ business processes. Growing demand for digital skills and literacy in field of sustainable
development is shaping consumer preferences and corporate strategies.
Purpose of this study is to develop and empirically confirm conceptual model of interaction
between consumer of educational sphere and universities in digital environment that facilitates
corporate adaptation of university to sustainability requirements.
For comprehensive study of impact of consumers on sustainable development of universities,
combined method was used, combining qualitative and quantitative methods in virtual environment,
including expert research and correlation analysis of 50 Kazakhstan universities. This approach
allowed authors to identify key mechanisms of influence and effectiveness factors based on expert
assessments, and then quantify identified patterns in broader sample of universities.
Results demonstrate statistically significant relationship between activity of virtual consumers
and sustainability indicators of universities, confirming relevance of model and its predictive potential.
Conclusions of research are that informed and active consumers of educational sector play
transformative role in shaping sustainable business strategies in context of digitalization and evolution
of labor market.