| Demands for baccalaureate prepared nurses are projected to be at an all time high in the 1990's and into the 21st century in light of current health issues such as AIDS and long term care for the aging. Present nursing school graduations cannot meet the projected demand. The business, service and professional sectors have successfully utilized marketing principles in their organizations to expand their services and meet demands of the ever changing environment. The incorporation of the market oriented philosophy has been lauded as a contributing factor in more satisfied customers and higher productivity in businesses.; The purpose of this study was to analyze the market orientation philosophy in baccalaureate schools of nursing (BSON) and its relationship to student enrollment and retention and identify characteristics of a market oriented school. These variables were derived from the conceptual framework based on organizational responsiveness. A researcher designed survey instrument "Marketing Orientation in Baccalaureate Nursing Programs" was designed to quantify those attitudes and principles within BSON that would identify it as a market oriented institution. A marketing orientation score was determined for each school by averaging the response numbers. One hundred and two National League for Nursing accredited BSON participated in the study by completing the survey.; T-tests, one way ANOVA's, Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests, and Kruskal-Wallis one way ANOVA were used to test the difference between marketing orientation scores and the variables student enrollment, retention, geographic location, institution type, RN vacancy rates, presence of marketing director, perceived presence of a market oriented philosophy, and competition. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to establish reliability of the researcher developed instrument with a.83 coefficient result.; Findings showed a statistically significant higher marketing orientation score in schools perceived to have a marketing orientation and those that did not and in BSON that employed a marketing director. No difference was found in mean marketing orientation scores as a function of enrollment, retention, geographical location, other BSON within area, institution types, and RN vacancy rates. Awareness of marketing policies, participation of marketing person in long range planning and identification of student needs contributed to high marketing orientation scores. |
