Creative Benchmarking in Marketing Education: Comparing Best Practices Among Divergent Universities

On the basis of what has been written on benchmarking in general, this article considers the concept in the tertiary marketing education context by investigating educational cooperation possibilities using systematic curriculum comparisons between two marketing departments located in Finland and in New Zealand. While relatively little research focusing on international educational benchmarking is available, the study attempts to pave the way for benchmarking between universities and other tertiary institutions that wish to develop their research and teaching. This article offers creative benchmarking, a variation on traditional benchmarking techniques. The key findings of the project indicate that educational benchmarking comparisons are especially beneficial and valuable in planning new course content, introducing innovative teaching methods, re-structuring the curriculum and exploring possibilities for future cooperation. Furthermore, the results of the study suggest that motivation for intrinsic cooperation building seems to be higher when the partners genuinely know each other.