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As colleges and universities face the shifts of decreasing government funds, increased operating costs, and waning alumni financial support, institutions are now plunging themselves into practices traditionally associated with the business sector. Practices like branding are now being used as a mechanism to increase engagement of alumni and potential donors. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of brand identification, or the defining of the self through association with an organization, on alumni supportive behaviors.

The researchers surveyed alumni of a mid-sized state-run university in the mid-Atlantic region of the USA to see if identification affected donation behaviors such as choice to donate, total dollar amount donated, and the number of times donated.

The survey findings showed that brand identification correlated with choice to donate, increased donation dollar amount, and the number of donations. Findings also suggested that interpretation of brand, prestige, satisfaction with student affairs, and participation were positively associated with identification.

The results of this study are specific to one institution. This research offers support for the importance and value of brand management in higher education. The study also highlights those determinants of brand identification which suggests the use of integrative fundraising techniques.

The study highlighted that university brand identification increases the explanatory power for alumni donor behaviors over those variables typically explored in traditional donor models.

This study introduces three variables related to brands that have the potential to enhance university students' advocacy intentions. The research explores how university brand identification, the perceived prestige of the university brand and the social benefits associated with the university brand impact students' advocacy intentions. Additionally, the study examines the moderating role of gender in these relationships.

Cross-sectional surveys of 326 undergraduate students enrolled in a Spanish university, and structural equation modeling was used to test and validate the conceptual model.

The findings from the structural equation modeling indicate that university brand identification, perceived university brand prestige and university brand social benefits significantly influence students' advocacy intentions. Furthermore, the multigroup analysis reveals a gender difference in the factors influencing advocacy intentions. Female students demonstrate significance in all three antecedents, whereas male students only show significance in university brand identification and perceived university brand prestige.

The current study's findings provide several insights for higher education institutions in developing enduring and committed relationships with their students.

This study offers relevant insights into the body of research on university branding, explaining the students' advocacy intentions through the variables of university brand identification, perceived university brand prestige and university brand social benefits. Also, this study is a novelty in introducing empirical evidence for the importance of the moderating role of students' gender.

State funding is being reduced for higher education institutes (HEIs) is linked to several checks such as performance-based incentives (Hagood, 2019). This forces HEIs to look for other options for funding. Endowment funds are now becoming the main source of revenue for HEIs (Sörlin, 2007), largely provided by alumni. Thus, this study aims to examine the factors that lead to donor behavior in terms of university endowment funds.

Based on a sample of 627 participants in the survey from public universities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and 625 from public/private universities of the United States of America (USA), the authors conducted a cross-sectional survey-based analysis. Hypotheses were tested with regression analysis.

The results revealed that in the USA, donors with substantial prestige within the institution are more likely to contribute to the endowment fund; however, in the KSA, this relationship was insignificant. Additionally, this study found that participation, brand interpretation and satisfaction positively impact identification with an organization, leading to donor behavior.

This research has successfully identified psychological factors for endowment funding; however, mediating or moderating variables affecting donor behavior should also be considered. Further, this study considers only two countries, the KSA and the USA; therefore, a larger cross-cultural context warrants more investigation.

Overall results revealed several means through which the administrators and practitioners may efficiently manage and increase university endowment funds flow. This study's novelty is to conduct a cross-national investigation and identify the psychological factors of donation behavior toward university endowment funds, providing an opportunity for HEIs to understand the psychological factors in detail and motivate their alumni to be one of the important sources of funding even in developing countries.

Many psychological factors underlie alumni's engagement in volunteerism and donation activities, especially in cross-national settings. Following social identity theory, this study explored identity-based donor behavior in terms of supporting universities through endowment funding.

Universities worldwide struggle to retain students, so it is important to identify the factors that may improve retention levels. The research investigates key factors that have an impact upon student satisfaction and students' staying and supportive intentions. Of particular interest is the extent to which organizational identification and institution reputation influence student satisfaction and behaviors.

A conceptual model was developed and tested using covariance-based structural equation modeling. The data were obtained from a survey of 419 first year full-time undergraduate students in the United Arab Emirates.

Perceived quality of teaching, organizational identification and institution reputation were found to be significant predictors of student satisfaction in our model, with student satisfaction having both direct and mediating influences on students' staying and supportive intentions.

The findings suggest that universities should undertake activities that strengthen student-university identification and institution reputation, as these may strongly influence students' attitudes and behaviors. The paper discusses strategies that institutions may implement to develop and maintain organizational identification among students.

The research highlights that although perceived quality of teaching has an influence on student satisfaction, the influences of organizational identification and institution reputation are stronger.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of social interactions on mutual fund portfolios from the perspective of alumni network in China.

Based on a data set that consists of 162 actively managed equity funds in China during the time period of 2003–2014, this study employs multiple linear regression model to control for organization- and location-based interpersonal connections as well as other confounding factors and clarify the causality relationship between alumni networks of mutual fund managers and their portfolios.

After controlling for organization- and location-based interpersonal connections, we find that mutual fund managers who graduated from the same college/university have more similar stock holdings and are more likely to buy or sell the same stocks contemporaneously. As a result, alumni managers exhibit a higher correlation of fund returns. Moreover, the effect of alumni relationship on mutual fund investments becomes weaker when more managers are connected within the network. We also find that valuable information is shared among alumni managers: (1) the average returns for the alumni common holdings portfolios is significantly higher than those for non-alumni holdings portfolios and (2) a long-short strategy composed of stocks purchased minus sold by alumni managers yields positive and significant risk-adjusted returns.

The findings suggest that information dissemination among connected fund managers could be one of the driving forces for mutual fund herding behavior, and that a portfolio of funds whose managers are educationally connected could be highly exposed to certain stocks and risks.

This paper contributes to the growing finance literature addressing the influence of personal connections on information dissemination that specifically contributes to price formation. It corresponds more closely to Cohen et al. (2008), who investigate college alumni connections between fund managers and corporate board members. Since the authors simultaneously examine three potentially overlapped social networks, which are based on education, locality and fund family, the authors are able to disentangle their effects on fund managers' investment decisions. Moreover, the findings suggest that institutional investors make investment decisions based on share private information, and therefore, it also contributes to the literature on fund herding behaviors (Grinblatt et al., 1995; Wermers, 1999).

This paper aims to evaluate the perceived efficacy of outdoor groupwork skills programmes for the undergraduate and postgraduate students, and the factors that influence its success. It also illustrates the use of Kirkpatrick’s (1994) 4-level model of training evaluation as a framework for qualitative investigation of learning and transfer, from the perspective of key stakeholders.

Over 24 hours of recorded data were collected using a video diary room, one-to-one interviews and focus group discussions. Participants were current students (n = 66), alumni (n = 12), outdoor education instructors (n = 6) and academic staff (n = 5). The data were transcribed, and then analysed by conducting conventional content analysis. Prolonged engagement, triangulation, peer debriefing and referential adequacy were used to establish the trustworthiness and reliability of the analyses.

Outdoor groupwork skills programmes were widely viewed as being effective for developing interpersonal skills, attitudes and knowledge that were then further developed and applied during degree courses and later in the workplace. Four of the main perceived benefits were increased social integration amongst peers, academic success, personal development and employability. A range of psychological and environmental factors were reported to influence the extent of skill development and transfer, and are presented in the Model for Optimal Learning and Transfer.

This study supports outdoor groupwork skills programmes as an effective method of groupwork skills training during higher education, and offers recommendations for promoting learning and transfer following training courses.

This is the first study to systematically evaluate the long-term impact of outdoor groupwork skills programmes in higher education. A novel methodological approach is also demonstrated, which can be replicated in other contexts of training evaluation.

The purpose of this study is to investigate coproduction behavior in networking alumni communities via the progress from platform belongingness, knowledge sharing and citizenship behavior. Alumni networking communities have emerged as valuable assets for conserving institutional resources, supporting members and contributing new resources for alumni-institutional professional development. However, the previous literature has not yet captured the explicit processes by which these contributions are made.

Data from 711 respondents selected from an alumni collaboration network were subjected to structural equation modeling analysis.

The study explored resource conservation (belongingness) as the primary relational mechanism for alumni to share their instrumental resources (knowledge sharing), supporting resources (citizenship behavior) and competent resources (coproduction behavior). Knowledge sharing and citizenship behavior act as intermediate agents to trigger coproduction behavior. The authors show how subjective norm, group norm and trust is regarded as a tool to reduce bonding intrusiveness (i.e. the intrusive side-effects of a bond) and moderate the indirect effect of belongingness on coproduction and the direct effect of citizenship on coproduction.

By applying attachment theory, conservation of resources theory and digital platform networking perspectives, this study describes major implications for designing inspiring and compatible community platforms.

Guidance is provided for improving sustainable alumni communities through citizenship-sharing and coproduction behavior.

Online alumni communities are regarded as resource conservators, which can result in valuable coproduction, via the sharing of knowledge, expertise and skillsets to create profit for a range of institutions and industries.

Alumni networking platforms encourage alumni cohesiveness, stimulate knowledge exchange and improve professionalism.

Our study examines the impact of career enhancing strategies (CES), supportive work relationships and family–work conflict (FWC) on subjective career success.

The data were sourced from 107 professionals, who were the members of an alumni LinkedIn group of the Masters Human Resource degree program from a university in the Midwestern United States. Multiple regression analysis was employed to test the study hypotheses.

Results indicate that both forms of CES – networking and mentoring – were positively associated with subjective career success, and there exists a positive association between perceived organizational support and subjective career success. Further, FWC moderates the relationship between subjective career success and mentoring and also moderates the relationship between subjective career success and perceived supervisor support.

Organizations should provide opportunities to employees for networking and institute formal mentoring programs to enhance employees' perceptions of subjective career success. It is also crucial for organizations to promote work–life balance initiatives that can help reduce the levels of FWC experienced by employees.

Our study makes important contributions to the extant literature by highlighting the importance of CES and supportive work relationships in ensuring subjective career success. It also identifies an important moderator, FWC, which can significantly impact subjective career success.

Most research has investigated the fear of missing out (FOMO) in the context of online activities, often associated with negative personal outcomes such as fatigue and stress. However, given the increased desire to be informed and included associated with FOMO, organizations that can effectively meet these needs may develop or strengthen social and structural bonds, thereby turning short-term customers with FOMO into lifelong patrons. This study aims to examine the relationship between FOMO and favorable organizational outcomes as mediated by several constructs associated with the desire for information and inclusion.

This research was conducted within the higher education sector of the service industry. FOMO served as the IV. The mediators represented context-specific aspects of campus involvement and inclusion. Organizational outcomes related to the long-term services relationship served as the DVs. The sample consisted of 435 students recruited from research pools at two southern universities in the USA. Exploratory factor analysis, OLS regression and the Hayes–Macro were used to examine the data.

The results demonstrate that FOMO is positively associated with students’ desires for information and inclusion (informal peer interaction, campus involvement, informal faculty interaction, campus information media use and a preference for in-person course scheduling), which are associated with the desirable university outcomes of satisfaction, connection and alumni donation/activity intentions.

If a university fosters unstructured time spent with faculty and peers, and promotes campus information media involvement, students with higher levels of FOMO are more likely to be satisfied, feel connected to the university and report intentions to donate time and money as alumni.

Prior research on FOMO is generally focused on internet and social media use; this study takes a broader perspective and identifies the effect of FOMO on a desire for information and inclusion within a novel context (a service environment). It also associates FOMO with favorable long-term service relationship outcomes that fortify social and structural bonds.