Search results

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.

This study aims to unveil the determinants of employer branding (EB) that attracts and retains the employees working in the Indian higher education sector using the factor-analytic approach.

The study is cross-sectional, and the data were collected from 141 employees working in the higher education sector. Exploratory factor analysis and independent t-test were deployed to analyze the data.

The results of independent samples t-test explicate that perception of male and female university employees pertaining to EB factors of employee attraction (EA) and employee retention (ER) is congruent. Further, the perception of employees in public and private universities on EB factor is similar for ER and non-similar for EA.

The present research is an effort to unveil the employee attraction and retention factors that play a vital role in showcasing an employer as a great place to work in the Indian higher education sector.

Improving service quality, student satisfaction and student loyalty is important to higher education institutions’ sustainable growth. The objectives of this study are a twofold: first, the study seeks to determine the dimensions of higher education service quality with a specific focus on Vietnam. Second, it examines how the service quality dimensions impact student satisfaction and student loyalty, with the moderating role of the university image.

This study followed a rigorous procedure, including interviews, a survey, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and reliability analysis to identify higher education service quality dimensions and their measures. After that, using the data obtained from 1,550 university students in Vietnam, confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate the identified dimensions and structural equation modeling was used to test a proposed model explaining the outcomes of higher education service quality.

The findings reveal five dimensions of higher education service quality: academic aspect, nonacademic aspect, programming issues, facilities and industry interaction. Most of these factors have a positive influence on student satisfaction. In addition, the university image moderates the positive relationship between student satisfaction and student loyalty.

This study’s findings highlight the complexity of service quality in the higher education context and encourage higher education institutions to improve their service quality in image to enhance student satisfaction and loyalty.

This study suggests a unique measure of higher education service quality dimensions and provides fresh insights into how they impact student satisfaction and loyalty in Vietnam.

This paper concerns public sub-sector branding within the higher education (HE) system. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how public sub-sector branding within HE is organized and how it is influenced by the use of national values, traits and characteristics.

The study relies on two data sources: first, the paper benefits from a data set of one-stop web-portals for HE from the 23 countries listed in Times Higher Education’s top-60 universities ranking. Second, it builds on a sample and brief overview of Norway’s sub-sector branding of its HE sector.

Expert authorities within the HE sector are legally and organizationally responsible for sub-sector branding, and they establish coordinated and coherent web-portals. In practice, however, nation-branding concerns are influencing on how the HE sub-sector is branded. The paper concludes with a discussion of democratic implications, and points to paradoxes arising from the use of national clichés and characteristics in this highly international sub-sector of the public realm.

The paper informs discussions about public sub-sector branding within HE, a phenomenon that thus far has not been systematically studied. The practical applications of such a study are evident, as branding is becoming more important in the public sector in general, and in HE in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate branding and higher education literature to conceptualize, develop, and empirically examine a model of university social augmenters’ brand equity.

Drawing on an empirical survey of 401 undergraduate students enrolled in private universities in Egypt, this study model was tested using structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that university social augmenters’ reputation, coach-to-student interactions, and student-to-student interactions influence students’ satisfaction with social augmenters. The results also suggest that students satisfied with university social augmenters are more likely to exhibit outcomes of brand equity – namely, brand identification, willingness to recommend, and willingness to incur an additional premium cost.

The results offer managerial implications for university administrators in their quest to enrich students’ university experiences and build strong sub-brands within the university setting. University social augmenters are found to have strong brand equity manifestations and may hold the potential to differentiate university brands in an industry dominated by experience and credence.

This research contributes to the extant literature by filling two gaps in university branding literature. First, previous research has never unified separate streams of literature related to augmented services and brand equity. Second, limited conceptual and empirical research on university branding in general and university social augmentation in particular has been conducted in emerging markets, which has resulted in conceptual ambiguity for the key factors constructing students’ university social experiences.

This study aims to identify integrated marketing communication (IMC) antecedents and the consequences of planned brand identity in the context of higher education, and empirically test a number of hypotheses related to the constructs of these antecedents and consequences.

A model of the IMC antecedents and consequences of planned brand identity was tested in a survey conducted among stakeholders in two London-based universities. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was applied to gain insight into the various influences and relationships.

The study identifies and confirms key constructs in planned brand identity. IMC antecedents of planned brand identity, such as brand elements, service attributes, public relations and place/country of origin, were found to positively influence the planned brand identity consequences of awareness, image and reputation. However, websites, social media, advertising and direct marketing were not found to have significant influence.

The focus on two UK universities limits the generalisability of the findings. Future research should be conducted in other country settings to test the relationships identified in the present study. Also, future research may build on the study’s findings by investigating the attitudinal and behavioural consequences of brand identification in the higher education context.

Professionals responsible for universities’ promotional and branding activities need to evaluate the relative contributions of the IMC antecedents of planned brand identity. Brand elements such as design, colour and name, for example, should be reviewed to determine whether modifications are required in different international markets. The increasing prevalence of social media, one of the key antecedents of brand awareness, offers opportunities for universities to engage in brand co-creation by interacting with past, present and future students on relevant digital platforms. Finally, the place/country-of-origin cue is of particular relevance to institutions of higher education given the increasing numbers of students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels who are choosing to study abroad (Melewar and Akel, 2005). The attraction of the UK as a country to study in, or the appeal of individual cities such as London, should be fully integrated into universities’ IMC strategies.

The study makes two main contributions. First is the theoretical contribution by identifying the core IMC antecedents and consequences of planned brand identity for universities and from this extrapolate key directions for future research. Second it is indicated that a number of managerial implications are designed to assist in the formulation of improved professional practice.

Danang – a heritage gateway, a socioeconomic urban of Central Vietnam – has been known as a livable city, a fantastic destination and a leading position in the Provincial Competitive Index. Since branding Danang appears to be unfocused, it is suggested that the city follow a strategy to meet the shared expectations of stakeholders instead of trying to create separate images toward different audiences. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Therefore, this study selects the bottom-up approach from the viewpoint of Danang students whose requirement is consistent with those of investors, citizens and tourists.

The finding represents the initial associations of students about Danang as a livable, friendly, dynamic, modern coastal city of tourism and development with many opportunities, potential, attraction, integration and hometown feel. These salient images are exceeded from city characteristics, such as natural endowment, leisure places, beautiful scenes, diverse cuisine, peaceful, suitable living environment, orderly traffic, infrastructure and local people. Besides, crowded caused by development and population growth leads to an unpleasant feeling about narrow spaces but can be overwhelmed by the bustle. Although the result shows the success of Danang in communication, it also figures out the loss of the livable image in local students’ minds.

Hence, Danang must boost the positive effects of tourism development and limit its negative side. University–city cooperation through co-branding strategies can be considered a solution.

The study contributes not only to branding Danang but also to the literature because this is the first complete application of the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique in city branding.

Technology-enhanced learning (TEL), undoubtedly, creates a big difference in higher education students' knowledge and growth, which helps them become globally competitive in the job market eventually. The present study aims to investigate the effect of various factors, i.e. informational quality, compatibility, resource availability, subjective norms, subject interest, institutional branding and self-efficacy on students' adoption intention to TEL enrolled in different government and private educational institutes in Chhattisgarh state.

The primary data were collected from 600 students from different universities and colleges using purposive sampling technique with “criterion sampling”. Hierarchal multiple regression (stepwise) analysis was used on the collected data.

Results concluded that factors, i.e. compatibility, resource availability, subjective norms, subject interest and institutional branding are significantly and positively influencing students' adoption intention to TEL in Chhattisgarh, whereas self-efficacy and informational quality of TEL did not contribute significant effect for students' adoption intention.

There is a lack of research in the knowledge domain, especially in the field of TEL, in the state of Chhattisgarh. The different variables taken in the present study, such as informational quality, self-efficacy, institutional branding, subjective norms, resource availability, compatibility and subject interest of TEL, are the first of its kind where these variables are being examined on the students' adoption intention to TEL.