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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 use a holistic approach to empirically examine the direct and indirect relationships of both core and supporting consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) dimensions from students’ perspectives and the underlying impact they have on building a robust university brand equity. It also tests whether student perceptions of the importance of the brand equity constructs significantly differ based on demographics.

The study adopts the core and supporting university brand equity dimensions that have been tested for reliability and validity in prior research. Data were collected at a major university in the USA. The study used judgment sampling to carefully select a targeted sample of various colleges and class levels. A total of 439 useable surveys were collected.

The results of partial least squares–structural equation modeling reveal significant relationships between both core and supporting brand equity dimensions. The core brand equity dimensions include brand awareness, perceived quality, brand association, brand trust, learning environment, emotional environment, university reputation and brand loyalty. The supporting brand equity dimensions include library services, dining services, residence hall and physical facilities. Significant direct and/or indirect relationships were found between the core and supporting CBBE dimensions. The demographic variables of gender, semester standing and living arrangement also influence the importance of some of the core and supporting dimensions.

The results suggest that females, freshman and students living on-campus require specific attention in higher education. For a better representation and understanding of the university student population, we recommend that future studies use probability sampling and multiple universities for cross-validation.

Using the brand ecosystem framework, this is the first comprehensive study testing the relationships between both core and supporting CBBE dimensions in higher education. The study offers valuable insights to university stakeholders for building a strong university brand. It also confirms that the measures of the CBBE brand equity dimensions are valid and are applicable to other higher education institutions.

Building upon the attribution and brand resonance theories, this paper aims to investigate the effects of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) in higher education institutions on brand reputation, trust, equity and loyalty.

The data for this study were collected from international students of one public and one private university in Malaysia. Partial least squares-structural equation modelling was applied to analyse the data.

The findings revealed very strong effects of perceived CSR on brand reputation and trust. Moreover, the results determined the positive effects of brand reputation and trust on brand equity and loyalty. Additionally, findings support the positive indirect effects of perceived CSR on brand equity and loyalty through brand reputation and trust.

This study provides unique theoretical and practical contributions which can inform countries how to attract international students, particularly in post COVID-19 era.

The rapid adoption of social media has resulted in a fundamental shift in the way communication and collaboration take place. While social media is recognized as an important marketing communication tool, it has become overlooked how social media marketing activities (user-generated and firm-generated content) influence brand equity creation in the higher education sector. Drawing from social identity theory, this study identifies how higher education institutions develop customer-based brand equity using social media marketing and social brand engagement, taking cross-comparison between high and low subjective norms.

A survey was used to collect data from a sample of 936 undergraduates of private higher education institutions in Sri Lanka and Vietnam. These data were gathered using purposive sampling, and in testing the hypothesis and structure among the variables, structural equation modeling was used to determine the relationship between the study variables.

For the conceptual framework, the authors found that the structural equation model complies with the empirical data. The structural equation model shows that social brand engagement mediates the relationship between user-generated content, firm-generated content and brand equity. Further, the subjective norms were found to moderate the relationship between user-generated content, firm-generated content and social brand engagement, highlighting that the lower the subjective norms the higher the influence on social brand engagement as students receive low pressure and influence from external parties.

The study was conducted at private higher education institutes in Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Future research could benefit from the perceptions of undergraduates in public higher education institutes. Future researchers could widen the diversity of service settings in the sample and replicate this investigation to discover if the results are consistent across the whole services sector.

The current research contributes to the services marketing and branding literature in the higher education context. The paper presents the crucial elements in building brand equity for higher education institutes to fill the existing gaps in higher education branding literature. The findings of the current study provide strategies to improve the higher education sector.

The pandemic has accelerated the use of virtual learning spaces and led to rethinking post-pandemic course delivery. However, it remains unclear whether students’ online engagement in e-servicescapes can influence attachment to a place, i.e. a physical servicescape. This study conducted an exploratory study to inform place attachment and actor engagement literature in an online service context.

Quantitative survey design was used and 98 usable responses were collected from undergraduate and postgraduate students at a major New Zealand university during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The questionnaire consisted of 23 items relating to three dimensions of online student engagement and 19 items referring to six dimensions of campus attachment.

Results of the exploratory study indicate that classmate community in online lectures, referring to student–student interactions, can positively influence five of the dimensions of campus attachment, including place identity, place dependence, affective attachment, social bonding and place memory, even though students are physically not on campus. However, it cannot influence place expectation. Moreover, instructor community (student–instructor interaction) and learning engagement (student–content interaction) in online lectures have insignificant impact on campus attachment.

This study emphasises the social dimension when interacting in e-servicescapes. Person-based interactions are more influential than content-based interactions for student engagement. Educational service providers should integrate the e-servicescape and the physical servicescape by encouraging more student–student interactions to contribute to service ecosystem well-being at the micro, meso and macro levels.

This study indicates that customer-to-customer interaction serves to integrate customer engagement across the digital and physical realms for process-based services like education.

Student engagement is a multifaceted concept that directly impacts students and their education. The purpose of this paper is to discuss student engagement conceptually by offering a framework to better understand the deliverables of engagement in the form of generic and targeted outcomes.

The design of the study is based on a detailed literature review, to identify different types of engagement which graduates are expected to experience during their higher education studies. These types of engagement(s) are mapped with their outcomes.

The findings of this study would be an analysis of relevant studies to create an outcome-oriented conceptual framework for student engagement.

The practical implications of the study would be to provide a guide for enhancing student engagement through which both generic competencies and higher order competencies of students may be augmented.

The available literature suggests that many students lack focus when learning on campus, especially in meeting targeted outcomes, and do not engage in the community. The current study has incorporated generic and targeted outcomes expected as a result of the different types of engagement. The study has put forward certain propositions, suggesting new dimensions of research in the domain of student engagement.

The growing competitive environment in which higher education institutes are immersed has caused them to strengthen their competitive position of a brand and its equity in emerging countries. However, there are several contradictions between the empirically approved determinants and the dimensions of brand equity in higher education. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the structural relationship between subjective norms, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), perceived brand credibility and brand equity, taking cross-culturally comparisons between Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.

A survey was used to collect data from a sample of 800 undergraduates of private higher education institutions in Sri Lanka and Vietnam in 2019. These data were gathered using purposive sampling and analyzed using a structural equation model. A total of 768 questionnaires were considered valid. In testing the hypothesis and structure among the variables, structural equation modelling was used to determine the relationship between subjective norms, eWOM, perceived brand credibility and brand equity for the higher education institutes in emerging countries.

For the conceptual framework, the author found that this structural equation model complies with the empirical data. The structural equation model shows that subjective norms, eWOM and perceived brand credibility were significantly related to brand equity. Perceived brand credibility was found to be the mediating variable. Further, the location was found to moderate the relationship between perceived brand credibility and brand equity, highlighting that Vietnamese students are more relying on perceived brand credibility in creating brand equity than their Sri Lankan counterparts.

The study was conducted at private higher education institutes in Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Future research could benefit from perceptions of undergraduates in public higher education institutes. This study discusses the implications of developing branding strategies for higher education institutions.

The current research contributes to the services marketing and branding literature in the higher education context. The paper presents the crucial elements in building brand equity for higher education institutes to fill the existing gaps in higher education branding literature. The findings of the current study provide strategies to improve the higher education sector.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate service marketing and higher education (HE) literature to develop and test a model that links customer participation behaviour with student overall satisfaction that stems from satisfaction with service augmentation elements. It also examines the influence of brand choice attainment on both satisfaction and participation behaviour.

Drawing on an empirical survey of 238 international students in UK universities, the model was tested using structural equation modelling.

The findings reveal that not all service augmenters are equally important in creating student satisfaction. Campus life and maintenance augmenters are found to be the crucial elements in generating satisfaction for international students. The results also suggest that satisfied students are more likely to participate actively in co-producing the university services compared to dissatisfied students. The effect of brand choice attainment on participation behaviour is mediated by satisfaction.

University administrations might need to prioritize their efforts to put more emphasis on some elements especially crucial for international students and could embellish or deplete the core of education services. The study provides a fresh perspective on segmenting international students based on their brand choice attainment. A superior university experience should be created, particularly for those who did not get into their preferred university, to overcome the disappointment of not studying at the preferred university.

By synthesizing diverse concepts from research on services marketing, branding and HE, this paper contributes theoretically by extending the research on customer participation behaviour into the HE domain. It attempts to address a clear gap between how service literature and HE literature look at “service experience”. The study captures some missing aspects of the “service” in the HE sector (e.g. augmentation aspects). The study also takes the HE literature one step further by identifying the role of brand choice attainment in both satisfaction and students’ participation behaviour.

In today’s global and highly competitive climate among universities, educational developers and instructors have focused more on trying to make the student experience more engaging. In this manner, student co-creation activities have recently become a major research priority in marketing and higher education (HE) research. The purpose of this study is to present a systematic review of the literature on student co-creation roles and behaviors in HE in order to map extant research on this topic and offer a consolidated view of the co-creation process and approaches that can be employed by HEIs to motivate students to co-create their HE experience.

A Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) approach was followed to classify, select, synthesize, analyze and assess the most relevant studies on student participation in co-creation in HE.

This study’s analysis has identified that the co-creation process in HE includes dialog, access, risk and transparency. The main approaches used by higher education institutions (HEIs) to motivate students to co-create their HE experience are student involvement, cognitive engagement, university affiliation and emotional engagement. Our review also shows that student co-creation behaviors are mainly participation and citizenship behavior, and their co-creation roles include those of co-producers, participants, change agents and partners.

This systematic literature review analyses and critically discusses the state of the art in student co-creation roles in HE and the approaches HEIs use. By providing a map of existing research, the paper contributes both to the clarification of student co-creation roles and behaviors in HE and the identification of research gaps and opportunities for further research.

Despite the crucial role that emotional intelligence (EI) could play in improving individuals' performance and career prospects in organizations, employees, executives and career professionals across the world are still in search of practical frameworks for understanding the concept. This is because EI research outputs from academics still remain mostly as correlations, co‐variations and associations between EI and other variables. This paper seeks to provide a practical framework that could help executives, employees and career advisors understand what EI competencies people need to acquire and how these could be developed through EI training.

The approach is to develop a competency‐based model of EI based on inputs from academic research and feedback from EI training specialists. An attempt is made to incorporate the role of brain theory in EI. Exploration is also made into the progressive stages and dynamics involved in typical EI training programs.

The paper brings out current research insights and highlights the strategic significance of EI as an augmenter of job performance and career advancement. The competency‐based model provides comprehensive understanding of the psychological configuration, inner mechanisms, and organization and operation of EI in human beings.

While the model holds many of the classic components of EI intact, a new sub‐competence called social influence is introduced, with cautions about the difficulty in acquiring this sub‐competence solely through EI training. Going beyond the popular literature, the paper explains the role of brain theory in EI – a dimension often ignored in EI discussions. Finally, the paper provides an abbreviated coverage of the progressive stages and the dynamics involved in typical EI training programs.