La imagen de las instituciones de educación superiordesarrollo de un modelo de medición y estimación aplicado a universitarios en España y Portugal

Resumen

The marketing of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is a field of multidisciplinary research of great interest in literature. It is essential that HEIs develop various marketing and management strategies, especially image management, as this will provide market competitiveness and decision-making capacity to their managers. Specifically, in relation to the field of the image of these institutions continues to arouse a renewed interest in the revised literature, although there is a lack of a unanimous model of image analysis. As for the image of HEIs, the literature presents different measurement models, and there is no consensus on the variables that integrate the models. To deepen in these studies, the search for synergies between the variables of the models and the development of a model that agglutinates all the variables is the main objective of this work, since it allows a better knowledge of the behavior and the perceptions of the stakeholders of University. To achieve this goal, a quantitative method is followed through the estimation of an image formation model that systematizes all the variables found in the literature, students are classified as looking for those who have a very good image of the university, And the variables with more weight are detected for them. The final sample consists of 438 students from two universities, one private in Spain and one public in Portugal. The results show that the four factors that form the image of the university in the group of students of a private university in Spain and a public university in Portugal with their respective variables are, firstly, the External Communication and the Values constituted by the Variables related to the good website and social networks, commitment to society, as well as the transmission of ethical values and social responsibility, and values of environmental sustainability. Second, the National and International Recognition, which includes the importance of the university being known in the country, and internationally; In addition to having a good reputation and prestige at the academic level and is well positioned in the university rankings. As a third significant construct we can observe the Economic value, with reference to good value for money and price. The last construct refers to the Facilities, consisting of the variables related to the equipment in classrooms, the number of students per classroom, the theoretical / practical balance of the subjects, and the appropriate size of the campus. It is possible to conclude that, of the fifteen significant variables, the ones that have more weight for the students with very good image of the university are, in decreasing order, the positioning in rankings, that the university has a good value for money, presence In social networks, and the transmission of ethical values and Social Responsibility. It concludes with the confirmation of a model that measures the image of the university with variables that are significant in previous studies, but also with some of the variables incorporated.