Antecedents and consequences of university brand identification

Resumen

ABSTRACT JUSTIFICATION: In today’s world marketplace, higher education institutions facing intense challenges such as increasing competition due to globalization, decreasing financial support from governments, the decline in the university-going population, etc. Thus, higher education institutions are increasingly adopting marketing and branding strategies that have been proved effective in the business domain to overcome those challenges and enhance their competitiveness. Self-identification relationship from the social identity perspective (i.e., Social Identity Theory) has been proposed as a useful strategy to build deep, committed, and enduring relationships with the target of the identification in the organizational settings (where the organization is the target of the identification) and in the marketing context (where the brand/company is the target of the identification). However little attention has been paid to investigate the notion of self-identification relationship in the university context. PURPOSE: The general objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive conceptual framework for the cognitive antecedents of university brand identification and its consequences on student’s attitudes and behaviors toward the university. Precisely, this study aims to investigate the predicting role of university-self similarity, university prestige, university distinctiveness, and university social responsibility on university brand identification directly and indirectly through university brand attractiveness. It also aims to examine the influence of university brand identification on student loyalty directly and indirectly via student satisfaction and student trust. Finally, this study also seeks to study the mediating role of university brand identification in the linkage between university brand attractiveness and student satisfaction, student trust, and student loyalty. METHODOLOGY: Cross-sectional surveys of 772 undergraduate students from different Spanish universities and structural equation modeling were used to test and validate the conceptual model. RESULTS: University-self similarity and university social responsibility significantly influence university brand identification directly and indirectly via university brand attractiveness because the latter is found to have a complementary mediation effect in these relationships, while university prestige and university distinctiveness affect university brand identification indirectly only via university brand attractiveness due to the full mediation effect of university brand attractiveness in these relationships. The results also revealed that university brand identification directly influences student loyalty and indirectly through the complementary mediation effect of student satisfaction in this relationship, while university brand identification affects student trust indirectly only because student satisfaction is found to have a full mediation effect in this relationship. Finally, the results show that university brand attractiveness is a crucial predictor of student satisfaction, student trust, and student loyalty, university brand identification is found to have a complementary mediation effect only in the linkage between university brand attractiveness and both student satisfaction and student loyalty. IMPLICATIONS: This study offers relevant insights into the emerging research on university brand identification from the social identity perspective and the body of knowledge on a student-university relationship. Most importantly, this study suggests that the social identity perspective could be integrated with social exchange variables to enhance students' relationship with the university and engender their loyal behaviors toward the university. The study also provides several practical insights into the higher education sector to help universities to build a strong and enduring relationship with students.