Market orientation and university brand evangelism: a student perspective

Mazuri, Abd Ghani and Rashidah, Mohamad Ibrahim (2018) Market orientation and university brand evangelism: a student perspective. In: International Conference on Tourism, Technology and Business Management, 12 Mac 2018, Terengganu, Malaysia.

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Abstract

The increasingly competitive environment being experienced by all sectors has led to brands being increasingly used as a strategic resource to achieve a competitive advantage. This has led to an extensive research on brand building as a possible approach to govern the brand building process within organizations. Many managers today recognize that the ability to succeed in the marketplace requires more than just sales technique. Hence, business and service organizations including higher education institutions seek to achieve a competitive advantage in their dynamic environments by being market driven (market orientation) and brand in mind. Undoubtedly, every university needs a brand that can be trusted and that will differentiate it from others. Contemporary organizations like HEIs are also paying careful attention to a relatively smaller, but highly influential, group of consumers called brand evangelists who embrace their brands intensely, actively disseminate brand related experiences to others, attempt to recruit others to experience the brand, and dissuade others from consuming rival brands. University brand is the perception and reputation developed in the minds of the people about the university or institution. Research is however limited in the area of ‘University’ branding, and is virtually less-existent in the area of brand evangelism in a higher education. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to examine the relationship between market orientation components namely customer orientation, competitor orientation and interfunctional coordination and brand evangelism in the Malaysian higher education sector. The study utilized Structural Equation Modeling statistical technique to test the study hypotheses. A study focused on public and private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Samples of 593 university students were collected via survey questionnaire. Results shown that competitor orientation and interfunctional coordination adopted by university give positive and significant impact on brand evangelism among students. Surprisingly, customer orientation do not significantly give impact on brand evangelism. Lastly, managerial implications, limitations and future recommendations are discussed.

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