Earticle

초록

영어

Synergistic alliances in higher education in the Asian and African domain for instance, may not be very noticeable compared to other countries like UK, US, Australia or Canada, perhaps due to the deregulatory policies that have been prevalent in Asia and Africa. In the UK domain for instance, government policies on higher education expansion is evident, thus heightened and healthy competition between higher education institutions and also the creation of a more educated workforce (Molesworth, Scullion and Nixon, 2010). This increase in competition creates the need for institutions to adopt standardized or adapted brand strategies to leverage a strong brand position in a bid to attract foreign students to their home campuses (Hemsley-Brown and Goonawardana, 2007). International brand alliance practice is quite popular a practice among companies and regarded as an effective branding and marketing strategy for firms that want to differentiate themselves from the competition and also enter new market segments. Ueltschy and Laroche (2004) seem to share the same sentiments, asserting that, brand alliance strategies pave the way for most firms to acquire other firms in other countries and also engage in alliances across national borders. In brand alliance research, the concept of fit is an important consideration, however, higher education brand alliance researches have not adequately explored the varied roles of brand fit. A good and thorough understanding of what constitutes a good brand fit in the eyes of higher education consumers is yet unclear because of the possible questionable match between the brands in question. In the context of brand alliance, the concept of world-mindedness will also have important repercussions on brand alliance perception. However, the question of whether world-minded consumers prefer a co-branded product originating from two local brands to a co-branded product originating from a local and foreign brand is yet unanswered and demands empirical investigation. This is an important research gap this study seeks to bridge. The following are therefore predicted: H1. Emotional value perception of brand alliance between universities of similar or different rankings is mediated by consumers’ brand fit perceptions of the brands involved in the alliance H2. High world-minded consumers will have a higher (lower) emotional value perception of alliance between a local and foreign university (two local universities). This paper examines the interaction effect of brand alliance and world-mindedness in value perception. Brand fit is tested as a mediator between brand alliance and value perception. This paper investigates three major research questions. First, how does the brand alliance affect consumer’s emotional value perception? Second, does individual difference such as consumer world-mindedness play a role in determining value perception? Third, how does the perceived fit of brands affect the consumer’s value perception? Two experiments were performed. In experiment 1, the analysis was performed to examine the effect of brand alliance at varying levels of equity on consumer’s emotional value perception. Experiment 2 assessed the moderating role of world-mindedness in brand alliance and consumer’s evaluation of brand. Results from the two experiments conducted demonstrate that (1) brand alliance strategies influence consumer’s perceived value of the brand, (2) consumer’s perceived fit mediates the relationship between brand alliance and perceived value, (3) world-mindedness moderates the relationship between brand alliance and perceived value of the brand such that in high world-mindedness, emotional value perception increases for the alliance. This paper extends the previous design literature and fill the gap of under researched area by (1) demonstrating that individual difference, world-mindedness, moderates the brand alliance effect on consumer evaluation of brand, (2) providing boundary condition of when the brand alliance effect increases in global brand alliance context and (3) applying brand alliance concept in higher education context (e.g. dual degree) and (4) testing the brand fit as an underlying mechanism of consumer’s evaluation of brand alliance. Managerially, this paper demonstrates that depending on the local consumer’s culture, brand alliance strategy can be leveraged to increase the perceived value of the brand.

키워드

저자

• Kyung-Min Kim [ Silla Univ. Professor ]
• Benjamin Nobi [ Silla Univ. Ph. D. candidate ]

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발행기관

간행물

표지보기 관심저널 등록

• 간행물명

  한국마케팅관리학회 학술대회

• 간기

  부정기

• 수록기간

  2018~2025

• 십진분류

  KDC 325 DDC 330