Projecting corporate brand image and behavioral response in business schools: Cognitive or affective brand attributes?

By Sharifah Faridah Syed Alwi, Philippe Kitchen. 2014

166 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper considers corporate brand image, focusing on cognitive and affective brand attributes in the context of business schools. While previous research on university or institutional branding has studied these elements separately via cognitive (e.g., service or educational quality attributes) or affective criteria (personality traits of the corporate brand), this study investigates them jointly through behavioral responses (leading to positive recommendations about the corporate brand). This is important because brand equity such as positive word-of-mouth (or mouse) is derived from both attitudinal components, rather than being based on only one component. Drawing on an empirical survey of postgraduate (MBA) students from four business schools, the findings reveal that both cognitive and affective attitudinal components appear equally important in shaping corporate brand image. Further, when the mediating effect is investigated, interestingly, students' positive recommendations to schools depended largely on the affective (prestigious, adventurous, empathy and competence) rather than upon the cognitive brand attributes. This paper contributes theoretically to the corporate brand and consumer behavior literature by investigating both attitudinal components at a corporate brand level and investigates their effects on behavioral/conative response. The practical contribution of the paper and its managerial implications lie in the context of defining strategy in relation to positioning business schools in an increasingly competitive higher education market.

Subfields: Management of Technology and Innovation, Marketing, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a6efe5b76545e15cc1dde8603a6af182716699db

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Management of Technology and Innovation

In Marketing

In Strategy and Management

Citations in the corpus

Brand management in higher education: The University Brand Personality Scale (2016, background): “Tangible perceptions like tuition fees and teaching quality (Alwi & Kitchen, 2014; Joseph, Mullen, & Spake, 2012) as well as symbolic and affective qualities like fun, excitement, and passion (Alwi & Kitchen, 2014; Bennett & Ali-Choudhury, 2009) encompass university brand.”
Brand personality in higher education: anthropomorphized university marketing communications (2017, background): “A study of business schools and their corporate brands found that brand personality was as important as their perceived service or educational attributes (Alwi & Kitchen, 2014).”
Student co-creation behavior in higher education: the role of satisfaction with the university experience (2015, background): “This aligns with Alwi and Kitchen’s (2014) and Davies and Chun’s (2002) findings that corporate brand image affects post-experience behavior”
IMC antecedents and the consequences of planned brand identity in higher education (2017, background): “Intangible image associations may provide valuable sources of brand equity and lead to clearer strategic brand positioning with respect to competitive offers (Abratt and Kleyn, 2012; Alwi and Kitchen, 2014).”
The impact of perceived CSR on corporate reputation and purchase intention (2019, background): “Brand image is a subjective, perceptual phenomenon that is formed through rational and emotional interpretation (Alwi and Kitchen, 2014).”
Brand ambidexterity and commitment in higher education: An exploratory study (2016, background): “Brand performance and brand image have with the university brand, derives from the snapshot evaluation of the university’s performance (Syed Alwi & Kitchen, 2014).”