Modeling the Relationship between University Brand Image and Alumni Loyalty Using a Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM) Approach

Abstract

In today’s competitive business world, marketing is critically important to universities in positioning a product to attract the interest of its clients, which are the prospective students. As for public universities such as University Teknologi Mara (UiTM), the key to survive the increasing competition and financial difficulties is through their alumni loyalty. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors that affects the Alumni Loyalty towards UiTM. This study tests a model derived from a relationship marketing perspective to investigate the effects of components of University Brand Image which are Academic System, Reputation, Employability, Shared Values and Social Network on the Alumni Loyalty towards UiTM. Based on the literature review, a theoretical model is proposed and tested through Partial Least Square - Structural Equations Modelling (PLS-SEM) using a sample of 815 UiTM alumni. The results reveal that the significant factors that affect Alumni Loyalty are Reputation, Employability and Shared Values. In addition, the results highlight that Academic System do not affect Alumni Loyalty directly but rather indirectly through the mediation of Satisfaction. Overall, Academic System, Reputation, Employability and Shared Values are important in explaining the variance of Alumni Loyalty. University should be careful about the quality of the course offered and methods of delivery by the academicians since the implication of an Academic System is significant toward the loyalty of alumni.

The role of university Knowledge Transfer Offices: Not just commercialize research outputs!

“…Es oportuno mencionar que las IES se encuentran presionadas para atraer y retener a diversos consumidores. Por este motivo, la gestión de la competencia core "Sistema académico y educativo", afecta la satisfacción del usuario final y repercute directamente en la "Imagen de la IES", de aquí que se requiera especial precaución respecto a los métodos de enseñanza que se están implementando (Kamarulzaman et al, 2018). De esta forma, el "Sistema académico y educativo" se ve afectado por las características en la competencia core "Recurso humano", lo que finalmente incide en la "Imagen de la IES", particularmente aquellas de naturaleza jurídica pública (Sbalchiero & Tuzzi, 2017;Dossybayeva, 2014).…”

“…Relación entre variables Fuente (Presupuesto inicial)(Inversión en competencias core) (+) (Sergeevna & Yurievna, 2021;Cavallaro & Lepori, 2021;Stolze, 2021) (Inversión en competencias core)(Competencia core soporte financiero) (+) (Wardini, 2017;Rojas & Espejo, 2020;Tjahjadi et al, 2019) (Competencia core soporte financiero)(Competencia core investigación) (+) (Rojas & Espejo, 2020;Chau et al, 2017;Chyrva et al, 2020) (Competencia core investigación)(Productividad en investigación) (+) (Castillo, 2019;Muneeb et al, 2020;Walters et al, 2020) (Productividad en investigación)(Competencia core transferencia de conocimiento) (+) (Djikhy & Moustaghfir, 2019;Rojas & Espejo, 2020;Tjahjadi et al, 2019) (Competencia core transferencia de conocimiento)(Competencia core soporte financiero) (+) (Pokrovskaia et al, 2019;Zhou & Tang, 2020) (Estrategias de mercadeo)(Competencia core transferencia de conocimiento) (+) (Cheng et al, 2016;Suomi et al, 2019;Papic & Sušilović, 2018) (Inversión en calidad)(Calidad en IES) (+) Rojas & Espejo, 2020;Leiber, 2019;Gunn & Mintrom, 2017) (Calidad en IES)(Competencia core investigación) (+) (Rojas & Espejo, 2020;Weinstein et al, 2021) (Calidad en IES)(Capital intelectual) (+) (Calidad en IES)(Capital estructural) (+) (Calidad en IES)(Capital relacional) (+) (Nunes-Silva et al, 2019;Tjahjadi et al, 2019) (Satisfacción desempeño docente)(Competencia core sistema académico y educativo) (+) (Zalite & Zvirbule, 2020;Zhao et al, 2020;Kamarulzaman et al, 2018) (Competencia core sistema académico y educativo)(Competencia core imagen) (+)…”

Modelling the Relationship between the Environmental Factors and Environmental Behavioural Intentionamong University Students using a Partial Least Squares–Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM)

“…These environmental problems, if not treated, will lead to many events that will bring a negative impact on the economical and societal aspects as well as population health. Serious actions need to be taken to counter these problems as they will affect the nation"s ability to develop its economy.Mostof these environmental problemsoccur due to irresponsible human behaviour towards the environment (AnisAtiqah Abdul Rais, et al, 2018;SitiAiesyaKamarulzaman, et al, 2019). Lacking personal concern and moral responsibility towards the environments are the kinds of attitudes of some individuals which makes matters worse.…”