Document Type

Book Part

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Disciplines

Higher Education | Marketing

Publication Details

Chapter 13 in Dialogue versus mirage: essays on thought and society in the contemporary world, Edited by Manuel Bermúdez Vázquez and Marta Rojano Simón

ISBN: 978-84-1070-248-6

Electronic ISBN: 978-84-1070-248-6

Abstract

The today’s university education exposes that the argument that stu- dents have an authentic and valuable voice in the decisions that impact their learning and education has become a phenomenon known as 'stu-dent voice' (Matthews and Dollinger, 2023). Furthermore, Boy-murodova y Qosimova (2024) call to action for stakeholders in higher education to prioritize and invest in quality assurance initiatives as in-dispensable components of institutional effectiveness and academic ex-cellence. According to Lafuente, Cifuentes, and Faura (2024), higher education curricula must incorporate competencies that prepare gradu-ates with the necessary knowledge and values.

In Ireland, there are nine universities that account for a large share of the undergraduate and postgraduate base (CSO Department of Educa-tion Statbank and Department of Education and Skills, 2019. Education Indicators for Ireland, p.8). Alongside the university sector, the Insti-tutes of Technology, formally known as the Regional Technical Colleges (RTCs), also developed steadily as a response to fill a gap in advanced technical education (Hanafin, 2006). At present, Ireland’s higher education system is going through a period of radical reform with the merging of some Institutes of Technology into Technological Universities, Technological University of Dublin (TU Dublin) in 2019 and Munster Technological University (MTU) in 2021. To encompass this variety in third-level institutions in Ireland, this article focuses on one of the more traditional universities, University College Cork (UCC) and one of the Institutes of Technology, Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) before it merged with Institute of Tralee to become MTU.

Parallel to this, although brand equity is a widely accepted concept, its definition is still elusive, and researchers have not reached a consensus about which measures provide the best estimates of this complex and multi-faceted construct (Oliveira, Heldt, Silveira y Luce, 2023). To ground the concept, Van-Dúnem, Coelho and Bairrada (2023) state that Aaker (1991) defines it as the set of assets and liabilities attached to a brand, such as its name and symbol, that add or subtract value provided by products or services to a company and its consumers (Aaker, 1991). Finally, Waqas (2022) emphasizes that the brand managers of higher education institutions try to enhance brand equity by engaging students with the brand and providing a good brand experience.

In this framework, the objectives of this research are to (1) analyze which variables of brand equity are determinants in the Irish public uni-versity environment by students, (2) determine if there are differences in perceptions according to the biological gender on brand equity, and (3) compare whether there are differences in perceptions according to biological gender on each of the elements of brand equity separately. In the scenario described, this research represents a scientific advance in the marketing discipline since to date, although specific research has been carried out on brand equity and its variables, it is considered that there are no research studies that exhaustively analyze the perception of brand equity through the opinions of students from Irish public uni-versities. Finally, it can help university managers since, based on the results obtained, they can generate appropriate strategies to maintain or improve each variable of brand equity.

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