Most Wanted Brand Attributes: Student Perceived Values of Private Universities in Surabaya Ferry Jaolis, Trixie Nova Bella Tandijaya & Serli Wijaya
Faculty of Business and Economics, Petra Christian University of Surabaya, Indonesia
Abstract
The rising quantity of private universities in Indonesia creates a heightened competition in delivering the added values most wanted by, especially, their potential students. Although creating a point of difference is a major move by most universities, the marketing department tends to communicate this differential advantage in a corporate-centric manner, neglecting the perspective of the recipients (i.e., the potential students). Literature has shown that most previous studies have adopted service quality or customer perceived value constructs to measure higher educational values and linked it with students^ behavioral intentions. This research aims to explore students^ most wanted added values or brand attributes of selected private universities in Surabaya. Precoded themes guide the research using constructs from previous studies- student perceived values, brand trust, and enrolment intention. A series of in-depth interviews were conducted on twelve current students of universities in inquiry to confirm pre-coded and generate emerging themes from the conversations. A thematic analysis applied to the verbatim transcripts revealed four major student perceived values: functional, social, epistemic, emotional, conditional, and an emerging value termed as symbolic value. These inductively-generated students^ perceived values represent the particular university^s attributes taken into consideration prior to enrolment, which consecutively affect their level of satisfaction during their study.
