The Impact of Corporate Reputation on Gaining Competitive Advantage and the Role of Mediator of Relational Capital

Transcription

1 International Research Journal of Management Sciences. Vol., 4 (5), , 2016 Available online at ISSN X 2016 The Impact of Corporate Reputation on Gaining Competitive Advantage and the Role of Mediator of Relational Capital (Case Study: Non-Profit Schools of Gorgan) Marayam Tayebi MA, Department of Management, Payame Noor University, Iran * Corresponding Author mtsuregol@gmail.com ABSTRACT: The main objective of this study is to understand the impact of corporate reputation on gaining competitive advantage and the role of mediator of relational capital. The research is applied in terms of aim and in terms of method is based on description and survey. The research population consists of all supervisors, managers and employees of non-profit schools of Gorgan. Cochran formula is used to determine the sample size which according to the population of 400 employees, the required sample size of was determined 197 people. Collection tools in this study are a questionnaire of standard reputation, relational capital and competitive advantage. The reliability of the questionnaire was specified using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. To analyze the data collected, smart PLS structural equation modeling software is used. The results showed that there was a significant relationship on corporate reputation on gaining competitive advantage and the role of mediator of relational capital in Gorgan. Also, relational capital plays an important role between corporate reputation and gaining competitive advantage. Keywords: Corporate Reputation, Competitive Advantage, Relational Capital. INTRODUCTION Today all fields, including science, business and industry, are subject to profound and lasting. Every day, a new template is always creating and consequently, the new rules are emerging and obsolete rules of the past. These changes have opened a new chapter to assumptions, perceptions and effective ways of life every time and another step forwards human in the course of the evolution. Their successful institutions in the twenty-first century have understood the importance of intangible assets as an important resource for achieving sustainable competitive advantages and stability in the market. The key to success for any company in every industry that is not only relying on one source of advantage, but the best and most successful companies know that we must always look for new aspects of competitive advantage and benefit from a variety of sources to create competitive advantage (Stalk, 1998; Wang, 2014). One of the most important ways to gain sustainable competitive advantages is utilization of key resources. Resource-based view and Barney model introduce key sources with four main features including 310

2 valuable, rare, impossible to imitate and irreplaceable, as well as the organizational capability and application (Wang, 2014). Competitive advantage is values presenting to companies for customers so that these values are more than customer costs. Competitive advantage is to increase the attractiveness of company suggestions compared to competitors in terms of customers (Keegan, 1998). Competitive advantage consists of a set of factors or abilities that the company is always enabling corporate to better performance than the competitors (Jeyavelue, 2007; Sadri et al., 2001; Barney, 1999). Therefore, in order to achieve a competitive advantage, organizations must investigate domestic capabilities in addition to the external position (Appelbaum, 2000; Feurer et al., 1995). Initiative in achieving competitive advantage depends on the amount of intangible assets which goodwill of corporate is a leader in this type of investment (Low et al., 2002). The reputation of the company is defined as a history of experience of people for the service provider (Fombrun, 1996). Therefore, celebrity represents an overall assessment of the stakeholders of the company over time, which greatly affects the price of goods or profits arising from repeated purchases (Porter, 1985). Results of previous studies show that the combination of social and economic benefits originates the company's reputation, competitive advantage and is one of the most important assets of the organization (Fombrun, 1996). Thus, according to Budworth, it is reasonable to consider reputation as an intangible asset (Budworth, 1989). Celebrity of the company stresses that the assessment of the quality perceived for a company is performed by the customers based on how the company has done its activities in the past. There is always a gap between corporate reputation and customer perception and fills this gap through relational capital (Desarbo et al., 2001; Groenland et al., 2002). The reputation of the company is known as a source of capital relationship. Relational capital based the reputation of the company encourages the reliability; reputable companies develop relationships with their partners through long-term interactions (Hoetker et al., 2005). Relational capital includes communication with customers, stakeholders, suppliers, competitors, government, official institutions and society. Although one of the most important features of relational capital is customer relationships, this is not studied as the only factor. Relational capital is in fact a reflection of the activities of the company which includes name or trademark, customer loyalty, the image of the company in the community and feedback system customers and suppliers. Obviously, the most important criteria for these funds are in relation to customers and the market. But except for these criteria, stakeholders, suppliers and the community are also included in this category. Rate of sales to customers, repurchase rates, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, customer complaints rate and market share are also included in this section (Miller et al., 1999). Schools and institutes are an essential element of formal education in achieving the goal of education (Schnhav et al., 1994). Competitive advantage is one of the most important goals of schools. According to what it was said, the reputation of the company is as one of intangible sources of competitive advantage and on the other hand, relational capital is as one of the components of intellectual capital which can impact on competitive advantage to adjust the reputation of the company. Therefore, this study tries to answer the question whether is there any significant relationship between the corporate reputation on gaining competitive advantage and the role of mediator of relational capital in Gorgan. METHODOLOGY The present research is applied in terms of aim and in terms of method is based on description and survey. The research population consists of all supervisors, managers and employees of non-profit schools of Gorgan. Cochran formula is used to determine the sample size which according to the population of 400 employees, the required sample size of was determined 197 people. Collection tool in this study was a questionnaire. The first part of the questionnaire includes demographic variables (gender, age, marital status, educational level, job experience). The second part contains 26 questions related to variables, which were prepared based on the Likert scale. Table 1 shows the relationship between variables and measures included in the questionnaire. As mentioned above, to measure the variables, the questions of multiple choice and Likert scale were used. Likert scale is composed of five equal parts and proportionate to the subject, a number of questions have to be for responder to specify their tendency on it. In this study, a range of tendencies (completely agree to completely disagree) was used in the questionnaire shown in Table 2. It is worth noting that in the study after studying (pilot) in a sample of 20 students and returning the questionnaires, data collected was determined by the software SPSS 22 that research questionnaires enjoy very high reliability (Table3) because after Cronbach's alpha, numeric value of the coefficients for the questionnaire in general was In the end, after determining reliability, questionnaires were distributed among the statistical samples and they were collected after completion. 311

3 Table1. The relationship between variables and questionnaire. Row Variable Measurement Source 1 Reputation Questions 1-8 (Bennett et al., 2001) 2 Relational capital Questions 9-18 (Chen et al., 2004) 3 Competitive advantage Questions (Wang et al., 2014) Table 2. A range of Likert in questionnaire. Completely disagree Disagree No idea Agree Completely agree Table 3. Cronbach's alpha test results. Index Cronbach's alpha values Reputation Relational capital Competitive advantage Data analysis In this study, after collecting data and information required by the questionnaire, all of them were coded, while they are classifying, descriptive statistics were calculated on the data. Then, to analyze general data and collected demographic, the participants (e.g., age, gender, education, etc.) mainly EXCEL and SPSS 22 software by descriptive statistics were used. For inferential analysis of the data, the software SMART PLS is used. RESULTS Convergent validity and low combinational coefficient of indices of the present study with Cronbach's Alpha are shown in Table 4. Convergent validity refers to the principle that indicators of each structure have had moderate correlation with each other. According to Wagner et al (1996), Convergent measure of validity is that the mean of variance extracted (AVE) is more than 0.4. Given that variables AVE values are obtained more than 0.4, however, at this level, the model in correlation among indexes is confirmed. As it can be seen in the conceptual model, the values of impact coefficients between variables are more than 0.5 and are significant coefficients are more than 1.96 and this represents an overall approval in in both operating and significant modes (Figure 1 and 2). Table 4. Convergent validity and reliability. Variables The average variance extracted (AVE) Combining reliability coefficient (CR); Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient Relational capital Company reputation Competitive advantage Figure1. Model in the mode of standardized coefficients of factor loading. 312

4 Figure 2. Model in significant numbers. Since the GOF is confirmed to the model more than 0.3, so, fitness of the overall model of the research is very good (Formula 1). Formula 1. The GOF to validate models. Results showed that since the amount of T statistic that is more than 1.96, at the level 95%, corporate reputation on gaining competitive advantage and the role of mediator of relational capital has a significant relationship. Similarly, by changing the ratio of the course between corporate reputation and gain competitive advantage from to 0.565, we conclude that relational capital plays the role of mediator between the impacts of corporate reputation on gaining competitive advantage in non-profit schools of Gorgan. Also, by changing the ratio of the course between corporate reputation and gain competitive advantage from to 0.036, we conclude that the basic capabilities of marketing play the role of mediator between the impacts of corporate reputation on gaining competitive advantage in non-profit schools in Gorgan and by changing the ratio of the course between corporate reputation and gain competitive advantage from to 0.170, we conclude that intensity of the corporate plays the role of mediator between the impacts of corporate reputation on gaining competitive advantage in non-profit schools in Gorgan. By changing the ratio of the course between corporate reputation and gain competitive advantage from to 0.472, we conclude that customer loyalty plays the role of mediator between the impacts of corporate reputation on gaining competitive advantage in non-profit schools in Gorgan. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION The main objective of this study was to understand the impact of corporate reputation on gaining competitive advantage and the role of mediator of relational capital. Khadem Sadeq et al (2013) found in their research that technical resources and advanced hardware, efficient and trained human resources affect the competitive advantage, respectively that in the present study, the results showed that celebrity of the company is effective on the competitive advantage. Also, Rabei et al (2013) found in their research that there was a significant and positive relationship between intellectual capital and its dimensions and competitive advantage and relational capital was the most important aspect of intellectual capital, which in this study, the influence of a relationship as a mediator between corporate reputation and competitive advantage was proved. Hosseinzadeh et al (2013) showed in their research that all components of the visual identity of the company are impressive on the reputation. This study also reflects the impact of reputation on competitive advantage. Rahmani et al (2013) showed in their study that all elements of intellectual capital (including structural capital, human capital and relational capital) are effective on competitive advantage. Friedman test results also indicate that the highest rank belongs to the intellectual capital and the lowest rank belongs to the structural capital. In this study the relational capital was recognized as a mediator between corporate reputation and competitive advantage. 313

5 Nasrollahi et al (2009) identified reputation as a competitive advantage for the organization which was consistent with the present study and they also found that vision and leadership, financial performance, products and services, social responsibility, emotional image and work environment affect reputation. Ali et al (2015) showed in their study that the reputation of the company results in improving financial performance, customer loyalty, customer trust and commitment of customers. This result is consistent with the results of the present study. The results of hierarchical regression analysis for the study of Cheng et al (2014) suggest that the reputation of the company has a significant impact on relational capital, but the reputation of the company has not any significant impact on the competitive advantage, which this result is in contrast to the present results, but through the capital relationship affects the competitive advantage that is consistent with the result the second main hypothesis. The results of the research for Blonska et al (2013) show that investment in developing resources directly does not eventuate in the interests of the supplier and buyer interest. Instead, through resource development, relational capital leads to realizing relational benefits, in the current study relational capital was identified as a mediator between corporate reputation and competitive advantage. The results of the analysis of structural equation modeling Awang et al (2009) showed that corporate reputation had a direct impact on competitive advantage, but corporate reputation had an indirect impact on competitive advantage through perceived value and perceived quality of service. The present study is unlike the first result, because we concluded that corporate reputation had a direct impact on competitive advantage and the second result, the indirect impact of the reputation on competitive advantage was consistent with the results of the present study. However, the difference is that in this study, the indirect impact of relational capital is done through a mediator. Inglis et al (2006) have proven the positive relationship between corporate reputation and financial performance. In the present study, we found that reputation had a direct and positive impact on competitive advantage. According to the results of this study on gaining a competitive advantage and impact corporate reputation, it is recommended that grounds for increasing reputation and the credit of non-profit schools be provided. The most striking point in this regard is to elaborate in the media. Another case in increasing customer satisfaction and maintaining the trust of customers trust is the lack of delay in delivery of services. Since the lack of delay and speed of service delivery can be satisfied with the credibility and confidence, for each institution, after employee, less capital is more than satisfaction and customer trust. To increase satisfaction and customer trust, ethical and social techniques can be used to perform social responsibilities and the diagnosis of acute need in the community and the right time can be a wonderful effect on satisfaction, reliability, trust, reputation, brand identity and the organization. Therefore, factors affecting the reputation of private schools have been very helpful and they can make customers loyal to these schools and they can help for profit. Conflict of interest The authors declare no conflict of interest REFERENCES Ali R, Richard Lynch Tc, Melew Ar, Zhongqi Jin, The Moderating Influences On The Relationship Of Corporate Reputation With Its Antecedents And Consequences: A Meta-Analytic Review. Journal Of Business Research. 68(5): Appelbaum Sh, The Competitive Advantage Of Organizational Learning. Journal Of Workplace Learning. 12(12). Awang Zhj, Kamaruzaman J, The Effects Of Corporate Reputation On The Competitiveness Of Malaysian Telecommunication Service Providers. International Journal Of Business And Management. 4(5). Barney Jb, Firm Resources And Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal Of Management. 17(1). Budworth D, Intangible Assets Of Companies. Science Support Group. London. Desarbo Ws, Jedidi K, Sinha I, Customer Value Analysis In A Heterogeneous Market. Strateg. Manag. J. 22: Feurer R, Chaharbaghe K, Strategy Development: Past, Present And Future. Management Decision. 33. Fombrun Cj, Reputation: Realising Value From The Corporate Image. Harvard Business School. Boston. Ma. Groenland E, Qualitative Research To Validate The Rq-Dimensions. Corp. Reput. Rev. 4: Hoetker G, How Much You Know Versus How Well I Know You: Selecting A Supplier For A Technically Innovative Component. Strateg. Manag. J. 26:

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