Country Image and International Tertiary Education

Transcription

1 The Journal of Brand Management Special Issue on Countries as Brands Revised Paper Submission Country Image and International Tertiary Education NATTHAWUT SRIKATANYOO TEACHING FELLOW DEPARTMENT OF MARKETING UNIVERSITY of OTAGO PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand Tel.: Fax: JUERGEN GNOTH, PH.D. SENIOR LECTURER DEPARTMENT OF MARKETING UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO DUNEDIN PO BOX 56 NEW ZEALAND jgnoth@business.otago.ac.nz PH: FAX:

2 Country Image and International Tertiary Education Abstract Researchers have investigated the effects of country image on consumers product evaluations for over three decades. However, those studies concentrate mainly on manufactured products, disregarding services. To fill gaps in the literature, this paper proposes the conceptual model of country image effects on international tertiary education. Five research propositions are developed around the proposed conceptual model, and implications for the future research are presented. Introduction Country image has been explained as either a halo or summary construct. (1, 2, 3) Han 4 posits that when consumers are unfamiliar with a country s products, country image performs as a halo construct, in which country image affects consumers beliefs about product attributes, and these beliefs affect consumers attitudes toward a brand. On the other hand, when consumers have more experiences or have become familiar with a country s products, country image operates as a summary construct, whereby consumers beliefs about product attributes influence country image. Meanwhile, country image directly affects the brand attitude. Country image seems to play a role in consumer evaluation processes of high involvement products, greater than in low involvement product evaluation processes. 5 For instance, consumers may consider country of origin as the most important factor when they select hedonic products such as wine, an oriental rug, cigars or caviar. 6 However, the importance of country of origin may be lower when consumers evaluate low involvement products such as t-shirts. 5

3 Tertiary education is a high involvement service, which has become less national and more internationally oriented, 7 and its intangibility makes it difficult for potential clients [students] to assess its quality. 8 When intrinsic cues [e.g., taste, design, performance] are unknown or not available, consumers more frequently evaluate products by using extrinsic cues [e.g., country of origin, brand name]. (9, 10) The results of several studies indicate that country of origin is an important extrinsic information (11, 12, 13) cue in consumers perceptions and evaluations of product quality. However, will those findings be able to apply to services? 14 Indeed, how does country image affect consumers choices of services? Therefore, the study of country image effects on consumers perceptions of quality of a service is needed. To fill this gap, a conceptual model has been developed in this paper. Within the conceptual model, four variables are identified as follows: Country image is defined as students cognitive beliefs about the country s industrialisation, national quality standard, and other information that is associated with its products and services; Institution image is defined as students overall perceptions of institution quality; Programme evaluation is conceptualised as students reactive attitude toward the programme in terms the quality of programme; and Destination intention is used as a predictor of consumers preferential choices. 15 In summary, this paper will contribute to both country image effects on services, and international education marketing. The following section discusses the importance of country image in the global market. The paper then moves to consider how country

4 image affects an international tertiary education industry. Finally, the paper proposes the conceptual model of country image effects on international tertiary education together with research propositions. Country Image and the Globalisation of Business The globalisation of business has increased opportunities for exporting and service companies to distribute their goods and provide their services to consumers all over the globe. However, at the same time, the globalisation of business has also increased the degree of competition in the global market. Each company, therefore, has to enhance its competitive capacity by improving its productivity and reducing its cost of production. 16 Moreover, it needs to differentiate its product or service from competitors products or services. Branding is a way to make one product or service different from another. Yet, in the international market, the image of country of origin is another potentially powerful variable to differentiate a product and a service. What is more, country image is also directly associated with a brand image. 17 Country of Origin and Perceptions of Its Products Consumers perceptions of countries are developed as stereotypical beliefs about products, and their attributes from particular countries. 18 For example, Germany is well known for its engineering as well as automobiles, Japan for its electronics, Italy (11, 19, 20, 21) for fashion products, and the U.S. for its services. These beliefs may be driven by consumers direct experiences, (4,17) word-of-mouth, or exposure to communication and promotion devices. 22

5 Those consumers perceptions vary across different product categories, depending upon how well the country s perceived production and marketing strengths are related to the product categories. The country s production and marketing strengths and weaknesses are considered together when consumers evaluate its products. For example, Roth and Romeo 21 found that Japan s country image was rated highly when related to willingness to buy Japanese autos and watches. Yet, this strong image of Japan was unrelated to willingness to buy its beer. On specific product dimensions, however, country image can be generalisable across product categories. The German image is perceived as high prestige, but uneconomical when judging its television and automobile. Similarly, the Korean image is perceived as moderately economical products, but weak on prestige, technology advance, service, and workmanship dimensions in both product categories. 23 (17, 24) However, country image can be changed. The success of individual brands through aggressive marketing and advanced engineering may change the consumers perceptions of a country and its products. The successes of Toyota, Sony, Nikon, and Honda, which have significantly upgraded the image of Japan and its other products, 24 or Hyundai and Samsung for Korea are good examples. Furthermore, consumers unfavourable attitudes toward a nation s products can be changed by distributing (22, 25) those products through prestige retailers. In other words, the image of nation s products can be made more favourable by using a push strategy, sales force and trade promotion, to intermediaries to carry, promote, and sell products to end users.

6 Country Image and a Global Brand Consumers and importers perceptions for the same products, even the same brands, may vary depending upon where the products are made. The country of origin image has the power to arouse and thereby influence importers and consumers beliefs about product attributes, and influence evaluations of products and/or brands. 17 Country image may strengthen or weaken the product and/or brand image. If a country image matches favourably with its product, it will have a positive effect on the product. On the other hand, country image will have a negative effect on the product when an unfavourable match exists. 21 For instance, German autos such as BMW, Mercedes, AUDI etc., gain competitive advantages from the image of Germany as an advanced engineering country. In contrast, the image of Britain as a haven of tradition, a land of rain, royalty, fish and chips, and tea at four o clock sharp, seems not to benefit its automobile industry and airline service. Therefore, Jaguar, the quintessential British automobile brand, reduces the associations with its country of origin in order to create a high-technology image while British Airways prefers to be associated with American Airlines, rather than the Britain. 26 County image is not only important to consumers and importers in evaluating products, 17 but it is also important to global corporations in relocating their production bases. As a country image may affect its products and brand images, the global corporation prefers to associate its global brands with a more prestigious country of origin. This relates to country of assembly and/or country of design, in order to take advantage of favourable country associations in consumers minds. 27

7 Global brands may lose their value images when the brands have been manufactured in a country characterised by questionable manufacturing practices and/or lack of sophistication of the workforce. For example, consumers may perceive the value of BMWs differently, if they are assembled in a developing country rather than in Germany. What is more, the German brand may be diminished in its German-ness and lose the cultivated aura of exclusiveness by a relocation of its production site. 28 When consumers believe that a country is able to produce high-quality products, they may perceive that the products produced in the country will generally be of high quality. On the other hand, if consumers have low confidence in the producing ability of the country, its products will be perceived to be of low quality. 16 On top of that, consumers prefer products made in industrially developed countries, rather than (11, 29) products from undeveloped or developing countries. Country Image and International Tertiary Education Tertiary or higher education is a professional service, which differs in many respects from other services, and warrants separate treatment. Similar to other professional services [e.g., law, consulting, architecture], tertiary education is at the pure service end of the goods-services continuum, and typically characterised by a higher degree of interpersonal contact, complexity, divergence, and customisation than other service businesses. 30 Although tangible elements, such as academic facilities and equipment, may assist potential students to assess the quality of higher education, most of the quality attributes in higher education cannot be seen, felt, or touched in advance which causes difficulties for a pre-purchase evaluation, especially for an overseas (8, 30) student. In addition, the quality of higher education may vary markedly in

8 different circumstances from time to time, class to class, students to students, lecturer to lecturer, (30, 31) and even from country to country. Furthermore, international tertiary education has recently become a hybrid service or bi-national service that involves two countries of origin: the country of offshore campus [host country], and the country of the institution. Many institutions established their offshore campus in several countries around the globe in order to satisfy students who would like to get foreign degrees, yet do not want to go abroad. However, students may perceive the quality of education provided in offshore and onshore campus differently. Moreover, a poor country image may create negative beliefs of the institutions and their programmes. In other words, institutions may diminish their images if they locate their offshore campus in countries that have unfavourable images. In summary, country image seems to play an important role in students choices of international tertiary education. Prospective students may perceive and evaluate the quality of international tertiary education by using the country of origin [host country] image because of the difficulties of pre-purchase evaluation. More over, students may also perceive the quality of institutions through the image of their host countries. Considering the above points, this study therefore proposes a conceptual model in order to investigate country image effects on international tertiary education together with research propositions that will be presented in the following section.

9 The Conceptual Model and Research Propositions The image and reputation of a country and its institutions seem to play an important role in students decisions of an international education destination. Bourke 32 found that the educational reputation of the country was a decisive factor in students destination choice. Students opting to study overseas at undergraduate level tend to choose a country first and then select an institution. Another example of this is the success of Ivy League institutions, which is linked to their image and reputation regardless of their teaching quality. 33 In addition, Aaker 34 suggests that reputation for quality and name recognition/high profile are significant sources of competitive advantage. In general, country image is directly associated with a brand image. 17 What is more, country image affects consumers attitudes toward a brand. 4 In services, the company or corporation is the primary brand. 35 Thus, in the international education industry, the image of a host country may directly influence students attitudes towards its academic institutions. While a favourable [unfavourable] country image may create positive [negative] beliefs of institutions and their programmes, country image may also be influenced by institution image. The success of individual brands through aggressive marketing and advanced engineering may change consumers perceptions of a country. 24 For manufacturing, the success [failure] of individual institutions therefore may improve [diminish] country image. Similarly, students positive [negative] beliefs of institutions and their programmes may enhance [diminish] country image. In other words, an institution s image may also influence county image.

10 Furthermore, the quality of higher education varies markedly in different circumstances [from time to time, class to class, students to students, lecturer to (30, 31) lecturer, etc.]. Higher education quality may therefore vary markedly in different countries as well as institutions. That means country image and institution image may affect students reactive attitude toward the programme in terms of the quality of the programme. Finally, Lawley 36 theorises the model of choice of destination, and found that course and country characteristics [e.g., standard of course, recognition of qualifications, peer groups opinions] and alternative evaluations contribute to prospective overseas students intentions. Based on the above literature, the conceptual model of country image effects on international tertiary education has been developed and proposed together with 5 propositions as following. Figure 1: The Conceptual Model with Proposition Numbers on the Arrows Country Image P5a P2 P1 P4 P3 Programme Evaluation P5c Students Intentions of International Tertiary Education Destinations Institution Image P5b Source: Developed for this research based on a literature review. Research Proposition 1: Country image influences Institution image. Research Proposition 2: Institution image influences Country image.

11 Research Proposition 3: Country image may substitute for an unknown institution on Programme evaluation. Research Proposition 4: Institution image influences Programme evaluation. Research Proposition 5: Students intentions when choosing an international tertiary education destination is influenced by: a) Country image; b) Institution image; and c) Programme evaluation. Conclusion and The Direction of Future Research Country image has become more important because of the globalisation of business. The latter has caused numerous changes in the production and marketing of consumer goods as well as services. The studies regarding country image effects however concentrate mainly on manufactured goods. This study therefore, attempted to develop a theoretical model of country image effects on international tertiary education. Future research will be designed to examine the association between country image, institution image, programme evaluation, and students intentions to study at international tertiary education destinations by testing the research propositions presented here. The knowledge of how country image affects international tertiary education would benefit many of the stakeholders involved in this industry. For instance, host countries and their institutions would benefit by greater insight and information about students perceptions of the quality of their international education as input to remain

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