Creating Brand Equity in Myanmar Private Higher Education Sector

The role of brand equity has recently captured the attention of scholars and practitioners to create competitive advantages for brands in the 21st century. Understanding the brand equity determinants and their relationship to customer satisfaction and brand loyalty can support the brand in improving customer-based brand equity and customer satisfaction. This thesis explores the relationship between brand equity determinants to student satisfaction and brand loyalty to create customer-based brand equity. This empirical research was based on the Myanmar private higher education sector. It examines the factors influencing and limiting brand equity creation through students’ perspectives. This paper proposes a newly developed theoretical model based on six different brand equity models and previous literature. This study proposes that five brand equity determinants - brand awareness, perceived quality, physical quality and facilities, staff behaviour and customer ideal self-congruence - have an impact on student satisfaction and brand loyalty. It is revealed that in the creation of customer-based brand equity, student satisfaction has the highest impact on Myanmar’s private higher education. Brand image is the most critical determinant, followed by brand awareness, physical quality and facilities, followed by student ideal self-congruence. Perceived quality is the least important determinant. The findings propose brand loyalty as the outcome. The strongest relationship between brand loyalty and student satisfaction suggests that the higher the student satisfaction, the higher the brand loyalty. The data shows student satisfaction as a significant indicator, and thus, higher education providers are advised to focus on improving student satisfaction over time to improve brand equity. The study contributes to the methodological use of pragmatic philosophy and a mixed method approach from the stance of an insider researcher through a survey and a focus group discussion with the students at Myanmar Imperial University. The empirical findings of this study offer an academic contribution to the existing body of knowledge on brand equity in the Higher Education Sector and five main management implications to improve brand equity in the Higher Education Sector. Finally, this research contributes conceptually to the holistic understanding of the brand management process with special reference to Myanmar’s private higher education sector. The study highlights several managerial-level implications for brand leaders in developing effective brand management strategies and policy-making processes in creating strong brands.