Research On Service Marketing Mix’s Influence On Private Universities’ Brand Equity

From " the Private Education Promotion Law of China"(2004) and the " a Number of Private Higher school Management Provisions "(2007) and other laws’definition to holding body and tissue morphology of private universities, they are the universities of enterprise and have enterprise characteristic. Because private universities lack enough trust and reputation, so, in the choice of people’s education consumption, they are not mainstream, or a kind of helpless choice. Whether from the school system or from the educated perspective, in the market of education, the relation between universities and students has become " the service provider and the consumer ".To the private university, the buyer that the education consumer is in the dominant position. Among them, education trust decides private universities’sustainable profitability. Learner satisfaction higher, the private university gets the more trust. And learner satisfaction comes from the staff work quality, the staff work quality comes from the staff satisfaction with the school. At the same time, the staff work quality also decides the educational service value of scholar consumption. They used to ring also buckle from front to back, ultimately affect the service profit. In addition, as having larger autonomy entity, private universities have to follow the market mechanism to solve student competition, teacher introduction, and funds raising. As known to all, brand school which has a good social effect and good reputation accesses to social support and family favor more easily. Conversely, the poorer brand school gets fewer opportunities. So, private universities have to build the service profit chain, enhance the value of the brand equity, form brand competitiveness.The thesis uses the principle of the combining of theoretical analysis and empirical analysis, understanding the frontier and progress of the relevant theory by reviewing domestic and foreign literature. And collecting, summarizing and reviewing the related documents, using logic and argument method, the thesis constructs the service marketing mix arrangement (SPC-7Ps model) and the brand equity dimensions (SPC-BE model) from the service profit chain. The thesis determined the concept model of the SPC-7Ps’ effect on the SPC-BE, proposed18assumptions of the SPC-7Ps" effect on the SPC-BE. Then collected sample data from11private universities of FuJian, ShanXi, LiaoNing, HuNan, BeiJing, GuangXi, JiLin seven provinces basing on the Likert scale questionnaires. At last using the SPSS18.0as analysis tool, the thesis analyzed the survey data by factor analysis, and inspected for the model and variable by variance analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis method.The thesis consists of seven chapters, the main content of each chapter is as follows:The first chapter is the introduction. It mainly summarized and explained on the research background, research object, research purpose and significance, research ideas and methods, innovation and other related content one by one.The second chapter is literature review. Through the review of the domestic and foreign scholars’literature on the connotation and strategy of private universities service marketing, the definition and dimensions of private universities brand equity, and marketing strategies’influence on brand equity. The second chapter pointed out the lack of the research as well as the exploration direction, presented the problem that the thesis intended to study, that is marketing strategies’ influence on brand equity of private universities based on the service profit chain.The third chapter is the theoretical foundation. Based on the service profit chain theory, this chapter studied the relationship between the marketing strategy of7Ps, constructed the service marketing arrangement(SPC-7Ps model)and brand equity dimensions (SPC-BE model) under the service profit chain view.The fourth chapter is the model and hypotheses of the SPC-7Ps’influence on the SPC-BE of private universities. Firstly, based on carding literatures comprehensively, this part clearly defined the service marketing of private universities under the SPC-7Ps model and the brand equity of private universities under the SPC-BE model, while, defined two regulating variables that the private universities’running characteristics and history. Secondly, the fourth chapter constructed model and put forward the hypothesis. It focuses on five problems:the first is the service marketing mix’s influence on the brand satisfaction of private universities; the second is the service marketing mix’s influence on the brand loyalty of private universities; the third is the differences between the influence degree of elements on service marketing mix to brand equity of private universities; the forth is the effect of characteristics and history as a moderating variable in the service marketing mix’s influence on the brand equity of private universities; the fifth is the relationship between various dimensions of brand equity.The fifth chapter is empirical analysis of the SPC-7Ps’ influence on the SPC-BE of private universities. Firstly, it defined the variables and measurement item. Secondly, it made the questionnaire pre-test, and made the result more stably and accurately in reliability and validity through that the questionnaire items were culled and improved. Finally, it did statistical analysis on the formal investigation data, tested various research hypothesis of the fourth chapter. That shows:people, physical evidence, promotion, price and process of the service marketing mix have significant effects on the brand satisfaction and brand loyalty effect of private universities, namely, the service marketing mix has a certain impact on the brand equity. However, each element of the service marketing7Ps mix has different influence on brand equity of private universities. At the same time, the private university which is full of characteristics, its service marketing mix has stronger impact on the brand equity. It shows that feature is the key to success in the education market. The important measure to enhance the brand equity of private universities is to maintain the product differentiation and present the product characteristics. A problem that should be paid attention to is, the private university which has long history, its service marketing mix has no stronger impact on the brand equity. So, even though "young" private university, it is still able to win in the competition of education market only to adopt the suitable service marketing mix.The sixth chapter is the marketing inspiration to the management of the brand equity of private universities. Based on the hypothesis testing results of the fifth chapter, this part did more detailed description of the research’s application to in the management practice of private universities:First is to construct the marketing mechanism of private universities; Second is to build service quality delivery system of private universities; Third is to implement pricing decision of the private universities based on the discrimination; Forth is to communicate the brand of private universities by using word-of-mouth; Fifh is to reposition the brand of private universities.The seventh chapter is the conclusion and expectation. This chapter summarized the research conclusions, and pointed out its limitations in the modeling, sampling methods, research methods and the next research direction.