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International marketing and corporate branding in the higher education sector: market entry choices Abstract The purpose of this research is to examine the management cognitions of corporate brand building process of the HE institutions in the international context and to explain the strategic advantages and disadvantages regarding such an approach by making reference to the policy maker s cognitions regarding the market entry choices. An empirical case study research in the UK HE institutions will be employed in this research. Multiple sources of evidence will be used to collect the data including in-depth interviews with senior managers in the selected case studies institutions. The research will contribute to the international marketing literature in twofold, theoretically and empirically. In the theoretical term, the research will increase our understanding of corporate brands management in the HE and in the international context. In the empirical term, the research will provide an empirical study that will explore, in-depth, the actual process of international corporate brand building in the HE institutions. The research will also provide the senior managers in the HE institutions with new insights in terms of internationalisation, international marketing, international corporate branding and market entry choices. Key words: international marketing, internationalization, corporate brand, overseas campus, higher education and universities. Introduction 2

In spite of the increased importance of corporate brands for the Higher Education institutions (HE) and the acknowledgments of many researchers of this strategic importance (Balmer and Laio, 2007; Balmer et al., 2010; Heaney and Heaney, 2008), there is a consensus by academics and practitioners that corporate brand in the HE sector does not receive the academic attentions it deserves (Chapleo, 2007; Balmer et al, 2010; Heaney and Heaney, 2008) and the existing literature on corporate brands lacks to studies in the international context (Melewar and Walker, 2003; Burt and Sparks, 2003). Therefore, the theoretical and empirical studies on the corporate brands in the HE and in the international context are needed. This research seeks to respond to this issue and to examine corporate brands in the HE and in the international context. Scrutiny of the corporate branding literature shows that little empirical studies have undertaken in relation to the corporate brand building process in the international context. An exception is the initial study of Melewar and Walker (2003). This is specially the case of HE sector where few studies can be found on corporate brand building (Curits et al., 2009; Chapleo, 2007). Curtis et al. (2009) provide an overview of corporate brand building process at the national level, Chapleo (2007) explores the barriers of building corporate brands, Balmer et al. (2010) reveal how essential corporate brand building is for business schools. Other researchers such as Gray et al. (2003) examine the brand positioning in the university, Ali-Choudhury (2009) identifies the main important components of the university brand. However, none of the above studies has provided an in-depth study over the actual process of building corporate brand in the HE and particularly in the international context. Moreover, there is no empirical study that has been found in the existing corporate branding literature to explore that. The current study seeks to fill the gap in the literature by developing an empirical study to examine the management cognitions of the international corporate brand building process, in-depth, in the UK higher education institutions The research will contribute to the international marketing literature in twofold, theoretically and empirically. In the theoretical term, the research will increase our understanding of corporate brands management in the HE and in the international context. In the empirical term, the 3

research will provide an empirical study that will explore, in-depth, the actual process of international corporate brand building in the HE institutions. The research will also seek to provide recommendations to the senior managers of the UK higher education institutions in terms of internationalization, international corporate branding and market entry choices. 1.1. The aim of the research Although many researchers have acknowledged the strategic importance of corporate brand in the HE sector (Balmer and Laio, 2007; Balmer et al., 2010; Healy and Healy, 2008), to date the use of corporate brands by HE institution as a means to secure market entry overseas has not been the subject of empirical research. This study seeks to explore, in-depth, the above phenomenon, international corporate branding process in HE sector. The research will examine the management cognitions of corporate brand building process of HE institutions in the international context and will explain the strategic advantages and disadvantages regarding such an approach by making reference to policy maker s cognitions regarding the choices of market entry. 2. Literature review 2.1. Corporate brands in the higher education Corporate brands in the Higher Education sector have attracted the attentions of academics and practitioners during the last decade. Indeed, many researchers have acknowledged the importance of corporate branding in the HE sector (Balmer and Liao, 2007; Balmer et al., 2010, Curtis et al., 2009; Chapleo, 2007; Heaney and Heaney, 2008; Melewar and Akel, 2005; Judson at al. 2009). Some researchers go beyond that and they define the university brand as a manifestation of the institution s features that distinguish it from the others, reflect its capacity to satisfy students needs, engender trust in its ability to deliver a certain type and level of HE, and help potential recruits to make wise enrolment decisions (Bennett and Ali-Choudhury, 2008, p. 4). 4

The literature of corporate brands in the HE has focused primary on corporate brand building process in the HE (Curtis et al. 2009; Judson et al. 2009), barriers to brand building process in UK universities (Chapleo, 2007), branding universities in Asian market (Gray et al., 2003), student corporate brand identification (Balmer and Liao, 2007). Although the HE branding has been acknowledged as an important area of research, the existing studies on this area are still limited (Chapleo, 2007), and little have been written on the international context of corporate branding in the HE sector. 2.2. Internationalisation in the higher education Reviewing the literature of higher education reveals that there is no standard or agreed definition of internationalisation, but it provides different points of view to explain this concept. Knight, (2004, p. 11) states that the internationalisation of higher education is the process of integrating an international, intercultural, and global dimension into the purpose, functions (teaching, research service) and the delivery of higher education. The UK higher education market represents the second largest market in the world. It comes directly after the US market. The UK market share is approximately 11.6 percent of all overseas students. The international UK higher education institutions make a large contribution to the UK overall economy. The annual contribution of these institutions accounts for nearly 45 million (UK Higher Education International Unite, 2007). The literature of HE has primary focused on the internationalisation of HE (Altbach, 2004; Czinkota et al. 2009; Graf, 2009; Altbach and knight, 2007; Bennel and Pearce, 2003; Healy, 2008), student identification (Balmer and Laio, 2007; Balmer et al. 2010), barriers to UK university brand building (Chapleo, 2007), little studies has been written on the role of corporate branding in developing the international activities. 5

3. Methodology A case study research is deemed appropriate for this study (Yin, 1994). The rational for using the case study is because the current research is an exploratory research and the case study is considered efficient where the research is exploratory in its nature (Yin, 1994). Moreover, the area of the current research, international corporate brand in higher education sector, is new and therefore the relying on the literature is not too much, and case study research is deemed to be most appropriate to examine the contemporary phenomenon that has not been examined before (Yin, 1994; Yin, 2009) and where the reliance on the literature is not too much (Gill and Johnson, 1991, p. 119). Furthermore this research seeks to explore the phenomenon the management cognitions of the international corporate brand building process within its real life context. Therefore, case study research is appropriate because it is well established to enable the researcher from examining the addressed phenomenon within its real life context (Yin, 1994; Robson, 1993). International corporate brand building process will be examined within the UK higher education institutions which have been chosen for this empirical study because the UK HE market is a world leading market and it is the second largest exporter market in the world (Binsardi and Ekwulugo, 2003). Moreover, the UK HE institutions have different levels of internationalization and they adopt different strategies of international market entry, this makes the UK HE institutions potential to explore the different positions of internationalization and to examine the different market entry choices that they adopt. The selective approach was employed to select the case study university in this research. In the meantime, one access has been gained to one of Russell Group Universities (called later in this research as Russell Group University) to speak to the senior managers over there. Ideally, there 6

is a plan to look at three institutions, including Russell Group University, to present three different positions of internationalisation. Considering that the selected Russell Group University is a pioneer university in internationalisation in terms of overseas campuses, the researcher is working to choose the second institution on the basis to be active internationally and for the last institution to have less profile in terms of internationalization. It is likely for Brunel University to be chosen to represent the last case institution. This may give a good basis for comparison between the three different positions of internationalization. This opportunity for doing comparisons is one of the benefits of using multiple case studies (Yin, 1994). Semi structured interviews was initially employed in this study to interview the senior managers of the selected case study institutions. The rational for focusing on the senior managers is that they are deemed to be responsible for corporate brand management (King, 1991) and for delivering the corporate brands to the international markets. Moreover, interviewing the expert people will decrease the possibility in the emergence of unproductive subject area (Ali- Choudhury et al., 2009). Until now, only the telephone interview technique was used in this research. This technique is common in the market research (Bryman and Bell, 2007) and it has several advantages such as it lowers the cost and saves the time and money for the researchers (Bryman and Bell, 2007). However, one main disadvantage of the telephone interview is that the interviewer will miss the opportunity of the observation and also miss the opportunity to respond to the interviewees puzzles when questions are asked (Bryman and Bell, 2007). Another type of interviews will be employed in this research which is face to face interview. It is very common in the market research and it is one of the main techniques used by qualitative researchers to collect the data (Bryman and Bell, 2007). 4. Findings 7

The insight of the research might review the following: it is more likely for the factors that motivate the UK corporate brands to go overseas to be, the willing to access new markets and increase the market share, the willing to offer mobility opportunities to both students and staffs, increasing the student s choices and enhancing the international experience of staffs and students and doing new types of research. Regarding the building of corporate brands internationally, it is more likely for the HE institutions to emphasise the notion of international and research intensive for their corporate brands in the international markets. The formal and official presentation of the brand is probably come through the logo, the corporate identity, the approaches, the external communication, the internal communication, the culture and the website. The quality of teaching and the quality of research might be significant success factors of international corporate brands With regard to international corporate brand management, the elements of international brand management are more likely to be about getting a shared vision and a shared culture across the university. Managing the corporate brand is probably the responsibility of all the staffs in the university. Moreover, offering the brand in a way which is inconsistent from what the university is trying to do may undermine the brand message. This research will be based on probably three different institutions following different strategies of internationalisation and by completing this research, it is hoped that it will provide recommendation to the senior managers of the educational institutions in terms of internationalisation, international marketing, international corporate branding and market entry choices. References 8

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