Exploring the impact of different factors on brand equity and intention to take up online courses from e-Learning platforms
Graphical abstract
Introduction
In this modern era, technological innovations play an important role in shaping individuals' careers (Fernandes et al., 2020; Vivian et al., 2014). The increasing popularity of online learning services (or e-learning services) has seen a rise in the number of online courses and even online degrees. The available massive open online courses (MOOC) have helped students or professionals in their career growth (von Schmieden et al., 2019). However, to choose the better course rather than a mediocre course (Ray et al., 2019a) from over 9400 available courses (Shah, 2018) is a confusing task and the students or professionals generally opt for courses from organizations which have a better brand image. Branding helps service providers compete on features other than pricing (Bailey and Ball, 2006). In this era of dynamic marketing and constant competition, for developing an emotional bonding with the users', it is essential to develop a strong brand image (Buil et al., 2013; González-Mansilla et al., 2019). However, there is a paucity of research for assessing the factors that affect brand equity and user's willingness to undertake courses from eLearning platforms.
From the business aspect, the sustainability of various e-Learning providers is dependent on mainly three aspects: First the online learning platforms have to satisfy the needs and expectations of users (Ray et al., 2019a, Ray et al., 2020c). Hence, it is essential to find out the predictors of customer satisfaction which will affect their willingness to undertake courses from the online providers. Second the e-Learning providers should be able to provide courses useful for future career and can be trust-worthy (Ray et al., 2019a). It is necessary for organizations to find out how the company presents their brand, external brand communications and consumer's experience with the e-Learning provider on consumer's willingness to undertake online courses. Third, in this modern era with the rising popularity of various social-media platforms (Chatterjee, 2019), it will be interesting to assess the effect of online-reviews and online-ratings on brand awareness and brand meaning. We feel that understanding the impact of different predictors of brand equity of e-Learning providers can be significantly linked with the consumer's intention to undertake online courses from that specific provider.
The present study addresses the above mentioned gaps by attempting at exploring the various factors that impact the brand equity of the eLearning providers. Understanding the brand equity of the e-Learning providers is essential for mainly two reasons: First, the online learning sector is an emerging area which is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16% (Ashar, 2018) and with over 9400 online courses available (Shah, 2018). Hence understanding the factors that affect brand equity can help service providers understand the areas to focus on to improve the customer base and the willingness to undertake certain courses from a specific e-Learning provider. Second, understanding brand equity will help to understand the factors that affect brand equity like brand-loyalty, brand-association, brand-awareness, perceived quality (Aaker, 1991), perceived benefits (Ray et al., 2019a), etc. Keeping a focus on these factors and brand orientation is essential for the lasting success of businesses (Schmidt et al., 2017). However, there is a lack of research work on various factors like perceived quality, perceived benefits, online ratings and reviews, perceived value, customer satisfaction, etc. that can affect brand equity and in-turn intention to take up particular online courses. We make an attempt to address these research gaps.
In this research work we have adopted a quantitative based approach. The quantitative analysis of the 378 responses using confirmatory factor analysis reveals that consumer experience is a significant predictor of both brand meaning and customer satisfaction. Results of the analysis show that user's experience with the provider is an important predictor of both brand meaning and customer satisfaction. We also find brand meaning is the most vital driver of brand equity which in turn affects customer's intention to take up online courses.
There are various sections in this research. Section 2 discusses the previous research works. Section 3 focusses on conceptual model and the hypotheses we have attempted to examine. Sections 4 Research methodology, 5 Results, 6 Discussion, 7 Conclusion contain the research methodology, results, discussion and conclusion respectively.
Section snippets
Services branding
Researchers have valued branding as a vital “cornerstone of services marketing” (Berry, 2000), since branding is more crucial for services than physical goods (de Chernatony and McDonald, 1998), and services are governed by characteristics like tangibility, inseparability, diversity and perishability (Kapferer, 2004). With the changing marketing perspectives from the traditional based services to online based ones, organizations need to explore various aspects as to how they can effectively
Conceptual model and hypotheses formulation
Berry's (2000) model describes the main six key elements of the services branding framework. The model (refer Fig. 1) shows that service provider's presented brand and external brand communications, influenced by activities like advertising, promotions, word of mouth, publicity, etc., in turn impact brand awareness (Berry, 2000; So and King, 2010). Brand meaning is impacted by user's experience. Consumer experience with the service provider is influenced by mainly internal brand activities,
Research methodology
A good researcher design ensures that the data and methodology capture not only the research objectives properly (Uwizeyimana and Mathevula, 2018) but also the researcher's plan on how the researcher wants to approach the research problem (Denzin and Lincoln, 2003). The objective of the present work is to evaluate the factors that affect brand equity, customer satisfaction and willingness to undertake courses from e-Learning providers. The study is probabilistic in nature. Hence, like what
Results
In this study we have analyzed a complex structural model where both reflective-reflective measurement models as well as reflective-formative measurement models are present. While a reflective-reflective measurement model indicates that the lower-order constructs have reflective indicators and these lower-order constructs have a reflective relation with higher-order constructs, the reflective-formative measurement model has lower order constructs having reflective indicators and these
Discussion
The main aim of this work was to explore the important predictors of brand equity and willingness to undertake courses from e-Learning platforms. Findings suggest that the identified dimensions are valid and reliable indicators for the respective latent variables. The analysis of the 378 responses reveals that the hypotheses H1, H2, H4, H5, H6, H8, H10 and H11 holds true.
H1 and H2 analyzed the positive impact of service provider's presented brand on brand awareness and brand meaning
Conclusion
To stay ahead of the competitors and build a strong customer base, it is crucial for service providers to look into various marketing and strategic activities that can improve their brand equity and keep their customers satisfied. For exploring the important predictors or brand equity and user's willingness to use e-Learning platforms, this empirical based study has utilized a questionnaire-based survey. The quantitative analysis of the 378 responses using confirmatory factor analysis reveals
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