University brand: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Despite its significant role, brand management is an oft-overlooked and challenging aspect in the development of academic institutions, especially in higher education context. Based on a systematic review of journal articles from various sources including ScienceDirect, Emerald Insight and SpringerLink during the 2000–2021 period, the authors of this paper seek to identify, evaluate, and analyze university brand. After careful consideration of academic publications based on their relevance for the research objectives, 43 articles have been included in this comprehensive and integrative review. Special attention is paid to the theories underlying brand management, brand positioning, brand identity of a higher education institution, marketing strategies, as well as implications for management, students, and staff. Moreover, some valuable lessons which a university can learn from a company in marketing are identified. Thereby, the competitive advantages of a university would be firmly enhanced. It is our hope that this paper will explore a new path for further research and provide another perspective for administrators, authors and practitioners in the area of university brand.

1. Introduction

Recently, universities have been developing better strategies for branding in response to growing global competitive challenges [1]. These challenge call for the adoption of a differential strategy in higher education institutions [2]. It is worth noting that higher education is now widely referred to as a market by scholars from different backgrounds. There has been relatively fierce competition for students' enrollment among higher learning institutions [3]. To maintain the success and expansion of universities’ business, it is imperative to develop and maintain a distinctive brand identity through overall branding strategy improvement [4,5]. Even though previous studies show that universities pay a great deal of attention to their reputations, few demonstrate the implementation of branding activities to meet with the growing challenges of the new era. Rarer still are studies that laid out strategies for brand positioning and increasing brand presence, especially for universities with low reputational capital to attract new students and to bolster the position of their brand identity as perceived by stakeholders (parents, students and employees). The race to the top of the global leaderboard of higher educational institutions should rest upon the ability to effectively develop brand name recognition and reputation, be it a national or international university.

Although there has been extensive research concerning the issue of university brand, the number of studies in this area is still limited, especially those that focus on specific aspects of university brand. Among them are studies on the importance of university brand [6,7], the perception of brand image and how to improve brand image [8], the factors of brand satisfaction [9], brand love and brand loyalty [10], types of brand strategies and their influences on brand engagement [11], the role of brand identification [12], brand equity [13], brand reputation [14] and other topics [15,16]. The effect of university brand on universities competitive advantage is actually complicated and multi-dimensional but there has been no integrative and comprehensive approach to evaluate the relationship between university brand and students’ perceived as well as brand positioning, brand identify and university marketing communication. Therefore, based on a systematic literature review [17], the author hope to provide satisfactory answers to the research questions below.

• 1)Which are the main theories applied in university brand research?
• 2)What are the related topics and key findings of these primary areas?
• 3)How does university brand affect students, employees and universities competitive advantage?
• 4)What are critical lessons from company brand marketing?

As presented above, this study not only pays little attention to the role of theories in university brand study, but there are also analises characteristics and applications of these theories in increasing the university's competitive advantage. In addition, a summary of the related topics and key findings of these primary areas have figured out that the research on university brand is quite varied and copious. More interesting, this paper pays special attention on analyzing the influence of university brand with varying mechanisms of stakeholder's perception about university brand. Finally, the article emphasised on the lessons from company brand marketing in practice to position and communicate the university's identity to the target audiences.

2. Methodology

This study employs a structured literature review to analyze university brand related issues. This approach is used to evaluate and interpret a large number of articles of scientific journals [18]. A systematic review is useful as it helps construct a deeper and more comprehensive narrative about the topic of interest [19]. More specifically, the process was conducted in the following steps.

2.1. Identification and selection of database

Articles utilized in the review were extracted from the following databases: ScienceDirect, Emerald Insight and SpringerLink. Our search for articles, review articles and research articles in peer-reviewed journals in English during 2000–2021 using the keywords ‘‘university”, “brand’‘, returned 232,219 results. We narrowed the results to studies more relevant to the research topic by including only articles with ‘‘university’’ and ‘‘brand’’ in the titles, returning 43 articles (Table 1). These studies were thoroughly analyzed.

Table 1.

Databases and search options.

Databases	Search options
	•By keywords: ‘university’, ‘brand’ •Content type: Articles/Review articles and Research articles •Year: From 2000 until 2021 •Language: English	•Advanced search: Title with ‘university’ and ‘brand’
ScienceDirect	121,790	10
Emerald Insight	39,000	20
SpringerLink	71,429	13
Total	232,219	43

2.2. Descriptive analysis

Fig. 1 reports the quantity of articles utilized from each journal. Among these, the International Journal of Educational Management published the most papers on university brand, followed by the Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences. A total of 43 articles published in 25 journals were included in this review. The brand, marketing and education-related journals were discussed extensively. The remainder of the studies published more general subjects, such as reputation, social and behavioral sciences journals.

Fig. 1.

Number of articles used by journal.

A comprehensive search of related existing literature from 2000 to 2021 was conducted as the focus of this study is to investigate the evolution of research on university brand in the twenty-first century. As shown in Fig. 2, 2003 is the earliest year in which an article included in the review was published. There was no article in our databases in the following eight years: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2013 and 2017. In 2016, the number of articles started to rapidly increase, but dropped again in 2018 and 2019, then reached a peak of 8 articles in 2020. This pattern indicates that the topic of university brand topic has not attracted regular attention from scholars.

Fig. 2.

Evolution of the number of reviewed articles over time.

Fig. 3 shows the different countries involved. We found that the large number of studies carried out in UK and multi-countries, accounting for more than 70% of all articles referenced, but there is little research focused on developing countries in Asia. This can be explained by the increased internationalization of universities, the need to address brand reputation, brand engagement in international environment, service quality and brand personality arises.

Fig. 3.

Countries studied in university brand.

3. Critical analysis and review of the current contributions

3.1. Major theories used in university brand research

Various theoretical approaches of university brand research have emerged throughout the period. This paper discusses most common theories used in university brand literature (see Table 2). We focus on the brand equity theory and social theories in university brand study such as social identity theory, social exchange theory, theory of social representations and theory of brand community, because most existing literature fall under these theories based on our review. In addition, other theories that scholars employ in university brand are also mentioned in this article.

Table 2.

Theories used in university brand literature.

Theory	Key findings	Authors
Brand equity theory	University brand equity is constituted by various constructs, including students' perceived quality, aware of the brand, trust, loyal and brand association.	[20,21]
Social identity theory	University brand identification is how a student perceives his or her sense of belonging or oneness with the university as a result of their interaction with the organization. It is essential in reinforcing a student's positive behaviors towards the university.	[2,4,[22], [23], [24]]
Social exchange theory	Employing this theory to a better understanding of developing university brand as an employer rests upon an implicit commitment to offer a unique employment experience to its staff with monetary and non-monetary compensation.	[[25], [26], [27], [28], [29]]
Social representations theory	A brand is a social representation which enables the communication and interaction among social groups and the establishment of tangent social constructs, such as once the university's logo is deeply entrenched in stakeholders' consciousness, it functions as a lens through which one may observe the brand and the connotations associated with the organization.	[12]
Brand community theory	A brand community is generated by the social bonds among a brand's users through the acknowledgement of their shared values, rituals, customs, and a sense of loyalty towards the brand. Nurturing and developing a university brand community, and that they are more complete with a network that connects related institutions to students, as well as a brand, its products, and services.	[30]
Other theories	Theory of reasoned action discovers the association between university success and brand loyalty in terms of university level and department level; The relationship between the actual service provided and the students' experience as well as their satisfaction are determined by the expectation disconfirmation theory; Need to belong theory provides a theoretical foundation to explain why students develop relationship with other students and staff, who are involved in university social augmenters, and what makes them invest and remain more time and effort in these relationships; Self-congruity theory and self-concept motivations finds that value congruence has a significant positive impact on behavioral outcomes, such as students' trust, satisfaction, affective commitment and loyalty.	[2,5,8,23,31]

3.1.1. Brand equity theory

According to Keller [32], brand equity associates with brand, brand name and logo, and significantly influences the value of products or services. Consequently, consumers' experience of the brand, including their discovery, feeling, received message and interaction with its environment determine how powerful the brand is in the long run. Brand equity is a distinctive element of brand recognition whereas recognizing a brand name positively influences consumers' responses to the product or service [33,34]. Marketers create brand equity by capitalizing on the brand's superior quality, perceived social impacts, trustworthiness, and consumers' self-identification with the brand [32,33,35]. As far as the market for higher education is concerned, general university brand equity is constituted by various constructs, including how customers view an institution's quality, to what degree they are aware of the brand, whether they trust the brand and are loyal to it and what values the brand associate with [20]. These are the deciding factors in the development of value and brand equity that contribute to students' brand experience. Furthermore, according to Ng and Forbes [21]: auxiliary services including enrollment protocol, payment options, campus facilities and students' housing are all important in augmenting the core service experience. Although these supporting activities alone may not be sufficient in creating a superior university experience, they are instrumental to achieving that objective and the two layers of activities (core and supporting) are intrinsically intertwined in the creation of the entire university experience for users.

3.1.2. Social theories

3.1.2.1. Social identity theory

Ashforth and Mael [36] define identification as an individual's self-association and integration within an organization to such an extent that he or she perceives the organization's accomplishments and failures as his or her own. Accordingly, identification indicates the extent to which an organization exhibits and elevates an individual's personality. The individual's perception, understanding, and experience with the organization are deciding factors in measuring how strong the identification is [37]. In a later study, Wilkins & Huisman [38] indicated that brand identification is a perceptual concept that, at a psychological level, demonstrates the integration of an individual's character into that of an organization. From this perspective, brand identification can extend to include persons who are not members of the organization. In the context of the higher education, brand identification is essentially how a student perceives his or her sense of belonging or oneness with the university as a result of their immediate interaction with the organization [4]. The common goals, identities, and values of the university and the students are products of the positive correlation between their perceived attractiveness of the university's identity and their identification with the university [2,22,39]. Consequently, it is possible to formulate students' attitudes and behaviors based on their identification with the university. Students and alumni’ self-esteem and self-efficacy are affected by university identification which ultimately impacts their goal-oriented behaviors [23,24]. Thus, university identification is essential in reinforcing a student's positive behaviors towards the university.

3.1.2.2. Social exchange theory

Developing university brand as an employer rests upon an implicit commitment [[25], [26], [27]] to offer a unique employment experience to its staff with monetary and non-monetary compensation [40]. As the social exchange theory [28] holds, an institution must show an obligation to provide personal and professional fulfillment and is reciprocated by employees through high retention rate, superior performance, and a higher level of commitment [29,41].

3.1.2.3. Social representations theory

From a psychological standpoint, a brand is a social representation which enables the communication and interaction among social groups and the establishment of tangent social constructs, such as products and services, [42]. Consumer perceptions [43], brand positioning [44], and brand connections have all been studied using the theory of social representations [45]. Both social representations and brand connections are used to arrange social objects to elicit communication and establish a common vision. Erjansola et al. [12] use a free-association approach based on the social-representation paradigm to investigate the associations produced by a university logo symbol. Once the university's logo is deeply entrenched in stakeholders' consciousness, it functions as a lens through which one may observe the brand and the connotations associated with the organization. Nevertheless, it may be a time-consuming process to establish a connection between the logo and the brand.

3.1.2.4. Brand community theory

A brand community, according to Muniz and O'Guinn [46], is generated by the social bonds among a brand's users, notwithstanding their geographical location, through the acknowledgement of their shared values, rituals, customs, and a sense of loyalty towards the brand. Intriguingly, scholars agree that it is possible to nurture and develop a brand community, and that they are more complete with a network that connects related institutions to customers, as well as a brand, its products, and services [30].

3.1.3. Other theories

Need to belong theory provides a theoretical foundation to explain why students develop relationship with other students and staff, who are involved in university social augmenters, and what makes them invest and remain more time and effort in these relationships [5]. Erdomuş et al. [31] demonstrate the association between university success and brand loyalty in terms of university level and department level using the theory of reasoned action. Students' attitudes of their department are positively influenced by teaching personnel, graduate job opportunities, and course success. The teaching staff and the general atmosphere, however, influence students' attitudes about universities. Panda et al. [8] employed the expectation disconfirmation theory to discover that if the gap between the actual service provided and the students' experience is negative, satisfaction decreases, and vice versa. A positive disconfirmation binds a customer to a brand and encourages loyalty. Finally, self-congruity theory and self-concept motivations finds that value congruence has a significant positive impact on behavioral outcomes, such as students’ trust, satisfaction, affective commitment and loyalty [2,23].

In the following section, we focus on the primary areas of study and key findings related to the university brand.

3.2. Primary areas of research topics

Table 3 states a summary of the related topics and key findings of these primary areas.

Table 3.

Primary areas of study and key findings.

Area of study	Number of articles	Key findings	Authors
University brand	10	Emphasizing the need for universities to understand brand concept and develop good brand, which can benefit universities. Stating the measurements of evaluating brand universities and many attributes of “good” university brand through interviewing students.	[3,[5], [6], [7],15,[47], [48], [49], [50], [51]]
Brand image	8	Identifying the perception of brand image and the attributes of brand image, and how to improve brand image. Identifying the factors of brand image and the influence of brand image on brand engagement.	[[8], [9], [10],14,[52], [53], [54], [55]]
Outcome of brand management	8	Identifying the factors of brand satisfaction, brand love, and brand loyalty, such as brand image, university service quality.	[[8], [9], [10],15,27,31,54,56]
Brand strategy	8	Identifying the necessary of a good brand strategy and demonstrating some brand strategies and their influences on brand engagement, such as social media, library strategy and employer strategy.	[6,16,48,51,[57], [58], [59], [60]]
Brand identification	8	Stating the interpretation of brand identification and the role of brand identification on brand engagement and outcome.	[2,4,12,23,52,[61], [62], [63]]
Brand equity	5	Identifying the importance of brand equity; Describing the dimensions of brand equity and their relationships. Identifying the factors and the influence of brand equity on university.	[1,5,13,20,64,65]
Brand reputation	5	Identifying the importance of brand reputation; Identifying the factors and the influence of brand reputation on brand engagement.	[8,14,50,56,58]
Brand engagement in international environment	5	Identifying the difficulties of brand engagement under international perception.	[11,[66], [67], [68], [69]]
Service quality	4	Identifying the importance of high service quality and the influence of service quality in brand management.	[8,10,27,54]
Brand personality	3	Identifying the scale of brand personality and the factors of student satisfactions.	[2,5,15]
Employer branding	3	The influence of employer brand on brand management and the perception of employees are congruent on employer brand across different situation.	[16,27,70]

The paper will stratify the results of the studies into the following points.

3.2.1. Brand image, outcome of brand management, brand strategy and brand identification

Most studies examine the factors of brand image, how to improve brand image and the influence of brand image on brand engagement [[8], [9], [10],14,[52], [53], [54], [55]]. Moreover, some studies focus on the outcomes of brand management demonstrate the factors of brand satisfaction, brand love, and brand loyalty [[8], [9], [10],15,27,31,54,56]. In addition, brand strategy topics include some brand strategies and their influence on brand engagement, such as social media, library strategy and employer strategy as well as managing brand internationally [6,16,48,51,[57], [58], [59], [60]]. Finally, some researchers discover the impact of brand identification on prestige, interorganizational and intraorganizational competition, and outcome of brand management (word-of mouth, active engagement and loyalty) [2,4,12,23,52,[61], [62], [63]].

3.2.2. University brands assessment

Almost a quarter of the articles focused on the assessment of university brands and discovery of the characteristics of a “good” university brand as well as the strategies for developing a university brand with high prestige [5,7,15,50,51]. Some studies also emphasize the importance of university brand, which may influence the students’ satisfaction and benefit the universities themselves, and devise some strategies to improve university brand, such as an adapted branding strategy in international market [6], establishing a brand community with alumina [47], and applying social media to attract students [3].

3.2.3. Other respects

Besides, a variety of other topics were examined, such as: brand equity [1,5,13,20,64,65], brand reputation [8,14,50,56,58], brand engagement in international environment [11,[66], [67], [68], [69]], service quality [8,10,27,54], brand personality [2,5,15] and employer branding [16,27,70]. Thus, it can be said that the research on university brand is quite diverse and abundant with many aspects exploited by researchers.

4. University brand influence

University brand influence students, employees, and universities competitive advantage with different mechanisms of stakeholder's perception about university brand (see Table 4 and Fig. 4). Some of the major areas are reviewed hereafter.

Table 4.

University brand influence.

University brand influence	Key findings	Authors
Improving students' satisfaction, loyalty, trust, and their behavioral intention	University brands influence students' service quality trust, university reputation influence students' loyalty and thier behavioral intention.	[1,8,13,30,54,56]
Attracting students and retaining employees	Social responsibility, ethics, and professional development opportunities are principal factors affecting the students' choice of school. And employer image, recognition, upward mobility, and job security are instrumental to maintaining a high retention rate of current employees.	[2,9,11,27,71]
Promoting students' university learning experiences	Awareness of the brand, perception of the quality, the association with the brand as well as learning and emotional environment, brand trust, brand loyalty, and university reputation advance students' university learning experiences.	[1,5,59]
Enhancing students' identification	University branding plays a crucial role in reinforcing students' association with the university's brand identity. They promote the university by disseminating positive word-of-mouth, engaging in recruitment activities, and wearing school-related attire.	[2,4]
Reducing the disparity between the university's and student's expectation of the brand	University brands can support to control brand expectation by minimizing the discrepancy between the university's projected image and its impression on student.	[8,55,72]
Sustaining competitive advantage of the universities	University branding plays a crucial role in cementing competitive differentiation among universities with regards to reputation, trustworthiness and attractiveness.	[8,14,15,50,56,58,73]

Fig. 4.

University brand influence.

4.1. Improving students’ satisfaction, loyalty, trust, and their behavioral intention

University brands influence students' satisfaction, loyalty, trust, and behavioral intention. According to McAlexander et al. [48], fostering loyalty leads to a good return on investment with regards to increased support for the university, as well as its products and programs. Furthermore, authors have indicated that students' satisfaction, service quality trust, and behavioral intentions are positively affected by the university's brand image [8,54]. More interesting, there is a strong positive correlation between students' sentimental connection with the institution and brand equity, student satisfaction as well as an improved sense of community [1,13]. Recently, Kaushal and Ali [56] argued that university reputation influence students' loyalty both directly and indirectly through satisfaction.

4.2. Attracting students and retaining employees

University branding plays a crucial role in attracting incoming students to the university, academic talent, international students and retaining employees [9,11,27]. The papers by Basha et al. [11] discussed various aspects of international universities brands including the main campus location, the offered academic programs and the employed delivery methods affecting students' perceptions, which is consistent with the findings from Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka [71]. Almost all authors agree that university brand marketing strategies have made a significant contribution to attract international students. In addition, the position of the university in national and international university rankings is also a principal factor affecting the students' choice of school [2]. Furthermore, Alwi et al. [9] and Yameen et al. [74] have found that an organization's sense of social responsibility, ethics, and professional development opportunities are essential in attracting academic talent, whereas employer image, recognition, upward mobility, and job security are instrumental to maintaining a high retention rate of current employees.

4.3. Promoting students’ university learning experiences

According to Pinar et al. [1], influence students' collective and/or individual university learning experiences are affected by several aspects of university brand such as: awareness of the brand, perception of the quality, the association with the brand as well as learning and emotional environment, brand trust, brand loyalty, and university reputation. Furthermore, students' social experiences could potentially be used to target incoming students as a pre-enrollment factor [5]. Participation in university co-curricular activities is one of the most common things students post about their university experience on social media sites. Students frequently try to introduce themselves to people in their social networks through this activity. Making a student's identification with the university and its co-curricular activities accessible to everyone in his or her social network may be interpreted as a public confession of love for the university. Thus the interaction with potential students are beneficial to developing and reinforcing students' positive behaviors towards the university.

4.4. Enhancing students’ identification

Students' identification with the university benefits from university brand reputation. Researchers have highlighted the role of national and international rankings of universities as well as students' perception of such rankings [2]. As a result, they promote the university by disseminating positive word-of-mouth, engaging in recruitment activities, and wearing school-related attire. Furthermore, effective brand strategies can reinforce students' and parents' association with the university's brand identity [4].

4.5. Reducing the disparity between the university's and student's expectation of the brand

Universities reinforce brand image by employing various information sources [72]. Brand management controls brand expectation by minimizing the discrepancy between the university's projected image and its impression on student [8]. Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic has necessitated the development and increased application of technological innovations, as the majority of higher education institutions have initiative online outreach programs to create favorable e-word-of-mouth towards their brand image. In addition, Shehzadi et al. [55] indicate that students' e-learning process and their satisfaction are positively impacted by the quality of information and telecommunication technology, e-service, and e-information. More interesting, other research results also determine that electronic word-of-mouth and students' satisfaction contribute to the improvement of the universities' brand image.

4.6. Sustaining competitive advantage of the universities

Plummer [75] have indicated that consumers' decision in selecting which brands to engage with is rooted in their view of the brands’ character or brand personality. Understanding the concept of brand personality is useful in cementing competitive differentiation among universities with regards to reputation, trustworthiness, attractiveness, liveliness, attention to detail, and cosmopolitan dimensions [15]. [8,14,15,50,56,58,73]. In addition, recent studies indicate that the quality of higher education is an essential element of country competitiveness [73].

5. University brand strategy

Branding is desired and more important to universities. Because branding theory has its origins in product marketing, the challenge for higher educations may be that the application to education services is limited. This study pays special attention on analyzing the critical lessons from company brand marketing. It considered timely and suitable in furthering understanding in the area of university brand. The research outlines the brand positioning strategy, brand identify and marketing communication strategy in details hereafter.

5.1. Brand positioning strategy

In recent years, universities have focus on brand positioning as a significant piece of their strategic development plan [4,67]. Marketers use positioning techniques to ensure that their target audiences receive consistent brand messages [48]. Marketing practitioner have increasingly relied on relationship-derived models and language to establish superior brands beyond mere positioning, according to Ref. [76]. And to accomplish specific positioning statements, universities are increasingly investing in advertising, marketing techniques such as logos, mascots as well as student activities, and facilities. In particular, university administrators in their advisory capacity are well-positioned to identify the preferences and subtleties of a university brand community to ensure competitive positioning strategies. Empathic awareness of customers' demands, preferences, attitudes, and behaviors are required to effectively establish brand community. A thriving brand community recognizes the community's core values and rewards its members in a manner that is compatible with the institution's goals [48]. Furthermore, university social augments represent a cost-effective measure in appealing to new students while fostering the brand's positioning in the eyes of present students. Researchers also suggest university administrators encourage students to share school-related contents including their co-curricular events on social media platforms as an effort of brand identity positioning [5].

5.2. Brand identify and marketing communication strategy

While numerous studies show that university identification can positively influence students' view of the university, few explore how university identification elements and procedures are established, which has an impact on students' behavior toward the university [4]. The article written by Ali-Choudhury et al. [61] found that building a university brand makes sense for different potential students, fulfilling this task while avoiding brand dilution and/or reducing its appeal to certain groups is a complicated problem and needs to be prioritized to be solved. Moreover, brand identification has a positive effect on the brand-supportive behaviors of alumni. To put it another way, higher education may have a distinct mission, a high-quality curriculum, well-trained faculty, and cutting-edge technology, but universities are advised not to belittle students. Students' perceptions of the university experience are shaped in part by functional factors such as programs’ quality and staff qualifications [77], but also by on-campus social life [78] and university social experience [79].

Dealing with the above issues, the authors recommend that higher education should establish and design prestigious extracurricular activities for students, and create maximum conditions for interaction between regular students with high-quality students and staff to increase the diversity of university social experiences [5,79]. Furthermore, through internal marketing communication activities, university administrators should make every effort to boost the brand image of social enhancers. This can be accomplished by communicating to the internal audience a strong, remarkable, and distinct brand identity of co-curricular activities through brand marketing efforts (e.g., students). Through activities and experience provided by the university, students foster a personal bond with the institution and as reciprocation engage in higher-level university-supporting behaviors, ultimately acting as genuine “university ambassadors” [4]. Furthermore, brand and marketing managers should carefully evaluate their business environment while redesigning a visual identity [12]. Some authors recommend that institutions develop an integrated plan for implementing these brand management operations so that the communications portray a consistent, distinctive, and appealing product [49,71,80]. Finally, brand recognition should be monitored on a regular basis and factored into predictive modeling as part of institutional strategic planning [23]. These implications for education managers since they can control the branding expenditures like communication spending, social spending, and other brand-building investments towards university brand.

6. Discussion

Despite its crucial role and the monumental challenge it involves, brand management is often neglected in higher education context. Existing related research has not adopted a comprehensive systematize perspective to analyze and discuss the theories used in university brand research, the effect of university brand on students, employees and universities competitive advantage as well as the effectually positioning and higher education marketing communication strategy. This study argues that the theory of brand equity by Keller [32] and theory of social identity by Ashforth and Mael [36] are the most employed and thus most consequential in the area of university brand. They focus on the student perceptions and their response to university brand. Thus, the complex psychological process of students encourages further discussion of the brand management in higher education. This study pays special attention on analyzing the effect of university brand on students, employees, and universities competitive advantage as well as their mechanisms. With regard to students, university brands influence students' satisfaction, loyalty, trust, and behavioral intention, while the effects of university brands on employees has been growth opportunities and job security [[8], [9], [10],15,27,31,54,56]. Further, it influences the students' university learning experiences and their identification [1,2,4,5], in this circumstance, more effort is needed on researchers' part to study how brand strategies can actively foment the associations of the institution's brand identity. Concerning to unceasingly increase universities' competitive advantage, based on the type of classification as academic or applied university, profit or non-profit one, each university/college should pay enough attention to valuable lessons from corporate marketing.

7. Implications

This study provides an in-depth analysis and synthesis of the body of knowledge so far produced in the area of university brand. In terms of implications for managers, this paper provides to the several critical lessons which a university can learn from industries to apply in education markets. First, a university should consider behavioral aspects in its efforts to communicate the university's identity to the target audiences. A university's identity is conveyed through messages displayed by the behavior of employee and management as well as organizational approach to social and environmental issues. The behavioral aspect of a university's identity mix elements manifests in the university's treatment of its employees and students, the representation of the university's values by managers in the media and public engagements, and the extent to which a university supports environmental and social causes.

Second, universities should focus on three main aspects of communication which require well-thought-out planning: 1) interpersonal communication (word of mouth information from a contained environment); 2) intermediary communication (word of mouth information disseminated by local mass media, governmental bodies; and 3) intrapersonal communication (psychological effect of past experiences and deeply-entrenched images of the institution). Specifically, the effect of university brands on stakeholders is complicated by the application of technology products in e-learning process, the national education brand program, and the public policy perspective. This review highlights that managers is needed to garner deeper understanding about the characteristics of universities competitive advantage from difference aspects.

Third, positioning university decisions, brand identify and higher education marketing communication plans may also vary depending on the difference in the each country's macro environment, cultural and socio-economic conditions as well as the psychophysiological characteristics of different types of students.

Fourth, the study explores in depth the different mechanisms of student's perception about university brand, which points to the fact that students' satisfaction, service quality trust, and behavioral intentions are positively affected by the university's brand image. More importantly, a university does not only need to provide students a distinctive vision, high-quality curriculum, highly-trained lecturer, highly advanced technology, but also to improve the social, academic, and psychological environment for them. In sum, university need not only introduce strong strategies regarding their brand performances but also reevaluate comprehensively the brand building and management activities, brand development policies and regulate their university brand strategies accordingly.

In terms of implications for scholars, apart from summarizing the related research on the brand management in higher education, the paper stimulates future research a new issue that universities may face with their brand is the increasing importance of online presence and reputation. With the rise of online education and remote learning, universities must ensure that their brand is effectively represented on digital platforms. This includes having a user-friendly website, engaging social media presence, and positive online reviews. Some research questions can be raised as.

• -How does digital marketing affect the university brand, and how do students and stakeholders perceive the university brand through digital channels?
• -How do different stakeholders, such as students, faculty, staff, and alumni, perceive the university brand, and how can universities develop a cohesive brand message that resonates with all stakeholders?
• -How do universities maintain a consistent brand across different campuses, satellite locations, and online programs, and what challenges do they face in doing so?
• -What is the impact of the university brand on fundraising efforts, and how can universities build a stronger brand to attract more donors and funding?

We hope that this paper will explore a new path for further research and provide another perspective for academics and practitioners interested in the topics of university brand.

8. Conclusions

This study examined peer-reviewed journal articles from the ScienceDirect, Emerald Insight and SpringerLink database using a structured literature review during the 2000–2021 period to identify, evaluate and analyze university brand. The main innovation is to provide a comprehensive and systematic review of the current literature in university brand, while simultaneously exploring the impact of existing research on branding university and brand management, especially brand positioning and communication strategy for universities. As such, these findings enrich the extant knowledge on the brand management in higher education.

Despite our efforts, this study inevitably suffers from some limitations. First, concerning the identification and selection of database, we are aware that there are articles we may have overlooked such as books, conference proceedings and other relevant sources in the literature. Therefore, it is our hope that future work may use more established databases such as Ebsco, Pubmed, ProQuest etc., and other reliable documents apart from journal articles for even more relevant and interesting studies. Second, many articles that we analyzed are based in the UK and the USA. Thus, this limitation leaves room for improvement in future studies with a focus on other parts of the world, especially in the developing countries in Asia. Third, higher education policies and strategies of governments and institution all over the world have placed an increasing focus on interdisciplinarity, from the positioning, developing of brand identity to overall brand management. Therefore, future study could classify brand issues approaches such as students, stakeholders, society, law, policy, accounting, marketing etc. Certainly, this important topic should receive more attention by researchers in the future.

Author contribution statement

All authors listed have significantly contributed to the development and the writing of this article.

Data availability statement

Data included in article/supp. Material/referenced in article.

Additional information

Supplementary content related to this article has been publish online at [URL].

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper

Biographies

Xiao Yaping is lecturer in School of Economics at Central South University of Forestry and Technology. She researches in the areas of investors' behavior and consumers' behavior. Her works have published in internationally recognised journals such as Journal of Business Economics and Management; Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence; Sustainability.

Postal address: School of Economics, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha, Hunan, China [Postal Address, No.498 South Shaoshan Street, Changsha City, Hunan province, 410,004, China]; Email:xiaoyaping@hnu.edu.cn

Nguyen Thi Thu Huong is lecturer in green marketing and brand management at Vietnam National University, Hanoi. She teaches and publishes in the areas of green consumption, brand management, greenwashing behavior and marketing ethics. Her research has appeared in internationally recognised journals such as Journal of Business Economics and Management; Ciencia e Tecnica Vitivinicola; Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business; and Sustainability. She also received invitation to review manuscript for some journal such as Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management and International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research and Journal of distribution science.

Postal address: VNU School of Interdisciplinary Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam [Postal Address: 144 Xuan Thuy Street, Cau Giay District, Hanoi City, 113,000, Vietnam]; Email:huong1485.sis@vnu.edu.vn; Telephone number: +84966076688

Nguyen Hoang Nam is a Ph.D in applied economics in 2019 from Hunan University, China. He is specialized in both economics and business. For now, He is working as a dean of faculty of banking and finance in Dai Nam university in Hanoi, Vietnam. So far, He had published 3 papers on business and economics in ISI journals.

Postal address: Falculty of Economics and Business, PHENIKAA University, Yen Nghia, Ha Dong, Hanoi City, 12,116, Vietnam. Email: nam.nguyenhoang@phenikaa-uni.edu.vn; Telephone number: +840866496873; ORCID: 0000-0002-3726-7986

Phan Dinh Quyet is Deputy Head of Department of External Affairs and Communication, Thuongmai University, Hanoi, Vietnam. His research focuses on sustainable strategy, consumer behavior, marketing, logistics and supply chain. He has participated in several research projects funded by universities, ministries and provinces in Vietnam.

Postal address: Deputy Head of Department of External Affairs and Communication, Thuongmai University, Vietnam [Postal Address: 79 Ho Tung Mau Street, Mai Dich Ward, Cau Giay District, Hanoi City, 122,868, Vietnam]; Email:quyetphan@tmu.edu.vn

Cao Tuan Khanh is Associate Professor working for Faculty of Marketing, Thuongmai University, Hanoi, Vietnam. His research orientation focuses on marketing management, marketing strategy, sustainable consumer behavior, food consumption and green marketing. He has had papers published on internationally recognised journals such as International Journal of Marketing Studies, Journal of Consumer Behavior, Sustainability, Foods, Strategic Direction and Publishing Research Quarterly. He has managed several research projects funded by universities and ministries of Vietnam.

Postal address: Head of Department, Faculty of Marketing, Thuongmai University, Hanoi, Vietnam [Postal Address: 79 Ho Tung Mau Street, Mai Dich Ward, Cau Giay District, Hanoi City, 122,868, Vietnam]; Email:khanhct@tmu.edu.vn

Dao Thi Ha Anh is a Doctor of Business Administration working for Faculty of Business Managemnet, University of Economics and Business, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Viet Nam. Her research orientation focuses on brand management, marketing strategy & services, consumers' behavior and loyalty. She has had papers published on internationally recognised journal such as International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research. Besides, she also consulted on marketing for some companies in Vietnam such as Smiletech Digital Technology Joint Stock Company and ICT Law International Law Firm.

Postal address: VNU University of Economics and Business, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam [Postal Address: 144 Xuan Thuy Street, Cau Giay District, Hanoi City, 113,000, Vietnam]; Email:Daohaanh@vnu.edu.vn