David B. Yerger

Optimizing engagement: brand identification and alumni donation behaviors

Purpose – As colleges and universities face the shifts of decreasing government funds, increased operating costs, and waning alumni financial support, institutions are now plunging themselves into practices traditionally associated with the business sector. Practices like branding are now being used as a mechanism to increase engagement of alumni and potential donors. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of brand identification, or the defining of the self through association with an organization, on alumni supportive behaviors. Design/methodology/approach – The researchers surveyed alumni of a mid-sized state-run university in the mid-Atlantic region of the USA to see if identification affected donation behaviors such as choice to donate, total dollar amount donated, and the number of times donated. Findings – The survey findings showed that brand identification correlated with choice to donate, increased donation dollar amount, and the number of donations. Findings also suggested that int...

The Role of Satisfaction in Alumni Perceptions and Supportive Behaviors

This article examines the relationship between alumni satisfaction and brand identification, university brand image, promotion of the institution, choosing to donate, and donor level. A survey was sent to all alumni of a medium-sized, state-run university in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States with active e-mail addresses on file. A total of 2,763 usable responses were returned. The findings revealed that satisfaction should be assessed through two subconstructs including satisfaction with student affairs and satisfaction with campus resources. Satisfaction with student affairs consistently had a larger impact on alumni supportive behaviors than did satisfaction with campus resources.

A Novel Low-Cost Indicator of Student Perseverance and Its Association with College Student Academic Performance

Within the research literature investigating how student characteristics related to perseverance impact academic outcomes, leading scholars have encouraged the development of new measurements, both survey and non-survey based. We introduce here an innovative non-survey-based measurement, derived from common higher education variables, that reflects the perseverance construct. The created perseverance proxy is easily created and explainable to audiences with minimal statistical background. The variable was used to analyze academic outcomes at a mid-sized public university in the United States. The perseverance proxy strongly positively associates with academic outcomes, as measured both by GPA and odds of academic probation, in multivariate analysis across both genders. The perseverance proxy explains more of the variation in academic outcomes than any of the cognitive and financial aid variables used in the analysis. The technique for constructing the perseverance proxy is easily replicated at any college or university having data on students’ high school ranking and college admission exam scores.

Recalibrating Our Understanding of Retention

In a study exploring how organizational identification impacted college retention and performance outcomes at a university in the United States, we found the mere act of taking the survey emerged as an unexpectedly strong result. Using propensity score matching, we found that those who took the voluntary survey during the first week of school were 6%, 9%, and 11% more likely to retain by the second, third, and fourth semesters, respectively. Participation in a short survey had notable retention predictive power 18 months later. These results provoke a series of questions on retention much more broadly considered and invite us to recalibrate our understanding of mechanisms for improving retention.

How Pretrial Expectations and Anticipated Obstacles Impact University Brand Identification

ABSTRACT Despite the growing interest in brand identification as a mechanism of soliciting organizational citizenship behaviors, little is known about the role of expectations and anticipated obstacles as antecedents of the construct. To address this gap, this study examines antecedents of brand identification including academic and social expectations as well as academic, financial, and personal obstacles in first-time incoming first-year college students. Results align with the theoretical underpinnings of brand identification, namely social identity theory, by showing that social expectations explain far more variance in brand identification than the other antecedents in the model. The resulting insights provide guidance to administrators on the pretrial consumer perceptions of students that correlate with brand identification.