Corporate Image of Ghanaian Universities (Published)
The objectives of the study were to establish: (i) The relationship between perceived service quality and corporate image of Ghanaian universities. (ii) The relationship between corporate image and perceived service quality, students’ service quality expectation and experience. Corporate image as a function of the three (3) latent variables of the study framework was evaluated using 15 item scale. The five main latent variables that measure the corporate image of tertiary institutions in Ghana include employment opportunities, referrals, lecturers’ reputation, academic and research records, and physical facilities. These variables were initially piloted on some randomly selected MBA students of Methodist University. The pilot study revealed that these variables were relevant to the operationalization of the corporate image concept. The analysed data was randomly collected from 500 students from five different universities in Ghana. The Pearson r was used as the statistical tool to test for the linear relationship between perceived service quality and corporate image of Ghanaian universities. This was found appropriate because of its parametric strength in data analysis. The result shows that the linear relationship between students’ perceived service quality and the image of a university is strong and significant (P<0.004). However, none of the three variables could significantly explain the corporate image of a Ghanaian University independently. In other words, corporate image of a Ghanaian University could be defined by the combined effect of perceived service quality, students’ expectations and experiences of service quality.
Keywords: Corporate Image, Ghanaian Universities., Perceived Service Quality, Students’ Expectations, Students’ Experience