Goyal, Mahendra K.; Weiler, Betty --- "Brand matters - University education and employment" [2006] MonashBusRw 45; (2006) 2(3) Monash Business Review 38

Brand matters
University education and employment

Mahendra K. Goyal, Betty Weiler

Business degree branding proves popular with employers, report Mahendra K. Goyal and Betty Weiler.

The higher education sector has much to gain from being able to report the employment success rates of its graduates as an outcome, and even more to gain from an improved understanding of what drives these success rates, including the potential impacts of course (undergraduate degree) type, delivery and/or content. Thus there is a continuing need for researchers to gather primary data from graduates and employers in order to better understand the relationships between higher education variables and employment outcomes.

This case study of one ‘set’ of university graduates over the period 2000 to 2003 presents not conclusive evidence of a causal relationship between the variables examined, but rather a basis for identifying avenues for further hypothesis-testing.

In particular, the analysis of open-ended responses from a telephone survey of graduates, together with known information about respondents’ course(s) of study, provide some insights into the relationships between what they studied and what they report about their employment. The specific variables that examined here are course branding (the name of the degree), graduate attribute competence and employment success.

The sample population included graduates from one city-based campus who had completed either a Bachelor of Business and Commerce (BBCom) degree with a range of majors including a tourism major, or a Bachelor of Tourism (BTour) degree. While there is variation in the content of these degree programs, one unusual feature of this case study is that the core content of the BBCom and the BTour are identical – in effect, only the branding of the degrees differs. Other commonalities are the Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank (ENTER) cut-off scores. ENTER scores are calculated by the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC) on a demand-and-supply basis, and university ENTER cut-off scores thus tend to reflect both students’ preferences for a particular course at a particular campus and the ‘quality’ of the student cohort admitted to the course based on their high school examination results. In this study, the ENTER score was the same for both courses in any given year, which meant that the study could look at similarities and differences in employment outcomes for the two pools of graduates knowing that they were virtually identical in entry requirements and course content, and thus differed mainly with respect to the brand of the degree.

The survey gathered information about graduates’ employment, self-ratings of their graduate attribute competencies and perceptions of employment success factors with respect to getting their current job and doing their job. The information collected provided a data set with which it was possible to explore and test a number of post hoc hypotheses about these variables in relation to the branding of both the degree (Business vs. Tourism) and the major.

Branding

Although marketing literature defines branding as much more than a title, slogan or logo, in this study branding was the name of the degree (course) and the name of the major. In particular, the focus was on the business (BBCom) brand versus the tourism (BTour) brand, and its relationship to graduate attribute and employment outcomes. The importance of university brand was mentioned by respondents as being of importance (however the role of the university brand was not directly assessed in this case study, as all respondents were graduates of the same university). An investigation of the impact of university brand on employment outcomes would certainly provide a fruitful line of enquiry in future research.

Graduate attributes

One of the few sets of questions in the survey which used a Likert scale of pre-determined response options asked graduates to self-rate their competency with respect to graduate attributes. Respondents were asked to rate themselves on a scale from 1 (“strongly disagree that the course improved my …”) to 5 (“strongly agree that the course improved my …”) on nine attributes (eight from university policy documents regarding desired graduate attributes, and the ninth an additional ‘knowledge of tourism’ question. Some limitations to this questioning was that graduates were not asked whether they thought these attributes were important, but only if the course improved their competency on each attribute, and graduates rated themselves rather than being objectively assessed on their level of competence.

Employment

Many studies have measured employment outcomes in terms of income levels or employment status. Some studies have operationalised employability as the time that elapses between graduation and employment. Other studies have examined the number of years spent in a career or an occupational field as the dependent variable.

This study looked at whether the graduate was employed (generally) at the time the survey was conducted and whether they were employed in their area of specialisation (e.g. tourism). This variable was operationalised by determining the number (and percentage) of graduates who reported in the survey that they were employed (full-time, part-time or casual), the number who reported being in permanent employment, and the number who reported being employed in a position relevant to their studies (business or tourism). This paper reports frequencies and percentages with respect to whether their current employment was described as permanent and as relevant to their course of study (business or tourism). The respondents were also asked for the name of their employer and their position or job title and these were used as checks on the “relevant job to your studies” question.

Results and discussion

The two pools of graduates (BBCom and BTour) did not differ in terms of what they have to offer as potential employees.

However, regarding employment outcomes, while BBCom graduates are no more likely to gain permanent employment than BTour graduates, they are significantly more likely to gain business-related employment than BTour graduates are to gain tourism-related employment, suggesting that the business degree brand is more attractive to business employers than the tourism degree brand is to the tourism industry. However, it may also simply be a function of the availability of more employment opportunities in business (arguably a broader field than tourism).

Similarly, there were no significant differences between business graduates who did not major in tourism and business graduates with a tourism major with respect to permanent employment success. Also consistent with the previous finding, the study found that business graduates who did not major in tourism were significantly more likely to gain business-related employment than business graduates with tourism majors were to gain tourism-related employment.

Perhaps most notable were the results comparing graduates of the BBCom (tourism major) to the BTour graduates. The core content of these courses is identical and yet, in terms of employment, they deliver different outcomes. Graduates with a degree branded as a ‘business’ degree were significantly more likely to be employed in tourism-related positions than were graduates with a degree branded as a ‘tourism’ degree. Like the previous results, the differences were significant only with respect to gaining ‘relevant’ employment; both groups were highly successful in gaining permanent employment. Similar to the previous comparison, this suggests that the business degree brand (with tourism major) is more attractive to employers than the tourism degree brand, at least with respect to gaining tourism-relevant employment.

In answer to the open-ended question: “What aspects of university study helped you to get your current job?”, there was a high level of consensus among respondents, with the most frequent responses falling into the category “the business degree/the qualification”. In other words, course branding was perceived by respondents as playing the most important role in helping them get their current job. Aspects of course content and particular skills were also frequently mentioned, suggesting that graduate attributes also are perceived by respondents to play a major role. However, no individual graduate attribute was mentioned as frequently as the business degree ‘brand’. As an aside, the ‘university’ brand was mentioned by a handful of respondents.

Further research and conclusions

In terms of theory-building, to a certain extent this study has resulted in more questions than answers. Some provocative results have been produced, but in the absence of an experimental design, explanations for these are largely speculative even at the case study level, let alone trying to generalise to a wider population. Further examination of the variables in this study is warranted, particularly the impacts of course branding on employment outcomes in other contexts. In addition, educators continue to be in need of more information about how differences in course content and delivery contribute to employment success, both in terms of graduates getting relevant employment and graduates being able to do their jobs. It would also be interesting to see studies that report on variables that impact on graduate attribute competence – what factors enhance or inhibit the acquisition of various attributes?

As previously stated, for the graduate population that was the focus of this study, no relationship was found between course brand and how well graduates rated themselves on nine graduate attribute items. A relationship was found, however, between the branding of a course and selected measures of employment outcomes. Graduates with the business brand enjoyed a higher rate of success in gaining relevant employment than did graduates with the tourism brand. Moreover, graduates with a non-tourism major enjoyed a higher rate of success in gaining relevant employment than did graduates with a tourism major. There was no relationship, however, between brand and employment outcomes as measured by success in gaining permanent employment. And finally, graduates perceive that the course brand (their business degree) was the most important factor in getting their current job.

Cite this article as

Goyal, Mahendra K; Weiler, Betty. 'Brand matters'. Monash Business Review. 2006.; Monash University ePress: Victoria, Australia. http://www.epress.monash.edu.au/. : 38–40. DOI:10.2104/mbr06045

About the authors

Mahendra K Goyal

Dr Mahendra Goyal lectures in the Department of Accounting and Finance, Monash University. He has previously lectured in accounting at Southern Cross University and University of New England.

Betty Weiler

Betty Weiler is Professor in the Department of Management and Director of the Tourism Research Unit, Monash University. She has previously lectured at Southern Cross University, University of Newcastle and RMIT.