Constructing an index for brand equity: a hospital example

• Main Authors: SYU, GUEI-JYU, 許桂菊
• Other Authors: WANG, YU-JHE
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/38187994292952820327

博士 === 中華大學 === 科技管理學系(所) === 98 === The initial function of a brand name is to serve as a function to differentiate one company from another. However, as customers have more contacts with or understanding towards a brand name, the brand name starts to convey more value for both companies and customers (brand equity). Brand equity is the value that the brand name endows to the product. However, to date, researchers have no consistent consensus on the factor structure of brand equity. Accordingly, the first objective of the research is to explore the factor structure and content of brand equity. Moreover, previous studies emphasizes too much on reflective relations between a construct and its items (reflective indicators), few studies are aware of the potential appropriateness of formative indicators for operationalizing particular constructs. As reflective and formative indicators have quite different statistical properties, this study introduces and follows the index construction procedure to create a brand equity index. The healthcare industry has undergone some major transformation recently, in particular, the introduction of National Health Insure program in 1995. The competition in healthcare industry has been quite intense ever since. Moreover, as customers are more aware of the healthcare quality, the management of brand equity for a hospital is very important. As a result, this study chooses one hospital as a sample and creates a brand equity index for it. The study suggests that brand equity has four sub-constructs, including brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality and brand loyalty. The confirmatory factor procedure also supports the induction. After confirming the factor structure of brand equity, this study builds a brand equity index. The result reveals a parsimonious five-indicator brand equity index that can adequately capture the full domain of brand equity. The final brand equity index can measure how customers perceive the brand name. Moreover, the importance-performance analysis can also help managers to understand how to improve the healthcare quality of the hospital.