ABSTRACT

Integrated marketing communication (IMC) has attracted the interest of marketing and management scholars since it was first introduced. A theoretical debate on definitional and measurement issues has also been growing. Thanks to the benefits that IMC can offer organizations, it is interesting to study it with regards to the higher education (HE) environment since higher education institutions (HEIs) have been focusing on the potential of different and new ways of communication and their integration. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the concept of IMC in HE. And second, to present a tool that measures the level of integration of marketing and communication achieved in the HE context in a non-English speaking country, while also considering different perceptions in the same organization. The methodology of this paper is based on a multi-stage research design adopting qualitative and quantitative approaches. The main contributions are a reliable and valid adaptation of a tool that measures the level of IMC in a set of selected HEIs and a proposal of five dimensions that explain IMC in HE context. This will help to build a more robust theoretical body of knowledge regarding not only IMC but also higher education marketing (HEM).

摘要

整合营销传播（IMC）自推出以来就引起了营销和管理学者的兴趣。关于定义和测量问题的理论辩论也在不断增长。由于 IMC 可以为组织带来好处，因此在高等教育 (HE) 环境方面对其进行研究是很有趣的，因为高等教育机构 (HEI) 一直专注于不同和新的交流方式及其整合的潜力。本文的目的有两个：第一，探讨HE中IMC的概念。其次，提供一种工具，可以衡量在非英语国家的高等教育环境中实现的营销和传播整合水平，同时还要考虑同一组织中的不同看法。本文的方法论基于采用定性和定量方法的多阶段研究设计。主要贡献是对衡量一组选定 HEI 中 IMC 水平的工具的可靠和有效改编，以及在 HE 背景下解释 IMC 的五个维度的建议。这将有助于建立更强大的理论知识体系，不仅涉及 IMC，还涉及高等教育营销 (HEM)。