Determinants for the commitment relationship maintenance between the alumni and the alma mater

ABSTRACT

This study aims to find determinants for the commitment relationship between alumni and alma mater. Based on the literature, satisfaction and image are proposed as drivers of commitment. A survey applied to 2544 alumni in a Portuguese university provides data analyzed through a structural equation modeling technique. The results present ‘image of education’, ‘image of communication’ and ‘satisfaction with social and academic environment’ as determinants of the commitment relationship, which provide important clues for the marketers’ decision-making process when developing activities geared towards alumni. This process should emphasize aspects relating to their willingness to give back, academic and relationship quality, and institutional values. Within the Higher Education market, this study underscores the need to maintain and reinforce the relationship with alumni, and contributes to the scarce Portuguese literature on alumni matters.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education institutions
• alumni
• image
• satisfaction
• commitment
• structural equation modeling

Acknowledgment

We gratefully acknowledge the editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their very constructive comments that enabled us to make additional efforts to improve the information and structure of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Luis Nobre Pereira http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0917-7163

Additional information

Funding

This paper is financed by National Funds provided by FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology through project UID/SOC/04020/2013.