Renowned University Research Articles

Modelling Consumer Evaluation of Brand Extensions: Empirical Evidence from India

Increasing costs involved in building new brands motivate marketers to adopt an alternate route for new product introductions in the form of brand extensions. While extensive research exists for understanding the intricacies of brand extensions in the Western context, there is limited understanding about its utility in the context of developing countries such as India. This study aims to identify factors contributing to the success of brand extension of Consumer Packaged Goods (CPGs) in India. Primary data collection was performed with 837 participants constituting management students of a renowned university in India. Hierarchical regression is applied to model the variables considered as major determinants for brand extension evaluation. This study is first of its kind in India explaining the inter-relationships among these variables with the help of residual centring technique for creating interaction terms leading to a better understanding of consumers’ evaluation of brand extensions. Interesting results emerging from the study, having managerial implications, are discussed in detail. Attitude towards brand extension advertisement is found to be the most significant variable affecting consumers’ attitude towards brand extension. While a majority of the prior studies has overstated the impact of perceptual fit, it only emerged as a significant variable along with brand trust and perceived quality. Negative interaction effect of perceived fit and trust is observed, implying that only strongly trusted brands may extend into low fitting product categories and vice versa, that is, lowly trusted brands should only extend into high fitting extensions. We believe that these implications will be useful for many of the multinational companies entering Indian markets while leveraging their equity by introducing extensions that are suited for the Indian consumers.

Impact of Information Technology on Quality of Life and Well – Being of Secondary School Children

The aim of this study was to assess the impact of Information Technology on the Quality of Life (QOL) and Well-Being (WB) of children studying at secondary school level. Through education online, children make use of various applications of information technology in different walks of life such as health care, personal safety, technologies in education, training in education, etc. These applications of information technology were assessed in terms of their impact on Quality of Life. The study was conducted in the schools of Aligarh Muslim University, which is a renowned university in the world. Aligarh, the place of this study is a B grade city of Uttar Pradesh in India. The sample consisted of, N= 200 students, who were randomly selected from two groups, one from the senior secondary level (n1 =100) and the other from the Secondary level (n2 =100). Students were observed during the study. The students’ views on the application of Technology they had used in studying were elicited through a questionnaire. Data analysis showed that the use of Information technology impacted positively upon the QOL of students and helped them enormously to gain knowledge. The results suggest that within secondary schools, education online can be exploited as effective and motivational learning environment and the use should be promoted at a faster speed.

The changing work life of academics: a comparative study of a renowned and a regional university in the Chinese Mainland

Expansion of higher education has been perceived as the major tool through which China can raise its international competitiveness. To raise educational quality, the Ministry of Education initiated a new employment reform and a Teaching Quality Assessment for Undergraduate Programs. In this research, we employed a qualitative method to investigate the changing work life of academics in two universities in the Chinese Mainland: University A, a regional university, and University B, a renowned university. The experiences of the two universities reflect that the reform measures have led to a distortion of academic culture. Besides competing for national research projects, academics at the renowned university conducted research for the governmental sector, while academics in the regional university worked with the market. The government continually used various measures to maintain control over academic work. Most academics felt forced to conform to the reform measures. Within the two sample universities, there were indigenous interpretations of the relationship among the state, the market and academics.

Quality management in higher education services

The quality of university education has become a topic of major importance generated by the labour market that has narrowed a lot lately, and at the same time, it has become more demanding. A diploma granted even by a highly renowned university will no longer guarantee any employment in the field the graduate attended specialization. The higher education system quality is not only the students’ major concern, but also their parents’, as well as the prospective employers’, government and society in general, together with the university teachers and the entire staff, who actually provide a quality educational process.

Challenges to the Work Life of Academics: The Experience of a Renowned University in the Chinese Mainland

AbstractUnder the major educational reform movement in the Chinese Mainland, which began in 1985, higher education was considered the most important apparatus for national development. The Ministry of Education initiated ‘Project 985’ to develop two top national universities into world‐class universities. As part of this project to raise educational quality and academic standing, the Ministry of Education carried out a reform of the university personnel system. The reform aimed to launch a new system of employment practices based on performance and contract, with an emphasis on competition and rewards. This research focuses on the severe constraints academics at a sample university in China faced at the state, university and faculty level. First, at the state level, the state directly set the direction of academic research. Second, at the university level, the new employment reform was imposed using a top‐down model. Most academics conformed to it but some employed a ‘double bookkeeping’ strategy. ‘Administrative domination’ also reflected a centralised approach at the university. Third, at the faculty level, a few academic‐administrators held most of the decision making power. Academics urged the university to offer a more supportive environment for conducting genuine scholarship.

The Impact of Establishing the University Centre Oldham on the Development of the Oldham Brand

Branding is key to organisational success. Effective branding helps create appropriate product or service associations which enhance the profile of an organisation and its products. The University Centre Oldham is part of the University of Huddersfield which was established in Oldham in August of 2005 to takeover the Higher Education provision in the Oldham borough. Prior to this development the provision of Higher Education in Oldham was a makeshift arrangement of the Oldham College in conjunction with the Oldham Council and the Oldham Sixth Form College. These three institutions do not have degree awarding powers nor are they Higher Education providers. The result of this scenario was an array of validation arrangements with a multitude of degree and diploma awarding institutions. This was a complex situation which was very difficult to implement. This study concluded that the establishment of the university in the borough has created new hope in skills development, investment attraction and above all infrastructural development. The impact on the branding of Oldham is significant and it augurs well for the future. This development mirrors renowned university cities and towns where the establishment of a university has been the driver for development. The University of Huddersfield has made a significant difference in the town of Huddersfield and following on from the same experience in an economically depressed area the concept of “Towns like us” by which the strategy to establish the two university centre of Barnsley and Oldham were created is already starting to make a significant difference in Oldham just like the University of Huddersfield did in the town of Huddersfield.

Flesh and Wax: The Clemente Susini's anatomical models in the University of Cagliari

Flesh and Wax: The Clemente Susini's anatomical models in the University of Cagliari

Acceptance of the Society of Economic Geologists Silver Medal for 2002

President Price, members, and friends: It was with some astonishment and a good deal of pride that I received the news of my selection as the latest recipient of the Society’s prestigious Silver Medal. The astonishment grew when, like most medal awardees, I scanned the list of previous recipients and wondered why a practicing field geologist was being added to a list of some of the world’s most renowned university and government geoscientists. And the astonishment grew still further when I read that the award was for mid-career achievement. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation revealed that meant I’d be doing fieldwork until the ripe old age of 95. I’d love to be able to say I could do it, but have to assume that the Medals’ Committee knows more than I do about future developments in medical science. On occasions such as this, it seems one is expected to reminisce briefly about one’s career to date—difficult in my …

Homogeneidade versus heterogeneidade cultural: um estudo em universidade pública

Este trabalho tem por objetivo identificar as significações que uma Universidade Pública possui para os diferentes atores que nela atuam cotidianamente. A partir da noção de representações sociais desenvolvida na Antropologia Social e da visão de Martin e Frost (1996) sobre a cultura organizacional como uma complementaridade entre fragmentação, diferenciação e integração, procurou-se desvendar o universo organizacional de uma universidade pública. O método utilizado foi o etnográfico e compreendeu o período de 1995 a 1998. Os resultados evidenciam que Escassez de recursos e Universidade renomada são significações acerca da Universidade partilhadas por alunos e professores (fragmentação). Professores e funcionários partilham do mesmo significado com relação à Falta de perspectivas profissionais para os últimos (fragmentação). Já a Dificuldade de conciliar estudo e trabalho é uma significação sobre a Universidade restrita ao grupo dos alunos e a Liberdade é uma significação sobre a Universidade partilhada só pelo grupo de professores (diferenciação). Já a representação da Universidade sob a ótica da Deficiência perpassa os três grupos de atores, quais sejam, professores, funcionários e alunos (representação integradora). O estudo representa uma contribuição para a discussão entre homogeneidade e heterogeneidade na identificação de culturas organizacionais.

As relações universidade-empresa-governo: um estudo sobre a Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)

Trabalhos realizados atualmente sobre o tema relações universidade e sociedade propõem que estamos vivenciando uma Segunda Revolução Acadêmica, caracterizada pela agregação da função de desenvolvimento econômico regional e local, às já clássicas atividades de pesquisa e ensino desempenhadas pela universidade. Adicionalmente, alguns autores estão desenvolvendo o modelo de Hélice Tripla, uma proposta intermediária entre o livre mercado e o planejamento centralizado, que procura ultrapassar as limitações dos modelos baseados numa visão linear do processo de inovação. Este trabalho é baseado numa pesquisa sobre as relações da Unicamp e seus parceiros externos realizada no período 1995-1997. Tem por objetivo avaliar a intensidade dessas transformações no caso brasileiro, tomando por objeto de estudo a Unicamp, que foi implantada no início dos anos 60 e que visava fornecer apoio ao processo de industrialização do país. O trabalho foi desenvolvido em duas etapas. Na primeira foram avaliados 732 contratos realizados no período 1982-1995 e gerenciados pela Fundação de Desenvolvimento da Unicamp. As principais informações obtidas nessa fase foram: freqüência, duração média, valor médio e participação no valor total - por categoria de financiador e por período de tempo. Numa segunda etapa, extraiu-se uma amostra de 25% do total, resultando em 116 contratos, o que conduziu à realização de 57 entrevistas com professores. Isso permitiu identificar a natureza dos contratos executados em cooperação, o perfil da interação, os seus impactos, as tendências, bem como realizar uma avaliação dos mecanismos institucionais de interação.

A birthday present

There was no doubt about its genuineness. This was indeed the album Weierstrass mentions in a letter to Sonya Kovalevskaya written just over 100 years ago, on 14 December 1885, in which he writes about the celebration marking his seventieth birthday: "The album for the photographs (more than 500 of them) is a magnificent work, which met with general acclaim" ([1], p. 129). On 44 pages there are a total of 294 photographs of about the same format--seven of them to a page, with a few gaps in be tween--showing pupils, friends, and colleagues of Weierstrass from many countries in Europe, including renowned university professors, masters, headmasters , high school teachers, post graduate students, and undergraduates (including such names as L. Heffter, A. Gutzmer, and G. Wallenberg). Particularly conspicuous among the photographs is that of the only woman, his pupil Sonya Kovalevskaya (Figure 2), with whom he maintained a very close friendship until her untimely death in 1891. The photographs are arranged essentially according to country (in the German section, the photographs are grouped mostly according to university and region). One finds photographs of such people as (in the order of their appearance in the album) G. Zeuthen, A. Cayley (Figure 3), E. Picard, F. Casorati, Hj. Mellin, E. Phragm6n, S. Lie (Figure 4), L. Sylow, L. Schl/ifli, F. Schottky, G. Frobenius (Figure 5), C. Runge, R. Lipschitz, P. Gordan, M. Noether, J. Li~roth, L. Stickelberger, M. Pasch, H. A. Schwarz (Figure 6), O. H61der, A. Schoenflies, G. Cantor (Figure 7), M. Cantor, M. Planck (Figure 8), A. Hurwitz (Figure 9), F. Klein (Figure 10), F. Schur, H. Weber, A. Pringsheim, A. Brill, O. Schl6milch, and P. du Bois-Reymond, to name but a few of the prominent mathematicians and physicists.

Educating for Transformation: The Spiritual Task

I must be honest from the start and confess the summary of my six years of teaching undergrads and five years of graduate students: being a “creative teacher” of spirituality in a system of education that is destructive both of spirituality and creativity is impossible. Education, like religion itself, cannot afford to succumb to privatization as if a “loneranger” teacher in spirituality could endure or carry on without a structure and a program that is based in sound theory and practice that itself sustains creativity and spirituality.A recent graduate of our Institute in Creation-Centered Spirituality is now pursuing doctoral studies in theology, and his comment after his first semester at a renowned university was: “There is no spirituality in upper academia.” What he was experiencing was the absence of sensitivity to both right and left brains as sources for learning; the absence of sensitivity to making connections and therefore to the artist in self and society; the absence of synthesis or interdependence on the part of curriculum or faculty. What he was also undergoing was a deep experience of the malaise that education finds itself in today in the West—a crisis that, if attended to, also reveals an opportunity of staggering dimensions.

Les Anglais à Montpellier et à Nice pendant la seconde moitié du siècle

English visitors in Montpellier and Nice. During the second part of the 18th century, the South of France attracted many english visitors, some of them the «splenetic travellers » Sterne spoke about. Two towns had their favour, as is attested by the numerous travel accounts and diaries. The first one, Montpellier, offered a pleasant climate, a renowned University and a choice society, mainly during the meetings of the États provinciaux. It went nevertheless soon out of fashion and was deserted by the english «milords » for a younger, cheaper and sunnier rival : Nice. For this, Smollett's Travels through France and Italy can be held partly responsible. During the years 1770-1790, the british tourists who spent the winter in Nice (they were 300 in 1784) became a good source of income for the locals, though they were careful not to mix with them.

Aramaic Studies during the past Thirty Years

THE generation of Orientalists that has been active between the end of World War II and the present time has seen an enormous increase of teaching and research in all fields. Periodical publications and collective enterprises have multiplied. Subjects for which it was difficult to find even one book are now often represented by a dozen. The number of academic institutions which offer instruction in at least some of our subjects has vastly increased all over the world. It was once the case that even a large and renowned university with all the basic facilities could boast of only one student at a time in a large field; now, it is not difficult to find many interested students even in smaller colleges. While we may still complain, and rightly so, that we are neglected and misunderstood by the general public (or should I say that we are almost unknown to it?), there can be no doubt that our subjects now find a certain degree of intelligent attention even in the nonacademic world.

Children's rights: An introductory sociological overview

At a renowned university medical complex a child is born who carries the stigmata associated with Mongolism. In addition, the infant has an intestinal obstruction which prevents the digestion of food. This condition can be corrected by a surgical procedure, but the parents of the child refuse to give permission for the operation to take place. Hospital authorities fail to seek recourse through the courts. Eleven days later, after prolonged starvation and dehydration, the child finally succumbs.1 What rights has a child?

Functions of the University

T HE American university is becoming more and more tumultuous. Our universities have then, I say, increased their genuine facilities and opportunities; they have simultaneously and needlessly cheapened, vulgarized, and mechanized themselves. Perhaps the phenomena I have in mind are transient . . . mere symptoms developed on the way to something better. Suppose they are; for our generation at least they are serious and disquieting.1 Serious and disquieting these phenomena clearly are to Mr. Flexner. They seem to have been much less so to a considerable number of renowned university presidents, past and present, to donors of great gifts for special university purposes, or to legislators fostering those most tumultuous of all higher institutions of learning, the state universities to be found in the North Central and Western states. Mr. Flexner's scholarly and amply documented book of nearly four hundred pages will undoubtedly take a prominent place as a historic milestone in the evolution of higher institutions of learning in America and possibly 1 Flexner, Abraham. Universities: American, English, German. New York: Oxford University Press,