Brand Development Of Confucius Institute

Confucius Institute is a non-profit educational institution established through Chinese and foreign cooperation and is committed to adapting to the needs of studying Chinese for all the people around the world,to enhancing the understanding of Chinese people's language culture for the people around the world,to strengthening the exchange and cooperation between China and other countries in the world in terms of education and culture,to developing the friendly relations between China and foreign countries,to promoting the development of multiculturalism and to helping build a harmonious world.0 Since the establishment of the world's first Confucius Institute in 2004 in Seoul,Korea,Confucius Institute has been existing for more than ten years.During the last decade,Confucius Institute has developed rapidly,forming a large international social network centered on "Chinese International Education".As of December 31,2016,512 Confucius Institutes have been established in 130 countries(regions)in the world.Among them,115 are located in 32 Asian countries(regions),48 in 33 African countries,171 in 41 European countries,161 in 21 American countries,18 in 30ceanian countries,?which can be described as scattered everywhere.Besides that,while the number of Confucius Institute is in sharp increase,with Chinese teaching and cultural exchange being the carrier,Confucius Institute has gradually developed into an important comprehensive education and cultural exchange platform which actively builds China's image and plays an increasingly important role.Since Xinhuanet? combined Confucius Institute with brandfor the first time in 2006,large numbers of reports have come out from news media.Although Confucius Institute was often mentioned in the media reports,the "brand"then referred to was only stayingon the level of Confucius Institute's name and logo.The leaders of the state and the responsible persons related to the Confucius Institute put forward new requirements for the connotation development out of great importance to the brand Confucius Institute.Liu Yandong,member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and vice premier of the State Council,emphasized at the opening ceremony of the "10th Global Confucius Institute Conference" held in 2015 thatthe development of Confucius Institute "should focus on improving the quality of running schools and establish brand awareness,should improve the quality of the Chinese and foreign deans and teachers and create cultural exchange quality projects;should integrate resources,build and share together,innovate the management system,strengthen the construction of institutions' support capacity,so as to promote the sustainable development of Confucius Institute and to make new contributions to promoting the harmonious development of diverse civilizations".? Xu Lin,Director General of Confucius Institute Headquarters,has repeatedly mentioned the problem of the Confucius Institute brandin public and expressed to strive to make the brand bigger and stronger.How to build up the brand of Confucius Institute is a problem.A real brand is not just a name,a logo system,but a systematic and complex strategy.Confucius Institute has gained a considerable reputationat home and abroadafter more than ten years of developmentand has spontaneously accumulated a certain brand value.Today,Confucius Institute already realizesits global layout,yet,as a global non-profit education service brand,it is still particularly urgent to figure out how to position the brand,how to implement the brand strategy,thus shaping the brand image of Confucius Institute in front of the global audience.The connotation and the establishment of the true senseof the brand have never been naturally born,instead,such things need to be planned first.Each organization has its own core model of creating excellent brand.It is in need of our exploration to find out how Confucius Institutedevelop its own brand,which is also the main content of this paper.Using the theories about brand science,management science,pedagogy and communication,this paper explores the influencing factors of the perceived value of Confucius Institutebased on customer experience,exploresthe relationship between perceived value,brand relationship quality brand and the brand develoment of Confucius Institute,builds and verifies the service-oriented model of Confucius Institute brand development mechanism,and then puts forward the Confucius Institute brand development strategy by applying in-depth interviews,grounded theory analysis,questionnaires and other qualitative and quantitative research methods.This paper attempts to answer the following questions:what are the basic attributes and characteristics ofConfucius Institute as a brand?Based on this feature,what are the influencing factors and mechanism of action of Confucius Institute brand development?How to verify and analyze?How are the brand development path and strategy of Confucius Institute like?Chapter 1:Introduction.The main content of this chapter is to determine the overall research framework of this paper.The contents include:explaining research background,research questions and research significance,sorting out relevant theoretical basis and literature reviewand finally introducing research methods,logical framework and content arrangement,etc.Chapter 2:Brand overview of Confucius Institute.This chapter analyzes and defines the brand attributes,brand characteristics,brand relationship and its generation of Confucius Institute by usingrelevant brand theories.Apart from that,this chapter suggests that Confucius Institute is a new non-profit educational service brand facing the whole world,analyzes different characteristics of Confucius Institute as service brand,educationbrand,non-profit organization brand and global brand and the inspiration brought by these different characteristics to the Confucius Institute brand construction.Chapter 3:Analysis of the factors which influence the quality of Confucius Institute brand relationship based on the brand experience.Firstly,the chapter explains the research design of this chapter in detail and the main research method of grounded theory analysis.Secondly,the chapter systematically introduces the origin,definition,research method,principle and research procedure of the grounded theory.Thirdly,it sorts out related literature about the factors in different brand types and different brand relationships,which are necessary to the analysisof the grounded theoretical analysis,so as to lay theoretical foundation for further comparison and analysis.Finally,the chapter deals with the one-to-one in-depth interview with 30 students and 5 Confucius Institute staffs who have rather close contact with Confucius Institute according to the research and design;sorts out,analyzes and implements three-level codeson the in-depth interviews by using the mind map software Mindjet Mindmanager Pro 15 based on the grounded theory research methods;finds out the factorswhich influence the quality of Confucius Institute brand relationship through continuous comparisonfrom which it extracts the four main categories,i.e.service experience,spread experience,perceived value and brand relationship quality;reveals the interaction between various categories;points out that Confucius Institute students form their value perception towards Confucius Institute through the procedural service experience such as curriculum,activities,projects in China,teaching resources,service scenarios,faculty and staff,and through the planned or un-planned spread experience such as brand logo,official website,propaganda materials,publicpraise and public relations.Students' perceived value,divided into two parts including functional value and psychological value,will directly or indirectly affect the students'recognition,satisfaction and loyaltyto Confucius Institute.Chapter 4:Brand development influence mechanism and related assumptions of Confucius Institute.This chapter constructs the model of Confucius Institutes brand development influence mechanism and puts forward 24 related assumptions based on the conclusion of the analysis of the factors influencing Confucius Institute brand relationship quality which is rooted in brand experience,and the existing literature and the in-depth interview materials of the research.Chapter 5:Empirical analysis of the brand development influence mechanism of Confucius Institute.Firstly,this chapter determines the measurement items of the variables of Confucius Institute development influence mechanism model and forms the initial questionnairebased on the analysis result of the existing literature,the mature scale,the grounded theory and the result of the in-depth interview;modifies the initial questionnaire through pre-survey,interview with some students and experts and ultimately forms the formal questionnaire containing 52 questions.Secondly,this chapter talks about the formal survey in 14 major countries in the world's five major continents and the collection of 675 valid questionnaire results through direct distribution,commissioned distribution and online release,etc.for the purpose of providing rather reliable data support for the verification of Confucius Institute brand development influence mechanism model.Thirdly,the chapter analyzes the perception situation of students in Confucius Institute towards service experience,spread experience,perceived value,brand relationship quality and brand development.Through the analysis,it is believed that Confucius Institute has good performance in terms of service experience,value perception,brand relationship quality and brand development and the overall satisfaction degree is relatively high,which makes it equip withthe basis of becoming a strong brand.Confucius Institute doesn't have obvious brand characteristics and is in need of further positioning;the most evident problem lies in brand spreading,which requires internal and external spread of the brand on the basis of making clear the positioning of Confucius Institute brand.Finally,the chapter processes and analyzes the survey data by using SPSS 19.0 and verifies the model via the analysis ways of descriptive statistical analysis,exploratory factor analysis,reliability and validity analysis and regression analysis,etc.and obtains the relevant empirical results.Chapter 6:Brand development strategy of Confucius Institute.This chapter makes clear the brand development path of Confucius Institute's forming good brand relationshipon the basis of empirical research.People's perception of Confucius Institute mainly comes fromspread experience and service experience.People's cognition and expectations are shaped through the external brand spread of Confucius Institute and such cognition is forming in the process of service experience through the service and brand transfer by faculty staffs.Moreover,people give evaluation about the service they have had based on external spread,if the two are consistent with each other,a good brand relationship will form,which will further strengthen the Confucius Institute brand positioning.This development path has four key links,i.e.,brand positioning,brand internalization,brand service and external spread.This chapter puts forward corresponding development strategy for the above four key links to the development of Confucius Institute brand.Chapter 7:Conclusion.This chapter reviews and summarizes the research process and conclusions of the wholeresearch,points out the innovation and the shortcomings of the researchand makes a prospect for further research in the future.The main conclusions of this paper include:firstly,as an organization brand,the brand attribute of Confucius Institute is defined as a new non-profit education service brand for the whole world.Secondly,grounded theoretical analysis is conducted about the source,the dimension,the connotation and the relationship of student's perceived value through the in-depth interviews with 30 Confucius Institute students around the world,after which corresponding empirical theory was drawn.The theory refers to that Confucius Institute students form their value perception towards Confucius Institute through the procedural service experience such as curriculum,activities,projects in China,teaching resources,service scenarios,faculty and staff,and through the planned or un-planned spread experience,thus forming cognition,satisfaction,trust and loyalty attitude.Thirdly,the Confucius Institute brand development influence mechanism model is constructed and verified;brand experience,perceived value,relationship between brand relationship quality and brand development and the related mechanism are constructed.Fourthly,current situation of Confucius Institute brand is analyzed according to the survey results of 675 Confucius Institute students in 14 major countries on the world's five continents;it is summarized that students are most satisfied at the faculty staffs in the service experience,and the less satisfactory items are courses,service scenes,activities,projects in China and teaching resources.Students showa high degree of satisfaction and loyalty towards Confucius Institute and are rather confident in the future development of Confucius Institute,but at the same time they also see the problems in the aspects of students service experience and spread experience in Confucius Institute,especially the spread problem is far more prominent.Fifthly,Confucius Institute brand development path and development strategy are put forward,based on the above conclusions and it is believed that related work of four areas should be conducted,including brand positioning,brand internalization,brand service and brand spread.The innovation of this paper mainly includes:firstly,it has for the first time given comparatively comprehensive and all-around analysis of different types of characteristics of Confucius Institute as a brand according to different classification criteria of brand and has given clear definition of the brand attributes,which helps determine the starting point of research for the further research related to Confucius Institute brand.Secondly,it has for the first time carried out comparatively systematic research into Confucius Institute from the perspective of customer experience.Thirdly,it has recognized the perceived dimension of Confucius Institute perceived value,revealing the relationship between perceived value,brand relationship quality brand development.Fourthly,it has constructed and validated the Confucius Institute brand development influence mechanism model.Fifthly,it has put forward the development path and development strategy of Confucius Institute from the perspectives of Confucius Institute service brand attributes and customer experience.The research value of this paper lies in:enriching relevant theoretical research of Confucius Institute;enriching the research on brand theory of non-profit education service;providing decision-making reference for Confucius Institute to implement brand strategy;providing decision-making basis for improving customer value and brand relationship.