Anatomy of British Business School Brands: Attributes Affecting Choice Among Pakistani Postgraduate Students

The research studies that investigate business school brands from an Asian consumer perspective are scarce. Current study aims at discovering the branding attributes of UK Business Schools that influence Pakistani business students to apply for admission in higher degrees. Following a naturalistic tradition, data has been collected through semi-structured interviews from a sample of 25 students who were planning to study in United Kingdom. The respondents were identified through personal sources and were later selected using the purposive sampling technique. Thematic analysis was performed to generate themes from the collected data. The data analysis generated four dominant themes that influence the choice of a business school in United Kingdom. These are “financial assistance”, “employability”, “brand reputation” and “rankings”. The study is a pioneer work in the field of university branding from a developing country perspective of Pakistan. The research will be useful to British higher education marketers in devising student-centered branding initiatives. It will also benefit the Pakistani academia, as the country can develop business school brands as well by imparting these attributes to better compete with business schools in UK.