Research Proposal On

CUSTOMERS PERCEPTION ABOUT COACHING INSTITUTES FOR MBA

Submitted to: Dr. Purva Kansal

Submitted by: 1. Charan Kamal Singh 2. Manjalika 3. Maneesha

Date: 14/01/2014

MBA-HR II Semester

University Business School (UBS), Panjab University, Chandigarh

INDEX

S. No.
1 2 3 4 5 6

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY REVIEW OF LITERATURE STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES CONCEPTUAL MODEL AND HYPOTHESIS RESEARCH METHODOLOGY REFERENCES

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INTRODUCTION:

Our system of education has three aspects. It leads to the development of the mind, the body and the soul. - M.K GANDHI If we succeed in developing knowledge, our success in developing professional excellence cannot be negated. If we succeed in developing professional excellence the managerial proficiency would help organizations sub serving the organizational interest vis--vis the interests of consumers and society. It was against this background that the great classical thinker Mahatma Gandhi focused on removing illiteracy and expanded its purview to the development of knowledge. He considered illiteracy a sin and strongly advocated assigning number one priority to its education on the agenda of social transformation. Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. - Nelson Mandela

Need and Scope of Study MBA (Masters in Business Administration) is a postgraduate course in management education. Amidst the plethora of career avenues available today, management stands out as one of the most popular choices. It offers a rare combination of a lucrative salary, challenging job profile, fast track growth and immense job satisfaction. The popularity of MBA as a preferred career option can be estimated from the rise in the number of institutes offering MBA courses. According to one estimate, there are 1100 + institutes offering MBA programs. This meteoric rise in the number of institutes offering MBA program and the number of students (around 3.5 lacs every year) aspiring to get an MBA degree is not without reason. Since most institutes do not discriminate among students from different fields, graduates from all fields: Commerce, Arts, Engineering, Science and Medical are attracted to the MBA program. With increasing professionalism in management, a huge number of job opportunities have been created in the field; in contrast there is a saturation of jobs in government organizations. There is also a growing demand for good Indian managers abroad.

2. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Intense struggle in the business world has merely further added to demanding pressure, furious competition and chase among contender students, either aspiring for good jobs or venturing into their own businesses after completion of the MBA. This has led to an increase in expectations and demands by students for, not just management education but quality management education. The aims of MBA programs should be to help students gain a better understanding of the industrial and business world and its needs, thereby prepare them for managerial roles, enrich their skills and provide them with competencies relevant to their careers (Baruch and Lemming, 1996). And hence there is increase in number of students per year to apply for the competitive exams like CAT, XAT, NMAT, SNAP etc. in order to get admissions into the top most B-Schools of the country like IIMs, FMS, IITs, Symbiosis and TISS etc. As the no. of students are increasing, hence the demand for quality education in order to crack competitive exams is also increasing day by day. This is due to increase in the competition among students. This has led to the competition among the coaching institutes as well to attract the young talents and sharpen their skills, their competencies, enhance their knowledge, and guide them to the right path. More over the level of such competitive exams is getting tough every year. This has challenged the coaching institutes to improvise their study material and redesign their teaching methodology as per the requirements. A study of students expectations and perceptions about quality of education has become crucial.

3. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The literature review section traverses through various research studies intended towards understanding students perception about quality of coaching institutes and higher education. It has been suggested in literature that service quality be assessed according to the perceptions of students (Aldridge and Rowley, 1998). The construct of quality as conceptualized in the service literature is based on the perceived quality (Hasan et al., 2008). Perceived quality is defined as the consumer s judgment about an entitys overall experience or superiority (Wilkins et al., 2012).

The early 1990s witnessed another trend in the entrance examination coaching market in India. Till this point, almost all the institutes believed in doing the good work and let the word of mouth promotion bring in the business principle. But now, things were changing. New entrants to the market did not believe in education being sacrosanct, so various forms of business models were evolving based on education. The faces of new institutes started changing. Now presentation was perceived to be more important than what lay beneath. Institutes no longer believed in the adage Let your work speak for you. Rather, the new wisdom in the town was Jo dikhta hai, wo bikta. (R Singh, A K Sinha and A Sharma, 2011).

A study by Bhatia and Dash (2010) was undertaken to compare India,s higher education with six different countries taken from different continents of the world US, UK, Australia, China, Brazil and South-Africa. India had higher competitive benefits over China and Brazil with regard to the standard of the tutorial system, quality of management facilities, native accessibility of analysis and coaching services and extent of workers coaching.

Considering the urgent need to deliver quality education in higher education institutes a research was carried out among young management students between the ages of 21 to 25 years of India. The study measured the quality perception of students on five dimensions namely, responsiveness, learning outcomes, physical facilities, academics and personality development. The results pointed out negative quality gaps in all the five dimensions with the highest negative gap in the physical facilities and negative score in academic dimension. Significant differences between perceptions and expectations of students with respect to all the five dimensions were observed (Narang, 2012).

4. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES

Statement of Purpose: To Study the Customers Perception about the Coaching Institutes for MBA.

Objectives: To comprehend customers (student) preference for management education (MBA). To identify and understand the factors influencing customers (student) preference for MBA Coaching institutes. To identify and understand quality parameters from students perspective. To identify the impact of media on customers perception. To determine whether the Customers Perception is independent of the demography of the consumer or not. To suggest areas of improvement based on the findings of the study.

5. CONCEPTUAL MODEL AND HYPOTHESIS

QUALITY FACTORS
H1

ADVERTISEMENTS
H2

DEMOGRAPHY
H3

SERVICE DISTRIBUTION
AGE

BRAND EQUITY

ADVERTISEMENTS THROUGH DIFFERENT MEDIA

SEX

SERVICE PERSONNEL

FAMILY INCOME

SERVICE QUALITY

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

INFORMATION SERVICE

WORK EXPERIENCE

RELIABILITY

CUSTOMER PERCEPTION

Research Hypothesis From the research objectives we define our null research hypothesis as follows: H1: Quality factors have significant impact on the customers perception about the coaching institute. H1.1: Service distribution has a positive influence on customers perception. H1.2: Brand Equity has a positive influence on customers perception. H1.3: Service Personnel has a positive influence on customers perception. H1.4: Service Quality has a positive influence on customers perception. H1.5: Information Service has a positive influence on customers perception. H1.6: Reliability of the institute has a positive influence on customers perception.

H2: Advertisements have significant impact on the customers perception

H3: Customer Perception is dependent of the demographic variables. H3.1: Customers selection decision MBA coaching institute is dependent of Age. H3.2: Customers perception towards MBA coaching institute is dependent of Sex. H3.2: Customers perception towards MBA coaching institute is dependent of Family Income. H3.3:Customers perception towards MBA coaching institute is dependent of Educational Background. H3.4: Customers perception towards MBA coaching institute is dependent of Work Experience.

6. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Design The purpose of this research is to know the relationship between independent variables and dependent variable. Independent Variables: 1. Service distribution This factor includes traits like Price, On-Line/Offline Courses, Location of institute etc. 2. Corporate Brand Equity This factor includes traits like reputation of the institutes, demand of institute in market and popularity of the institute. This says that institute as brand is easy choice for consumers. 3. Service Personnel This factor is with three traits that is skilled faculty, faculty assistance after class and faculty understanding of consumer needs. As we know at most of the institutes, faculty also has other responsibilities. So it is natural that at service encounter faculty work as service personnel. 4. Service Quality Service Quality is the term which has different mean for different consumer. Some traits are Quality of course, Timing of course introduction, consistency, Study material, Reliability of institute. All these have high correlation and make a one factor which is demanded by consumer. 5. Information Service Information service tell about what different mode an institute have to communicate with consumers to help them by providing right information at right time. This factor includes information about courses, information on request and online support.

6. Advertising: According to Philip Kotler, Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor, through one of the following media: Broadcast Print Internet Outdoor

An advertising objective is a specific communication task to be accomplished with a specific target audience during a specific time.

Dependent Variable: Customer perception

Demographic variable: Age Gender Family income Educational background Work experience

Data Collection Methodology To assess customers perceptions on different parameters of coaching institutes, a self-completion questionnaire will be administered to a sample of 100-120 students using non-probability sampling technique. In addition to the demographic questions, the questionnaire will ask students for their experiences and perceptions about quality parameters and advertisements.

Sampling Plan Target Population Unit of population Sampling Unit Sample Size Sampling Technique : : : : : MBA Aspirants Individuals (Males and Females) Students (working and non-working) 100-120 Non Probability Sampling (Convenience Sampling) Administered Questionnaire

Data Collection Method :

Scale Used Likert Scale will be used to get the questionnaires filled. It is a psychometric scale. When responding to a Likert questionnaire item, respondents specify their level of agreement or disagreement on a symmetric agree-disagree scale for a series of statements. The Likert scale is the sum of responses on several Likert items. The format of a typical five-level Likert item: 1. Strongly disagree 2. Disagree 3. Neither agree nor disagree 4. Agree 5. Strongly agree

Data Analysis Plan To arrive at a pertinent analysis, the collected data will be put to plan statistical analysis using SPSS package. After scoring the questionnaires, the data collected from all the respondents will be combined and tabulated. To arrive at certain conclusion regarding the hypothesis advanced in the process investigation, the description of the statistical tools which will be applied for the analysis of data is as follows: Correlation Analysis: The relationship between dimensions of independent variables will be analysed by correlation matrix. Regression analysis: The regression analysis will be done to examine the significant effect of independent variables on the dependent variable.

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S. No.

OBJECTIVES

HYPOTHESIS

DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLE

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE

DEPENDENT VARIABLE

H1.1 H1.2

Service distribution Brand equity

1.

To identify and understand quality parameters from students perspective

H1.3

Service Personnel Customers perception

H1.4 H1.5 H1.6

NIL

Service quality Information service Reliability

2.

To identify the impact of advertisements on customers perception

H2

NIL

Advertisements (through different media)

Customers perception

H3.1 To determine whether the Customers Perception is independent of their demography or not H3.2 H3.3 H3.4 H3.5

Age Gender Family income Educational background Work experience NIL Customers perception

3.

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REFERENCES
1. Ardi, Romadhani; Hidayatno, Akhmad and Zagloel, Teuku Yuri M. (2012), Investigating relationships among quality dimensions in higher education, Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 20 (4), pp.408-428. 2. Bhavana R. Shetty, Rajashree Gujarati, Students Perception about Management Education in India and USA, MERC Globals International Journal of Management, ISSN 2321-7278 (Print) and ISSN 2321-7286 (Online), Vol. 1, Issue 1: July-2013, pp. 01-14. 3. C R Kothari, Research Methodology - Methods and Techniques, Wishwa Prakashan, 2nd Edition, 2000. 4. Donald R Cooper, K Sharma, Pamela S Schindler, Business Research Methods, McGraw Hill Education Pvt. Ltd. Publications, 11th Edition, 2012. 5. http://www.mercglobal.org/uploads/1/5/0/3/15039924/1._ijm-111.pdf 6. http://www.journals.cluteonline.com/index.php/AJBE/article/viewFile/411/400 7. http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/bmaf/documents/publications/IJME/Vol7no2/IJME7no2Pap er1.pdf 8. R Singh, A K Sinha, A Sharma, To blow one's trumpet or not? A case study of a coaching institute in the educational services industry., The Marketing Review, Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 2011 , pp. 83-100(18). 9. S. Aldridge and J. Rowley (1998), Measuring Customer Satisfaction in Higher Education, Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 6 (4), pp. 197-204. 10. Y Baruch, and A Lemming, (1996), Programming the MBA - the quest for curriculum, Journal of Management Development, Vol. 15 (7), pp. 27-36.

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