ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews multi-item scales employed in the study of branding in higher education (HE) based on 42 papers that contain operationalizations of a variety of branding constructs. We find that, with few exceptions, the employed scales are borrowed from other fields and disciplines. Our analysis of the borrowed scales leads us to identify the following issues, (a) omission to specify the source of the scale; (b) incomplete evidence of scale modifications; (c) non-credible sources; (d) unclear mapping to the source scale; and (e) limited transferability of scales developed in other fields/disciplines to the HE context. We provide examples that illustrate the above and make suggestions to help managers when using published scales. We encourage researchers in the field to carry out a rigorous examination of the stability of functional relationships of constructs operationalized using scales borrowed from other fields and/or disciplines and provide a case study example of how such an investigation can be carried out.
