*2.1. Brand Relationships*

The concept of brand relationships needs clarification in order to investigate the influence of relationships on corporate brand identity, since relationships are vital for the interactions between consumers and brands. Consumer–brand interactions extend beyond mere utilitarian benefits (Aggarwal 2004). According to Fournier (1998), relationships constitute a series of repeated exchanges between two parties known to each other, who also evolve in response to these exchanges and to fluctuations in the contextual environment. Fournier (1998) and Muniz and Muniz and O'Guinn (2001) argue that people form relationships with brands in the same way that they form relationships with each other in social contexts. We can extend this approach to the relationships between brands and state that brands tend to relate to each other in a social context and that this association can be used to attract specific members of the public. This is not the same thing as a brand alliance, because such alliances involve all joint marketing activities in which two or more brands are simultaneously presented to consumers (Rao et al. 1999; Simonin and Ruth 1998). In this study, brand relationships are mutually oriented interactions among corporate brands whose target is education (universities and other higher education institutions) and other reputed brands which may attract students to create a commitment. The definition of relationships between companies (Hakansson and Snehota 1995) supports this perspective. A relationship is a mutually oriented interaction between two reciprocally committed parties (p. 25). The parties agree that the notion of a relationship is defined by concepts of mutual orientation and commitment over time, which are common in interactions between brands.

The specific characteristics of corporate brands make them different from other brands: Their bases are brand promise, multidisciplinary roots, and medium to long-term gestation. Their focus is external focused, but they are largely supported by internal stakeholders, who value highly communication and visual identity (Balmer and Gray 2003); these facts make it necessary to adapt the dimensions of brand relationships to these notions. This required that we review the literature on services focused on the theory of relational networks and branding and search for characteristics that suited the concept of the relationships among brands connected to education services.

Five different but related dimensions were used to assess the quality of the relationships in the context of services in the B2B markets: recognized quality of the service, trust, commitment, satisfaction, and service quality (Rauyruen and Miller 2007), but there is little empirical investigation on the subject. However, the empirical studies of Dwyer et al. (1987) and Moorman et al. (1992) concluded that the quality of relationships is characterized by three dimensions: trust, commitment, and satisfaction. Berry (1995) emphasizes the relationships that customers have with service companies. Beatty et al. (1988) are in favor of trust and commitment to explain the mechanisms underlying stable preferences. Other researchers examined the roles of trust and commitment in the relationships that customers develop with service companies (Garbarino and Johnson 1999; Sirieix and Dubois 1999). Chaudhuri and Holbrook (2001) and Kennedy et al. (2000) found a positive relationship between trust and commitment to consumer products. Most recently, Alkhawaldeh et al. (2020) accessed the effect of brand familiarity and perceived service quality on brand image as and explored the position of brand image on student´s satisfaction. The findings showed that familiarity with the brand and perceived quality of service had an important and beneficial connection with the image of the brand and there was an important and positive connection between brand image and students´ satisfaction. Yet, these results were tested in the private field, and ours is focused on public institutions.

Next to trust we take commitment, recently described as an important major aspect of strategic partnerships (Søderberg et al. 2013). We followed the definition of Hardwick and Ford (1986) and Wilson (1995). Commitment influences or benefits internal and external stakeholders' perceptions of future value. Failing to find a scale characterizing the commitment among brands, we developed a scale procedure to select items for this dimension.

Motivation has to do with the internal and external variables stakeholders consider when choosing an educational institution. It is also based on the relationships that the university/institution is able to provide. The scale procedure that we followed had to be adapted, so we decided to develop a scale procedure to select items for this dimension as well, because we could not find a suitable scale in the literature.
