FACTORS AFFECTING SERVICE BRAND EQUITY: THE CASE OF PRIVATE GENERAL HOSPITALS IN ADDIS ABABA

Abstract

The main obiective of this study was to investigate the factors affecting brand equity in the case of private general hospitals in Addis Ababa based on Aaker's consumer based brand equity model. Explanatory research design along with mixed research approach was adopted to test the proposed hypotheses. Customers of private general hospitals were considerd as a study population and a total of 384 sample respondents were selected using convenience non-probabilistic sampling technique. Of which 317 valid and usable primary data were collected through self-administered questionnaires and processed via SPSS version 21.0. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to describe responses regarding the study variables and test the four proposed hypotheses. The results of the findings revealed that brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality and brand loyalty had positive and strong relationship with brand equity. Specifically, perceived service quality of the private general hospitals had relatively the highest effect (B= .261) on brand equity followed by brand awareness (B= .220) at p-value<.05. Whereas brand association (B=.182) and brand loyalty (B= .174) had relatively low effect on brand equity. Thus, based on the results, all the four proposed hypotheses were supported. It can be concluded that brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality and brand loyalty are determinant facts that predict the variation on brand equity of the hospitals. Mnagements of general hospitals should exert mmore effort on creating their brand awareness and improving medical service quality based on their customer’s demand to exceed their expectation.