Factors influencing Private University Alumni Management of Universities in China

บทคัดย่อ

This research aims 1) to explore various perspectives of the executives in private universities towards the operation performance of their Alumni Association, 2) to identify and analyze the factors that have influenced university development through the effectiveness of the Private University Alumni Association in China, and 3) to propose the factors that would influence the research model that would be practical,andatthesametime,couldhelpclosesomeacademicgaps.Thepopulation of this research is alumni organizations in private universities and colleges in four different regions. This research has applied both the quantitative and qualitative research approaches to strengthen the research findings. For the quantitative, four hundred copies of questionnaire are acquired and processed for the structural equation model, whereas the qualitative method includes the in-depth interviews with ten high-level management executives consisting of government and alumni executives. The target groups are the private universities which have their own Alumni Associations. Therefore, on-line face-to-face interviews are the most proper solution for data collection. The content analysis is used to scrutinize information received from interviewees. The findings have indicated that private universities considerthealumniassociationstobeveryimportantunits.Thefactorscontributing to alumni association effectiveness are alumni feedback, business network contribution, information technology, academic advancement, and engagement. Private universities have used alumni associations as the network for their own alumni and current students. The other essential purpose is to utilize the alumni association as a marketing mechanism to support their academic reputation and accountability. Therefore, private universities have fully realized that feedback from alumni is very important for their academic-service business.