Revisiting integrated marketing communication (IMC): a scale to assess IMC in higher education (HE)

Integrated marketing communication (IMC) has attracted the interest of marketing and management scholars since it was first introduced. A theoretical debate on definitional and measurement issues has also been growing. Thanks to the benefits that IMC can offer organizations, it is interesting to study it with regards to the higher education (HE) environment since higher education institutions (HEIs) have been focusing on the potential of different and new ways of communication and their integration. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the concept of IMC in HE. And second, to present a tool that measures the level of integration of marketing and communication achieved in the HE context in a non-English speaking country, while also considering different perceptions in the same organization. The methodology of this paper is based on a multi-stage research design adopting qualitative and quantitative approaches. The main contributions are a reliable and valid adaptation of a tool that measures the level of IMC in a set of selected HEIs and a proposal of five dimensions that explain IMC in HE context. This will help to build a more robust theoretical body of knowledge regarding not only IMC but also higher education marketing (HEM).