The role of marketing communication in developing corporate reputation in service industries: In the example of universities in Kyrgyzstan

The term of ?reputation?, which is being applied for persons and related to respect, has evolved in time to be applied for companies as well and it has become a very significant, abstract richness for them. It is of utmost importance for the companies to be perceived and evaluated with reputation, because its position in the mind of shareholders affects the sustainability of activities, profits and the very existence. This perception and evaluation attributes them a great power for competition. Companies develop their perception of reputation by using marketing communication effectively. It is necessary constantly to work with marketing communication, which affects the perception, evaluation and behavior of shareholders, for creating, protecting and strengthening the corporate reputation.This work aims to study, how the corporate reputation is perceived in the universities of Kyrgyzstan and how their activities in marketing communication affect this perception. The study is conducted among the academic and administrative personal and students of the Kyrgyzstan-Turkey Manas University and Yusuf Balasagun Kyrgyz National University. 772 people has been chosen by convenience sampling method. In order to verify the hypothesis a questionnaire based on Likert scale has been developed and applied to the students, academic and administrative personal of both universities. The data has been analyzed by frequencies, parametric statistical methods.In the research the hypothesis about the dependency relation between the marketing communication activities of universities and their perception of corporate reputation has been tested and the positive correlation has been approved.Finally, it has been suggested that reputation creates many conveniences, brings competition superiority, and because of the multiplicity of education business in Kyrgyzstan educational institutions in education industry are in a special need of competition to get more qualified students. It has been manifested that through conscious marketing communication activities corporate reputation can be developed and universities should emphasize marketing communication in order to increase their corporate reputation.