How Teachers Contribute to the Sustainability of the University Brand: Evidence from China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. The manuscript does not sufficiently delineate how its findings are novel or extend existing literature in a meaningful way. While the focus on China is appreciated, the paper fails to integrate this context deeply into the broader academic debate on educational branding or to highlight significant new insights that could be generalized or applied in other contexts.

2. The theoretical underpinnings of the study appear to be inadequately developed. The linkage between the roles of teachers and the sustainability of the university brand is not robustly theorized, and the literature review does not adequately contextualize the study within existing research. Key theoretical perspectives that could enhance the understanding of the topic seem to be overlooked.

3. The methodology section lacks clarity and detail, making it challenging to assess the rigor of the research design and the validity of the findings. There is insufficient information on the selection of participants, data collection processes, and analytical methods. This lack of methodological transparency raises concerns about the reliability of the study's conclusions.

4. The analysis presented does not convincingly support the claims made. It is often descriptive rather than analytical and lacks the depth necessary to provide a robust understanding of the issues at hand. Additionally, the connection between the empirical findings and the broader implications for the sustainability of the university brand is tenuous and underexplored.

5. The conclusions drawn are not adequately supported by the evidence presented. The implications for theory, practice, and future research are not convincingly articulated, and the paper misses the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the discourse on educational branding and the role of faculty in this context.

The manuscript requires significant revision for clarity, coherence, and academic rigor. There are numerous instances of grammatical errors and awkward phrasing that detract from the readability of the text. Moreover, the organization of the manuscript could be improved to provide a clearer narrative and argumentative structure.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks a lot for your helpful comments, which make our manuscript complete and more readable. We have studied your comments carefully and have made corrections which we hope meet with approval. Revised portions are marked in red in the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responses to your comments are as follows:

--1. The manuscript does not sufficiently delineate how its findings are novel or extend existing literature in a meaningful way. While the focus on China is appreciated, the paper fails to integrate this context deeply into the broader academic debate on educational branding or to highlight significant new insights that could be generalized or applied in other contexts.

Responses: Thanks a lot for your comment. To further explain the contributions and the novelties of our manuscript, we rewrite some parts of the Introduction and write the Conclusions of our manuscript. Specific details are as follows:

1. Introduction

The influence of market mechanisms is increasing in China’s higher education. Such as the resource allocation mode is gradually diversified, and the government guides the characteristics and classification of university development and emphasizes competition, performance, and adjustment between universities through the "Double First-class" construction policy [1]. China is in the process of marketization of higher education and formatting its institutional market. And the competition among higher education institutions around reputation, status, and resources has become more intense [2]. As an active organizational entity, a university should respond actively to competitive pressure by implementing a branding strategy [3]. By branding strategy, a university can improve its reputation, show its quality and characteristics, form a differentiated development with others, gain a dominant position in the institutional market, and form the basis for promoting sustainable development [4]. Internal branding is a process that values the involvement of key stakeholders within the organization in brand building to ensure that they identify and internalize the values of the organization’s brand and transmit brand-supporting behaviors to the organization [5]. Consequently, the internal brand is a key link to building a brand and promoting the sustainable development of a university. Internal brand management is a potential way to gain a sustainable competitive advantage for a university. The group of teachers is the key to building an organization's competitive advantage through internal brand building. Meanwhile, building employee’s brand citizenship behavior is a key component of successful internal brand management [6]. From the perspective of internal interaction, this study focuses on the mechanisms of internal branding in universities—how teachers contribute to the sustainable development of the university brand. In higher education institutions, internal market orientation is more closely related to organizational citizenship behavior than other variables such as job satisfaction and performance [7]. Internal branding is a process in which universities develop and implement appropriate mechanisms, pay attention to and respond actively to the needs and suggestions of teachers, and make them deeply involved in brand building. Then, teachers can translate their organizational dedication into brand support behaviors. Thus, we hope to discover the primary factors and their relationship to internal branding. Based on existing studies and organizational identity theory [8], this study aims to create a mediating model and provide answers to the aforementioned concerns through a survey of university teachers.

……

6. Conclusions

To sum up, in the context of Chinese universities, this study constructs and validates a theoretical model with intermediaries to explore the impact of internal market orientation on the internal brand of universities, and explores the mediating role of teacher organizational identity at the same time. The empirical research results show that the three dimensions of internal market orientation, namely internal information collection, internal communication and feedback, have positive effects on teachers' organizational identity and brand support behavior. Teachers' organizational identity not only has a positive effect on brand support behavior, but also plays a completely mediating role in the influence of internal market orientation on teachers' brand support behavior. This research proves that effective internal market orientation can stimulate teachers' brand support behavior. This study further confirms that teachers' organizational identity is an important medium to link internal market orientation and brand support behavior. That is, each stage of the formation of the internal brand of a university is important to teachers' psychology and behavior in the next stage. Taken together, this study believes that the key to the formation of an internal brand of a university is to enhance the organizational identity of the teachers. The university is fully aware of the particularity of teachers, makes full use of the internal market orientation, and actively constructs an interactive communication and feedback mechanism with teachers. So that teachers can truly participate in the reform and development process of the university and feel the university values and respects, and recognizes their membership in the university. The university therefore can stimulate teachers' brand support behavior, in other words, "internalizing the university's values in their hearts and externalizing them in their actions".

--2. The theoretical underpinnings of the study appear to be inadequately developed. The linkage between the roles of teachers and the sustainability of the university brand is not robustly theorized, and the literature review does not adequately contextualize the study within existing research. Key theoretical perspectives that could enhance the understanding of the topic seem to be overlooked.

Responses: Thank you very much for your help. In order to further enhance the theoretical nature of our manuscript and clarify the roles of teachers and the sustainability of the university brand, we have added some content in the Introduction section, and supplemented the references in the research review and hypotheses section based on the opinions of other reviewers. For details, please refer to the revised full text. Specific details are as follows:

1. Introduction

The influence of market mechanisms is increasing in China’s higher education. Such as the resource allocation mode is gradually diversified, and the government guides the characteristics and classification of university development and emphasizes competition, performance, and adjustment between universities through the "Double First-class" construction policy [1]. China is in the process of marketization of higher education and formatting its institutional market. And the competition among higher education institutions around reputation, status, and resources has become more intense [2]. As an active organizational entity, a university should respond actively to competitive pressure by implementing a branding strategy [3]. By branding strategy, a university can improve its reputation, show its quality and characteristics, form a differentiated development with others, gain a dominant position in the institutional market, and form the basis for promoting sustainable development [4]. Internal branding is a process that values the involvement of key stakeholders within the organization in brand building to ensure that they identify and internalize the values of the organization’s brand and transmit brand-supporting behaviors to the organization [5]. Consequently, the internal brand is a key link to building a brand and promoting the sustainable development of a university. Internal brand management is a potential way to gain a sustainable competitive advantage for a university. The group of teachers is the key to building an organization's competitive advantage through internal brand building. Meanwhile, building employee’s brand citizenship behavior is a key component of successful internal brand management [6]. From the perspective of internal interaction, this study focuses on the mechanisms of internal branding in universities—how teachers contribute to the sustainable development of the university brand. In higher education institutions, internal market orientation is more closely related to organizational citizenship behavior than other variables such as job satisfaction and performance [7]. Internal branding is a process in which universities develop and implement appropriate mechanisms, pay attention to and respond actively to the needs and suggestions of teachers, and make them deeply involved in brand building. Then, teachers can translate their organizational dedication into brand support behaviors. Thus, we hope to discover the primary factors and their relationship to internal branding. Based on existing studies and organizational identity theory [8], this study aims to create a mediating model and provide answers to the aforementioned concerns through a survey of university teachers.

Organizational identity refers to the aspects of consistency in behaviors and concepts between members and the organization they belong to. Members recognize they have a sense of contract, responsibility, belonging, and dependence on the organization and try their best for the organization's activities [9]. Individual behavior in an organization can be divided into organizational role behavior and organizational citizenship behavior. Organizational role behavior refers to the qualitative behavior in the formal role assigned to individuals by the organization. While organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) refers to the sum of behaviors that are beneficial to the organization's operation, efficiency improvement and social status [10]. OCB is the voluntary behavior of individuals and is not directly related to the organization's formal compensation system. OCB is a concept related strongly to organizational identity. Individual organizational identity is triggered by organizational identity in terms of affective cognition. OCB is promoted by organizational identity in terms of behavior. Organizational identity is a prerequisite for OCB, whereas OCB is the outcome and external manifestation of organizational identity [11].

 Internal branding is based on organizational identity theory and research on internal market orientation and brand support behavior. Internal market orientation refers to an organization’s management gathering and disseminating information on employees’ needs under its brand development goals, as well as designing and implementing appropriate responses to meet those needs. Internal market orientation demonstrates its efficacy through a combination of three dimensions: internal information collecting, internal communication, and feedback. The degree of internal market orientation effectiveness has varying effects on the attitudes and behaviors of individuals [12]. Brand support behaviors are non-coercive, functional extra-role behaviors shown by individuals besides the formal roles, which benefit enhancing brand identity and performance. Some researchers contend that brand support behaviors exceed OCB in that they also encompass external target behaviors that are often considered intraorganizational [13].

Because of strong path-dependent characteristics and the difficulty of imitation, organizational identity can be a significant source of competitive advantage for organizations [4]. In addition, the service-oriented nature of universities necessitates a focus on teachers in brand building. Unlike employees of other organizations, teachers belong to a knowledge-based group with high subjective initiative and typically have a deeper awareness of their duties and the university’s goals and values. The effectiveness of teachers’ work is largely dependent on the degree to which each teacher identifies with the university and their profession [9]. This identification also serves as the foundation for maintaining positive interactions between teachers and the university as well as encouraging their organizational citizenship and brand support behaviors. Therefore, the organizational identity theory has a high explanatory capacity for brand identity within universities [13]. Organizational identity theory has been implemented to analyze higher education in these aspects: (1) the affecting factors of teachers' organizational identity, for example, organizational fitness and affiliation [14]. (2) teachers' organizational identity and professional identity, for example, job autonomy and organizational environment have a significant positive impact on professional identity and organizational identity. Professional identity has a positive impact on organizational identity, partially mediating the relationship between job autonomy, organizational environment and organizational identity [15]. (3) the relationship between organizational identity and teachers’ innovative behaviors, for example, the organizational identity of teachers has a positive effect on their innovative behaviors and partially mediates the relationship between their professional identity and innovative behaviors [16]. (4) organizational identity and reputation strategies in universities, for example, a university’s organizational identity encompasses strategic, structural, and cultural levels, as well as four dimensions: organizational identity, symbolic identity, image, and reputation. Based on this approach, university leaders can establish identity and reputation strategies that can substantially impact reputation and brand building [17].

2. Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

2.1. Teachers’ organizational identity and internal market orientation

Internal market orientation is the organization’s perspective of individuals as significant customers and service providers [8]. Individuals within the organization are involved in the formulation and implementation of organizational development plans.  When a culture of trust and respect is established within the organization, organizational loyalty will be enhanced. Internal information collection refers to the initiative of the university to collect information on the understanding and attitude of teachers regarding their work, organizational environment, mission, vision, and values, as well as the needs of teachers. It can help the university to establish an emotional connection with teachers [15]. Internal communication aims to reduce information asymmetry inside an organization. Timely internal communication enables employees to feel appreciated by the organization and increases their sense of ownership [18]. Open and trustworthy information can improve teachers’ participation and behaviors. To use the internal communication strategy effectively, the information must be disseminated and communicated between departments and individuals throughout the organization. Effective feedback refers to the capacity of a university to respond to the collected information thereby meeting the needs of teachers, boosting the quality of internal services, and fostering a healthy organizational culture.

Internal and external market orientation in an organization is closely related. Internal factors of an organization’s performance have a direct bearing on its market competitiveness. Internal market orientation tactics can be utilized to promote employee motivation and organizational loyalty, hence increasing employee satisfaction and organizational commitment [19]. In addition, there is a connection between internal market orientation and other organizational variables. The extent of an organization’s dedication to producing value for teachers is substantially associated with improved teachers’ satisfaction and organizational loyalty [20]. Based on the perspective of establishing a good interaction between the organization and teachers, higher levels of internal market orientation have a positive impact on the brand commitment of teachers in higher education [21]. According to the above discussion, the following ideas and hypotheses are proposed:

H1a: Internal information collection is significantly and positively related to the organizational identity of teachers.

H1b: Teachers’ organizational identity is significantly and beneficially linked to internal communication.

H1c: There is a strong and preferable relationship between feedback and teachers’ organizational identity.

……

2.4. The mediating role of organizational identity

Internal market orientation emphasizes interactions between the individuals and the organization [19]. The effectiveness of internal market orientation affects the behavior of organization members. This process is dependent on how much the individual feels the organization’s attention and whether a sense of ownership can be developed through the bilateral interaction [30]. This also determines whether the individual’s organizational identity can be strengthened. That is, internal market orientation influences the individual’s organizational citizenship behavior via organizational identity. Internal market orientation, organizational identity, and organizational citizenship behavior are the influence mechanisms. Leadership, procedural justice inside the organization, and other elements serve as organizational identity’s precursors [31]. Organizational identity is responsible for the creativity, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behavior of individuals. In other words, organizational identity mediates the relationship between the antecedent and outcome variables. Effective internal market orientation may communicate organizational values, mission, and development strategies to teachers, as well as provide timely feedback on teachers’ requirements. This will result in a stronger organizational identity for the university [32]. Therefore, teachers will consider their actions from the perspective of being beneficial to the university, adopt supportive behaviors that are advantageous to the university’s development, and closely link their personal development to the university’s development. The hypotheses are therefore proposed: 

H4a: Teachers’ sense of organization mediates the relationship between internal information collection and brand support behavior.

H4b: The relationship between internal communication and brand support behavior is mediated by teachers’ sense of organizational identity.

H4c: The organizational identity of teachers influences the relationship between feedback and brand support behavior.

Based on the above discussion, the research model of this study is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Research model

--3. The methodology section lacks clarity and detail, making it challenging to assess the rigor of the research design and the validity of the findings. There is insufficient information on the selection of participants, data collection processes, and analytical methods. This lack of methodological transparency raises concerns about the reliability of the study's conclusions.

Responses: Thank you for your help very much. According to your suggestions, we have supplemented and improved the Methods section in order to further explain the selection of participants, the process of data collection and the application of analytical methods. The details are as follows:

3. Methods

3.1. Participants and sampling procedure

To test the research hypotheses and whole theoretical model, this study conducted an empirical survey among teachers in 10 universities (6 "Double First-class” construction universities and 4 ordinary universities) in China’s 5 core cities, which are Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, and Xi’an. These cities have more universities in number and type. And the comprehensive level of teachers is relatively higher than in other cities. So, the data samples collected in this study are representative. Specifically, with the help of the personnel management departments of these universities, this study obtained a list of teachers in the major disciplines of 10 universities, and then randomly selected 500 teachers to participate in the empirical survey. We also promised all teachers who participated in the survey that the survey would only be used for academic research and that the survey data obtained would be kept strictly confidential to ensure that each teacher could fill in the questionnaire in a more objective and truthful manner and obtain relatively objective survey data.

Meanwhile, to enhance the reliability and decrease common method bias, this study collected the sample data at three different times. Consistent with previous studies [33, 34], the sample data are collected every two weeks. At time 1, teachers are asked to report their demographic information and true feelings about the university’s internal market orientation. At time 2, teachers are asked to fill out questionnaires that include individual organizational identification. At time 3, teachers were asked to fill out questionnaires about the university’s brand support behaviors. The 500 questionnaires and their Wenjuanxing link are sent to the teachers through WeCom, which is widely used in online education investigation and research in China. And 419 valid questionnaires were collected, with a valid recovery rate of 83.8%. The detailed demographic information of the participants is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Demographic information of the participants.

3.2. Measures

The main variables involved in this study, internal market orientation, teachers’ organizational identity, and teachers’ brand support behaviors, were measured by mature scales. According to the actual needs of this study, some words of the scales are modified appropriately [35]. The response format was a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree”. The questionnaire was initially validated on a small scale, and the specific content of the questions was modified based on the validation results to make them more consistent with the characteristics of teachers and this study.

3.2.1. Internal market orientation

In this study, the scale developed by Yu was used to measure teachers’ perception of the university's internal market orientation at Time 1 [36]. This scale consists of 3 dimensions and 9 items, including an example of "Our university conducts teachers’ assessments regularly to discuss the needs of teachers ". The Cronbach's alpha value for this measure was 0.860.

3.2.2. Organizational identity

Combined with the scale developed by Van Dick and Wagner, the organizational identity of teachers was measured at Time 2 [37]. The scale contains 11 items, such as "I feel good working at this university" and "My university's success is my success." The Cronbach's alpha value for this measure was 0.903.

3.2.3. Brand support behavior

The organizational citizenship behavior scale of university teachers developed by Donglong and colleagues was adopted, and the sentences of some items were adjusted to form a scale for measuring teachers’ brand support behavior at time 3 [38]. The scale contains 2 dimensions and 15 items, such as "take the initiative to introduce or publicize the advantages of the university", "take the initiative to coordinate and communicate with the university or colleagues" and "actively participate in various job skills training organized by the university ". The Cronbach's alpha value for this measure was 0.914.

3.2.4. Control Variables

Based on previous studies [16, 20, 39, 40], the control variables of this study mainly include demographic information such as gender, age, education, and university type. Gender was a binary variable coded as 0 = Male and 1 = Female. The age of the participants was divided into 2 levels (1=31-50 years; 2= 50 years and older). The education is divided into 3 levels (1= bachelor; 2= master; 3= doctor). University Type is divided into 2 levels (1= "Double First-class" construction university; 2= ordinary university).

3.3. Data Analysis

In this study, the data from the valid questionnaires were statistically analyzed by two analysis software, SPSS 24.0 and Mplus 7.2. It is usually measured by the ratio of Chi-Square/degree of freedom (χ2/df), the comparative fit index (CFI), the goodness of fit index (GFI), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and standardized root mean square residua (SRMR) [41, 42]. Firstly, to ensure the quality of the gathered data, the reliability and validity of the measurement questions were examined. Secondly, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and regression analysis were used to test the relationship between internal market orientation, teacher organizational identity, and teacher brand support behavior by SPSS24.0. Finally, this study uses the Bootstrap method and Model4 in Process plug-in in SPSS24.0 to further verify the mediating effect and overall hypothesis model of teacher organization identification.

--4. The analysis presented does not convincingly support the claims made. It is often descriptive rather than analytical and lacks the depth necessary to provide a robust understanding of the issues at hand. Additionally, the connection between the empirical findings and the broader implications for the sustainability of the university brand is tenuous and underexplored.

Responses: Thank you very much for your advice. To let the readers fully understand the research design, we have read and added some references on the manuscript. More importantly, we and the Discussion section which including mainly three parts: Theoretical implications Managerial implications and Limitations and recommendations. The details are as follows:

New references:

Liu, S.; Luo, X.; Liu, M. Was Chinese “Double-First Class” Construction Policy Influential? Analysis Using Propensity Score Matching. Sustainability 2023, 15, 6378.

Khoshtaria, T., Datuashvili, D., Matin, A. The impact of brand equity dimensions on university reputation: an empirical study of Georgian higher education. J. High. Educ.2020, 2, 239-255.

Burmann C., Zeplin S., Riley, N. Key determinants of internal brand management success: An exploratory empirical analysis. J. Brand Manag. 2009, 16, 264-284.

Carlos, V. S., Rodrigues, R. G. Internal market orientation in higher education institutions-Its inter-relations with other organizational variables. Vieš. Polit. Adm.  2012, 11, 690-702.

Ocampo, L., Acedillo, V., Bacunador, A. M., Balo, C. C., Lagdameo, Y. J., Tupa, N. S. A historical review of the development of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and its implications for the twenty-first century. Pers. Rev., 2018, 47, 821-862.

Moghadam, A. H., Tehrani, M. Predicting model of organizational identity toward its effect on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Afr. J. Bus. Manag., 2011, 5, 9877-9888.

Kirca, A. H., Jayachandran, S., Bearden, W. O. Market orientation: A meta-analytic review and assessment of its antecedents and impact on performance. J. Mark., 2005, 69, 24-41.

Lings, I. N.; Greenley, G. E. Internal market orientation and market‐oriented behaviours. J. Serv. Manag., 2010, 21, 321-343.

Hair Jr, J.F.; Matthews, L.M.; Matthews, R.L.; Sarstedt, M. PLS-SEM or CB-SEM: Updated guidelines on which method to use. Int. J. Multivar. Data Anal. 2017, 1, 107-123.

Kineber, A.F.; Oke, A.; Aliu, J.; Hamed, M.M.; Oputu, E. Exploring the adoption of cyber (digital) technology for sustainable construction: A structural equation modeling of critical success factors. Sustainability 2023, 15, 5043.

Male, S.; Kelly, J.; Fernie, S.; Grönqvist, M.; Bowles, G. Value management: The value management benchmark: A good practice framework for clients and practitioners; Thomas Telford Publishing: London, UK, 1998.

Kirdök, O.; Harman, E. High school students' career decision-making difficulties according to locus of control. Univers. J. Educ. Res., 2018, 6, 242-248.

Shrestha, N. Factor analysis as a tool for survey analysis. Am. J. Appl. Math. Stat., 2021, 9, 4-11.

Rasheed, F. A.; Abadi, M. F. Impact of service quality, trust and perceived value on customer loyalty in Malaysia services industries. Procedia Soc. Behav. Sci. 2014, 164, 298-304.

Hayes, A. F.; Scharkow, M. The relative trustworthiness of inferential tests of the indirect effect in statistical mediation analysis: does method really matter?. Psychological science, 2013, 24, 1918-1927.

Alfons, A., Ateş, N. Y.; Groenen, P. J. A robust bootstrap test for mediation analysis. Organ. Res. Methods., 2022, 25, 591-617.

Nicol, D. The power of internal feedback: Exploiting natural comparison processes. Assess. Eval. High. Educ., 2021, 46, 756-778.

5. Discussion

University brand building can be regarded as a kind of culture change [49]. The internal brand is the most valuable intangible asset to promote the sustainable development of the university [50]. Teachers, as a knowledge-based group, are the most valuable tangible asset in the innovation and development of the university [51]. This study discusses the key factors in the process of university brand building, which are teachers and their relationship with the university from the perspective of internal organizations. The empirical results indicate that the three dimensions of internal market orientation (internal information collection, internal communication, and feedback) are significantly positively correlated with teachers’ organizational identity and brand support behavior. Teachers’ organizational identity is not only significantly positively correlated with brand support behavior, but also mediates the relationship between the three dimensions of internal market orientation and brand support behavior.

5.1. Theoretical implications

This study first verified that internal information collection, internal communication, and feedback are all significantly and positively related to the organizational identity and brand support behaviors of teachers. Internal communication has the largest impact on the explanatory power of the independent variables to raise the dependent variable, followed by internal information collection and feedback. The three elements of internal market orientation can be understood as the three stages of interaction between universities and teachers [52]. In addition, internal communication is crucial to the continuation of the process [23, 53]. Specifically, it can be explained as follows: in the process of good communication, teachers perceive their significant roles and ownership in the development of the organization, which increases their identification with the university and promotes positive organizational behaviors. Internal information collection and feedback as a necessary stage of this interaction mechanism has a greater impact on the psychology and behavior of teachers and is a prerequisite for demonstrating the success of internal market orientation [54]. This also shows that the internal market orientation of organizations has a positive impact on teachers' brand support behavior. It expands the research perspective of university brand building from the perspective of teachers' psychology and behavior [55].

Besides, based on the organizational identity theory, this study found that the organizational identity of teachers is strongly and positively associated with brand support behavior, and it mediates the effects of the three dimensions of internal market orientation on teachers’ brand support behavior. The organizational identity of teachers is an internal psychological state that is influenced by the organizational environment and behavior [56]. On the other side, brand support behavior is the external manifestation of an internal psychological state [57]. The two are consistent. For the analysis of this study, internal market orientation is a behavior at the organizational level. Internal market orientation has an impact on teachers’ inner psychology via three distinct aspects, which in turn promote their brand support behavior. In other words, teachers’ organizational identity mediates the relationship between internal market orientation and brand-supporting behaviors in universities. This finding also explores the influence of the effectiveness of internal market orientation on the attitude and behavior of teachers, which also further analyzes its influence on internal brand building [58]. It expands the application scope of the organizational identity theory in the field of institutional research [14, 59].

In addition, this study explains the process of the internal market orientation to the university's internal brand building. Specifically, starting from the two-way communication within universities, teachers are encouraged to better understand the brand value of the organization, internalize the vision of the organization, and make more efforts to achieve the organization’s goals. These behaviors will improve the efficiency of universities [60]. At the same time, the organizational identity of teachers plays a complete intermediary role in this process. It indicates that the organizational identity of teachers is an important medium to link the internal market orientation and brand support behavior [61].

5.2. Managerial implications

Firstly, universities should pay close attention to the important role of teachers in the process of brand building [5, 62]. The development of a university brand should not only emphasize external brand-building strategies but also acknowledge the importance of the internal brand. As a service-oriented organization, branding from the inside out is an efficient technique. Hence, we first believe that increasing the organizational identity of teachers is the key to the establishment of the university’s internal brand. Universities should take into account the characteristics of the organization and teachers, acknowledge teachers are the university’s most valuable tangible asset, and create an organizational environment that is beneficial for teachers to accept the brand value and convert it into behaviors [63]. In this way, the organization’s goals, mission, and values are fully shared. Thereby it can incentivize teachers to strive to accomplish their organizational commitment and lay the foundation for the university’s competitive advantage. Internal market orientation is a significant element for university brand building. Modern organization development must address the interaction between organizations and individuals. According to this study, the key to building a university brand from the inside out is good interactions between organizations and teachers [64].

Secondly, universities should conduct internal surveys and research via questionnaires, historical data analysis, or interviews regularly to fully comprehend the attitudes of teachers regarding their work, organizational environment, vision, and goals [65]. In this process, universities collect information on the needs of teachers in each department to ensure that the organization takes their perspectives and values seriously. University leaders should take teachers’ demands into account in the design of systems, salary management, and career development planning through effective internal information collection and job analysis [66]. Teachers’ organizational identity should be bolstered by an autonomous working environment through decentralization and the sharing of teaching and research achievements [67]. Meanwhile, university leaders can form a benign internal brand management mechanism by beginning with three dimensions of internal market orientation and ensuring the effectiveness of each component [68].

Thirdly, we should enhance communication and exchange within universities and develop an effective framework for bidirectional interactions. The research findings indicate that internal communication has a substantial impact on the organizational identity and brand support behavior of teachers than internal information collection and feedback. The effectiveness of internal communication is crucial to the success of internal market orientation. Effective communication must consist of the following elements: university leaders, departments, divisions, and teachers [69]. Based on communication channels such as teachers’ meetings, training, internal manuals, and new media platforms, a university should communicate either formally or informally. To ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of communication, consideration should be given to a calm and equal communication environment as well as the proper communication frequency [70]. The transparency of internal communication should be maintained, and the results of communication should be promptly publicized throughout the campus to encourage teachers to engage in communication and fully exercise their right to speak.

Finally, timely feedback on teachers’ comments and requirements is needed. Universities should strengthen the organizational identity of teachers by optimizing their positions, enhancing their knowledge and skills, optimizing their welfare benefits and evaluation process, and incorporating feasible policy recommendations into the university’s branding [71]. Through the optimization of the organization’s internal feedback, a good organizational environment can be created, and the brand support behavior of teachers can be stimulated. Thereby teachers can understand and help solve problems in university branding promptly. These can promote the success of using the university branding strategy [72].

5.3. Limitations and recommendations

Future studies should increase the effective sample size of the existing research population; enhance the sample’s representativeness, generalizability, and balance; and employ more scientific data collection procedures to reduce measurement error. Future research should also thoroughly investigate the influence of moderating variables to provide more reliable and scientific conclusions. Student groups should also be included in the research on university brand building because they are primary internal stakeholders of universities and have intuitive feelings about the quality of university operations and internal service quality [73]. Student participation in co-creating value can improve the satisfaction of the university experience, create and maintain a positive image of the university, and build the credibility of the university. The group of students is a key factor in achieving sustainable development of university brand. By empirical investigation, researchers may investigate the mechanism of organizational identity and brand support behaviors of students regarding university branding [74]. To strengthen the objectivity and scientific nature of the research findings, the brand support behaviors of teachers and students should also be examined, such as by surveying the university administrators with questionnaires and interviews [75], it also provides a reference for the high-quality sustainable development of universities [76].

--5. The conclusions drawn are not adequately supported by the evidence presented. The implications for theory, practice, and future research are not convincingly articulated, and the paper misses the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the discourse on educational branding and the role of faculty in this context.

Responses: Thank you very much for your help. In order to further explain the important role of teachers in the sustainability of the university brand, we have added some content in the Conclusion section, for details, please see the first answer or the revised article.

--6. Comments on the Quality of English Language: The manuscript requires significant revision for clarity, coherence, and academic rigor. There are numerous instances of grammatical errors and awkward phrasing that detract from the readability of the text. Moreover, the organization of the manuscript could be improved to provide a clearer narrative and argumentative structure.

Responses: Thank you very much for your advice. To enhance the academic and readability of the paper, we have carefully revised the full text again, and supplemented or modified the content of the paper in combination with the comments of other reviewers. For details, please see the revised full manuscript.

Thanks for your help again!

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors:
We apologize for the recent delay in submitting review proposals due to various factors. Although after detailed reading and understanding, I think the topic of this manuscript is meaningful, there is still room for improvement and relevant details need to be addressed. The following suggestions are therefore made for this manuscript:
1.Abstract
a. Clearly state the main research purpose.
b. Lack of description of research methods.
c. Supplementary sampling time and method.
2. Introduction
a. The logic of the theme narrative needs to be strengthened, such as: lines 24-38; lines 40-49
Although lines 50-74 are much better, this paragraph can provide the author with a reference for self-checking.
b. Additional literature is needed to confirm the point of view, rather than personal subjective opinion.
c. Missing the main research purpose description and integration description.
d. Overall, the author needs to significantly rewrite this chapter.
2.Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses
a. Supplementary literature is needed to confirm the opinion, rather than personal subjective opinion. For example: lines 108-115; lines 118-126; lines 143-151; lines 171-182.
b. Overall, the research hypothesis inference chapter is not perfect. The narrative needs to refocus the argument and the logic needs to be strengthened so that readers can understand the significance of the hypothesis.
c. The prediction model diagram needs to clearly indicate the researcher’s four model mechanisms.
3.Methods
a. How long was the time gap between the three samples that the author separated?
b. What is the significance of dividing three sampling time points?
c. Please describe the background information of the sample in detail and make it into a table.
d. Please supplement the content of the questionnaire tool and explain it in detail.
e. The order of presentation in this chapter seems illogical. It is recommended to state the tools first, and then state the background description of the sample.
f. The analytical values ​​in lines 324-343 are good, but it would be better if the references for each analytical numerical standard could be supplemented.
4.Results
a. Although the content of Table 1 is very good. However, due to flaws in the research architecture diagram and hypothesis description, it is difficult for readers to understand the correlation between each prediction model and Internal information collection, Internal communication, Feedback, Organizational identity, and Brand support behavior.
b. Please provide an explanation of the correlation between the mediation analysis based on gender, age, education level (or professional title) and the theme and article discussion. If it is not relevant, it is recommended to delete it.
5.Discussion
Although the author has obtained relevant and sufficient data, the content stated in this chapter is not easy to understand, and it is difficult for readers to understand the meaning the author wants to express. It is recommended that the narrative logic of this chapter needs to be strengthened.
6.Others
Conclusions and recommendations are missing. It seems that the researchers have not integrated the results of all analyzes to make a summary.
wish you success in work and life,

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks a lot for your helpful comments, which make our manuscript complete and more readable. We have studied your comments carefully and have made corrections which we hope meet with approval. Revised portions are marked in red on the paper. The main corrections in the manuscript and the responses to your comments are as follows:

1. Abstract
2. Clearly state the main research purpose.
3. Lack of description of research methods.
4. Supplementary sampling time and method.

Responses:  Never mind about the “delay”. Thanks a lot for your advice.  Based on your and other reviewers’ suggestions, we have rewritten the Abstract of our manuscript. The details are as follows:

Abstract: Brand strategy is a powerful guarantee for a university to enhance its reputation and sustainable development. An internal brand is the foundation of a university brand. Based on three variables—internal market orientation, teachers’ organizational identity, and teachers’ brand support behavior, a research model of university internal brand formation mechanisms is constructed. To summarize how teachers support the university’s internal brand building, we analyzed the relationship between the three variables. In this study, 500 questionnaires were distributed by a three-stage sampling survey method from March to May 2021, and 419 valid samples were collected. The data from the valid questionnaires were statistically analyzed by two analysis software—SPSS 24.0 and Mplus 7.2. This survey and analysis found that the three dimensions of internal market orientation (internal information collection, internal communication, and feedback) are significantly positively correlated with teachers’ organizational identity and brand support behavior. Teachers’ organizational identity is not only significantly positively correlated with brand support behavior, but also mediates the relationship between the three dimensions of internal market orientation and brand support behavior. Universities should pay attention to the key roles of teachers in brand building and regard internal market orientation as an important tool for internal brand building.

2. Introduction
3. The logic of the theme narrative needs to be strengthened, such as: lines 24-38; lines 40-49. Although lines 50-74 are much better, this paragraph can provide the author with a reference for self-checking.
4. Additional literature is needed to confirm the point of view, rather than personal subjective opinion. c. Missing the main research purpose description and integration description. d. Overall, the author needs to significantly rewrite this chapter.

Responses： Thank you very much for your advice. We have modified and sorted out the Introduction part of the manuscript to enhance the narrative logic and theoretical logic of the manuscript. The details are as follows:

1. Introduction

The influence of market mechanisms is increasing in China’s higher education. Such as the resource allocation mode is gradually diversified, and the government guides the characteristics and classification of university development and emphasizes competition, performance, and adjustment between universities by the "Double First-class" construction policy [1]. China is in the process of marketization of higher education and formatting its institutional market. And the competition among higher education institutions around reputation, status, and resources has become more intense [2]. As an active organizational entity, university should respond actively to competitive pressure by implementing a branding strategy [3]. By branding strategy, a university can improve its reputation, show its quality and characteristics, form a differentiated development with others, gain a dominant position in the institutional market, and form the basis for promoting sustainable development [4]. Internal branding is a process that values the involvement of key stakeholders within the organization in brand building to ensure that they identify and internalize the values of the organization’s brand and transmit brand-supporting behaviors to the organization [5]. Consequently, the internal brand is a key link to building a brand and promoting the sustainable development of a university. Internal brand management is a potential way to gain a sustainable competitive advantage for a university. The group of teachers is the key to building an organization's competitive advantage through internal brand building. Meanwhile, building employee’s brand citizenship behavior is a key component of successful internal brand management [6]. From the perspective of internal interaction, this study focuses on the mechanisms of internal branding in universities—how teachers contribute to the sustainable development of the university brand. In higher education institutions, internal market orientation is more closely related to organizational citizenship behavior than other variables such as job satisfaction and performance [7]. Internal branding is a process in which universities develop and implement appropriate mechanisms, pay attention to and respond actively to the needs and suggestions of teachers, and make them deeply involved in brand building. Then, teachers can translate their organizational dedication into brand support behaviors. Thus, we hope to discover the primary factors and their relationship to internal branding. Based on existing studies and organizational identity theory [8], this study aims to create a mediating model and provide answers to the aforementioned concerns through a survey of university teachers.

Organizational identity refers to the aspects of consistency in behaviors and concepts between members and the organization they belong to. Members recognize they have a sense of contract, responsibility, belonging, and dependence on the organization and try their best for the organization's activities [9]. Individual behavior in an organization can be divided into organizational role behavior and organizational citizenship behavior. Organizational role behavior refers to the qualitative behavior in the formal role assigned to individuals by the organization. While organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) refers to the sum of behaviors that are beneficial to the organization's operation, efficiency improvement and social status [10]. OCB is the voluntary behavior of individuals and is not directly related to the organization's formal compensation system. OCB is a concept related strongly to organizational identity. Individual organizational identity is triggered by organizational identity in terms of affective cognition. OCB is promoted by organizational identity in terms of behavior. Organizational identity is a prerequisite for OCB, whereas OCB is the outcome and external manifestation of organizational identity [11].

 Internal branding is based on organizational identity theory and research on internal market orientation and brand support behavior. Internal market orientation refers to an organization’s management gathering and disseminating information on employees’ needs under its brand development goals, as well as designing and implementing appropriate responses to meet those needs. Internal market orientation demonstrates its efficacy through a combination of three dimensions: internal information collecting, internal communication, and feedback. The degree of internal market orientation effectiveness has varying effects on the attitudes and behaviors of individuals [12]. Brand support behaviors are non-coercive, functional extra-role behaviors shown by individuals besides the formal roles, which benefit enhancing brand identity and performance. Some researchers contend that brand support behaviors exceed OCB in that they also encompass external target behaviors that are often considered intraorganizational [13].

Because of strong path-dependent characteristics and the difficulty of imitation, organizational identity can be a significant source of competitive advantage for organizations [4]. In addition, the service-oriented nature of universities necessitates a focus on teachers in brand building. Unlike employees of other organizations, teachers belong to a knowledge-based group with high subjective initiative and typically have a deeper awareness of their duties and the university’s goals and values. The effectiveness of teachers’ work is largely dependent on the degree to which each teacher identifies with the university and their profession [9]. This identification also serves as the foundation for maintaining positive interactions between teachers and the university as well as encouraging their organizational citizenship and brand support behaviors. Therefore, the organizational identity theory has a high explanatory capacity for brand identity within universities [13]. Organizational identity theory has been implemented to analyze higher education in these aspects: (1) the affecting factors of teachers' organizational identity, for example, organizational fitness and affiliation [14]. (2) teachers' organizational identity and professional identity, for example, job autonomy and organizational environment have a significant positive impact on professional identity and organizational identity. Professional identity has a positive impact on organizational identity, partially mediating the relationship between job autonomy, organizational environment and organizational identity [15]. (3) the relationship between organizational identity and teachers’ innovative behaviors, for example, the organizational identity of teachers has a positive effect on their innovative behaviors and partially mediates the relationship between their professional identity and innovative behaviors [16]. (4) organizational identity and reputation strategies in universities, for example, a university’s organizational identity encompasses strategic, structural, and cultural levels, as well as four dimensions: organizational identity, symbolic identity, image, and reputation. Based on this approach, university leaders can establish identity and reputation strategies that can substantially impact reputation and brand building [17].

3. Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses
4. Supplementary literature is needed to confirm the opinion, rather than personal subjective opinion. For example: lines 108-115; lines 118-126; lines 143-151; lines 171-182.
5. Overall, the research hypothesis inference chapter is not perfect. The narrative needs to refocus the argument and the logic needs to be strengthened so that readers can understand the significance of the hypothesis.
6. The prediction model diagram needs to clearly indicate the researcher’s four model mechanisms.

Responses:  Thank you for your suggestions. Based on your comments, we have added references in the research review and hypothesis section. For details, please see the revised full text. At the same time, in order to more clearly show the four model mechanisms, we have clarified the correlation of each position hypothesis in the research model, as shown in the figure below.

Figure 1. Research model

4. Methods
5. How long was the time gap between the three samples that the author separated?
6. What is the significance of dividing three sampling time points?
7. Please describe the background information of the sample in detail and make it into a table.
8. Please supplement the content of the questionnaire tool and explain it in detail.
9. The order of presentation in this chapter seems illogical. It is recommended to state the tools first, and then state the background description of the sample.
10. The analytical values ​​in lines 324-343 are good, but it would be better if the references for each analytical numerical standard could be supplemented.

Responses:  Thanks for your comments. Based on your suggestions, we have supplemented and revised the Methods part of the manuscript as follows:

3. Methods

3.1. Participants and sampling procedure

To test the research hypotheses and whole theoretical model, this study conducted an empirical survey among teachers in 10 universities (6 "Double First-class” construction universities and 4 ordinary universities) in China’s 5 core cities, which are Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, and Xi’an. These cities have more universities in number and type. And the comprehensive level of teachers is relatively higher than in other cities. So, the data samples collected in this study are representative. Specifically, with the help of the personnel management departments of these universities, this study obtained a list of teachers in the major disciplines of 10 universities, and then randomly selected 500 teachers to participate in the empirical survey. We also promised all teachers who participated in the survey that the survey would only be used for academic research and that the survey data obtained would be kept strictly confidential to ensure that each teacher could fill in the questionnaire in a more objective and truthful manner and obtain relatively objective survey data.

Meanwhile, to enhance the reliability and decrease common method bias, this study collected the sample data at three different times. Consistent with previous studies [33, 34], the sample data are collected every two weeks. At time 1, teachers are asked to report their demographic information and true feelings about the university’s internal market orientation. At time 2, teachers are asked to fill out questionnaires that include individual organizational identification. At time 3, teachers were asked to fill out questionnaires about the university’s brand support behaviors. The 500 questionnaires and their Wenjuanxing link are sent to the teachers through WeCom, which is widely used in online education investigation and research in China. And 419 valid questionnaires were collected, with a valid recovery rate of 83.8%. The detailed demographic information of the participants is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Demographic information of the participants.

3.2. Measures

The main variables involved in this study, internal market orientation, teachers’ organizational identity, and teachers’ brand support behaviors, were measured by mature scales. According to the actual needs of this study, some words of the scales are modified appropriately [35]. The response format was a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree”. The questionnaire was initially validated on a small scale, and the specific content of the questions was modified based on the validation results to make them more consistent with the characteristics of teachers and this study.

3.2.1. Internal market orientation

In this study, the scale developed by Yu was used to measure teachers’ perception of the university's internal market orientation at Time 1 [36]. This scale consists of 3 dimensions and 9 items, including an example of "Our university conducts teachers’ assessments regularly to discuss the needs of teachers ". The Cronbach's alpha value for this measure was 0.860.

3.2.2. Organizational identity

Combined with the scale developed by Van Dick and Wagner, the organizational identity of teachers was measured at Time 2 [37]. The scale contains 11 items, such as "I feel good working at this university" and "My university's success is my success." The Cronbach's alpha value for this measure was 0.903.

3.2.3. Brand support behavior

The organizational citizenship behavior scale of university teachers developed by Donglong and colleagues was adopted, and the sentences of some items were adjusted to form a scale for measuring teachers’ brand support behavior at time 3 [38]. The scale contains 2 dimensions and 15 items, such as "take the initiative to introduce or publicize the advantages of the university", "take the initiative to coordinate and communicate with the university or colleagues" and "actively participate in various job skills training organized by the university ". The Cronbach's alpha value for this measure was 0.914.

3.2.4. Control Variables

Based on previous studies [16, 20, 39, 40], the control variables of this study mainly include demographic information such as gender, age, education, and university type. Gender was a binary variable coded as 0 = Male and 1 = Female. The age of the participants was divided into 2 levels (1=31-50 years; 2= 50 years and older). The education is divided into 3 levels (1= bachelor; 2= master; 3= doctor). University Type is divided into 2 levels (1= "Double First-class" construction university; 2= ordinary university).

3.3. Data Analysis

In this study, the data from the valid questionnaires were statistically analyzed by two analysis software, SPSS 24.0 and Mplus 7.2. It is usually measured by the ratio of Chi-Square/degree of freedom (χ²/df), the comparative fit index (CFI), the goodness of fit index (GFI), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and standardized root mean square residua (SRMR) [41, 42]. Firstly, to ensure the quality of the gathered data, the reliability and validity of the measurement questions were examined. Secondly, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and regression analysis were used to test the relationship between internal market orientation, teacher organizational identity, and teacher brand support behavior by SPSS24.0. Finally, this study uses the Bootstrap method and Model4 in Process plug-in in SPSS24.0 to further verify the mediating effect and overall hypothesis model of teacher organization identification.

5. Results
6. Although the content of Table 1 is very good. However, due to flaws in the research architecture diagram and hypothesis description, it is difficult for readers to understand the correlation between each prediction model and Internal information collection, Internal communication, Feedback, Organizational identity, and Brand support behavior.
7. Please provide an explanation of the correlation between the mediation analysis based on gender, age, education level (or professional title) and the theme and article discussion. If it is not relevant, it is recommended to delete it.

Responses: Thank you for your comment. According to your suggestion, to let the readers understand clearly and clarify the correlation between the mediation analysis based on gender, age, education level, we’ve improved the Introduction, Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses, and Methods and Results according your advice. Some of them have already listed above. The results part will be listed below in detail.

4. Results

4.1. Common method bias testing

Since the data for this study were collected from the same group of participants, a certain degree of common method bias was unavoidable, which could potentially mislead the results of the study. Therefore, Harman’s one-way ANOVA was used to validate the valid sample data to ensure the accuracy and scientific validity of the study results [43]. This was accomplished by combining 35 items from the survey for exploratory factor analysis. Factors with eigenvalues larger than 1 were retrieved using principal component analysis. Totaling three, the number of factors with eigenvalues larger than 1 was extracted without rotation. The first component explained the greatest amount of variance with a value of 36.022%, which did not meet the 50% threshold [44]. Therefore, this analysis contains no significant common method bias.

4.2. Reliability testing

This study used SPSS 24.0 to test the reliability of each variable and used the Cronbach alpha coefficient value as a measure. According to the analysis, the alpha value for internal market orientation was 0.866, while the alpha values for the other three dimensions were 0.840, 0.828, and 0.845, respectively. The alpha values for teachers’ organizational identity and teachers’ brand support behaviors were respectively 0.903 and 0.914. All three variables had alpha values larger than 0.8, and two variables, organizational identity, and brand support behavior had alpha values larger than 0.9, indicating that this study scale has good reliability and high internal consistency among the measurement topics [45]. Initially, the structural validity of the sample data was examined using exploratory factor analysis, and the results indicated that the KMO values of the three variables of internal market orientation, organizational identity of teachers, and brand support behavior were respectively 0.909, 0.893, and 0.918 [46]. The p-value of Bartlett’s sphericity test was 0.000 < 0.05, indicating that the structural validity of the scale in the study was high. Using Mplus 7.2, validation factor analyses were performed on the sample data. The results showed that x²/df=2.413, RMSEA=0.064, CFI=0.928, TLI=0.913, and SRMR=0.069, all of which passed the statistical requirements [33, 41], indicating that the model validity of this study was satisfactory.

4.3. Descriptive statistics and correlation analyses

Commonly, the correlation coefficient between variables is calculated using Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r), whose value ranges from -1 to 1. Different levels of r imply distinct correlations, and the magnitude of r shows the strength of the correlation. The means, SD, and correlation coefficients of the variables in the correlation analysis of this study are shown in Table 2, which demonstrates that internal information collection, internal communication, feedback, and teachers’ organizational identity and brand support behavior are significantly and positively correlated. This laid the groundwork for the next study.

Table 2. Means, SD, and correlation

Note: N=419; * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01.

4.2. Hypotheses testing

Based on the correlation analysis, we used a hierarchical regression analysis to test the hypotheses proposed in the previous studies. Firstly, we put teachers’ organizational identity as the dependent variable, demographic characteristics as the control variable in the first tier, and internal information collection, internal communication, and feedback as the independent variables in the second tier, and ran a regression analysis to obtain the analysis results. As can be seen in Table 3, after controlling for demographic variables such as gender, age, education, and university type, internal information collection (β=0.507, p<0.001), internal communication (β=0.578, p<0.001), and feedback (β=0.463, p<0.001) all had a significant positive effect on teachers’ organizational identity. The three dimensions significantly increased the explanatory power of the independent variables on the dependent variable by 24.6%, 32.4%, and 21.0%, respectively. Therefore, hypotheses H1a, H1b, and H1c were all verified by the data.

Table 3. Regression analysis of internal market orientation on teachers’ organizational identity

Note: * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

Secondly, we employed the same method to incorporate the brand support behavior of teachers as the dependent variable, demographic factors as control variables, and the three dimensions of internal market orientation and organizational identity as independent variables. The results of the analysis were obtained by running a regression analysis. After controlling for demographic variables, Table 4 demonstrates that internal information collection (β=0.345, p＜0.001), internal communication (β=0.412, p＜0.001), feedback (β=0.274, p＜0.001), and organizational identity (β=0.587, p＜0.001) all had a significant positive effect on teachers’ brand support behaviors, and enhanced the explanatory power of the independent variables by 11.4%, 16.5%, 7.4%, and 32.2%, respectively, on the dependent variable. Consequently, all four hypotheses H2a, H2b, H2c, and H3 were supported by the data.

Table 4. Regression analysis of internal market orientation, teachers’ organizational identity on brand support behavior

Note: * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

To verify the mediating effect of teachers’ organizational identity in the relationship between the three dimensions of internal market orientation and teachers’ brand support behavior, this study used the Sobel test and Bootstrap bias correction test [47, 48]. The results are shown in Table 5, where the Sobel Z values are all much greater than 1.96. Bootstrap repeated sampling of 5000 times shows that none of the mediating effects at the 95% confidence interval contain 0, indicating that the mediating effect of teachers’ organizational identity in the relationship between the three dimensions of internal market orientation and brand support behavior is significant. Therefore, hypotheses H4a, H4b, and H4c were verified by the data.

Table 5. Result of Hayes-Model 4

6. Discussion

Although the author has obtained relevant and sufficient data, the content stated in this chapter is not easy to understand, and it is difficult for readers to understand the meaning the author wants to express. It is recommended that the narrative logic of this chapter needs to be strengthened.

Responses:  Thank you for your advice. We’ve re-written the Discussion section to demonstrate clearly and improve the narrative logic. The details are as follows:

5. Discussion

University brand building can be regarded as a kind of culture change [49]. The internal brand is the most valuable intangible asset to promote the sustainable development of the university [50]. Teachers, as a knowledge-based group, are the most valuable tangible asset in the innovation and development of the university [51]. This study discusses the key factors in the process of university brand building, which are teachers and their relationship with the university from the perspective of internal organizations. The empirical results indicate that the three dimensions of internal market orientation (internal information collection, internal communication, and feedback) are significantly positively correlated with teachers’ organizational identity and brand support behavior. Teachers’ organizational identity is not only significantly positively correlated with brand support behavior, but also mediates the relationship between the three dimensions of internal market orientation and brand support behavior.

5.1. Theoretical implications

This study first verified that internal information collection, internal communication, and feedback are all significantly and positively related to the organizational identity and brand support behaviors of teachers. Internal communication has the largest impact on the explanatory power of the independent variables to raise the dependent variable, followed by internal information collection and feedback. The three elements of internal market orientation can be understood as the three stages of interaction between universities and teachers [52]. In addition, internal communication is crucial to the continuation of the process [23, 53]. Specifically, it can be explained as follows: in the process of good communication, teachers perceive their significant roles and ownership in the development of the organization, which increases their identification with the university and promotes positive organizational behaviors. Internal information collection and feedback as a necessary stage of this interaction mechanism has a greater impact on the psychology and behavior of teachers and is a prerequisite for demonstrating the success of internal market orientation [54]. This also shows that the internal market orientation of organizations has a positive impact on teachers' brand support behavior. It expands the research perspective of university brand building from the perspective of teachers' psychology and behavior [55].

Besides, based on the organizational identity theory, this study found that the organizational identity of teachers is strongly and positively associated with brand support behavior, and it mediates the effects of the three dimensions of internal market orientation on teachers’ brand support behavior. The organizational identity of teachers is an internal psychological state that is influenced by the organizational environment and behavior [56]. On the other side, brand support behavior is the external manifestation of an internal psychological state [57]. The two are consistent. For the analysis of this study, internal market orientation is a behavior at the organizational level. Internal market orientation has an impact on teachers’ inner psychology via three distinct aspects, which in turn promote their brand support behavior. In other words, teachers’ organizational identity mediates the relationship between internal market orientation and brand-supporting behaviors in universities. This finding also explores the influence of the effectiveness of internal market orientation on the attitude and behavior of teachers, which also further analyzes its influence on internal brand building [58]. It expands the application scope of the organizational identity theory in the field of institutional research [14, 59].

In addition, this study explains the process of the internal market orientation to the university's internal brand building. Specifically, starting from the two-way communication within universities, teachers are encouraged to better understand the brand value of the organization, internalize the vision of the organization, and make more efforts to achieve the organization’s goals. These behaviors will improve the efficiency of universities [60]. At the same time, the organizational identity of teachers plays a complete intermediary role in this process. It indicates that the organizational identity of teachers is an important medium to link the internal market orientation and brand support behavior [61].

5.2. Managerial implications

Firstly, universities should pay close attention to the important role of teachers in the process of brand building [5, 62]. The development of a university brand should not only emphasize external brand-building strategies but also acknowledge the importance of the internal brand. As a service-oriented organization, branding from the inside out is an efficient technique. Hence, we first believe that increasing the organizational identity of teachers is the key to the establishment of the university’s internal brand. Universities should take into account the characteristics of the organization and teachers, acknowledge teachers are the university’s most valuable tangible asset, and create an organizational environment that is beneficial for teachers to accept the brand value and convert it into behaviors [63]. In this way, the organization’s goals, mission, and values are fully shared. Thereby it can incentivize teachers to strive to accomplish their organizational commitment and lay the foundation for the university’s competitive advantage. Internal market orientation is a significant element for university brand building. Modern organization development must address the interaction between organizations and individuals. According to this study, the key to building a university brand from the inside out is good interactions between organizations and teachers [64].

Secondly, universities should conduct internal surveys and research via questionnaires, historical data analysis, or interviews regularly to fully comprehend the attitudes of teachers regarding their work, organizational environment, vision, and goals [65]. In this process, universities collect information on the needs of teachers in each department to ensure that the organization takes their perspectives and values seriously. University leaders should take teachers’ demands into account in the design of systems, salary management, and career development planning through effective internal information collection and job analysis [66]. Teachers’ organizational identity should be bolstered by an autonomous working environment through decentralization and the sharing of teaching and research achievements [67]. Meanwhile, university leaders can form a benign internal brand management mechanism by beginning with three dimensions of internal market orientation and ensuring the effectiveness of each component [68].

Thirdly, we should enhance communication and exchange within universities and develop an effective framework for bidirectional interactions. The research findings indicate that internal communication has a substantial impact on the organizational identity and brand support behavior of teachers than internal information collection and feedback. The effectiveness of internal communication is crucial to the success of internal market orientation. Effective communication must consist of the following elements: university leaders, departments, divisions, and teachers [69]. Based on communication channels such as teachers’ meetings, training, internal manuals, and new media platforms, a university should communicate either formally or informally. To ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of communication, consideration should be given to a calm and equal communication environment as well as the proper communication frequency [70]. The transparency of internal communication should be maintained, and the results of communication should be promptly publicized throughout the campus to encourage teachers to engage in communication and fully exercise their right to speak.

Finally, timely feedback on teachers’ comments and requirements is needed. Universities should strengthen the organizational identity of teachers by optimizing their positions, enhancing their knowledge and skills, optimizing their welfare benefits and evaluation process, and incorporating feasible policy recommendations into the university’s branding [71]. Through the optimization of the organization’s internal feedback, a good organizational environment can be created, and the brand support behavior of teachers can be stimulated. Thereby teachers can understand and help solve problems in university branding promptly. These can promote the success of using the university branding strategy [72].

5.3. Limitations and recommendations

Future studies should increase the effective sample size of the existing research population; enhance the sample’s representativeness, generalizability, and balance; and employ more scientific data collection procedures to reduce measurement error. Future research should also thoroughly investigate the influence of moderating variables to provide more reliable and scientific conclusions. Student groups should also be included in the research on university brand building because they are primary internal stakeholders of universities and have intuitive feelings about the quality of university operations and internal service quality [73]. Student participation in co-creating value can improve the satisfaction of the university experience, create and maintain a positive image of the university, and build the credibility of the university. The group of students is a key factor in achieving sustainable development of university brand. By empirical investigation, researchers may investigate the mechanism of organizational identity and brand support behaviors of students regarding university branding [74]. To strengthen the objectivity and scientific nature of the research findings, the brand support behaviors of teachers and students should also be examined, such as by surveying the university administrators with questionnaires and interviews [75], it also provides a reference for the high-quality sustainable development of universities [76].

7. Others

Conclusions and recommendations are missing. It seems that the researchers have not integrated the results of all analyzes to make a summary.

Responses: Thank the advice. We add a Conclusions part accordingly. The details are as follows:

6. Conclusions

To sum up, in the context of Chinese universities, this study constructs and validates a theoretical model with intermediaries to explore the impact of internal market orientation on the internal brand of universities, and explores the mediating role of teacher organizational identity at the same time. The empirical research results show that the three dimensions of internal market orientation, namely internal information collection, internal communication and feedback, have positive effects on teachers' organizational identity and brand support behavior. Teachers' organizational identity not only has a positive effect on brand support behavior, but also plays a completely mediating role in the influence of internal market orientation on teachers' brand support behavior. This research proves that effective internal market orientation can stimulate teachers' brand support behavior. This study further confirms that teachers' organizational identity is an important medium to link internal market orientation and brand support behavior. That is, each stage of the formation of the internal brand of a university is important to teachers' psychology and behavior in the next stage. Taken together, this study believes that the key to the formation of an internal brand of a university is to enhance the organizational identity of the teachers. The university is fully aware of the particularity of teachers, makes full use of the internal market orientation, and actively constructs an interactive communication and feedback mechanism with teachers. So that teachers can truly participate in the reform and development process of the university and feel the university values and respects, and recognizes their membership in the university. The university therefore can stimulate teachers' brand support behavior, in other words, "internalizing the university's values in their hearts and externalizing them in their actions".

Thanks again for your help!

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript is prepared very precisely and it was well-structured.

Here is the comment which might improve the quality of the paper:

- Methodology part must include research ethics part - which research ethics principles were used and how, was the anonymity and/or confidentiality ensured and how, how data was secured, etc. It must be provided.

Besides, authors identify the body which approved research ethics in the end of the paper. However, methodology part could mention about the Informed consent statement, etc.

The conclusions (main ones) might be provided too.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks a lot for your helpful comments, which make our manuscript complete and more readable. We have studied your comments carefully and have made corrections which we hope meet with approval. Revised portions are marked in red in the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responses to your comments are as follows:

• -The manuscript is prepared very precisely and it was well-structured.

Responses: Thank you very much for your approval and support!

• Methodology part must include research ethics part - which research ethics principles were used and how, was the anonymity and/or confidentiality ensured and how, how data was secured, etc. It must be provided. Besides, authors identify the body which approved research ethics in the end of the paper. However, methodology part could mention about the Informed consent statement, etc.

Responses: Thanks a lot for your help. Indeed, the Method section of our manuscript was incomplete, especially the lack of description of research ethics part. Hence, according to your and other reviewers’ suggestions, we have rewritten the Methods section of our manuscript. The details are as follows:

3. Methods

3.1. Participants and sampling procedure

To test the research hypotheses and whole theoretical model, this study conducted an empirical survey among teachers in 10 universities (6 "double first-class" construction universities and 4 ordinary undergraduate universities) in China’s 5 core cities, which are Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, and Xi’an. These cities have more universities in number and type. And the comprehensive level of teachers is relatively higher than in other cities. So, the data samples collected in this study are representative. Specifically, with the help of the personnel management departments of these universities, this study obtained a list of teachers in the major disciplines of 10 universities, and then randomly selected 500 teachers to participate in the empirical survey. We also promised all teachers who participated in the survey that the survey would only be used for academic research and that the survey data obtained would be kept strictly confidential to ensure that each teacher could fill in the questionnaire in a more objective and truthful manner and obtain relatively objective survey data.

Meanwhile, in order to enhance the reliability and decrease common method bias, this study collected the sample data at three different times. Consistent with previous studies [33, 34], the sample data are collected every two weeks. At time 1, teachers are asked to report their demographic information and true feelings about the university's internal market orientation. At time 2, teachers are asked to fill out questionnaires that include individual organizational identification. At time 3, teachers were asked to fill out questionnaires about the university's brand-supporting behaviors. The 500 questionnaire and their Wenjuanxing link are sent to the teachers through WeCom, which is widely used in online education investigation and research. And 419 valid questionnaires were collected, with a valid recovery rate of 83.8%. The detailed demographic information of the participants is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Demographic information of the participants.

3.2. Measures

The main variables involved in this study, internal market orientation, teachers’ organizational identity, and teachers’ brand support behaviors, were measured by mature scales. According to the actual needs of this study, some words of the scales are modified appropriately [35]. The response format was a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree”. The questionnaire was initially validated on a small scale, and the specific content of the questions was modified based on the validation results to make them more consistent with the characteristics of teachers and this study.

3.2.1. Internal market orientation

In this study, the scale developed by Yu was used to measure teachers’ perception of the university's internal market orientation at Time 1 [36]. This scale consists of 3 dimensions and 9 items, including an example of "Our university conducts teachers’ assessments regularly to discuss the needs of teachers ". The Cronbach's alpha value for this measure was 0.860.

3.2.2. Organizational identity

Combined with the scale developed by Van Dick and Wagner, the organizational identity of teachers was measured at Time 2 [37]. The scale contains 11 items, such as "I feel good working at this university" and "My university's success is my success." The Cronbach's alpha value for this measure was 0.903.

3.2.3. Brand support behaviors

The organizational citizenship behavior scale of university teachers developed by Donglong and colleagues was adopted, and the sentences of some items were adjusted to form a scale for measuring teachers’ brand support behavior at time 3 [38]. The scale contains 2 dimensions and 15 items, such as "take the initiative to introduce or publicize the advantages of the university", "take the initiative to coordinate and communicate with the university or colleagues" and "actively participate in various job skills training organized by the university ". The Cronbach's alpha value for this measure was 0.914.

3.2.4. Control Variables

Based on previous studies [16, 20, 39, 40], the control variables of this study mainly include demographic information such as gender, age, education, and university type. Gender was a binary variable coded as 0 = Male and 1 = Female. The age of the participants was divided into 2 levels (1=31-50 years; 2= 50 years and older). The education is divided into 3 levels (1= bachelor; 2= master; 3= doctor). University Type is divided into 2 levels (1= "double first-class" construction university; 2= ordinary university).

3.3. Data Analysis

In this study, the data from the valid questionnaires were statistically analyzed by two analysis software, SPSS 24.0 and Mplus 7.2. It is usually measured by the ratio of Chi-Square/degree of freedom (χ²/df), the comparative fit index (CFI), the goodness of fit index (GFI), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and standardized root mean square residua (SRMR) [41, 42]. Firstly, to ensure the quality of the gathered data, the reliability and validity of the measurement questions were examined. Secondly, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and regression analysis were used to test the relationship between internal market orientation, teacher organizational identity, and teacher brand support behavior by SPSS24.0. Finally, this study uses the Bootstrap method and Model4 in Process plug-in in SPSS24.0 to further verify the mediating effect and overall hypothesis model of teacher organization identification.

• The conclusions (main ones) might be provided too.

Responses: Thanks a lot for your review and support. Based on your suggestion, we added the Conclusions section into our manuscript. The details are as follows:

6. Conclusions

To sum up, in the context of Chinese universities, this study constructs and validates a theoretical model with intermediaries to explore the impact of internal market orientation on the internal brand of universities, and explores the mediating role of teacher organizational identity at the same time. The empirical research results show that the three dimensions of internal market orientation, namely internal information collection, internal communication and feedback, have positive effects on teachers' organizational identification and brand support behavior. Teachers' organizational identity not only has a positive effect on brand support behavior, but also plays a completely mediating role in the influence of internal market orientation on teachers' brand support behavior. This research proves that effective internal market orientation can stimulate teachers' brand support behavior. This study further confirms that teachers' organizational identity is an important medium to link internal market orientation and brand support behavior. That is, each stage of the formation of the internal brand of a university is important to teachers' psychology and behavior in the next stage. Taken together, this study believes that the key to the formation of an internal brand of a university is to enhance the organizational identity of the teachers. The university is fully aware of the particularity of teachers, makes full use of the internal market orientation, and actively constructs an interactive communication and feedback mechanism with teachers. So that teachers can truly participate in the reform and development process of the university and feel the university values and respects, and recognizes their membership in the university. The university therefore can stimulate teachers' brand support behavior, or in other words, "internalizing the university's values in their hearts and externalizing them in their actions".

Thanks again for your help!

Reviewer 4 Report

1.The logic of research instrumentation is not based on scientific paradigms. This is not clear.

2.Why don't the authors support their conceptual insights; and what does this statement mean:) line 31-32 " We believe a university brand is the sum of organizational culture, commitment, identity, reputation, and social relationships of universities in the institutional market".

3.There are many scientific concepts and paradigms that need to be clarified in order to illustrate the authors' reflections.

4. Figure 1. "Formation mechanism of internal branding in university"  must have metrics for primary sources.

5.  Figure 2: "Research design" is unclear; the information must also be provided on the relevance of the Hypotheses for each position in the research design field.

6. Just a statistical analysis of typical data ws done, that's all, but is this of interest to international researchers?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks a lot for your helpful comments, which make our manuscript complete and more readable. We have studied your comments carefully and have made corrections which we hope meet with approval. Revised portions are marked in red in the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responses to your comments are as follows:

1. The logic of research instrumentation is not based on scientific paradigms. This is not clear.

Responses: Thank you very much for your advice. Based on your comments, to make the research logic of the paper clearer and the research paradigm more scientific, we have revised and improved the full paper, including supplementing and revising the parts of the research overview and hypotheses, research methods and regression analysis. Please see the new manuscript.

1. Why don't the authors support their conceptual insights; and what does this statement mean:) line 31-32 " We believe a university brand is the sum of organizational culture, commitment, identity, reputation, and social relationships of universities in the institutional market".

Responses:  Thank you very much for your advice. In order to further focus on the research topic and avoid unnecessary misunderstanding, as you suggested, we have deleted the statements that may cause misunderstanding. We believe a university brand is the sum of organizational culture, commitment, identity, reputation, and social relationships of universities in the institutional market and University brand is the organic unity of internal and external brands and the embodiment of university competitiveness〞.

1. There are many scientific concepts and paradigms that need to be clarified in order to illustrate the authors' reflections.

Responses: Thanks to your suggestions.  We have defined the main concepts in the manuscript and discussed the relevant contents around the core concepts in the introduction and hypotheses relevant sections. The details are as follows:

Internal branding is a process that values the involvement of key stakeholders within the organization in brand building to ensure that they identify and internalize the values of the organization’s brand and transmit brand-supporting behaviors to the organization [5].

Internal brand management is a potential way to gain a sustainable competitive advantage for a university. The group of teachers is the key to building an organization's competitive advantage through internal brand building. Meanwhile, building employee’s brand citizenship behavior is a key component of successful internal brand management [6].

In higher education institutions, internal market orientation is more closely related to organizational citizenship behavior than other variables such as job satisfaction and performance [7].

2. Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

2.1. Teachers’ organizational identity and internal market orientation

Internal market orientation is the organization’s perspective of individuals as significant customers and service providers [8]. Individuals within the organization are involved in the formulation and implementation of organizational development plans.  When a culture of trust and respect is established within the organization, organizational loyalty will be enhanced. Internal information collection refers to the initiative of the university to collect information on the understanding and attitude of teachers regarding their work, organizational environment, mission, vision, and values, as well as the needs of teachers. It can help the university to establish an emotional connection with teachers [15]. Internal communication aims to reduce information asymmetry inside an organization. Timely internal communication enables employees to feel appreciated by the organization and increases their sense of ownership [18]. Open and trustworthy information can improve teachers’ participation and behaviors. To use the internal communication strategy effectively, the information must be disseminated and communicated between departments and individuals throughout the organization. Effective feedback refers to the capacity of a university to respond to the collected information thereby meeting the needs of teachers, boosting the quality of internal services, and fostering a healthy organizational culture.

Internal and external market orientation in an organization is closely related. Internal factors of an organization’s performance have a direct bearing on its market competitiveness. Internal market orientation tactics can be utilized to promote employee motivation and organizational loyalty, hence increasing employee satisfaction and organizational commitment [19]. In addition, there is a connection between internal market orientation and other organizational variables. The extent of an organization’s dedication to producing value for teachers is substantially associated with improved teachers’ satisfaction and organizational loyalty [20]. Based on the perspective of establishing a good interaction between the organization and teachers, higher levels of internal market orientation have a positive impact on the brand commitment of teachers in higher education [21]. According to the above discussion, the following ideas and hypotheses are proposed:

H1a: Internal information collection is significantly and positively related to the organizational identity of teachers.

H1b: Teachers’ organizational identity is significantly and beneficially linked to internal communication.

H1c: There is a strong and preferable relationship between feedback and teachers’ organizational identity.

……

2.4. The mediating role of organizational identity

Internal market orientation emphasizes interactions between the individuals and the organization [19]. The effectiveness of internal market orientation affects the behavior of organization members. This process is dependent on how much the individual feels the organization’s attention and whether a sense of ownership can be developed through the bilateral interaction [30]. This also determines whether the individual’s organizational identity can be strengthened. That is, internal market orientation influences the individual’s organizational citizenship behavior via organizational identity. Internal market orientation, organizational identity, and organizational citizenship behavior are the influence mechanisms. Leadership, procedural justice inside the organization, and other elements serve as organizational identity’s precursors [31]. Organizational identity is responsible for the creativity, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behavior of individuals. In other words, organizational identity mediates the relationship between the antecedent and outcome variables. Effective internal market orientation may communicate organizational values, mission, and development strategies to teachers, as well as provide timely feedback on teachers’ requirements. This will result in a stronger organizational identity for the university [32]. Therefore, teachers will consider their actions from the perspective of being beneficial to the university, adopt supportive behaviors that are advantageous to the university’s development, and closely link their personal development to the university’s development. The hypotheses are therefore proposed: 

H4a: Teachers’ sense of organization mediates the relationship between internal information collection and brand support behavior.

H4b: The relationship between internal communication and brand support behavior is mediated by teachers’ sense of organizational identity.

H4c: The organizational identity of teachers influences the relationship between feedback and brand support behavior.

Based on the above discussion, the research model of this study is shown in Figure 1.

1. Figure 1. "Formation mechanism of internal branding in university" must have metrics for primary sources.

Responses:  Thank you for your suggestions. Figure 1 presents the previous content in the form of images. Based on your comments, after careful consideration, we think that Figure 1 is not very closely related to the following contents. At the same time, to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, we have removed Figure 1 from the article.

1. Figure 2: "Research design" is unclear; the information must also be provided on the relevance of the Hypotheses for each position in the research design field.

Responses:  Thanks for your suggestions. To make the "research design" clearer, we have clarified the relevance of hypotheses in the study model, as shown in the figure below.

Figure 1. Research model

6. Just a statistical analysis of typical data was done, that's all, but is this of interest to international researchers?

Responses:  Thank you very much for your comment. We received your concern about research generality and international interest. Indeed, the sustainability of the university brand and the key role of the teachers in the university brand is also important in other countries. So, we also cite the opinions of researchers in different countries. However, due to the limited sample numbers available, this study mainly conducted empirical analysis based on China's higher education context. This research has certain complementary significance for the study of international context. In future research, we suggest that relevant researchers should further explore and study the sustainable development strategies of university brands in other countries. The future research may include possible cross-cultural comparison and further theoretical development and practical application.

Thanks again for your help!

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I think this revised manuscript aims towards refinement and clarity, which will help readers read and understand the significance of the research. This manuscript is of a certain level and can provide editors with reference for the next step of the process.

Author Response

• -I think this revised manuscript aims towards refinement and clarity, which will help readers read and understand the significance of the research. This manuscript is of a certain level and can provide editors with reference for the next step of the process.

Responses: Thank you very much for your support, help and affirmation!

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors have taken on board my comments and recommendations.

The revised version seems clearer. However, there are still some inaccuracies.

Again, The logic of research instrumentation is not based on scientific paradigms. This is not clear. The authors need to clarify these on the basis of the concepts and other authors.

 Is it really necessary to hypothesise so much? In my opinion, some of them are descriptive and not necessary, but I respect the authors' choice.

The scientific value of the research remains insufficiently strong.

Good luck!

Author Response

• – The authors have taken on board my comments and recommendations. The revised version seems clearer.

Responses: Thank you very much for your recognition of our revised draft.

• However, there are still some inaccuracies. Again, the logic of research instrumentation is not based on scientific paradigms. This is not clear. The authors need to clarify these on the basis of the concepts and other authors. Is it really necessary to hypothesize so much? In my opinion, some of them are descriptive and not necessary, but I respect the authors' choice. The scientific value of the research remains insufficiently strong.

Responses: Thank you very much for your careful review. Indeed, there are still some inaccuracies in our manuscripts. And, based on your review comments, in this revision, we first reviewed relevant papers published in Sustainability and made adjustments to our article based on these papers, to better meet the journal's requirements for research instrumentation.

Secondly, regarding the number of hypotheses, given that our manuscript focuses on the influence of internal market orientation on organizational identity and brand support behavior, especially the different effects of its three dimensions (this is internal information collection, internal communication, and feedback). Therefore, we decided to retain the hypotheses we proposed.  Thanks again for your help.

Thirdly, to further highlight the research value of our paper, we have added the following content to the Introduction section:

Taken together, this study aims to construct a theoretical model with intermediaries to explore the impact of internal market orientation on the internal brand of universities and explore the mediating role of teacher organizational identity at the same time. Hence, this study extends the related research literature in several ways. Specifically, first of all, this study contributes to the literature on internal market orientation by focusing on the direct effects it has on teachers' organizational identity and brand support behavior. Besides, through introducing the organizational identity of teachers as a mediator, this study opens the black box of how internal market orientation affects brand support behavior and expands the research on organizational identity. In addition, this study broadens the research on the influencing factors of university brands by discussing the role of internal market orientation and organizational identity.

Thank you again for your support and assistance!