Brand Social Power: A New Approach to Power Factors in the Marketing Channel of Alzahra University Professors and Students with a Social Network Analysis Perspective

Marketing channels are the systems consisting of interdependent operators. Interdependence should be managed, and power is the way to manage it. Attention to brand social power to gain power, its proper usage and power maintanance, is one of the most important issues in marketing channels. The purpose of this article is to elaborate the power factors deriving from the French and Raven's typology and the importance of each base in the marketing channel of the teachers and master students of marketing management at Alzahra University. The innovation of this research in explaining the factors of power in this channel is reached through using the social network analysis approach. Using this approach in explaining power factors as well as brand social power, has not been considered in other researches so far.In this study, the characteristics of the communication network and social brand position of faculty members and students of the marketing management group in Alzahra University organizational network are investigated. The social network analysis method was used for data gathering and data analysis is done by NodeXl. This study examines brand social power as one of the social power approaches in the marketing channel of Alzahra University professors and students. Findings show that the power of channel members does not necessarily depend on the organizational hierarchy, but rather on the social brand of each of them and their position in the minds of the individuals. In other words, people with high social brand power may be inferior or inferior to other powers. Specifically, the most influential people on the network are not necessarily persons with higher position, and even these people may tend not to have relationship with others or may have less influence in their relationships.