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Does the quality of academic life mediate the satisfaction, loyalty and recommendation of HEI students?

Eugénia de Matos Pedro (Department of Management and Economics, NECE – Research Center in Business Sciences, University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal)
Helena Alves (Department of Management and Economics, NECE – Research Center in Business Sciences, University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal)
João Leitão (Department of Management and Economics, NECE – Research Center in Business Sciences, University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal) (CEG-IST, Instituto Superior Técnico, C-MAST, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal) (Instituto Multidisciplinar de Empresa, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain) (C-MAST, University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal)

International Journal of Educational Management

ISSN: 0951-354X

Publication date: 11 June 2018

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify the effects of students’ satisfaction with services on quality of academic life (QAL), formed by cognitive and affective components; and to assess the mediating effect of QOL components (cognitive and affective) on students’ loyalty and recommendation.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on 726 respondent students from public higher education institutions (HEIs) in Portugal, this paper uses a partial least squares approach to analyze the impact of satisfaction on emotions and students’ QAL and to assess whether emotions influence recommendation and loyalty.

Findings

The results reveal that satisfaction influences both cognitive and affective components of QAL. The cognitive component has a positive and significant influence on recommendation and loyalty whilst the affective component has no significant effect.

Practical implications

The results obtained here provide implications for future action to be taken by HEI managers, in order to increase efficiency in the allocation and management of scarce resources. Therefore, when incorporating these results in decision-making processes, attention should be paid to the importance of the influence of satisfaction on QAL’s cognitive and affective components, stressing the importance of the cognitive components associated with learning experiences that play an important role in students’ future decisions in terms of loyalty and recommendation, which, in turn, are pillars of HEI sustainability.

Originality/value

The present study contributes to the literature on HEI management by assessing the influence of satisfaction on two components of QAL separately: cognitive components and affective components. In addition, the causality relationships are analyzed, assessing the emotional nexus, in order to deepen knowledge about the role played by both affective and cognitive components in students’ loyalty and recommendation, which need to be addressed and studied by carrying out new research.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the editor and the anonymous reviewers for providing very constructive and useful comments that enabled the authors to make additional efforts to improve the clarity and quality of the research and correct some inaccuracies present in the previous version of the manuscript.

Citation

Pedro, E., Alves, H. and Leitão, J. (2018), "Does the quality of academic life mediate the satisfaction, loyalty and recommendation of HEI students?", International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 32 No. 5, pp. 881-900. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-04-2017-0086

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Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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