Students’ loyalty in higher education: the roles of affective commitment, service co-creation and engagement

Abstract

Aspects related to the emotional dimension begin to be considered in order to generate loyalty in the provision of educational services. This contributes to the establishment of a dynamic long-term relationship with the organization. Therefore, this study sought to analyze the impact of affective commitment to the university, participation in service co-creation and customer engagement on the loyalty of graduate students. To examine this an empirical, explanatory and transversal research was conducted, and personal surveys were applied to 484 graduate students in Mexico. The results show that loyalty of postgraduate students to the university is explained by both affective commitment and participation in co-creating the service. In addition, there is an indirect effect between affective commitment and loyalty through participation in co-creation; however, in this context, the effect of engagement on loyalty could not be confirmed.

The impact of value co-creation behavior on customer loyalty in the service domain

“…The research's result is consistent with previous studies by Cossío-Silva et al [ 48 ] and Khan [ 49 ] that there is a positive and significant effect between value co-creation behavior and loyalty of consumers. However, in contrast to the study of Encinas and Arroyo [ 50 ], which showed that graduate students' loyalty to the university is explained by both emotional commitment and service value co-creation, the direct effect of value co-creation participation on loyalty had no effect.…”

“…Secondly, the research has adopted the concept and research scale proposed by Yi and Gong [ 6 ]. Value co-creation has remained new in this modern era in which service is now regarded as an inevitable part of any product, hence further studies could use other definitions and research scales of value co-creation to retest the relationship between value co-creation and customer loyalty such as those proposed by Mathwick et al [ 58 ], Encinas and Arroyo [ 50 ]. Thirdly, the sample size is relatively small and the research was a cross-sectional study, hence further research should consider these two limitations.…”

Understanding mediators and moderators of the effect of customer satisfaction on loyalty

“…Customer loyalty is influenced by several factors that include customer satisfaction, corporate image and service quality (Orozco & Cavazos Arroyo, 2017). Customers' commitment to the organisation is a result of emotional attachment and resistance to switching behaviour (Liat et al, 2014).…”

The Impact of Student Satisfaction on Student Loyalty: The Role of Student Trust

“…The measurement of each construct uses previous studies as bases (Austin & Pervaiz, 2017) (Orozco & Arroyo, 2017) (Gallegos & Vasquez, 2019)which are adapted according to the context of this research, including the pandemic situation in which the research is conducted in. All constructs are measured using a 6-point numerical scale.…”

“…In the context of education services, service providers need to provide optimal services so that customer loyalty can be maintained in the long term (Abbas, 2019), which means that universities need to strive for sustainable relationships with students (Orozco & Arroyo, 2017). In this case, loyalty can be reflected in the willingness of customers to provide recommendations and convey positive things (Ismadi & Susan, 2019).…”