Search results

The aim of this study is to develop and empirically test an integrated model incorporating the antecedents and consequences of service quality in a higher education context.

This research employed both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The data from three focus groups, conducted at the Central Queensland University (CQU), Rockhampton, Australia, generated key themes and their interrelationships. The theoretical model was then tested using structural equation modelling technique on a sample of 528 university students.

The findings show that information (marketing communications) is more statistically significant than past experience as the antecedents of service quality. The consequences of service quality are composed of trust, satisfaction, and image. Overall, the results suggest a good validity of the theoretical model and the key paths in the model are found statistically significant, except past experience affecting service quality.

The model provides a good explanation of a university brand image, and perceived service quality was found playing an important role in this model. Universities intending to enhance their image are encouraged to consider focusing their efforts on marketing communication information, service quality, student satisfaction and trust.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the applications of the social networking software, Facebook, currently practiced by “expert user” faculty teaching within a Malaysian Higher Education Hospitality Diploma programme. Of particular interest is whether the faculty experiences with Facebook reveal its functional appropriateness for use on an experiential learning platform. The aim is also to prompt further research and experimentation with the medium on teachers and students.

Phenomenological: the researcher uses a focus group to enable the essence of teachers' experience in the utilisation of Facebook as a teaching and learning tool within the syllabus of their taught subjects in a shared hospitality curriculum to emerge.

The experiences divulged in the focus group reveal the use of Facebook as an “effective” medium for reflective purposes in relation to experiential teaching and learning activities and as a mechanism for reflective and extrapolative cognition on experiential or practical classes.

This lies in the focus on actual Facebook use within the syllabi of a Faculty “community of practice”. It also lies in the focus of the paper on applications within a Hospitality curriculum. In relation to marketing, the visual materials discovered to be uploaded by teachers and students on Facebook are perhaps the real teaching and learning experiences of students that could be used by marketers for promotional purposes utilising the paradigm of experiential marketing and a service‐dominant logic.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of situation normality cues (online attributes of the e‐banking web site) and structural assurance cues (size and reputation of the bank, and quality of traditional service at the branch) in a consumer's evaluation of the trustworthiness of e‐banking and subsequent adoption behaviour.

Data were collected from a survey and a usable sample of 202 was obtained. Hierarchical moderated regression analysis was used to test the model.

Traditional service quality builds customer trust in the e‐banking service. The size and reputation of the bank were found to provide structural assurance to the customer but not in the absence of traditional service quality. Web site features that give customers confidence are significant situation normality cues.

Bank managers have to realise that good service at the branch is a necessary condition for the promotion of e‐banking. They cannot rely on bank size and reputation to “sell” e‐banking.

This is the first study that examines how traditional service quality and a bank's size and reputation influences trust in e‐banking.

Australian tertiary institutions are increasingly incorporating technologies, such as social media and Web 2.0 tools into teaching in response to changing student needs. The purpose of this paper is to revisit a fundamental question, frequently asked in marketing, “what do our ‘customers’ [students] think now?” This will help determine the effectiveness of application of these technologies in courses and teaching programs in a changing competitive educational environment.

Using a mixed method approach, data were collected through 31 qualitative interviews and a survey of 231 university marketing students. Quantitative techniques included summary statistics, factor analysis and t-test.

Results indicate while students’ perceived flexibility and better learning outcomes as positive aspects of e-learning, they have concerns about flexibility for self-paced learning, self-motivational issues, lack of human interaction and fostering teamwork.

The study is limited to one Australian university operating in domestic and international markets. However, the study needs to be replicated for better generalizability across the sector.

The findings question the effectiveness of e-learning as an alternative approach to face-to-face learning pedagogy. However, regular review of current e-learning tools is needed to help match student and tertiary institution expectations.

This study re-investigates students’ perception in relation to the benefits that e-learning is expected to yield. It is one of the few studies questioning whether these promised benefits are valued by the tertiary student fraternity.

This paper aims to re‐examine the role of traditional service quality in an e‐banking environment by providing a review of how traditional service quality perceptions have evolved through the current and continuing stream of change in banking technology and the corresponding changes in the nature of how banks interact with their customers.

Data were collected from a mail survey sent out to a commercially purchased mailing list of 2,500 business names and addresses. The overall usable response rate was 30.6 per cent. Quadrant analysis was performed on the service quality dimensions from the SERVQUAL scale.

While the importance ranking of the five SERVQUAL dimensions has not changed dramatically over the years, large discrepancies were found between customer expectations and their perceived performance of traditional banking services.

Quadrant analysis produced specific recommendations on how banks should prioritise the allocation of their resources to maintain high perceived service quality in their human interactions.

This is the first study which revisits and re‐examines traditional service quality in the e‐banking era. It highlights how high levels of traditional service quality may lead to increased customer trust and thus more successful cross‐selling of e‐banking products to customers.

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the implications of an e‐learning strategy – a strategy that is increasingly employed with greater intensity by many higher education institutions, by re‐examining the value creation process from a service‐dominant logic perspective.

A model of student‐faculty and student‐student interactions using interactive Web 2.0 technologies in e‐learning is offered and explained using literature from service‐dominant logic research.

This perspective fundamentally alters the mindset of higher education institutions that have traditionally devised strategies to deliver value through its products and services. The new focus provided by service‐dominant logic is for higher education institutions to acknowledge that they can only facilitate the value creation process by fostering interactions, constructing learning activities that enable enriching learning experiences and creating structures to support these experiences.

Key challenges for higher education institutions are discussed that include implications for exclusion marketing, perceived value for money, and policy issues.

This paper provides a fresh perspective, and a new line of thinking with regard to how value is co‐created by both faculty and students through a set of experiences within student‐faculty and student‐student interactions. It therefore potentially directs a new path of research in the area.

Despite the competitive internationalization of higher education, international students' responses to dissatisfaction (consumer complaining behavior or CCB) are not well understood in New Zealand. While studies show that many factors, including culture, influence CCB, the None‐Action mode in particular has been largely overlooked by researchers. The purpose of this paper is to examine Chinese student's CCB.

The study employed a qualitative exploratory focus group design examining Chinese students' CCB. Data were analyzed in two stages. First, data were coded into various CCB modes. Next, data relating to the specific mode of None‐Action were thematically analyzed. Five key themes for None‐Action were revealed: Futility, Inadequate Information, Fear of Consequences, Complexity, and Internalization.

This exploratory research found a high level of None‐Action responses. It was apparent that culture was highly influential in participants' CCB responses and that these None‐Action responses had an affective dimension.

Understanding None‐Action responses to dissatisfaction among international students in higher education is critical if universities are to avoid adverse funding consequences. There are cultural and personal implications for students and strategic implications for higher education institutions in understanding Chinese students' Non‐Action. The exploratory nature of the research means that it is designed to stimulate thought and debate on how to expand the body of knowledge on this mode of CCB.

The research highlights the importance to higher education institutions of understanding the cultural and service‐specific explanations for Non‐Action as a response to student‐consumer dissatisfaction.

This paper aims to re‐examine the commitment‐trust model in the context of premium banking services. In line with Toncar and Munch, the authors seek to develop an extension to the model because of the need to encapsulate contextual variables that constrain the link between the core relationship marketing constructs of trust and commitment.

A series of qualitative interviews were administered with bank relationship managers and premium banking customers. This enabled the concurrent consideration of both bank and customer views that helped to establish converging lines of thought within the bank‐customer relationship.

The authors’ findings provided evidence of the commitment‐trust link, and in particular continuance‐based commitment, within the context of premium banking relationships. By triangulating their findings with current thinking in relationship marketing literature, the authors present propositions for interaction quality and switching costs to be salient moderators between trust and commitment in this premium segment. A conceptual model that outlines the interplay between these four constructs is offered.

Few have examined the commitment‐trust link in light of moderator variables within retail banking services, and this research is the first to examine this specifically in the premium banking segment where customers are likely to be financially savvier and less knowledge dependent. This research therefore takes the first step in developing an extension to the commitment‐trust model for this segment, and forms the basis for further empirical research to examine the specific impact of interaction quality and switching costs, particularly in relation to continuance‐based commitment.

The purpose of this study is to examine the associations between attitudes to academic achievement and post university success using perceptions of attractiveness, gender, ethnic identity, personality, and social acceptance as antecedents.

An online questionnaire was completed by male (N=116) and female (N=126) university students from various cultural backgrounds. To evaluate the proposed relationships, multiple regression analysis was used.

The findings suggest that attractiveness is related to attitudes to academic achievement and success through its association with social appeal and acceptance. Ethnic identity is also related to both academic achievement and post university success. Personality is not positively related to academic achievement. Finally, social acceptance is positively related to academic achievement for males and to success for females.

Whilst the survey targeted students from various cultural backgrounds studying in Australia, it did not look at university students from other countries. A cross‐cultural perspective could reveal further differences in attitudes.

This study links attractiveness and academic achievement theories. The findings have implications for tertiary institutions and suggest academics and policy‐makers to vigorously promote core personality and values such as intelligence, communication skills, and sincerity, rather than allow superficial values such as attractiveness to be placed at the centre stage of students' endeavour.