Exploring Mediating Role of Corporate Image between Service Quality and Student Loyalty using PLS-SEM

Abstract

The demand on high skill graduate shows increasing trend in the context of Malaysia. Current supply of higher skill graduate is in adequate to support the industry. Thus, the government expected that, the number of student enrolment in higher Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions to be increased. Recent studies highlighted that service quality and corporate image are two critical factors that influence student loyalty. However, the mediating effect of corporate image has given less attention in the previous research. Thus, the purpose of this research is to explore the mediating effect of corporate image on the relationship between the service quality and student loyalty. The scope of this study is final year student of higher TVET universities. 398 of completed questionnaires were analyzing using SPSS and Smart-PLS. The measurement model shows that all constructs are reliable. While the structural model result showed that there is a direct and significant effect of corporate image on the relationship between service quality and student loyalty. The mediating test indicates that there is a partial mediation of corporate image on the relationship between service quality and student satisfaction. Future research is suggested to explore in depth on other factors that could have mediate the relationship between service quality and student loyalty.