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ISSN: 2658-8455
Volume 3, Issue 4-1 (2022), pp.477-490.
© Authors: CC BY-NC-ND
www.ijafame.org
Marketing Practices in Higher Education: Case of the Cadi Ayyad
University of Marrakech in Morocco
Hind TAMER, (PHD Student in Management Sciences)
Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences, Marrakech, Morocco
Cadi Ayyad University of Marrakech, Morocco
Bouchra LEBZAR, (PHD Professor)
Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences, Marrakech, Morocco
Cadi Ayyad University of Marrakech, Morocco
Cadi Ayyad University National School Of Commerce And Management, Marrakech, Morocco
Zakaria KNIDIRI, (PHD Professor)
Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences, Kalaa Sraghna, Morocco
Cadi Ayyad University of Marrakech, Morocco
Adresse de correspondance :
Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences Marrakech
Cadi AYYAD University, Marrakech
Morocco
40000
05243-03032
Déclaration de divulgation :
Les auteurs n'ont pas connaissance de quelconque financement qui
pourrait affecter l'objectivité de cette étude.
Conflit d’intérêts :
Les auteurs ne signalent aucun conflit d'intérêts.
Citer cet article
TAMER, H., LEBZAR, B., & KNIDIRI, Z. (2022). Marketing
Practices in Higher Education: Case of the Cadi Ayyad University of
Marrakech in Morocco. International Journal of Accounting,
Finance, Auditing, Management and Economics, 3(4-1), 477-490.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6614930
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Cet article est publié en open Access sous licence
CC BY-NC-ND
Received: May 06, 2022
Published online: June 06, 2022
International Journal of Accounting, Finance, Auditing, Management and Economics - IJAFAME
ISSN: 2658-8455
Volume 3, Issue 4-1 (2022)
Hind TAMER, Bouchra LEBZAR & Zakaria KNIDIRI. Marketing Practices in Higher Education: Case of the Cadi Ayyad
University of Marrakech in Morocco.
478
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Marketing Practices in Higher Education: Case of the Cadi Ayyad
University of Marrakech in Morocco
Abstract:
Today, we have a new revolutionary vision of implementing a relationship marketing strategy.
Increasing competition in education has forced universities to retain students, which, according
to Ryals (2002), has had a good impact on the university's ability to retain them (Elliot & Healy,
2001). The objective of this article is to present a review of the literature on the antecedents of
student loyalty, and more precisely in higher education by proposing an explanatory model of
different variables such as perceived quality of service, satisfaction, engagement and student
loyalty to examine the set of relationships
The methodology was based on a survey methodology on a sample of 84 students using a
questionnaire distributed via social networks, on the likert 7-point scale using the PLS approach
to analyze the results,to the value of relationship marketing and the history of student loyalty in
the Moroccan context. A sample of students from the Cadi Ayyad University of Marrakech was
used to conduct an exploratory study and a confirmatory study to validate all hypotheses.
The results show that engagement is the most influencing factor, primarily because of its direct
and powerful relationship with loyalty. The rest of the factors have only an indirect effect on
loyalty and direct relationships in the following: QSP to satisfaction, satisfaction to
engagement, as assumed and confirmed.
Keywords: relationship marketing, student loyalty, Higher education
JEL Classification: M30
Paper Type: Empirical Research
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1. Introduction
Clearly, in light of the literature review, the relational loyalty approach is important for
establishing, developing, and maintaining good relationships (Berry, 1983; Morgan & Hunt,
1994).
Marketing thinking has focused on the relational approach since the 1990s, with many
companies adopting loyalty as a defensive marketing strategy. The main interest for these
companies was to identify sources of improvement in loyalty effectiveness.
In the marketing literature, loyalty is approached according to the behavioural dimension. In
order to understand the process of building loyalty, it is necessary to know the different
explanatory theories of this concept according to each school of thought.
In marketing, several theories have explained the construction of loyalty, starting with
satisfaction (Oliver, 1980 and 1993), and commitment (Morgan and Hunt, 1994), followed by
attachment (Lacoeuilhe, 2000), in order to explain the formation of loyalty according to a
process that forms a relational chain (Aurier et al., 2001; Aurier and N'Goala, 2010). Finally,
the key variables that form the basis of the relationship constitute one of the strongest theories
explaining the concept of fidelity (Palmatier et al., 2007).
Although the concept of relationship marketing has been influencing marketing practices and
academic research in several fields and industries, it is largely ignored by higher education
institutions (HenningThurau, Langer, & Hansen, 2001).
Always a concern of service firms, many universities use the relational approach to loyalty to
increase their competitiveness, a consequence of the increasingly fierce competition. For that
reason, universities should seek the satisfaction of their students as by improving the quality of
their services to their main customers and think of them as main customers are their students
(Nguyen T. 2012).
Like the higher education sector in Morocco, competition is intensifying and students are
constantly seeing a wider range of providers. This competitiveness is due to an uncontrolled
and unbalanced quantitative growth in enrollments. The fragmentation of supply into a
multitude of small institutions [Word Express (2005)] followed by an increase in demand means
that students can choose to stay or leave their institutions at the end of each year or academic
cycle.
Since no university excluded from this, it is appropriate to investigate the expectations of the
clientele in order to improve its competitiveness and the quality of its services. It is therefore
necessary to know the determinants and results of customer satisfaction, which remains a major
challenge and a critical management problem (Bloemer and Schroëder O. 2002).
Although student performance is not investigated as a fundamental product of consumer
behaviour, student behaviour can certainly be studied from the perspective of consumer
performance. A student is also a consumer - despite the special nature of this description due to
the nature of education. He consumes educational services like any other and can therefore be
studied as a consumer of educational services.
According to Oliver (1999), fidelity is a process that combines cognition, conation, affect, and
client behaviour. According to Henning-Thurau, Langer and Hansen, (2001), loyalty requires
the development of a strong relationship with students that provides the financial basis for future
academic activities.
As such, student loyalty represents a competitive advantage for universities for a dual purpose:
• Retaining current students is cheaper than attracting new students.
• Student loyalty can lead to positive results after graduation because these
students will contribute to improving the image of their academic institution either
through electronic word of mouth (social networks) or through their financial
contributions and by offering job offers to new graduates.
Hind TAMER, Bouchra LEBZAR & Zakaria KNIDIRI. Marketing Practices in Higher Education: Case of the Cadi Ayyad
University of Marrakech in Morocco.
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In order to understand the construction of fidelity, we will focus on the variables of the relational
chain. To this end, we will deepen each of the key concepts of the chain, which are the
determinants of the customer relationship, namely: satisfaction, commitment, service quality.
2. Literature Review
Since the 1980s, relationship marketing has been in vogue. Levitt (1983) described relationship
marketing by referring to marriage to say that "one-night stands are over" and "marriage is
necessary".
Anderson (1995) pointed out that when the relationship between buyer and seller is good, the
focus on relationship marketing is mainly based on the principle that a business is more
successful, thus expanding the concept of traditional marketing and creating relationships to
build customer loyalty.
Grönroos (1996) has emphasized the importance of relationship marketing in the business that
major changes in business philosophy may be required unless relationship marketing is adopted,
otherwise the business cannot survive with increasing competition in this new business reality.
In this perspective, several authors have confirmed the importance of customer loyalty as an
indispensable concept in this approach (Payne, Christoper, Ballantyne, 1994; Payne & Frow,
2000).
Jamal (2004) has considered client loyalty as the ability of the firm to keep its customers. Thus
Buttle and Ahmad (2001) point out that client loyalty has been defined as a mirror image of
client attrition, if client attrition is low for the firm it means that the level of loyalty is high.
It was in 1983 that Berry introduced "relationship marketing" in the academic world by
analyzing the relationship between buyers and sellers. According to Hansen and Thurau (2000),
relationship marketing will soon be mature, Proença and Fernandes (2005) found that
relationship marketing in higher education has been dominating discussions and debates in
marketing literature.
Today the education sector deserves the most attention, with increased competition and mature
markets, yet it is easy to understand the education sector acting as an economic market.
Genell and Czarniawska (2002) found that increased competition has forced educational
institutions to move from government-funded focus groups to self-funded organizations.
In general, commodification has transformed the nature of the education sector, a sector that
has accepted commercial practices, so the evolution of the education sector has changed
people's minds in such a way that they have begun to perceive the sector as a market.
This commodification and the emergence of competition revealed the reality of marketing in
educational institutions and their relational approach.
It seems that common sense dictates that understanding the customer and maintaining a special
relationship with them is vitally important in this new world economy.
The concept of relational marketing finds the most fertile ground in organizations that offer a
service to grow, which has led to a very important concept which is consumer loyalty.
Loyalty research has been contributing to relationship marketing for decades, encompassing
different markets, customer loyalty is similar to a student's loyalty by higher education
organizations when it comes to a student’s loyalty program.
As a result, several theories have sought to find an intersection between approaches to
marketing and education, Tinto (1975) found that the concept of a student-customer evolves
from the classical work in the institution. The work of Hennig-Thurau, Langer and Hansen
(2001), proposed a model of a quality-based student loyalty relationship.
Service providers have noticed increased competition in their sector. Among these sectors,
education deserves the most attention. From mature markets such as Europe and America to
emerging markets in Morocco, it is easy to see the education sector acting as a niche economy.
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Genell and Czarniawska (2002) have pointed out that educational institutions have moved from
government-funded think tanks to self-funded institutions due to increased competition. This
shift entered people's minds in such a way that they naturally began to consider education as a
market.
Merchandising is transforming the nature of the sector as it begins to accept business ethics and
business practices. This commodification and increasing levels of competition, as well as the
social and economic aspects associated with low enrollment and drop-out rates, have revealed
the reality of marketing in educational institutions and their relational approach.
It seems that common sense dictates that understanding the customer and maintaining a close
relationship with them is extremely important in this new global economy. And it is in service
delivery companies that this approach to the marketing relationship finds the most fertile ground
for development, because in these organizations, there is a higher level of personal contact with
emotional commitment, and the difficulty, from the client's point of view, of evaluating a large
number of service providers.
The greatest result of full-fledged relationship marketing is the concept of consumer loyalty.
The pursuit of customer loyalty is very similar to what is sought by educational institutions
when it comes to a student’s loyalty program. Loyalty studies have been part of marketing
literature for centuries, embracing many different topics and markets. Similarly, the theories
about what keeps a student client in the institution have evolved since Tinto's classic work
(1975).
2.1. Perceived Service Quality
Quality of service is considered a key competitive factor for companies, competition is
becoming more intense, and today's customers demand the best quality which dominates
economic profitability. Therefore, it is a question of understanding customer perceptions and
expectations in order to please them. According to Langer, Henning-Thurau, and Hansen
(2001), in which the perception of service quality, and commitment are the main elements taken
into account when studying the relationship between educational institutions and the students
loyalty to their academic institutions.
As a result, Henning-Thurau, Langer and Hansen believe that fidelity after graduation is the
main goal of educational institutions. However, their study does not include either the long-
term processes by which students generate loyalty to their educational institution; or the concept
of satisfaction which is a significant factor in other studies of long-term relationships.
In higher education the quality of services in educational relations is defined on the basis of
people rather than equipment (Thomas, 1978), several authors have found that university staff
members are more autonomous than employees in other service sectors because of greater
autonomy in interacting with and assisting students (Tang et Zairi 1998).
In order to assess the quality of services in higher education, it is necessary to rely on human
interaction within the faculty.
Perceived service quality is well-defined as a judgment and attitude about the superiority of
service (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry 1988). Perceived service quality is definite as the
customer expects from the company, and satisfaction is the result of a comparison between
expected and actual performance.
According to Zeithaml (2000), perceived value is seen as the assessment of perceptions of what
is received or given by a product or service and its usefulness. In higher education this
assessment of the value of the service by the student is based on the benefits of the service
provided by the university over and above the costs for the acquisition and use of the service
provided by the university.
Several authors have empirically confirmed that the overall perception of the value of the
service by the student is related to the satisfaction of the student using the service (Hellier and
Hind TAMER, Bouchra LEBZAR & Zakaria KNIDIRI. Marketing Practices in Higher Education: Case of the Cadi Ayyad
University of Marrakech in Morocco.
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et al., 2003; Peterson and Yang, 2004; Wen and et al. 2005; Parvez and Akbar, 2009
Kunanusorn, A., & Puttawong, D. 2015)The value perceived by students thus affects student
satisfaction directly.
2.2. Student satisfaction
The analysis of the individual satisfaction (transactional or relational) of the consumer, in the
study of his behaviour, has become an essential research pole (Moutte J. 2007).
Customer satisfaction results from this fact; from the confrontation between expectations and
perceptions for each aspect of the service. For its management, it is important to understand
where satisfaction and dissatisfaction come from. For this reason, it is a major concern for
effective organizations (Gauthier B. 2001). Customer satisfaction is therefore achieved when
the level of service quality is greater than or equal to the customer's expectations.
According to Oliver and swan, 1989, the definition of satisfaction has used the emotional and
affective aspect of the customer, which has evolved with a customer's experience of using goods
or services. According to Churchill and Ruekert (1984), the concept of satisfaction is of
paramount importance in understanding the relationship between channels. However, Geyskens
(1999) confirms that there is no trade-off regarding the measurement of customer satisfaction
and the conceptualization of customer satisfaction, satisfaction is a foundation of commitment
(Michell, Reast and Lynch 1998).
Several authors have studied the degree of satisfaction. When the level of satisfaction is really
high, the effect of outcomes is positive, allowing them to enjoy learning and living a
comfortable life, and to show attitude and attitude. Treat universities well, particularly in terms
of student loyalty (Puttawong and Kunanusorn, 2015; Mohamad and Awang, 2009; Zaini,
Mansor, Yusof and Sarkawi, 2019).
However, improving student loyalty and satisfaction is vital to the success of higher education
organizations. Student loyalty has become a priority issue for universities, Annamdevula, 2016;
Yusof, Zaini and Mansor, (2020) loyalty varies among students due to their background, age,
and those taking different courses.
Student satisfaction is very important in retaining students even in for-profit institutions,
sometimes student dissatisfaction leads to students' full university bounty which in turn leads
to their intention to stay or leave the institution, According to Thomas (2011) student
satisfaction has a very important antecedent of student engagement because student satisfaction
or dissatisfaction can lead to student commitment or attrition (De Shields & Kara, 2004).
According to Douglas et al. (2008) in higher education, there is a strong relationship between
student satisfaction and loyalty. When a student has a choice, the link between satisfaction and
commitment is strong.
2.3. Student Commitment
Several studies have shown that the inclusion of engagement in relationship marketing is very
important for costumer loyalty (Dwyer, Schurr, & Oh, 1987; Gundlach, Achhrol, & Mentzer,
1995; Hunt &, Morgan, 1994). According to Tinto (1993,1975), student engagement is
determined by a student's degree of integration, both academic and social. Thus, engagement
refers to the match between the student's skills, abilities and value system and the expectations,
requirements and values of the university.
Improving student engagement with the university has become a top priority for higher
education institutions, and several authors have stated that engagement with the university is
the foundation of a good relationship and an essential factor in the concept of loyalty (Garbarino
and Johnson 1999; Pritchard, Havits and Howard 1998 and Fullerton 2003).
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2.4. Student loyalty
Duffy (2003) indicated that customer loyalty is the behaviour of consumers who have
relationships with institutions and who use their products and services. Customer loyalty is
reflected in the fact that they recommend others to purchase products and services (Zeithaml,
Berry and Parasuraman, 1996).
Nonetheless, Cronin and Taylor (1992) pointed out that customer satisfaction has a greater
impact on customer loyalty than service quality. Zeithaml et al. (1996) found that a good
perception of service quality has an impact on student behaviour.
According to Henning-Thurau, Langer and Hansen (2001),What improves student loyalty is the
quality of teaching and students' sense of commitment to the institution Annamdevula &
Bellamkonda, (2016) concluded that loyal students help the institution's staff determine good
promotion, development and long-term success.
According to Schwartzman (2003) the problem of university dropout has become a concern
influencing the university. In addition, there are a number of problems in universities such as
vacancies and a decrease in the number of lower-class students as well as criminal behaviour.
Berger and Lyon (2005) pointed out that loyalty is considered a behavioural factor for student
loyalty as is the capability of an educational organization to effectively graduate students who
are currently studying there.
For example, Kotler and Fox (1994) stated that loyalty of enrolled students is critical to
attracting and recruiting new students.
"Theoretically and institutionally, student loyalty has become a very difficult task," says Herzog
(2005).
As a result, the loyalty of students by universities is vital, as universities reconsider their
relationships with students as valuable. This is leading to a transformation of the structural
beliefs of the university.
Student loyalty is the relative strength relationship between individual attitudes and use of the
service that continues until graduation, influenced by student commitment. According to
Wahyuningsih (2007), Loyalty in higher education, particularly in universities, is a positive
commitment by the student to the university's services that he or she received during the course.
3. Conceptual Model of Student loyalty
In this article, and based on the literature review on relational marketing, a model has been
developed that integrates the essential constructs to explain student loyalty, namely student
engagement, student satisfaction and perceived quality (see figure 1).
Perceived quality is considered to be the variable that represents a key factor in the effectiveness
of relational marketing to differentiate it from concepts (Hougaard and Bjerre 2003). In our
case, perceived quality represents the relationship between student expectations and university
performance.
This is how we can formulate our first research hypothesis:
H1 : Perceived quality has a strong influence on student satisfaction.
Several authors find that satisfaction is a key variable in understanding loyalty, a variable that
allows customers to make a deep assessment of the company's performance against its
expectations. According to Tse & Wilton (1998) student satisfaction is closely related to service
quality, satisfaction is the customer's response to the service provided. Oliver (1989) indicated
that client satisfaction is fair because it yields value.
Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) point out that consumers will feel satisfied and
dissatisfied because of the services provided and the money paid.
Hind TAMER, Bouchra LEBZAR & Zakaria KNIDIRI. Marketing Practices in Higher Education: Case of the Cadi Ayyad
University of Marrakech in Morocco.
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When the service provided is more than the price paid, the client will feel satisfied; when the
service provided is less than the price paid, the client will feel dissatisfied. Furthermore,
customer satisfaction is not always related to complaints, which means that consumers who
never complain are not necessarily satisfied (Kitapci & Taylan, 2009).
In higher education, there are few studies on student satisfaction due to its complexity (Marzo
Navarro, Pedraja Iglesias and Rivera Torres, 2005).In our article, satisfaction is seen as a
predecessor of student commitment, which exerts considerable influence.
This is how we can formulate our first research hypothesis:
H2 : Satisfaction has a strong influence on student commitment.
According to Fullerton (2003) commitment is defined as a basic construction of a quality
relationship. According to Pritchard, Havitz & Howard (1999), commitment represents a direct
effect in the formation of loyalty, in our article loyalty is only realized with the commitment of
the student.
This is how we can formulate our first research hypothesis:
H 3: Commitment has a strong influence on student loyalty.
Figure 1: Proposed model
Source: Authors
4. Research Methodology
The development of this study required the use of a quantitative research method. Data were
provided through a survey questionnaire. This questionnaire contained 14 closed-ended
questions with pre-set responses according to the 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1
(completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). All of this was done in an attempt to highlight
the level of consistency of respondents by, thus making the analysis and measurement of the
data easier. Non-probability convenience sampling was constructed over a 5-day period.
Our quantitative study was collected through a self-administered questionnaire via social
networks, in total we had 84 responses from students belonging to different Moroccan higher
education institutions.
The study was developed in stages, first the confirmatory factor analysis to test the
measurement module and then we performed the structural model test by adopting the
systematic analysis by (HAIR, 2019).
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The choice of the PLS approach as the analysis method allowed us to focus on the object of
their research, while freeing us from technical constraints. According to Wong (2013), the
advantage of its application is that it is more flexible to be used in cases where the sample size
is small (Fernandes, 2012) (Haenlein & Kaplan, 2004), so applications have little theory
available and predictive accuracy is paramount.
5. Findings
The distribution of this questionnaire was only done online, mostly on social networks and
messaging applications. In addition, it remained available for 5 days. The questionnaire was
completed by 57 people, 59% of whom were female and 41% male. Most of these people (64%)
were between 17 and 20 years old, 28% were between 21 and 24 years old, 10% were between
25 and 28 years old. None of these individuals were under 17 years old or over 29 years old.
Finally, it should be remembered that all students belong to the Cadi Ayyad University in
Marrakech, Morocco.
Tableau 1 : The Measurement model
Variables
Composite
Reliability
Cronbach's
Alpha
AVE
Perceived quality service
0.936
0.909
0.787
Student Satisfaction
0.874
0.786
0.698
Student Commitment
0.904
0.840
0.759
Student Loyalty
0.920
0.884
0,741
Source: Authors analysis
For the criterion of composite reliability, the values of all the latent variables respect the
threshold of 0.7 and are considered as excellent, concerning the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient
(Malhotra, 1999) the values of all the variables are between 0.7 and 0.9 which suggests a very
satisfactory reliability. Thus, convergent validity was ensured, as all the AVEs show values
higher than the 0.5 level, indicating that the variables explain more than 50% of the variance
of their corresponding items.
Tableau 2: Results of hypothesis test analysis
Source: Authors analysis
β
Standa
rd
Deviati
on
(STDE
V)
T
Statis
tics
(|O/S
TDE
V|)
P
Valu
es
R²
Decision
Perceived Quality-
> Student
satisfaction
0.732
0.097
7.563
0.000
0.53
6
Acceptée
Student satisfaction
-> student
commitment
0.819
0.060
13.68
1
0.000
0.67
0
Acceptée
Student
commitment>
student loyalty
0.835
0.066
12.57
4
0.000
0.69
7
Acceptée
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Table 2 shows the results of the path coefficients, t-values and hypothesis test. Our model
contains four latent variables, namely perceived service quality, student loyalty, student
satisfaction, and student engagement.
The results of the boostraping revealed a significant impact of the perceived quality of service
on student satisfaction (β=0. 732 ;T =0.000) therefore the H1 hypothesis is accepted.
Regarding the relationship between student satisfaction and engagement, the results confirm
the strong and significant effect of the relationship (β=0.819;T =0.000), therefore we accept the
hypothesis H2.
Thus the results indicate that student engagement has a positive and significant impact on
student loyalty (β=0.835;T =0.000), therefore the H3 hypothesis will be retained.
The coefficient of determination R2 was examined,The model explains 53.6% of the variance
in satisfaction, 67% of the variance in engagement, and 69.7% of the variance in student loyalty.
Figure 2:The structural model of student Loyalty
Source: Authors analysis
Figure 2 represents the final model with statistically very high path loading coefficients greater
than 0.7. The model presents the relationships between perceived service quality and student
satisfaction, satisfaction and engagement and engagement and loyalty.
6. Discussion
The main objective of the study was to measure student loyalty in higher education institutions
by examining the main factors that influence loyalty. QPS, satisfaction, and engagement were
examined in a model that was assumed to be sufficiently comprehensive to explain loyalty.
A sample of students from the Cadi Ayyad University of Marrakech was used to conduct an
exploratory study and a confirmatory study to validate all hypotheses.
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The results show that engagement is the most influential factor, mainly because of its direct and
strong relationship with loyalty. The other factors have only indirect effects on loyalty and
direct relationships in the following order: QSP to satisfaction, satisfaction to engagement, as
assumed and confirmed. This variable is the key determinant of student satisfaction under
certain conditions (participation motivations, implications). Our research also confirms that the
perceived value of the reward contributes in a positive and very significant way to the
construction of student satisfaction.
Student satisfaction helps to develop a certain preference and a favorable attitude towards
higher education institutions.
Satisfaction is the key determinant of student engagement, regardless of the research context,
the sector of activity, the student's profile or the time. This variable positively and significantly
influences engagement.
It should be noted that we are beginning to integrate in addition to the concept of commitment:
"loyalty can be defined as a deep commitment to purchase again the product or service he
prefers, consistently in the future, despite the situational influences and marketing effects that
can induce brand changes" (Oliver, 1997), in our context of higher education, the commitment
of students depends mainly on the satisfaction of the students, The academic loyalty thus
depends directly on the commitment he shows in the academic context.
In many respects, these results are similar to those of Henning-Thurau, Langer and Hansen
(2001) and Rojas-Méndez et al. (2009), but differ significantly from those of Raposo and Alves
(2007), Nesset and Helgesen (2007) who, conflicting to our assertion, found that the influence
of satisfaction is straight reflected in the creation of loyalty. Like the SERVQUAL scale, where
items dealing with interactions between people are central, in our study most of the
constructions reflect the various communications between students and academic staff, thus
underlining the importance of contact in service relationships in higher education institutions.
The study found that the main factor influencing student loyalty is engagement. Rojas-Méndez
et al (2009) findings confirm our results that perceived service quality is the antecedent of
student satisfaction, and also is the antecedent of engagement, and the result of student loyalty.
7. Conclusion
This article brings together the synthesis of the literature review on the relationship between
student satisfaction, engagement, perceived quality and student loyalty. By engaging with
students, educational institutions have a significant positive relationship on student loyalty
(Helen & Ho, 2011).
The study found that engagement plays an integral role in student loyalty. However, the study
showed that satisfaction can have a direct effect on student engagement. Therefore, the study
showed that there is an effect between the perceived quality of service and student satisfaction,
particularly on student satisfaction.
The objective of this article was to propose a model in order to develop such literature and to
strengthen the theoretical reference to the subject, new possibilities of study arise from the
suggestions made concerning the limits of this research.
We suggest that the new research be conducted for other realities or in a vertical manner. As
the importance of student Loyalty has been shown to play a key role in the development of
loyalty issues such as perceived quality, satisfaction and commitment, we suggest a study on
the perceptions of these individuals regarding their role in a strategic policy of relationship
maintenance.
The study was conducted to examine the relationships between the concepts of the student
loyalty model. The results of the study confirm the literature that service quality influences
satisfaction which influences engagement, these variables are the antecedents of student loyalty
Hind TAMER, Bouchra LEBZAR & Zakaria KNIDIRI. Marketing Practices in Higher Education: Case of the Cadi Ayyad
University of Marrakech in Morocco.
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and the result of student loyalty. The study develops a conceptual model of student loyalty and
shows that educational service quality, satisfaction and engagement are the main determinants
of student loyalty, confirming all the hypotheses.
Researchers can continue this research by testing the model in context through quantitative
research. In addition to the variables in this research, there are many other factors that affect
student loyalty in private universities, such as communication, student complaints, image effect,
reputation and other factors that remain to be further investigated.
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