Loading...
Managing relationships: Insights from a student gratitude model
Fazal-e-Hasan, Syed Muhammad Mortimer, Gary Lings, Ian Sekhon, Harjit Howell, Kerry
Fazal-e-Hasan, Syed Muhammad
Mortimer, Gary
Lings, Ian
Sekhon, Harjit
Howell, Kerry
Abstract
This paper develops a student relationship model which highlights the role of gratitude in impacting students’ positive perceptions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions towards their higher education providers. Using theories from services marketing and positive psychology, we develop and test a gratitude relationship model. A field survey, employing existing measures, was used to elicit data from 1104 respondents of public, private, and semi-public Pakistani universities. The results of this current research empirically demonstrate the role of gratitude as a mediating mechanism that explains the impact of a university’s relationship investments on students’ positive perceptions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. This study contributes to higher education and services marketing literature by examining the emergent role of gratitude in students’ perceptions of investments made by their universities and students’ positive emotions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions, such as involvement and long-term relationship intentions, respectively. This research encourages university decision-makers to implement relationship-building strategies beyond that of the purely economic, such as scholarships, that seek to enhance the emotion of gratitude, which will lead to higher levels of perceived value of the relationship, involvement, and intentions to build long-term relationships with the university. This is the first study that highlights the role of gratitude as having an impact on students’ perceptions, attitude, and behavioral intentions. Our student relationship model offers a better psychological explanation of how student gratitude may generate direct benefits for universities.
Keywords
student gratitude, service perceptions, universities, tertiary management, attitudes, behavioral intentions, long-term relationships
Date
2019
Type
Journal article
Journal
Research in Higher Education
Book
Volume
Issue
Page Range
1-22
Article Number
ACU Department
Peter Faber Business School
Faculty of Law and Business
Faculty of Law and Business
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
File Access
Controlled