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1. Introduction
Student loyalty does not seem to depend on student satisfaction with the received educational service and the university that provides it, but on the student relationship with the university providing educational services. It is true that student satisfaction may be an outcome of that relationship, but only one outcome (Annamdevula, 2017; Bitner, 1990; Caruana, 2002; Cronin et al., 2000; Mosahab et al., 2010; Ng, 2018; Parasuraman et al., 1985, 1988; Pedro et al., 2018; Snijders et al., 2018; Tong et al., 2018). This study examines the role of two relational variables, trust and commitment, which may constitute the main drivers of student loyalty. Student satisfaction may require the addition of student trust and commitment for it to influence student loyalty in a consistent manner and in the long term.
The role of trust and commitment in B-to-B and B-to-C relationships has been widely explored in the literature (e.g. Morgan and Hunt, 1994). They were specifically included in the analysis of student loyalty by Rojas-Méndez et al. (2009). Using the explanation chain, Vásquez-Parraga et al. (2014) put to the test in their research of customer loyalty, the purpose of this study is to replicate their explanation chain in the determination of student loyalty; how trust and commitment, in this order, carry the effects of student satisfaction to the explanation of student loyalty. In addition, this research explores the moderating role that key consumer attributes (product familiarity, opportunism and communication) and relevant demographic characteristics play in the explanation chain.
What follows includes a brief literature review on the antecedents of student loyalty and the theoretical framework that is adopted, the methodology to model and test the explanation chain of student loyalty and its moderators, the results obtained, and the discussion, conclusions, and managerial implications of the findings.
2. Literature review
Student loyalty to the school has not been often considered a sought-after outcome of education delivery and administration. In emerging countries such as Chile, where this research is performed, higher education has been linked to the social, economic and cultural development of the country (Annamdevula, 2017) with the idea that education may contribute the professional competencies that are required in the economic development of the country (Castells, 2000; Levy...