Social media usage, expectancy disconfirmation elements and university reputation

Abstract

Malaysia is an educational hub and has an aim to attract 250,000 international students by 2025. However, increasing the enrolment of international students by itself is insufficient to compete with the international market. Universities also have to maintain their university reputation as this factor plays an important role to attract and retain students. To maintain university reputation, universities must provide good services and maintain a good relationship with the students. The advent of social media brings a drastic change in marketing strategies. This study has explored the usage of social media and application of expectancy disconfirmation elements on university reputation. Social media helps to create the expectations of students about foreign universities. Students make some perception about the selected foreign university and this perception may be positive or negative. If the students remain satisfied with the services provided by the university, there will be a chance of positive university reputation are created by the students. The population of the study was international postgraduate students of five public research universities of Malaysia. This research used the quantitative method with cross-sectional research design and have applied proportionate sampling technique to collect data from 320 international postgraduate students from public research universities of Malaysia. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was utilized for data screening while the final analysis used Smart PLS for Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The findings of the study indicated that there is a positive relationship between social media usage, student expectations, university performance, student satisfaction, student loyalty and university reputation. This study also proved that student loyalty mediates student satisfaction and university reputation. The current study contributed to the body of knowledge by enhancing literature of EDT and SOR by corroborating these theories with respect to the relationship between social media usage, expectancy disconfirmation elements and university reputation. Practically, this study helps policy makers of universities to promote international education by building student’s trust in their institutions. The results of this study suggest that university management should provide better services to students in order to maintain positive university reputation.