The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between perceived market orientation, satisfaction, loyalty, and post-enrolment communication behaviour in the higher education context. 258 questionnaires were completed by undergraduate students of a particular university in Australia. Perceived market orientation (PMO) was found to be significantly related to satisfaction, loyalty, and post-enrolment communication behavior. Satisfaction was also found to perform significant mediating roles on the relationship between PMO, loyalty, and post-enrolment communication behaviour. The findings have generated relevant managerial implications as to how universities can enhance student satisfaction, loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth (WOM) through strong engagement in each dimension of market orientation.
The increasingly competitive environment being experienced by both the commercial and non-profit sector has led to the adoption of market orientation by various organisations, including higher education institutions. This has led to an extensive research of how higher education institutions can effectively implement market oriented activities and behaviour to remain competitive in the international education market (Flavián and Lozano, 2006 and Ma and Todorovic, 2010).
Since its conception, the notion of market orientation has been largely regarded as an employee-perceived phenomenon as most studies have utilised employees as study participants (Gounaris et al., 2003). In contrast, the notion of market orientation from a customer perspective—so-called perceived market orientation (PMO)—has received relatively little attention in the marketing literature on the non-profit sector, despite the fact that PMO has been shown to have a significant influence on organisational performance through such constructs as customer satisfaction and customer commitment (Baker et al., 1999 and Krepapa et al., 2003). Indeed, within the higher education sector, only two empirical studies have examined the impact of PMO on organisational performance (Voon, 2006 and Voon, 2008). It is thus apparent that there is a significant gap in the research literature in this area.
Due to the intensified competition within the sector, higher education institutions are becoming more customer-oriented and resorted to the implementation of integrated marketing approaches to attract enrolments (Wasmer et al., 1997 and Wright, 2000). Higher education institutions must focus on developing a strong market orientation as part of their integrated marketing approaches (Judson et al., 2009). While the notion of market orientation has been linked with organisational performance in commercial context (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993, Narver and Slater, 1990, Ruekert, 1992 and Slater and Narver, 2000), little attention has been devoted to the examination of market orientation within the higher education sector.
The examination of market orientation from the perspective of the students is an important topic of research. Previous studies have examined market orientation from customer perspective because “… the adoption of [an] employee-defined view of market orientation is one-sided and myopic in that it ignores the vital role of customers in terms of value recognition” (Webb et al., 2000, p. 102). With this research gap in mind, this study focuses on the examination of market orientation from student perspective (perceived market orientation). More specifically, this study examines the impact of perceived brand orientation on satisfaction, loyalty, and post-enrolment communication behaviour. With perceived market orientation as the focal construct, this study seeks to accomplish two objectives:
(i) To examine the relationship between PMO, satisfaction, loyalty, and post-enrolment communication behaviour and,
(ii) To examine the mediating effects of satisfaction on loyalty and post-enrolment communication behaviour.
With the limited number of studies on perceived market orientation within the higher education sector, this study has provided significant theoretical and managerial implications for higher education institutions to enhance student satisfaction, loyalty, and post-enrolment communication behaviour. Consistent with the results of this study, universities and other education providers alike should strive to engage in market-oriented activities to remain competitive in the increasingly competitive education environment. It is expected that this study would encourage further research in this important topic.
