Exploring the impacts of customer orientation on college students' satisfaction: evidence from China

Despite the importance of customer orientation to colleges, there has been very little research in this area. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of customer orientation on college students' satisfaction, both directly and indirectly through service quality and perceived value. The present study involves a questionnaire-based survey of college students from China. A total of 261 usable questionnaires were received and were subjected to a structural equation modeling analysis. The results reveal that: (1) customer-orientation impacts students' satisfaction indirectly through service quality and perceived value; (2) service quality impacts students' satisfaction positively, both directly and indirectly through perceived value; (3) perceived value impacts students' satisfaction positively. Finally, this paper discusses the results and highlights the implications.