The ‘Inside-out’ and ‘Outside-in’ Approaches on Students’ Perceived Service Quality: An Empirical Evaluation

Competition for student enrollment has intensified with the liberalization of the private higher education industry in Malaysia. This has prompted the higher private education institutions to pay more attention in assessing the overall students’ perceived service quality of the respective institution. The aim of this research is to evaluate and validate the determinants of the overall students’ perceived service quality for a private higher education institution in Malaysia, based on the combination of both the ‘inside-out’ and ‘outside-in’ approaches. A total of 458 undergraduate business students from a private university in Malaysia participated in this research. The research found that contact personnel, quality of librarians, access to facilities, curriculum, staff responsiveness from the Division of Examinations and Awards, reputation of the tertiary institution and academic program, amount of recreational activities, and cost of courses offered were positively related to the overall students’ perceived service quality. Keywords: inside-out approach; outside-in approach; perceived service quality; Malaysi

The Impact of Resource Input Model of Education Quality on the Overall Students’ Perceived Service Quality

Students’ retention and their academic performance are influenced by the service quality provided by higher education institutions (Sander, Stevenson, King and Coates, 2000). As such, it is vital to identify the determinants of the overall students’ perceived service quality. The aim of this research is to evaluate and validate the determinants of the overall students’ perceived service quality in a private higher education institution in Malaysia, based on the combination of both the ‘inside-out’ and ‘outside-in’ approaches as well as the resource input model of education quality. A total of 458 undergraduate business students from a private university in Malaysia participated in this research. The findings revealed that contact personnel, access to facilities, cost of courses offered, physical facilities of the tertiary institution and resource input model of education quality were positively related to the overall students’ perceived service quality. Keywords:  service quality; education quality; perceived service quality Résumé:  La mémoire et la performance scolaire des étudiants sont influencées par la qualité des services fournis par les établissements d'enseignement supérieur (Sander, Stevenson, King and Coates, 2000). Il est donc important d'identifier les déterminants de la qualité de l'ensemble des services perçue par les étudiants. Le objectif de cette recherche est d'évaluer et de valider les déterminants de la qualité de l'ensemble des services perçue par les étudiants dans un établissement d'enseignement supérieur privé en Malaisie. Cette recherche est basée sur la combinaison de deux approches  "inside-out" et "outside-in", ainsi que le modèle d'entrée de ressources de la qualité de l'éducation. Un total de 458 étudiants de premier cycle d'une université privée en Malaisie ont participé à cette recherche. Les résultats ont révélé que le personnel de contact, l'accès aux installations, le coût des cours offerts, les installations physiques de l'établissement d'enseignement supérieur et le modèle d’entrées de ressources de la qualité de l'éducation sont positivement liés à la qualité de l’ensemble des services perçue par les étudiants.Mots-clés:  qualité de service; qualité de l'éducation; qualié de service perçu

An Exploratory Study on Logistician Competency: The Case of Malaysian Logistics Firms

The study of logistician competency has received great attention from some literature in Europe and America. Although various findings of logistician competency have been reported, limited study has focused on reporting views from Malaysian logisticians. This paper provides a general understanding of the items that attribute to Malaysian logistician competency. Introduction to Malaysian logistician competency is provided in the first section followed by the literature review emphasizing the need of logisticians to acquire competency. T-test, ANOVA and exploratory factor analysis were employed to explore the similarities and differences between selected demographical factors and logistician competency. This paper concludes that items of competency for Malaysian logisticians are grouped under “management knowledge and skills” and “logistics-and-business knowledge and skills”. The findings are considered to have made a significant contributing to the literature, by using the Malaysian logisticians which enhances our understanding on the need to understand logistician competency for logistics curricula development and developing competent logistics workforce.Key words: Logistician competency; Management knowledge and skills; Logistics-and-business knowledge and skill

The Impacts of Electronic Word of Mouth on Brand Equity

Abstract Social media has become the driving force which transforms the web into an interactive information and communications technology device. Social media has a significant role in influencing customer's choice in selecting products and services based on the customers' feedbacks that appeared in the weblogs, web sites, online boards and other kinds of user-generated content (Raman, 2009). It is indeed important to remember that brand equity is no longer valued by large sums of money that companies invest; instead customers are dictating the value of brand equity by what they are saying to each other. Therefore, this study will focus on evaluating the roles of various brand equity constructs (including brand loyalty, brand association, brand awareness and brand image) in mediating the interrelation among electronic word of mouth and the dimensions of brand equity in the context of social media. There were total of 300 usable questionnaires were collected in this research. The finding revealed that there is an indirect inter-relationship between electronic word of mouth and the dimension of brand equity, mediated by the respective various brand equity constructs. Keywords: electronic word of mouth, brand awareness, brand association, brand loyalty, brand image, perceived quality, brand equit

The causality between Internet use and academic performance of university students

Ask today's university students how much they can tolerate an entire day with no internet connectivity, their responses may not be quite cheerful. As digital gadgets such as smartphones, tablets and laptops become widespread, coupled with convenient access to the Internet through broadband and mobile networks, Internet use has proliferated among students. They spend a considerable amount of time in cyberspace, alone or with friends, engaged in their favourite Internet activities. Some of these Internet activities are closely linked to their school work but some are not. Thus, a main concern of parents and educators is whether spending too much time on the Internet affects academic performance. To find the causality between Internet use and academic performance, we developed a multinomial logistic regression model and asked a group of university students about their Internet use. All predictor variables as regards Internet use and the outcome variable, which is specific to academic performance, are categorical. In addition, we posited that gender has a role in the relationships. The findings of this study provide some useful information about the use of the Internet by university students and its effect on their academic performance

The Impact of Resource Input Model of Education Quality on the Overall Students’ Perceived Service Quality

Students’ retention and their academic performance are influenced by the service quality provided by higher education institutions (Sander, Stevenson, King and Coates, 2000). As such, it is vital to identify the determinants of the overall students’ perceived service quality. The aim of this research is to evaluate and validate the determinants of the overall students’ perceived service quality in a private higher education institution in Malaysia, based on the combination of both the ‘inside-out’ and ‘outside-in’ approaches as well as the resource input model of education quality. A total of 458 undergraduate business students from a private university in Malaysia participated in this research. The findings revealed that contact personnel, access to facilities, cost of courses offered, physical facilities of the tertiary institution and resource input model of education quality were positively related to the overall students’ perceived service quality. Keywords:  service quality; education quality; perceived service quality Résumé:  La mémoire et la performance scolaire des étudiants sont influencées par la qualité des services fournis par les établissements d'enseignement supérieur (Sander, Stevenson, King and Coates, 2000). Il est donc important d'identifier les déterminants de la qualité de l'ensemble des services perçue par les étudiants. Le objectif de cette recherche est d'évaluer et de valider les déterminants de la qualité de l'ensemble des services perçue par les étudiants dans un établissement d'enseignement supérieur privé en Malaisie. Cette recherche est basée sur la combinaison de deux approches  "inside-out" et "outside-in", ainsi que le modèle d'entrée de ressources de la qualité de l'éducation. Un total de 458 étudiants de premier cycle d'une université privée en Malaisie ont participé à cette recherche. Les résultats ont révélé que le personnel de contact, l'accès aux installations, le coût des cours offerts, les installations physiques de l'établissement d'enseignement supérieur et le modèle d’entrées de ressources de la qualité de l'éducation sont positivement liés à la qualité de l’ensemble des services perçue par les étudiants.Mots-clés:  qualité de service; qualité de l'éducation; qualié de service perçu