Service Quality and Business Students Satisfaction in Private Ghanaian Universities. The Moderating Role of Brand Positioning

Higher educational institutions face increasing competition from local and international education providers. In view of this development, most higher educational institutions focus on service quality delivery in attracting and retaining students. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of service quality on customer satisfaction and to ascertain the moderating role of brand positioning in the relationship between service quality and customer (student) satisfaction. The study adopted a quantitative approach using self-administered questionnaires to collect data from the respondents and a moderated hierarchical regression model was performed to assess the statistical interdependencies between the service quality measures and student satisfaction. The results revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between service quality and student satisfaction in Private Ghanaian Universities. The results indicate however, that brand positioning was not statistically significant in the relationship between service quality and student satisfaction as only one path was supported, which suggests that brand positioning moderates only the relationship between empathy and student satisfaction. Based on these findings, it is recommended that private universities must adopt measures to enhance on the delivery of service quality since it plays a major role in determining the satisfaction of students. One limitation is related to the scope of the study which is limited to the education industry, specifically private tertiary education industry in Ghana. Despite these limitations, the study offers practical recommendations on how private tertiary educational institutions can continue to improve on the level of student satisfaction in order to ensure their survival and profitability.