Toward Sustainable Overseas Mobility of Vietnamese Students: Understanding Determinants of Attitudinal and Behavioral Loyalty in Students of Higher Education

Sue Ling Lai, Hiep Pham, Hong-Kong To Nguyen, The-Cuong Nguyen and Anh-Vinh Le
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Sue Ling Lai: College of Business, Chinese Culture University, Taipei 11114, Taiwan ROC
Hong-Kong To Nguyen: Center for Research and Practice in Education, Phu Xuan University, Hue 530000, Vietnam
The-Cuong Nguyen: Center for Research and Practice in Education, Phu Xuan University, Hue 530000, Vietnam
Anh-Vinh Le: National Center for Sustainable Development of General Education Quality, Vietnam National Institute of Educational Science, Hanoi 100000, Vietnam
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Hong Kong To Nguyen ()

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 2, 1-17

Abstract: Research on internationalization in higher education has not shed enough light on how cross-border student mobility might contribute to the issue of sustainability. Given that a sustainable movement of loyal international students could help sustain the financial income, ranking, and prospective human resources of the host universities and countries, this study aims to investigate the mechanisms that lead to such loyalty. Specifically, this study adds to the literature by examining how switching cost interacts with disconfirmation and satisfaction in generating attitudinal and behavioral loyalty among international students. The study, surveying 410 Vietnamese students who are studying at either at the undergraduate or graduate level in 15 countries across the globe, first adopts confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using software SAS 9.3 to evaluate if multiple fit indices, the standardized factor loading, and the average variance extracted scores are satisfactory. It then employs the Structural Equation Model (SEM) to test five hypotheses concerning the interaction between disconfirmation and satisfaction as well as among satisfaction, switching cost and behavioral/attitudinal loyalty. The results find that disconfirmation has both direct and indirect impact, while satisfaction only has a direct impact on attitudinal loyalty. Meanwhile, switching cost is found to have a direct impact on behavioral loyalty, but not on attitudinal loyalty. Based on these findings, the study proposes some theoretical and managerial implications for sustainability in general and sustainability of higher education in particular as well as direction for future studies.

Keywords: international student; higher education; sustainability; student loyalty; Vietnam (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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