Influence Research On The Relationship Between Higher Education Service Fairness And Students Satisfaction:Cultural Values As Moderator Variables

At present, higher education in China is changing from public welfare undertakings to property investment and consumption of services, from seller’s market to buyer’s market. Along with the establishment of the main position of students in higher education service market, higher education has been transformed into a service market. The relationship between universities and students is forming a new kind of equal relationship of education supply and demand. Students, as the direct and basic consumers of higher education, strongly require colleges or universities to provide satisfactory education service. However, higher education service fairness and students satisfaction are not determined by the colleges or universities, but decided by the perception and experience of students. And the mode of the students’perception and experience is decided by their cultural values. Therefore, the study of the relationship between higher service fairness and student satisfaction should take the impacts of students’cultural values into account.Service fairness is an important factor affecting customer satisfaction. However, the existing research of service fairness and customer satisfaction mainly focuses on the fields of management and service marketing. There are few scholars studying the influence of higher education service fairness on students’satisfaction from the perspective of pedagogy. Existing research is limited to the studies of higher education service fairness and higher education service quality satisfaction. Presently no scholars have studied the influence of the higher education service fairness on the students’ satisfaction from both qualitative and quantitative aspects. Even no scholars, from theoretical and empirical aspects, have studied the regulation functions of cultural values on the relationship of higher education service fairness and students satisfaction.This study, based on’student focus’, tries to build’harmonious colleges and universities’and’run people’s satisfactory education’. With the application of cultural values and quality of students satisfaction in the field of higher education services, the thesis, from the aspects of theory and practice, explores the influence of higher education service fairness on the students satisfaction, as well as the effects of cultural values on the relationship higher education service fairness and students satisfaction. And the study also tries to find the differences of demographic variable characteristics among cultural values, higher education service fairness and students satisfaction. And on this basis, the author has studied how to provide customized education services for students with different cultural values. The study is also very important in theory and practice for colleges and universities to strengthen the construction of education service fairness and to maximize customer satisfaction. This study, belonging to the category of the study on higher education service management, is a new and challenging subject.This research mainly adopted the methods of theoretical analysis and empirical study. First of all, based on the summarization of fairness of the cultural values, higher education service and students satisfaction theory, the author set up a theoretical model and put forward the corresponding hypotheses. Secondly, according to the theoretical models and assumptions, the author designed the corresponding questionnaires and tested the reliability and validity of the questionnaires. Thirdly, the author, with the help of SPSS17.0and LISREL8.7, made a statistical analysis of the data to verify the hypotheses. Finally the thesis summarized on the research and offers a proposal about how to strengthen the construction of education service fairness and the improvement of students satisfaction.The results of this study are mainly consistent with the assumptions. And the main research conclusions are as following:(1) Cultural values consisted of six dimensions, individualism and collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation and short-term orientation, masculinity and femininity, indulgence and restraint.(2) Higher education students satisfaction had six dimensions, students’ expectation, perceived quality, perceived value, school image, students satisfaction and loyalty. The students satisfaction questionnaire concerning with the six dimensions has good reliability and validity, and can be used as a tool of measuring students’ satisfaction.(3) Cultural values, higher education service fairness and students satisfaction had significant demographic differences in college or university category, subject, gender, and students’ native place. Students of different universities or colleges had significant differences in cultural values, higher education service fairness perception and experiences on students satisfaction. Students of different disciplines or subjects had significant differences in higher education service fairness perception and experiences on their satisfaction. Students of different native places also had apparent differences in cultural values, higher education service fairness perception and experience on their satisfaction.(4) Higher education service fairness had a significant positive impact on students satisfaction. Information equity, outcome fairness and communication fair had significant positive predictive effects on students satisfaction, and the effect of procedural justice was weak. Higher education service fairness had indirectly influences on students satisfaction through the six intermediary variables (students’expectation, perceived quality, perceived value, college or university image, students’satisfaction and loyalty).(5) Cultural values had certain adjustments on the relationship of higher education service fairness and students satisfaction. Three dimensions of cultural values, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and collectivism played a role in regulating the relationship of higher education service fairness and students satisfaction. And the other three dimensions, masculinity and femininity, long-term orientation and short-term orientation, indulgence and restraint, had no regulating effects on the relationship.This study not only expands the scope of’research on service management field’, but also deepens the research on higher education service fairness and students satisfaction. The academic contributions of this study are mainly manifested in the following aspects:(1) Based on the theories of cultural values and service fairness, it constructed theoretical dimensions of cultural values and students satisfaction in higher education, and on the basis of this, formed the questionnaires of cultural values and students’satisfaction in higher education, and tested the reliability and validity of two questionnaires. The results show that they have high reliability and validity, thus it pioneers the measurement to cultural values of college students and their satisfaction in higher education, laying a solid foundation for the research work combined with qualitative and quantitative in this field.(2) For the first time, the study, by means of empirical study, discussed the influence of higher education service fairness on customer satisfaction. And it indicates that the higher education service fairness is an important factor that affects students’satisfaction, discovering that the higher education service fairness indirectly impacts students’satisfaction through the six intermediary variables:students’expectation, perceived quality, perceived value, college or university image, students’satisfaction and loyalty. This "impact model" provides a theoretical basis for colleges and universities to strengthen the construction of education service fairness and maximize students’satisfaction.(3)Using the method of statistical analysis, the study explored the action mechanism of cultural values to the relationship between higher education service fairness and students satisfaction, and verified that cultural values had certain adjustments to the relationship between higher education service fairness and students satisfaction, discovering the main factors (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and collectivism) in the dimensions of cultural values that adjusted the relationship between higher education service fairness and students satisfaction. It is important for colleges and universities to provide customized education services, according to students’different cultural values.The thesis, based on the research conclusion, in order to strengthen the construction of education service fairness in colleges and universities and improve students satisfaction, puts forward the following countermeasures:First, create a fair and justice of education service environment and promote the development of "harmonious" colleges and universities; second, focused on students, create a higher education service system meeting students’demands of learning, growth and development; Third, based on the differences of students’cultural values, provide customized higher education services for students; Fourth, strengthen the concept of education service fairness, effectively improve students perception level of the fairness of higher education service results, communication and information; Fifth, continuously improve the quality of the relationship between colleges or university and students, and strengthen students’satisfaction, trust and loyalty to colleges and universities.