Factors Affecting Students' Intentions to Study at Universities Adopting the "Student-as-Customer" Concept

Competitive pressure and declining incomes in higher education have propelled many universities to increase the number of students admitted as a means of increasing their income, while the admitted students are regarded as "customers." The purpose of this paper is to examine students' beliefs regarding outcomes of the adoption of the student-ascustomer concept and the interaction effects of these outcomes and the social influence on students' attitudes toward acceptance of the student-as-customer concept and their intentions to study at universities adopting this concept. The conceptual model was developed to investigate the interaction effects of the five outcomes of the student-as-customer concept's adoption - the universities' aim toward student satisfaction, the instructors' neglect of teaching, the impairment of instructor-student relationship, the ease of course achievement, and the improvement of universities' service quality and social influence on the students' attitudes toward acceptance of the stud