The aim of this study is to determine the mediating role of the institute reputation between institute social responsibility and student loyalty. The present study uses a multi-stage sampling technique, which first creates four clusters; including Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar, and Lahore, and picks one cluster; namely Lahore, randomly for the purpose of the study. Second, proportionate sampling technique is used to calculate the proportionate values of every individual educational institute. Finally, systematic sampling is used to compute the sampling interval kth number of individual univer-sities. Data are collected from the provincial capital city of Punjab province (Lahore) and a total of 511 questionnaires are distributed among postgraduate students under business education discipline of private HEIs, 206 questionnaires are excluded from the sample due to some missing and misleading values, and final analysis is run by using SmartPLS 3.2.8 on 345 questionnaires. Findings elucidate that institutes social responsibility did not have any direct relationship with student loyalty. However, institute social responsibility has indirect relationship with student loyalty thru the mediating variable of institute reputation. Institute reputation also has a significant and positive influence on student loyalty.

Students’ loyalty enhances sustainability and survival rate of higher education institutions. Successful university managers and higher education thrive to improve service quality and to build loyalty among local and international students to sustain under the globalization. The aim of this research was to investigate the mediation effect of some key long-term relationship antecedent variables such as trust, satisfaction, and commitment between the perceived service quality and student loyalty latent variables. The relationship between the constructs in the instrument was tested through Partial Least squares (PLS) structural equations methodology using SmartPLS 3 program. The results of this research show that perceived service quality impacts loyalty specifically through commitment. Students’ loyalty is significantly influenced by commitment. However, student satisfaction has no significant direct effects on loyalty. Student trust has a negative effect on student loyalty so the results indicate that commitment fully mediates the effects of perceived service quality on student loyalty. Hence, university managers revitalize and sustain students’ loyalty if along with high quality services they also stimulate bonds and students identification with the university by reinforcing emotional force such as commitment.

During the past few years, there have been various studies on the relationship between academic behavior, teaching and student retention but not much has been on administration staff and students. This study examined improving employees’ behavioural factors towards increasing students' loyalty. The paper explores the direct mediation and indirect mediation of employee behavioural factors leading to build student loyalty. More specifically the focus is on the constructs of service quality (SQLTY), need understanding (NEEDUND), intimacy (INTIMACY), and student loyalty (STLOY). This study depended on a positivist research paradigm. In this study, over 800 structured questionnaires were administered for research subjects. However, 743 were captured for the final analysis. The analytical tool used in this study is the ADANCO 2.0.1 software and in terms of statistical processing, the PLS-SEM technique was utilized. The two main takeaways from the direct relationships are that INTIMACY is a strong predictor of STLOY, and NEEDUND is also a strong predictor of SQLTY. The indirect mediations of INTIMACY on SQLTY and STLOY, INTIMACY on NEEDUND and STLOY, and SQLTY on NEEDUND and INTIMACY were all not supported. The study, like any academic work, has limitations. Despite these limitations, this study offers theoretical as well as practical values for the research community and administrators of universities and higher education administrators as a whole. For administrators of the universities and the higher education, the study points out the critical needs for administrators to better understand students’ loyalty and behaviours of employees during the service encounter, which could lead to intimacy and eventually student loyalty. The present study is innovated by quantitatively examining how the above mentioned behavioural factors of employees could lead to INTIMACY and STLOY.