Word of mouth antecedents in non-profit preparatory schools: a structural equation modeling approach in the Brazilian educational context
(A2020-63731)

AUTHORS

Guilherme Shiraishi, Universidade de São Paulo; Isabelle Andreotti, Universidade de São Paulo

KEYWORDS

word of mouth; non-profit preparatory school; Brazilian context

ABSTRACT

Word of mouth is a factor for the promotion of educational institutions due to the intangibility of the service. This work aims to investigate the educational consumer’s positive word of mouth antecedents in a non-profit-preparatory school context. For that, an initial SEM of word of mouth antecedents was proposed, in which functional quality, satisfaction, confidence, and affective commitment relate in order to influence such behavior. The observable variables of each construct were evaluated by students from a non-profit preparatory school in São. From these answers, the measurement model and the structural model were evaluated and, with satisfactory results on all the tested measures, the proposed model was fitted. It, therefore, presents an effective way to influence positive word of mouth and obtain the intended promotion results without the costs of traditional media.