Well‐being of higher education consumers: A review and research agenda

Abstract

The concept of students‐as‐consumers has gained traction with the neo‐liberal agenda taking root in the higher education arena. A key value that these consumers look for and derive from their tertiary education is well‐being. Thus, a cognizance of the nature of student well‐being (SWB) is vital for educational institutions to effectively foster the well‐being of their consumers. This calls for synthesizing existing literature to facilitate an aggregate understanding of the construct. This review paper aims to integrate the bulk of psychological, higher education and consumer literature on well‐being of students to arrive at a holistic picture. To achieve this, a framework‐based systematic review of 112 articles from the last two decades was conducted. A combination of two well‐established organizing frameworks has been used to generate structured insights. The antecedents, decisions and outcomes (ADO) framework reveals what we know about the construct. Simultaneously, the theories, contexts and methods (TCCM) framework sheds light on the different theories, contexts and methods applied in SWB research. Additionally, this paper also strives to uncover the major gaps in extant literature and provide concrete directions for future research. Scholars across the disciplines of psychology, marketing and consumer behaviour can draw on these findings and directions for conducting their research. Because the review was undertaken from a global standpoint, it has implications for researchers and practitioners across the world. Higher education institutes can use these findings to develop support mechanisms that will allow them to fulfil their pastoral role to student consumers and inculcate a positive brand image.

International student mobility: A systematic review and research agenda

“…Various themes and dimensions of the field need to be tested in today's context. The methodological gaps confirm the lack of basic conceptual knowledge in ISM research (Khatri & Duggal, 2022). The field requires methodological advances in theoretical development and an understanding of the nuances of phenomena.…”

“…Focusing on the multicultural experience of students is critical for educational institutions to effectively promote consumer well-being (Khatri & Duggal, 2022).…”

“…on the work ofAbdullah et al (2014) andKhatri and Duggal (2022), there is general agreement that the theoretical underpinning of ISM-related studies is rife with ambiguity. In light of this concern, this study urges future research to conduct a systematic review aiming for theory development(Paul & Criado, 2020) that synthesizes the literature from multiple perspectives in order to promote the conceptual and theoretical growth of ISM.…”

Theory generation from literature reviews: A methodological guidance

“…The first category includes eight articles on Transformative Service Research (TSR) and Transformative Consumer Research (TCR) . The articles in this group deal with the literature on poverty issues (BoP) (Vishnoi et al, 2022), social exclusion (Rawat et al, 2022, education and well‐being (Khatri & Duggal, 2022), children as consumers (Sigirci et al, 2022), elderly as consumers experiencing vulnerabilities (Berg & Liljedal, 2022), the role diversity training on consumer experiences (Thakur & Dhar, 2022) and healthy consumption behavior (Nguyen et al, 2022). Given that both perspectives, TSR and TCR, are attracting increasing research attention (Tsiotsou & Diehl, 2022), we hope that these articles will provide valuable future research directions.…”

“…This calls for synthesizing existing literature to facilitate an aggregate understanding of the construct. In their review titled “ Well‐being of higher education consumers: A review and research agenda ” by Khatri and Duggal (2022) integrate the bulk of psychological, higher education, and consumer literature on the well‐being of students to arrive at a holistic understanding of this complex phenomenon. To achieve this, a framework‐based systematic review of 112 articles from the last two decades was conducted using a combination of two well‐established organizing frameworks to generate structured insights; namely the antecedents, decisions, and outcomes (ADO) framework (Paul & Benito, 2018) and the theories, contexts, and methods (TCCM) framework (Tsiotsou & Boukis, 2022).…”