A study on mediating effect of institute reputation on relationship between institute social responsibility and student loyalty: Exploring concerns in Pakistani private HEIs

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.