Unravelling the impact of consumer personal value on word of mouth in Indonesia's Islamic higher education: The mediating role of emotional attachment

Word-of-mouth (WOM) plays a critical role in student recruitment within Indonesia’s Islamic Higher Education (IHE), which operates in unique socio-cultural and religious contexts. Despite its significance, there is a scarcity of empirical research investigating how WOM is generated and disseminated by students in this setting. This study examines how instrumental (IV) and terminal values (TV) influence emotional attachment (EA) and the three types of word-of-mouth: intensity (IWOM), negative (NWOM), and positive valence (PWOM). This study employed a quantitative causal-predictive design to examine the relationships among the variables, involving 469 participants (320 females, 149 males) selected through a combination of convenience and snowball sampling. Employing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM), the study demonstrated a significant influence of EA on IWOM, NWOM, and PWOM. The effect of EA on IWOM surpasses the effects of other exogenous variables. Conversely, IV positively affects EA and PWOM, while negatively influencing NWOM. The effect of TV on EA and PWOM is notable, but it does not significantly influence the other variables. Furthermore, EA serves as a mediating variable in the relationship between IV and TV across all dimensions of WOM. This study offers a theoretical contribution that clarifies the influence of IV, TV, and EM on the WOM dimension in the context of IHE in Indonesia. The finding suggest the IHE administrators should prioritize enhancing IV and relational marketing to amplify the dissemination of WOM. This study underscore the significant roles of IV and EA in shaping WOM within the context of Indonesia’s IHE.