Abstract:
This paper extends previous work to examine the antecedents and customer-related consequences of organizational reputation for one important stakeholder group: customers, and within a special type of an organization, a university where product and corporate associations are synonymous. It is very tasking for an organization to fully satisfy its customers. This calls for the involvement of the customer in the process of service delivery. The situational theory advocates for the treatment of the customer as an active participant, thus the integration of the customer feedback in the production process who is partly responsible for the outcome and therefore is also responsible for his/her satisfaction. Questionnaires that were designed purposefully to provide answers to the research questions were administered to students randomly selected in Maasai Mara University. The study population comprised all the 5500 undergraduate students and a sample of 100 students was used. Data analysis was done by use of descriptive statistics namely; percentages and tables, and correlation tests were done. Results reveal that customer satisfaction increases organizational reputation, basing on the customer view. This study uses the expectancy disconfirmation theory and the situational theory to understand the customers view on the reputation of the organization. The results were that the lower levels of the undergraduate years, that is the first and the first years were not satisfied and therefore had a lower view of the organization’s reputation as compared to the third and fourth years that had favourable views on both variables. The implications of these results are discussed.
