Daniel Kahneman: how we think and choose

A new insight into alumni satisfaction model for Islamic higher education institutions (IHEI)

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore and decompose a satisfaction model using alumni’s perspective for Islamic-based higher education institutions (IHEI) with the antecedent of perceived quality and value and the consequence of loyalty.

Design/methodology/approach

A study was used, using 44-item, a ten-point Likert-scale questionnaire administered to 360 alumni from various classes started from the 1970s till 2000s. Theoretical-based, national qualification framework of Indonesian higher education and management-based considerations were involved in developing a survey. Data were analyzed using partial least square-structural equation model and decomposed into strategic management map using importance-performance matrix analysis.

Findings

The most important determinants of alumni satisfaction and loyalty in IHEI is the IHEI’s ability to develop career capability through enriching knowledge. Moreover, the presence of good environment and Islamic value embodiment supporting learning programs on campus is the most significant trigger for the knowledge development.

Research limitations/implications

The results were generated from a specific department. Additional studies are needed to test if the results are not department (institution)-specific.

Practical implications

This study provides strategic directions for management to improve the critical aspects of the system by providing the inputs to the extent to which the service quality delivered may contribute to end-customers’ satisfaction.

Originality/value

It contributes to the literature on satisfaction and service quality issues by incorporating ideological aspect, by investigating the feasible model of customer satisfaction in the perspective of alumni for IHEI.

Brains, language and the argumentative mind in Western and Eastern societies. The fertile differences between Western-Eastern argumentative traditions

The philosophical differences between Western and Eastern philosophy not only derive from general cultural ideas about reality, but as Nisbet writes (2003), are also methodological, ontological, and cognitively driven. Thus, we can see that strategies of thought and theory-generation are constrained and enabled by conceptual levels, and that the existence of differences and within these levels may be pragmatically combined in fruitful ways. At this point, I remark that there is not a single way to connect biology and culture, but at least we need to admit that brains allow the existence of minds and that these create languages, which also organize the world symbolically following a long set of (sometimes interconnected) heuristics. Throughout the paper we will see how fundamental, geographically located cultural perspectives have affected reasoning strategies and discourses, determining the main Western and Eastern Traditions. At the same time, we can conclude that different traditional perspectives allow more diversity for knowledge acquisition.