From Analytics Capability to Service Outcomes: The Role of Intervention Decision Quality in Higher Education Service Systems

Higher education increasingly functions as a digitally mediated service system in which learning management platforms generate continuous streams of student data.Despite widespread adoption of learning analytics dashboards, their impact on student success remains uneven, suggesting that analytics value is not realized through information availability alone.Drawing on service-systems and service-informatics perspectives, this study conceptualizes learning analytics as an institutional coordination capability whose value is captured at the "last mile" of service delivery-intervention decision quality (IDQ).Using survey data from 274 instructors, advisors, coordinators, and e-learning administrators across six Saudi universities, the study tests a capability-to-outcome model using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).The results show that learning analytics capability (LAC) strongly improves intervention decision quality (β = 0.60, p < 0.001), which in turn enhances student performance (β = 0.35), retention (β = 0.27), and satisfaction (β = 0.55) (all p < 0.001).Mediation analysis confirms that IDQ is the primary mechanism translating analytics capability into service outcomes.Two boundary conditions further shape this process.Data quality strengthens the conversion of analytics capability into effective decisions (β = 0.17, p = 0.001), while privacy concern-conceptualized as a servicegovernance and legitimacy constraint-weakens the effects of intervention decisions on retention and satisfaction, but not on performance.The model explains substantial variance in intervention decision quality (R² = 0.58) and student satisfaction (R² = 0.48).By repositioning learning analytics as a service-informatics capability embedded in operational decision routines, this study contributes to the service science literature by clarifying how analytics generates value through coordinated action and trusted governance in higher education service systems.