COMPETITIVENESS IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN TERMS OF THE LEVEL OF STUDENTS' SATISFACTION WITH E-LEARNING IN BLENDED ENVIRONMENT

The intellectual competitiveness is a motto of the new information era. Higher education within contemporary conditions appearances as the leading area for the provision of competitive capabilities and competitive advantages of the company since it directly affects the creation of intellectual and organizational capital, including greater competence of personnel, i.e. greater number of employees with intellectual vacations. The paper explains the growing role of e-learning in the provision of competitive properties of higher education at the example of the International University of Travnik. It is started from the hypothesis that e-learning, as an alternative form of learning in higher education, expands the array of educational choices by strengthening the competitive position of the observed University. Also, the competitive position of the analyzed University becomes stronger with increasing degree of students' satisfaction with e-learning component in blended environment which is a mix of traditional (or, face-to-face, classroom based, traditional education) and learning supported by modern information and communication technologies and tools (or, e/online/web based/internet mediated/m- learning). In validating these hypothesis, in addition to the theoretical considerations, on the basis of the results of the surveys conducted among students of the International University of Travnik, two- dimensional Kano model is applied, with the aim of determining the degree to which certain dimensions of e- learning in blended model affect the level of students' satisfaction with conditions and outcomes of such form of learning. The results are interpreted by the appropriate numerical, graphical and statistical analysis.