Re-examining Higher Education as a Service system

Alistair Sutcliffe

Visiting Professor,UCL Interaction Centre,

University College, London

CSR, Manchester, May 25th 2012

Presentation Outline

1. Higher Education as a service ?

2. Service Quality and Gaps analysis

3. Motivations & values in HE services

4. Implications for services marketing and research agenda

Service Systems-Conceptual Frameworks

IHIP (Kotler 2003, Pride and Ferrell 2003)

Intangibility, Heterogeneity, (variability)Inseparability,Perishability,

Rental Access Model (Lovelock & Gummesson 2004)

Physical act on Person, Physical act on Object, Mental act on person,Information Processing

Services are ‘rented’ and ‘experienced’ … so what is the student experience ?

Services are composedand co- experiencedProvider- Consumerrelationship

Services as transient actsand resourcesAccess not ownership

HE Products or Services ?

• Education to attain a degree (product view)

• General skills and vocational education

• Learning for life (meta learning)

• Social learning and experience- networking

Perceived rewards:

degree commodity- improved earning and career potential

social experience- ‘best time of my life’ (hedonism) and personal learning

HE Challenges

• Students as paying customers- more focus on value for money

• More regulation from government- quality assurance

• Declining resources from government

• More competition- world HE market place

Need to re-think Higher Education

- as flexible services rather than products

- focus on service quality

- manage the consumer relationship- HE service marketing

HE Service Quality Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988):

• Tangibles University Infrastructure and facilities often tired and poorly maintained

• ReliabilityVariable depends on individual lecturers, courses, departments

• ResponsivenessVariable as above, but standardisation- service levels may help

• AssuranceDepends of staff student relationship and staff reputation

• EmpathyDepends of staff attitude, personal skills, and accessibility

Service Quality- SERVQUAL Gaps

• GAP 1: (Knowing customers’ expectations)Many student surveys- but do we ask the right questions ?Tendency to treat students as a homogenous populationNo in depth research on students’ motivations and values

• GAP 2: (Wrong service quality standards)More and more standards- but HE as a formula, commodity experience ??Standards create an impersonal experience (empathy ??)

• GAP 3: (Service performance)Poor staff morale

Inadequate support (support service quality)

• GAP 4: (Promises do not match delivery) Manchester as a world class University (erm ?? Look at delivery in the USA)

• GAP 5: (Customer satisfaction)National Student survey – oh dear !- but is it the whole story ?

Service Quality - threats

• Increased student numbers- less resource to maintain reliability, responsiveness, etc

• Tuition fees- students as consumers- attitude change

• Increased pressure on research and teaching quality from government

Organisational response• More standardisation of teaching process, documentation, delivery and

assessment

• Outsourcing effort to technology (Blackboard) and students themselves- more use of TAs and peer mentoring

• But what is the impact on Service Quality ??

A way forward ?

1. We need a more sophisticated view of student experience and expectations of HE service

2. Student experience needs to be tailored- customised marketing and delivery

3. Short term (at Uni) and long term (post Uni) perceptions of HE quality need to be reconciled

Values- motivations- rewards need to be understood

Service delivery needs to be aligned to students’ values and motivations

Service Motivations & Values

Short term Long term

ServiceDeliveryServiceDelivery

ServiceDeliveryService

Marketing

ServiceDelivery

ConsumerMotivations

& Goals

ServiceDelivery

ValueRealisation

ConsumerGroups

expectationmanagement

Motivations for Higher Education

Achievement

Esteem

Curiosity

Socialisation

Belonging,security

Identity

Eficacy(Bandura)

Locusof Control

(Rotter)

Possession

Power

Self

Peer

HE Motivation & Value Conflicts

Short term Long term

Social ExperienceHedonism

Attain a Degree

Reducecost

CommodityEducation

“dumbing down”degree standards

University Reputation

Career progressEnhanced earnings

Meta-learning?Social learning?

Student experience- longer term

Initial Experience

Mid term Experience

Long-term

Value perceptionAchievementSelf esteem

Value appreciationMeta learningEfficacy

Value growthReputationPeer EsteemSocial Identity

QoS Quality of Service Relationship

Implications for Service Marketing

• Value proposition- - Need to emphasise value delivery over the whole life span- Make the links clear ….reputation has to be earned- No gain without some pain – commodity education devalues value in the long term

• Connect the implicit –learning for life with immediate service delivery

• Explain value proposition to overcome the hump of indifference

Learning effort

Value reward & motivation

Implications for Services Marketing-2

For longer term Value realisation

• Relationship {trust} is important as well as the service {experience}

- personal relationships, no anonymous students- organisational transparency, active response to feedback

• Co creation in value realisation / service experience

- more {student} involvement In course delivery- more involvement in university management

• Personalise with perspective

- better explanation of learning goals (beyond PDPs)- better connection current {prospective} students with

alumni

Implications for Service Delivery

• More resources, more staff more personalised service, etc

the ideal but realistic ?

• Different learning methods, team mentoring, beyond PBE to learning by involvement staff/TAs as a team member

• More Socratic tutorial based discussion & personal contact

• Knowledge delivery by demonstration, discovery and co-creation

- so what gives ? Maybe lectures, knowledge content on the web/Blackboard

Implications for Service Delivery-2

• Tune delivery to student ability… cohorts and individuals

- high ability students- learning is self motivating, but need to stretch their horizons- co creation of value in meta learning.

- mid band ability- learning is more achievement motivated, need to emphasise efficacy, peer esteem, and locus of control

how ? research on self awareness and collective awareness

- lower ability band- differentiate learning difficulties from poor motivation

• Less standardisation in process and assessment

Research Agenda I

• Surveys of student motivations using theory directed questions

• Scenario analysis of students’ value perceptions and short v. long term value trade offs.

• Case studies of different learning methods with follow up evaluations of value

• Comparison of service delivery in new Universities (more responsive products and delivery?) and old Universities (reputation and meta learning value)

Research Agenda II

• Flexible composition of HE services- beyond modules, courses, degrees

• Life long consumer relationshipsubscription Universities, services for life long learning

• Marketing HE service valuereputation and responsibilitystudent awareness of their individual contribution to the collective reputation

• Responsiveness and Assurancenew processes for student involvement –co design of courses ?

Some Carry-home Messages

• HE Services are not perishable, value is co-created and realisation long term

• Time to re-think….

- Alumni relationships- not just a cash cow

- HE service ‘composition’ beyond modules to continuum of research.. Tutorials… Exec Ed… Workshop seminars.. Etc

- Student Experience, short and the long term

Any questions ? and some references for the curious

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Lovelock CH, Wirtz J (2007) Services marketing: People, technology, strategy (6th edition). Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River.

Lusch RF, Vargo SL (2006) The service-dominant logic of marketing: Dialog, debate, and directions. M.E. Sharpe, Armonk.

Vargo SL, Lusch RF (2008) Service-dominant logic: Continuing the evolution. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 36(1):1-10.

Soares L, and Ostrom A. (2012) College as a Service CaaS, Inside Higher EducationAmy L. Ostrom, Mary Jo Bitner, Stephen W. Brown, et al (2010), Moving Forward and Making a

Difference: Research Priorities for the Science of Service. Journal of Service Research 2010 13: 4 Sutcliffe, A. G. (2002). The Domain Theory: Patterns for knowledge and software reuse. Mahwah NJ:

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Sutcliffe, A. G., & Lammont, N. (2002). The Planet method for designing relationships in B2B e-

commerce. Proceedings: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii 7-10 January 2002, (pp. 2739-2748). Los Alamitos CA: IEEE Computer Society Press.

Sutcliffe, A. G., & Lammont, N. (2001). Business and IT requirements for B2B e-commerce. International Journal of New Product Development & Innovation Management (Dec/Jan), 353-370.