ORE Open Research Exeter
TITLE
Education as service: the understanding of university experience through the service logic
AUTHORS
Ng, Irene C. L.; Forbes, Jeannie
JOURNAL
Journal of Marketing for Higher Education
DEPOSITED IN ORE
24 July 2008
This version available at
http://hdl.handle.net/10036/33054
COPYRIGHT AND REUSE
Open Research Exeter makes this work available in accordance with publisher policies.
A NOTE ON VERSIONS
The version presented here may differ from the published version. If citing, you are advised to consult the published version for pagination, volume/issue and date of
publication
Page 1 of 26
Ng, Irene C L & Jeannie Forbes (2008), ”Education as Service: The Understanding of University Experience through the
Service Logic”, Journal of Marketing of Higher Education, forthcoming
EDUCATION AS SERVICE: THE UNDERSTANDING OF UNIVERSITY
EXPERIENCE THROUGH THE SERVICE LOGIC
Irene C L Ng
Jeannie Forbes
Forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing of Higher Education
Page 2 of 26
Ng, Irene C L & Jeannie Forbes (2008), ”Education as Service: The Understanding of University Experience through the
Service Logic”, Journal of Marketing of Higher Education, forthcoming
EDUCATION AS SERVICE: THE UNDERSTANDING OF UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE
THROUGH THE SERVICE LOGIC
Irene C L Ng
1
Jeannie Forbes
2
Abstract
With the marketization of UK higher education, this paper develops a framework
from services marketing that can assist universities in understanding what market
orientation means and how students would value their offerings. Our study shows that
the core service in a university experience is a learning experience that is co-created,
and that the value is emergent, unstructured, interactive, uncertain, with a hedonic
dimension. Our paper modifies the gap model of service quality to show that an
ideological gap exists that may also impede the quality of the university experience. We
propose that a one-sided expectation by students leads to student consumerism and
disengagement. Paradoxically, we show that a true student-orientated marketing puts
the university ideology at the centre of marketing efforts and that marketing may well be
an effective tool to communicate such ideologies.
EDUCATION AS SERVICE: THE UNDERSTANDING OF UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE
THROUGH THE SERVICE LOGIC
1
Dr. Irene C L Ng is an Associate Professor of Marketing with the School of Business and
Economics, University of Exeter (U.K.). Contact Information: School of Business and Economics,
University of Exeter, Streatham Court, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4PU, United Kingdom Tel: +44
(0) 1392 263250, Fax: +44 (0) 1392 263242, Email: Irene.Ng@exeter.ac.uk
2
Jeannie Forbes is a Doctoral Candidate with the School of Business and Economics, University
of Exeter (U.K.). Contact Information: School of Business and Economics, University of Exeter,
Streatham Court, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4PU, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1392 261243
Fax: +44 (0) 1392 263242, Email: j.h.forbes@exeter.ac.uk
Page 3 of 26
Ng, Irene C L & Jeannie Forbes (2008), ”Education as Service: The Understanding of University Experience through the
Service Logic”, Journal of Marketing of Higher Education, forthcoming
INTRODUCTION
A new vocabulary is gaining respectability in academia. The terms have
been appropriated from the field of Marketing, and, although they still
stick in many an academic throat, they are spreading rapidly through the
system. Deans make references to “market research”, “market
penetration”, “positioning”, and “market audits” spill from the lips of up-to-
date admissions officers. Committees of various stripe ponder “strategies”
appropriate to various “market segments”.
This practice seems an apt reflection of the current times as the UK moves into a new
age of top-up fees and a “marketization” of higher education. In fact, Larry Litten, then
the associate director of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (USA), had
penned such words in relation to academia more than 25 years ago. Litten was writing
about the benefits and risks for the US Academic System as he explored the application
of Marketing principles in higher education (Litten, 1980). Since then, the US has gone
on to dominate the global higher education market. In 2005, the Times Higher Education
Supplement’s (THES) international comparison of the world’s top universities lists 31 US
universities among its top 100. The World Universities Guide from the Institute of Higher
Education in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, also published in 2005, lists 53 US
universities among its top 100. As The Economist reports, US universities produce 30%
of the world’s output of articles on science and engineering and 44% of the most
frequently cited articles. They also currently employ 70% of the world’s Nobel Prize
Winners
i
.
Is Marketing the answer to developing world-class universities? This paper
suggests that a Marketing orientation could help universities compete in the global
arena, but only if the right principles are well applied. Our study integrates research in
education and Services Marketing to produce a framework for the analysis of university
education as a service.
The motivation for this study is two-fold. First, Marketing has made much
progress in recent times in both research and practice. Research in Marketing has
developed cutting-edge strategies to assist firms competing in a complex world. As a
result, the practice of marketing is increasingly sophisticated, creating top companies
such as Disney, Tesco and Google. Over the past three decades, Services Marketing
has also developed into an influential sub-discipline of its own, aiding service firms in
delivering quality services and sustaining a competitive advantage. Yet the education
industry, particularly higher education institutions, has not had the benefit of such
research. Its marketing practices are often dated and shallow (Kotler; 1995; Ford et. al.,
1999; Shattock; 2003). Part of the reason is that education, at face value, seems
different from conventional products and therefore there is a reluctance to apply
conventional Marketing principles (Litten, 1980; Ford et. al., 1999). This paper aims to
redress this gap
and show how a Marketing orientation can assist a university in developing its offerings,
while elucidating the uniqueness of education as a service.
Second, with the advent of the “marketization” of higher education in the UK, we
felt it was necessary to understand both research in education and Services Marketing,
and to place them within a framework for analysis where each body of research lies,
thus demonstrating how both streams contribute to the marketization process. By
conducting an interdisciplinary study of this nature, we aim to stimulate contestation of
each discipline through the other so as to advance knowledge in both.
Page 4 of 26
Ng, Irene C L & Jeannie Forbes (2008), ”Education as Service: The Understanding of University Experience through the
Service Logic”, Journal of Marketing of Higher Education, forthcoming
Our study proposes that the core service in a university experience is a learning
experience that is the co-creation of the people within the university i.e. between
students, students and teachers, students and administrators, etc. The co-creation of the
core service implies that the value is emergent, unstructured, interactive, uncertain and
with a hedonic dimension. Furthermore, the co-creation of the core service is too elusive
to be captured through systems and processes, and would require accountability by
students as well as teachers. Accordingly, students’ expectations should be two-fold:
That of the deliverables by the institution and the deliverables by themselves. We
propose that a one-sided expectation by students leads to student consumerism and
disengagement. Our paper then modifies the gap model of service quality to show that
an ideological gap exists that may also impede the quality of the university experience.
Paradoxically, we show that true student-orientated marketing puts the university
ideology at the centre of marketing efforts and that Marketing may well be an effective
tool to communicate such ideologies.
We begin the paper with a critical discussion of the US higher education system
and raise the question of what is the value of higher education. We then trace how that
value has evolved through a historical account of what universities have meant from
ancient times till today. As the idea of a university progresses into one that strives to be
more student-orientated, we look towards Marketing literature for advice on how
universities should apply its principles. The study then proposes a framework that
integrates education and service research. Through the framework, we propose the
elements instrumental in creating the core and supplementary services in the university
experience, and discuss their construction. We then raise the issue of what is
considered quality in that experience, and map research in service quality into the
university context. Finally, we discuss how our analysis advances research in both
higher education and Services Marketing.
Emulating the US
The American higher education system is popularly acknowledged to be the best
in the world. This success is attributed to the lack of state intervention, a tradition of
philanthropy, a competitive environment and “the right to be useful”
ii
. In contrast, higher
education in the UK is remarkably different from the US. First, British students as well as
employers still value academic excellence over vocational relevance (Rhoades 1987).
Second, as a result of long-standing traditions, the university is considered elitist,
upholding the idea of ‘an educated person’ being one who can engage with ideas, be
critical thinking and able to participate in the excitement of learning and discovery (Pring,
2000). Past research has shown that universities in the UK would still prefer academic
meritocracy to affirmative action in admissions just as much as it would shun any
attempt to “vocationalize” the curriculum (Rhoades 1987). Ryan (1999) also supports
academic over vocational education, maintaining that students can be groomed for a
vocation without being trained for it. This is a view which echoes that of both Newman
(1852) and Dewey (1995), who argued that the important point was to mould students
into rounded, reflective human beings by teaching them how to think, rather than what to
think. This emphasis on nurturing the intellect reverberates through much of the past and
present writing on higher education, with more recent commentators such as Graham
(2005) noting that the primary role of universities has been to develop knowledge and
understanding.
Even ignoring the differences between the two societies, asking a European
University to be more like an American one may not be a wise marketing move. First, a
head-on competition with a rival that has deeper pockets will often spell disaster for the
