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Filling in the
Filling in the gaps in higher gaps in higher
education quality education
quality
An analysis of Italian students’ value
expectations and perceptions 203
Mauro Cavallone Received 3 June 2019
Department of Management, Economics and Quantitative Methods, Revised 18 July 2019
Accepted 13 August 2019
University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy
Rosalba Manna
Parthenope University of Naples, Napoli, Italy, and
Rocco Palumbo
Department of Management & Innovation Systems,
University of Salerno, Salerno, Italy

Abstract
Purpose – It is not easy to grasp the concept of “value” in the higher education context. In fact, different
stakeholders generally hold diverging perspectives about the value generated by Higher Education Institutions
(HEIs). The purpose of this paper is to disentangle the value expectations and perceptions of current and former
students (i.e. the main stakeholders) of a medium-sized university established in Northern Italy.
Design/methodology/approach – A mixed, qualitative–quantitative case study was undertaken. A
semi-structured survey was delivered through a computer-assisted web interview technique to a sample of
2,572 people. Inter alia, the interviewees were asked to express their value perceptions and value expectations
toward the case institution and to rate their own assessment of educational services’ quality.
Findings – The respondents felt that the university was effective in delivering functional, extrinsic and
intrinsic value; conversely, they perceived several gaps in the case institution’s ability to accomplish
emotional and relational value. Moreover, the interviewees argued that the institution was unsuccessful in
establishing a bridge between higher education and the labor market, focussing on conceptual issues, rather
than on experiential learning and soft skills.
Practical implications – The gap between the students’ value expectations and perceptions hampers the
perceived quality of educational services. The lack of awareness of this gap is thought to trigger
organizational inertia, which contributes to the impoverishment of educational services’ quality.
Originality/value – The paper sheds light on different value perceptions and expectations held by students
of a medium-sized HEI; also, it provides some insights into the organizational and management implications
of diverging value perceptions and expectations of students.
Keywords Innovation, Higher education, Quality, Organizational change, Value perceptions
Paper type Case study

1. Introduction: contextualizing the value concept to higher education

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are complex entities, which interact with a variety of
stakeholders to perform their institutional activities (Pucciarelli and Kaplan, 2016). In line with
this consideration, scholars have argued that a system approach is required to contextualize
the “value” and “quality” concepts in HEIs (Chinta et al., 2016). Inter alia, Queen et al. (2009)
identified nine main stakeholders, whose expectations should be carefully examined in
assessing the ability of HEIs to generate value, including: students, parents, research
sponsors, public administrations, firms and other potential employers, academic communities,
International Journal of
accreditation bodies, faculty members, and the whole society. The heterogeneity of these Educational Management
stakeholders and the variety of their expectations make it difficult to obtain a comprehensive Vol. 34 No. 1, 2020
pp. 203-216
understanding of value in the higher education context ( Jongbloed et al., 2008). As a © Emerald Publishing Limited
0951-354X
consequence, it is quite arduous to envision sound organizational and management DOI 10.1108/IJEM-06-2019-0189
IJEM interventions aimed at implementing a total quality management approach to drive the
34,1 strategy and operations of HEIs (Psomas and Antony, 2017).
Students could be envisaged as the primary stakeholders of HEIs (Amaral and Magalhães,
2002). In fact, beyond representing the key value targets of educational institutions, they
mediate most of the relationships between HEIs and other categories of external stakeholders
(Nguyen and LeBlanc, 2001). From this point of view, particular attention should be paid to the
204 capability of educational institutions to detect the students’ value expectations and to
implement timely innovation processes in order to increase the quality of educational services
(Teeroovengadum et al., 2016). Adopting a student-centered perspective, value in higher
education can be defined as the overall contribution of educational services to enhance the
students’ status and performativity (Tomlinson, 2018); this is possible by engaging them in an
educational partnership with the teaching staff in an attempt to enhance their hard and soft
skills (Kanji et al., 1999). In other words, high-quality educational services are assumed to be
effective in producing a transformation in the students’ knowledge and competencies,
improving their ability to properly function in current societies (Munteanu et al., 2010).
Even though scholars and practitioners have variously tried to disentangle the drivers of
value in the higher education setting (see, among others, Elsharnouby, 2015; Guilbault, 2016;
Dicker et al., 2019) still little is known about the factors that steer the perceptions of value
among students involved in higher education programs, as well as about the interventions
that could be planned – at the strategic, organization and management levels – in order to
improve the students’ perceived quality of educational services. The paper aims at shedding
light on this issue, investigating the experience of 2,572 current and former students of the
University of Bergamo, a medium-sized HEI established in North-Western Italy.
The article is organized as follows. Drawing on the introductory remarks reported above,
Section 2 depicts the conceptual background on which this study relies and points out the
research questions which triggered this paper; Section 3 describes the study methods and
materials, providing some information about the students who participated in this research;
Section 4 reports the study findings: it is organized in two sub-sections, which include a
tentative answer to the research questions at the basis of this article. Section 5 discusses the
main conceptual and practical implications of this paper; discussion paves the way for
several avenues for further developments, as argued in Section 6, which ends up the paper.

2. Conceptual background and study rationale

The debate about the role that should be assigned to students in the higher education context
is open and vivid (Guilbault, 2018). While part of the scientific literature is consistent in
identifying students as the key customers of HEIs (Bounce et al., 2017; Manna et al., 2019),
there is a significant resistance to the adoption of a customer-based approach in examining the
students’ behaviors and expectations (Scullion and Molesworth, 2016). As argued by Sirvanci
(2004), students may take four different roles in their interactions with educational
institutions. First, they encapsulate the inputs of educational processes; more specifically, they
initiate the educational activities and incorporate the value which is produced by educational
institutions throughout the learning process ( Jongbloed, 2003). Second, students are external
customers of HEIs: they demand a specific service offering to educational institutions, which is
aimed at improving their knowledge and skills and preparing them to have an active role in
the labor market (Carter and Yeo, 2016). Third, students can be conceived as internal
customers of non-academic, ancillary services provided by educational institutions, including
food services, sport facilities and libraries; such services may be understood as secondary
components of educational activities, which concur in increasing the HEIs’ ability to produce
value for students (Pitman, 2000). Fourth, students are co-producers of educational services: in
fact, they actively participate in the learning process as partners of the teaching staff and,
therefore, as value co-creators (Hubbard et al., 2017).
 In light of these considerations, a dynamic and multifaceted approach should be Filling in the
undertaken to unravel the value creation process in HEIs (Polese and Monetta, 2006). gaps in higher
As suggested by Dziewanowska (2017), this leads to the identification of various shades of education
value, which are related to the distinctive roles performed by students in the higher
education context. Functional value (i.e. development of conceptual and practical skills quality
which are required to have a successful life) concerns students as product-in-process of
educational institutions; more specifically, functional value derives from the knowledge 205
and competences which are gradually acquired by students as a result of the learning
process. Intrinsic value (i.e. self-development) and extrinsic value (i.e. diploma
achievement and employability) affect students as external customers of HEIs: they
epitomize the outputs of educational services provided by educational institutions.
Emotional value (i.e. social life and climate), conditional value (i.e. studying conditions and
organization) and epistemic value (i.e. expanding horizons and challenging conventional
perspectives) characterize the expectations of students as internal customers of
educational institutions, shedding light on the HEIs’ ability to improve the students’
well-being in the educational context. Lastly, relational value (i.e. interacting with and
learning from other people) concern students in their role of services’ co-producers in
partnership with the academic staff. Figure 1 graphically synthesizes the different shades
of value expected and experienced by students in their interactions with HEIs, which
influence the quality perceptions of educational services.
Even though scholars and practitioners are converging toward a multifaceted
interpretation of value produced by HEIs, to the best of the authors’ knowledge there is
still little agreement about the way different value drivers influence the students’ perceived
quality of educational services and, consequently, their satisfaction with the activities
performed by educational institutions. This study aims at filling in this gap in the scientific
knowledge, providing a tentative answer to the following research questions:
RQ1. What types of value drivers are more likely to affect students’ quality perception
and satisfaction with educational services?
RQ2. What kind of strategic and management interventions can be implemented in order
to increase the perceived quality of educational services provided by HEIs?

Students’ roles Shades of value

Inputs of educational
Functional value
processes
Value
Expectations

External customers of Intrinsic value

HEIs Extrinsic value
Perceived
Quality
Emotional value
Internal customers of Conditional value
HEIs
Epistemic value Value
Perceptions
Figure 1.
Relational value
The link between
Service co-producers
students’ role and
shades of (expected
and perceived) value
IJEM 3. Methods
34,1 3.1 Research strategy and design
A case study approach was undertaken to meet the objectives of this article. The case
institution was conveniently selected in light of its involvement in a research project led by
one of the authors, which was intended at the identification of the main areas of educational
services’ quality improvement. The case institution was a university established in
206 Bergamo, a middle-sized city located in the North of Italy. The university of Bergamo has
about 16,000 enrolled students, who are more or less evenly distributed across the seven
departments of the institution. Its workforce is composed of more than 800 people, the
two-thirds of whom consist of academics and teaching staff.
A structured survey was designed to collect first-hand data about the students’ value
expectations and perceptions. Drawing on the conceptual background depicted above, our
attention was focussed on the different types of value identified by Dziewanowska (2017):
functional, extrinsic, intrinsic, emotional, epistemic and relational value. Since we were
especially interested in obtaining information about the perceived outcomes of educational
services provided by the case institution, we did not contemplate conditional value in this
research. In fact, conditional value primarily involves the “[…] institutional […] and
technical issues of studying process” (Dziewanowska, 2017, pp. 241-242), which were out of
scope of this study.
As summarized in Table I, we elicited the respondents’ expectations and perceptions for
these different types of value. On the one hand, the interviewees were asked to rate their
value expectations toward the HEI at the time of their enrollment at the case institution: a
dichotomous variable was used to collect this information, with “0” indicating that the
related value was not expected and “1” indicating that it was expected. On the other hand,
the respondents were asked to express their value perceptions at the time of the interview: in
this case, we used a ten-point scale, with “1” indicating the lowest perceived value and “10”
indicating the highest perceived value.
We also invited the interviewees to report their overall quality assessment of the
educational services delivered by the case university. We assumed that people rating “7” or
above their perceived quality were satisfied with the service offering of the HEI; conversely,
those who expressed an evaluation of “6” or below were thought to be unsatisfied with the
quality of educational services provided by the case university.
The remaining part of the survey included items aimed at pinpointing the main areas of
quality improvement envisaged by the respondents. More specifically, 26 items concerned
the value gaps perceived by students in their interaction with the case university; these
items involved both primary educational services – such as the design of e-learning
modules to enhance the students’ accessibility to teaching materials – and ancillary
services – such as the engagement of the case university in co-planning the local
transportation service. In addition, 14 items shed light on the current strengths of the case
university; these items concerned a variety of issues, ranging from the interdisciplinarity
of the teaching approach to the internationalization of degree programmes delivered by
the HEI. The items dealing with the value gaps and those identifying the strengths of the
case institution were designed as dichotomous categorical variables, with “0” indicating
no relevance and “1” high relevance of the related item. Lastly, the students were asked to
fill an open-ended item, providing hints and/or suggestions about the potential areas of
educational services’ improvement.
The survey was administered to a random sample of 6,000 students who were either
enrolled at or had attended at one of the degree courses provided by the University of
Bergamo. A computer-assisted web interview technique was used to deliver the survey.
Three rounds of invitations were issued in an attempt to increase the response rate.
The deadline for survey completion was set on May 26, 2017. At the conclusion of the third
Variable (ID) Definition Scale/code Obs. µ σ
Filling in the
gaps in higher
Value expectations (VE) education
Functional Functional value expected by students 0 ¼ not expected; 2,572 0.640 0.480
value (VE_F) at the time of their enrollment 1 ¼ expected quality
Extrinsic value Extrinsic value expected by students at 0 ¼ not expected; 2,572 0.162 0.368
(VE_E) the time of their enrollment 1 ¼ expected
Intrinsic value Intrinsic value expected by students at 0 ¼ not expected; 2,572 0.441 0.496 207
(VE_I) the time of their enrollment 1 ¼ expected
Emotional Emotional value expected by students at 0 ¼ not expected; 2,572 0.547 0.498
value (VE_M) the time of their enrollment 1 ¼ expected
Epistemic Epistemic value expected by students at 0 ¼ not expected; 2,572 0.019 0.135
value (VE_P) the time of their enrollment 1 ¼ expected
Relational Relational value expected by students at 0 ¼ not expected; 2,572 0.100 0.300
value (VE_R) the time of their enrollment 1 ¼ expected
Value perceptions (VP)
Functional Functional value perceived by students 10-point scale (0 ¼ lowest 2,567 7.191 1.915
value (VP_F) at the time of the interview perceived value;
10 ¼ highest perceived value)
Extrinsic value Extrinsic value perceived by students at 10-point scale (0 ¼ lowest 2,568 7.018 1.750
(VP_E) the time of the interview perceived value;
10 ¼ highest perceived value)
Intrinsic value Intrinsic value perceived by students at 10-point scale (0 ¼ lowest 2,561 6.884 1.956
(VP_I) the time of the interview perceived value;
10 ¼ highest perceived value)
Emotional Emotional value perceived by students 10-point scale (0 ¼ lowest 2,386 6.408 2.143
value (VP_M) at the time of the interview perceived value;
10 ¼ highest perceived value)
Epistemic Epistemic value perceived by students 10-point scale (0 ¼ lowest 2,559 5.675 2.132
value (VP_P) at the time of the interview perceived value;
10 ¼ highest perceived value)
Relational Relational value perceived by students 10-point scale (0 ¼ lowest 2,374 6.551 2.077
value (VP_R) at the time of the interview perceived value;
10 ¼ highest perceived value)
Quality assessment (QA)
Self-reported Self-reported assessment of the quality 10-point scale (0 ¼ lowest 2,567 7.191 1.915
quality of primary and secondary educational quality assessment;
assessment services delivered by the HEI 10 ¼ highest quality
(QA_A) assessment)
Self-reported Self-reported satisfaction with the 0 ¼ unsatisfied; 1 ¼ satisfied 2,572 0.698 0.459 Table I.
satisfaction services delivered by the HEI Main measures
(QA_S) and variables

round, we had a good response rate (44.8 percent), with 2,689 filled questionnaire.
However, after a preliminary analysis of available data, we found that 117 surveys were
either affected by response set (23.7 percent) or were incomplete (76.3 percent); in order to
avoid biases in data elaboration, these surveys were excluded from the analysis. In sum,
our research relied on data provided by 2,572 interviewees, with a final response rate of
about 43 percent.

3.2 Sample
Table II reports the sociodemographic characteristics of people who participated in this
research. The final sample was uneven in terms of gender, with women (70.8 percent)
prevailing over men (29.2 percent); this was consistent with the current distribution of people
IJEM Total
34,1 Variables No. %

Gender
Male 751 29.2
Female 1,821 70.8

208 Place of residence

City center and main city hamlets 637 24.8
Hinterland of Bergamo 346 13.5
Province of Bergamo 691 26.8
Other provinces of Lombardy 706 27.4
Other regions of Italy 94 3.7
Foreign countries 98 3.8
Age group
24 and less 438 17
Between 25 and 27 617 24
28 and more 1,517 59
Stage of education
First stage of tertiary education 1,243 48.3
Second stage of tertiary education 1,260 49
Doctoral course 69 2.7
Department of affiliation
Law 161 6.3
Engineering 170 6.6
Informatics 150 5.8
Communication 386 15
Modern languages 417 16.2
Economics and management 664 25.8
Human and social sciences 617 24
Do not answer 7 0.3
Employment condition
Full-time work 1,561 60.7
Part-time work 416 16.2
Table II. Unemployed or looking for a job 415 16.1
The characteristics of Other/do not answer 180 7
the sample Note: n ¼ 2,572

enrolled at the university of Bergamo, with women representing about two in three students
(62.1 percent). A fourth of respondents lived in the city center or nearby the city center (24.8
percent); about four in ten students inhabited either the hinterlands or other municipalities
located in the province of Bergamo (40.3 percent); slightly more than one in three respondents
dwelled in other provinces of Lombardy, such as Lecco and Brescia (27.4 percent); the
remaining part of the sample consisted of people who lived either in other regions of Italy
(3.7 percent) or in foreign countries, such as Denmark, Germany and USA (3.8 percent).
A total of 438 respondents were aged 24 or less (17 percent); about one in four students
were aged between 25 and 27 (24 percent); and the remaining part of the sample was
composed of people aged 28 and more (59 percent). The majority of students attended either
at the first stage (48.3 percent) or at the second stage (49 percent) of tertiary education; less
than 3 percent stated that they were doctoral students. The sample was evenly distributed
in terms of departments to which the respondents were affiliated. In particular, management
and economics (25.8 percent) and human sciences (24 percent), respectively, accounted for a
quarter of respondents; about one in three students attended either a modern language Filling in the
(16.2 percent) or a communication (15 percent) degree course; engineering (6.6 percent), law gaps in higher
(6.3 percent) and informatics (5.8 percent) followed. Most of respondents (60.7 percent) had a education
full-time job at the moment of the interview; moreover, 416 students reported that they had a
part-time job (16.2 percent). More than one in six students (16.1 percent) were unemployed or quality
were searching for a job when the interview was performed.
209
4. Findings
4.1 The students’ quality assessment, value expectations and value perceptions
As graphically shown in Figure 2, we found that our sample disclosed a twofold behavior in
terms of value expectations. On the one hand, about one in two students expected that the
case university was effective in delivering functional (64 percent), emotional (54.7 percent)
and intrinsic value (44.1 percent). On the other hand, about one in ten respondents
maintained that – at the moment of their enrollment – they had extrinsic (15.7 percent) and
relational (9.7 percent) value expectations toward the HEI. It is interesting to note that only a
limited part of the sample (1.8 percent) reported epistemic value expectations. In other
words, the respondents were likely to attach high value expectations to the HEI’s ability to
contribute in the enhancement of the students’ skills and competencies, preparing them to
properly perform in the labor market. In addition, they appreciated the positive implications
of higher education on their feelings and emotions, creating greater awareness of their role
in the society.
Surprisingly, the value perceptions of students did not fully match their value expectations.
As synthesized in Table III and in Figure 3, the respondents revealed positive thoughts
with regard to both functional ( µ ¼ 7.19; σ ¼ 1.21) and extrinsic ( µ ¼ 7.02; σ ¼ 1.75) value.

Functional Value Emotional Value Intrinsic Value

36.00

45.30 44.05

64.00 54.70 55.95

Extrinsic Value Relational Value Epistemic Value

9.992
1.866
16.17

83.83 90.01 98.13

Figure 2.
The students’ value
Expected Value
expectations
Unexpected Value
IJEM In particular, about seven in ten people rated 6 or above their value perception about the case
34,1 university’s effectiveness in providing the students with adequate skills to properly function in
everyday life (69.8 percent) and to effectively navigate the labor market (69.1 percent).
Similarly, the respondents seemed to acknowledge the intrinsic ( µ ¼ 6.88; σ ¼ 1.96) and
relational value ( µ ¼ 6.55; σ ¼ 2.08) delivered by the HEI: first, they maintained that the case
university had a significant role in provoking a transformation in the knowledge and expertise
210 of students, stimulating self-development and awareness (63.4 percent); second, they
recognized that the willingness of the teaching staff to engage students in a co-creating
relationship was a critical ingredient of the recipe for the HEI’s success (50.9 percent).
Emotional ( µ ¼ 6.41; σ ¼ 2.14) and epistemic value ( µ ¼ 5.67; σ ¼ 2.13) were relatively less
perceived by respondents: about half of interviewees were not found to acknowledge the ability
of the case university to create a vivid and nice atmosphere among students (39.2 percent) and
to concur in broadening their horizons (50.8 percent).

Perceived value Observations Min. Max. µ σ

Functional 2,567 1 10 7.19 1.92

Extrinsic 2,568 1 10 7.02 1.75
Table III. Intrinsic 2,561 1 10 6.88 1.96
The average Relational 2,374 1 10 6.55 2.08
score of students’ Emotional 2,386 1 10 6.41 2.14
perceived value Epistemic 2,559 1 10 5.67 2.13

Functional Value Emotional Value Intrinsic Value

30.17

36.63

69.83 49.14 50.86 63.37

Extrinsic Value Relational Value Epistemic Value

30.95

39.27

69.05 50.89 49.11 60.73

Figure 3.
The students’ value
perceptions Perceived Value
Unperceived Value
Slightly less than three in ten students declared that they were not fully satisfied with the Filling in the
quality of educational services provided by the case university (29.1 percent). Alternatively, gaps in higher
about 10 percent of the sample rated “10” their quality assessment of the case university education
service offering. We performed a Pearson product-moment correlation between the
respondents’ quality evaluation and their value perceptions. As displayed in Table IV, quality
we noticed that quality self-assessment was positively and significantly related with all the
types of perceived value contemplated in this study; more specifically, emotional perceived 211
value (r ¼ 0.763), epistemic perceived value (r ¼ 0.692) and extrinsic perceived value
(r ¼ 0.698) showed the relatively stronger correlations with the individual quality
assessment of educational services delivered by the case institution.
In light of these findings, we performed a logistic regression analysis. The respondents’
quality assessment was run as the dependent variable, while students’ value expectations
and perceptions were listed as the independent variables. The output of the logistic
regression analysis is reported in Table V. As expected, perceived value – in its different
forms – was found to perform as a positive and statistically significant (0.001 level)

QA_A VP_F VP_E VP_P VP_I VP_R VP_M

QA_A 1
VP_F 0.608* 1
VP_E 0.698* 0.676* 1
Table IV.
VP_P 0.615* 0.529* 0.709* 1
The correlation
VP_I 0.610* 0.761* 0.651* 0.561* 1 analysis between
VP_R 0.692* 0.556* 0.675* 0.629* 0.625* 1 students’ quality
VP_M 0.763* 0.550* 0.613* 0.601* 0.569* 0.662* 1 assessment and value
Note: *Correlation is significant at the 0.001 level (two-tailed) perceptions

Omnibus tests of model coefficients

χ2 df Significance
1,460,536 12 0.000
Model summary
−2 Log likelihood Cox and Snell R2 Nagelkerke R2
1,640,720a 0.433 0.618
Variables in the equation
B SE Wald df Significance Exp(B)
VP_Fb 0.744*** 0.155 22.970 1 0.000 2.104
VP_Eb 1.340*** 0.150 80.026 1 0.000 3.820
b
VP_P 0.622*** 0.174 12.731 1 0.000 1.863
b
VP_I 0.449** 0.150 8.946 1 0.003 1.567
VP_Rb 1.111*** 0.145 58.466 1 0.000 3.036
VP_Mb 2.317*** 0.170 185.299 1 0.000 10.146
VE_F 0.232 0.153 2.278 1 0.131 1.261
VE_E 1.234*** 0.188 43.271 1 0.000 3.434
VE_P 0.366 0.462 0.630 1 0.427 1.442
VE_I −0.161 0.231 0.488 1 0.485 0.851
VE_R 0.325 0.229 2.003 1 0.157 1.383
VE_M 0.161 0.230 0.488 1 0.485 1.174 Table V.
Notes: aEstimation terminated at iteration number 6 because parameter estimates changed by less than The output of the
0.001; bperceived value has been recoded as a dichotomous variable. **,***Significant at the 0.01 level and logistic regression
0.001 level, respectively analysis
IJEM regressor of educational services’ quality assessment. Inter alia, emotional value (β ¼ 2.32),
34,1 extrinsic value (β ¼ 1.34) and relational value (β ¼ 1.11) turned out to be the relatively
stronger regressors of students’ quality evaluations. Moreover, it is worth noting that
expected extrinsic value (β ¼ 1.23) was found to be a positive and statistically significant
(0.001 level) regressor of respondents’ self-assessed quality of educational services provided
by the HEI.
212
4.2 The key areas of educational services’ quality improvement
from the students’ perspective
More than one in three respondents (34.9 percent) completely filled the survey, providing
some hints about the potential areas of educational services’ quality improvement. The
analysis of the accounts of respondents allowed us to shed light on the key areas of strategic
and management improvement perceived by the students of the case university. In line with
the outputs of the logistic regression analysis, particular emphasis was attached to the
drivers of emotional, relational and extrinsic value generated by educational services.
First, many respondents argued the need to shift toward a student-centered approach in
planning, designing and providing the educational services delivered by the case institution.
As clearly stated by several respondents:
Students’ engagement […] is missing at best […] [Interviewee #467].
The university […] should enhance the friendliness and the comfortability of its relationship with
students […] in order to enhance the quality of educational services [Interviewee #363].
On the one hand, the interviewees stressed that the quality of educational services suffered
from the limited ability of the case institution to implement timely initiatives aimed at
putting the student first. On the other hand, they felt that the university was ineffective in
delivering emotional and relational value to students, focussing on the functional attributes
of educational services. Among others, several respondents complained that the HEI was
unsuccessful in establishing a comfortable relationship with the students and in
empowering them to perform as co-producers of educational services:
[…] We have a limited role in customizing our learning process […]. When we are engaged in doing
so […] our autonomy is constrained by limited number of options [Interviewee #765].
In several circumstances […], I perceived that the HEI had a poor ability to smoothly communicate
and interact with students […]. Formal communication is adequate […], whilst informal
communication is poor [Interviewee #70].
Second, the respondents underlined that – in most of the cases – the teaching staff was
either unable or unwilling to involve them in a co-creating relationship. In turn, this
circumstance was argued to undermine the HEI’s ability to produce relational value for
students. The case institution was thought to pay limited attention to the arrangement of
learning spaces and dedicated areas intended to foster social interactions among students
and between students and teachers. Several accounts from respondents help in making
these points:
In general terms, […] our interaction with professors and other members of the teaching staff is
limited to few occasions, such as the preparation of the graduation thesis […]; indeed, we are
usually not engaged in a peer-to-peer dialogue [Interviewee #2503].
We have lots of areas for individual study […]; however, the institution lacks spaces to perform […]
teamwork activities […] and to enjoy social learning [Interviewee #2055].
Third, and lastly, the respondents claimed that, even though they were generally satisfied
with the learning services delivered by the case university, they perceived a gap between the
skills and competencies achieved during their graduation process and the demand of the Filling in the
labor market. Most of respondents ascribed this gap to the sporadic connections established gaps in higher
by the institution with business partners. In fact, as maintained by many students: education
In my own opinion, […] the university is currently focused on theory […] and not on practice […]; it quality
lacks good connection with firms […] and it is unable to act as a springboard to introduce
graduated students in the labour market [Interviewee #92].
[…] The main problem is that the learning process is primarily focussed on conceptual issues […]; 213
we are seldom involved in experiential learning and empirical activities […]; this undermines our
preparation […] for the labour market [Interviewee #1080].
In sum, the interviewees emphasized that the poor inter-organizational relationships
between the case university and its business partners was a missing ingredient of the recipe
for the increased ability of the institution to generate extrinsic value for students.

5. Discussion
5.1 Study limitations and further research
The findings depicted above should be read in light of the main limitations which affected
this research. Whilst the case study approach was consistent with our purpose of collecting
in-depth and first-hand data about the students’ value expectations and perceptions, it
prevented the generalizability of the study results. In fact, our research exclusively leant on
the accounts of current and former students of a medium-sized university established in
Northern Italy, which was not representative of the whole population of Italian HEIs. In
addition, the cross-sectional nature of this study did not permit us to examine the evolution
of students’ value expectations and perceptions as a result of the initiatives implemented by
the case university to improve the quality of educational services. Lastly, yet importantly,
rather than sticking to a comprehensive and univocal interpretation of value, we
investigated six different shades of perceived value in the higher education context
( functional, extrinsic, intrinsic, relational, emotional and epistemic): even though this
constrained our analysis, it allowed us to illuminate the main drivers of educational services’
quality from the students’ perspective.
Acknowledging the study limitations triggers further conceptual and practical
developments. First, additional research is required to fully disentangle the different shades
of value perceived by students in their interaction with HEIs. Higher education should be
understood as a transformational service, which engenders an advancement of students’
knowledge, skills and attitudes. From this point a view, a broader understanding of value in
the higher education context is required: in particular, it should take into consideration the
direct and indirect implications of learning processes on the students’ personal and
professional growth. Second, the research strategy and design used in this paper should be
replicated in other Italian and foreign settings, in order to check the generalizability and the
dependability of the study results. Third, a longitudinal approach is needed to investigate the
implications of strategic, organizational and management interventions implemented by HEIs
on the students’ value perceptions and expectations, illuminating the ability of educational
institutions to address the growing needs and demands of students.

5.2 Implications
The implications of this study are threefold. Embracing a strategic viewpoint, the research
findings suggest that students are likely to hold value perceptions which diverge from their
value expectations (LeBlanc and Nguyen, 1999; Kitagawa and Aoyama, 2018). On the one
hand, value expectations primarily involve the functional and intrinsic attributes of
educational services, that is to say the contribution of the learning process delivered by
IJEM HEIs to the enhancement of students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes (Petruzzellis and
34,1 Romanazzi, 2010); on the other hand, value perceptions encapsulate several soft attributes of
educational services, such as emotional and relational factors ( Judson and Taylor, 2014).
The potential gap between value expectations and value perceptions of students should be
carefully recognized and timely addressed by HEIs at the strategy making level: this may
lead to a greater ability of HEIs to communicate their value propositions to students and to
214 establish a co-creating partnership with them.
The different types of value perceptions investigated in this study were positively
related to the students’ self-reported quality assessment of educational services. Beyond
extrinsic and functional factors, the students’ positive perceptions of the relational and
emotional attributes of educational services were found to affect the students’ quality
ratings (Srikanthan and Dalrymple, 2007). In light of these results and adopting an
organizational perspective (Palumbo and Manna, 2019), HEIs should attach a special
emphasis on the implications of their structures and practices on the students’ emotions and
social relations. The conventional bureaucratic and provider-centered design of HEIs is
thought to undermine their ability to identify and meet the students’ perceptions of
emotional and relational value (Gunn, 1995). From this standpoint, the shift toward a
student-centered approach in the design of organizational structures and in the
formalization of organizational processes is essential to enhance the quality of
educational services (Cheng and Mok, 2007).
Last, but not least, the students involved in this study generally perceived a missing
ingredient in the recipe for high-quality educational services: even though they appreciated
the ability of the teaching staff to deliver timely conceptual tools and theoretical issues, the
respondents complained that the HEI was ineffective in providing them with sound
practical skills and expertise to navigate the labor market. From a management angle, these
findings stress the need to adjust the traditional service offering of HEIs, introducing
greater opportunities for experiential learning and soft skills’ development alongside
conventional educational activities (Belwal et al., 2017).

6. Conclusions
The awareness of the gaps between the students’ value expectations and value perceptions
is paramount to allow HEIs to design and implement comprehensive processes of
organizational and management change, which should be aimed at setting the conditions for
the students’ engagement in value co-creation. In fact, value co-creation increases the HEIs’
ability to meet the evolving demands of students, contributing to the enhancement of
educational services’ responsiveness and quality.
Whilst the functional and extrinsic attributes of educational services are critical to
attract prospective students, they are not sufficient to meet their increasing needs and to
engage them as partners of the academic staff in the process of value co-creation.
Soft service attributes – which include the relational, emotional and intrinsic shades of
educational services – should be exploited for this purpose: actually, they advance the
students’ experience and ameliorate their satisfaction with the services delivered by HEIs,
thus provoking their willingness to perform as educational services’ co-producers.

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Corresponding author
Rocco Palumbo can be contacted at: rpalumbo@unisa.it

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