Consumer Satisfaction with Marketing Education: Extending Services Theory to Academic Practice

Abstract

The following study examines the argument that marketing educators should integrate emerging service quality/satisfaction knowledge into marketing education as a means of (1) enhancing pedagogy and (2) helping academic organizations better monitor and control their performance as a service firm. The study first asserts that academic institutions can be appropriately described as a service. The study next argues that satisfying the internal and external constituencies of academic institutions should be a primary organizational concern for academic institutions. Based on this argument, the author concludes that it appears reasonable to assert that business schools should be measuring the satisfaction of these constituencies in much the same way that consumer satisfaction is measured in general service environments. The study then identifies the emerging model of satisfaction from the services literature and applies the model to several student settings within an academic institution of higher learning. The study demonstrates that both pedagogical and organizational purposes can be met by using marketing research classes as a means of measuring stakeholder satisfaction on an ongoing basis. Recommendations for marketing academicians are presented and discussed.