Sociotechnical service quality for students and academics at private higher education institutions in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The need for private higher education in South Africa is reflected by the explosive growth of newly registered private higher education institutions. This is coupled with a need for corporate quality management of service quality for students and academics. This article elaborates on service quality from a corporate sociotechnical perspective. The research was part of the development of a framework for the holistic management of service quality by means of a corporate total quality service approach. The total quality service framework was developed following a comprehensive sequential research process. This article focuses on the final part of the process: a qualitative open-ended question to identify additional service-quality needs, utilising 499 responses from 647 students and academics. It is concluded that a holistic approach to service quality and the total quality service framework includes quality of work life as a performance objective based on sociotechnical needs beyond the traditional dimensions.

KEYWORDS:

• Service quality
• quality of work life
• private higher education
• social-technical needs
• holistic approach to service quality
• student needs
• academia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).