Customers are those persons who evaluate service quality (Kotler, 1991); Juran (1988) argues that anyone on whom the work has an impact is a customer while, Corts (1992) states that everyone is a customer and equally everyone serves customers. Essentially, one who receives or benefits from the outcome of work or one who purchases a product or service is a customer. In addition, Maguad (2007) states that there are two types of customers, internal and external. The internal customers are seen to include the teaching research staff and the administrative staff (Pereira & Silva, 2003). Whether one considers students as internal or external customers has an important bearing on how the service is provided and the relationship that might exist between all university staff and students. Stukalina (2012) describes one school’s approach to defining internal customers as instructors and students, who are suppliers who produce a product (knowledge) for future customers; and as such, they must work together to produce the best product.
Motwani & Kumar (1997, p. 133) put forward their ideas as follows:
"The customer of HE is the student as customer of knowledge and service, and the future employer or graduate school as customer of the student product, and society as a whole as taxpayers and beneficiaries of the education operations and the institutions".
In classifying students, Sharrock (2000) identifies the following types:
1- Customer-Student is knowledgeable; he/she pays to acquire customer-defined instructional services from the university system, and is an external customer.
2- Client-Student is uninformed, paying to acquire expert guidance and instructional services from the university system.
3- Citizen-Student has certain rights within the university system as a co-member of the university.
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However, providing customer satisfaction is the main purpose of marketing (Kotler et al. 2015). An understanding of the changing needs of students in their different roles as customers, clients, citizens and subjects can only help to guarantee all round greater satisfaction for the students. Therefore, whatever label is selected to name students, the primary motivation behind the customer focus is to deliver customer satisfaction. This can only be done through a thorough understanding of their needs and wants at any given time.
The significance of marketing in the higher education sector is emphasised and accentuated by a number of authors; a larger focus on the human is specifically significant for this (Pereira & Silva, 2003). Customers are henceforth classified into primary, secondary and tertiary classes according to what is understood by order of importance. Researchers believe that students are the primary customers, education authorities and employers are the secondary customers and validating bodies, employers, families and ex-students etc. are the tertiary customers (Ceobanu et al., 2008; Munteanu et al., 2010; Bichsel, 2012).
To this end, sixteen major public3 groups have been identified, individuals who enjoy a prospective or real interest in the effect on a university. These include: existing students, potential students, alumni, accreditation organisations, administration and staff, government agencies, general public, mass media, parents of students, trustees, local community, competitors, faculty and suppliers (Munteanu et al., 2010).
Maguad (2007) describes these as the most important customers in Higher Education, not just regular customers. He further describes them as beneficiaries who have needs to be fulfilled and who benefit directly from the quality of the system. Vuori (2013) classifies students as customers, bearing in mind the performance of the teaching role of the faculty. At the same time students are not seen as individuals benefiting from public goods nor are they actors of an academic process, they are seen as customers or clients (Kogan, 2000; Morley, 2003; Cosenz, 2014). It is stressed that students differ from usual clients in being completely free to choose knowledge (Kogan, 2000; Morley, 2003; Tavares & Cardoso, 2013).
3 A distinctive group of individuals and/ or firms having a real time or prospective interest in and/ or effect on a firm
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Higher Education is recognised as a major service in today’s environment, where the students are seen as customers and consumers (Gummesson et al., 2012; Warwick & Moogan, 2013; Wilkins & Huisman, 2014). Furthermore, Brochado (2009) describes students as consumers who are concerned with acquiring tangible benefits, which have a valuable qualification. Similarly, Manthorpe et al. (2010), state that students should not just be seen as customers but also as consumers. Thus, in recent years, more institutions of higher education have changed their perceptions towards students considered as clients or consumers (Cardoso et al., 2011). Ensby & Mahmoodi (1997) further consider students, parents, and potential employers to be the customers of Higher Education because they purchase the product or service education.
On the other hand, it could also be considered that students are the product and employers are the customers (Dominici & Palumbo, 2013; Tight, 2013). They argue that it is necessary to develop processes to ensure that the student's knowledge and skills meet the expectations of their employers. According to Liu & Yu (2014), students are regarded as the primary beneficiaries of an education while the secondary beneficiaries (stakeholders) are parents, the marketplace and society in general. It is also argued that the customer should be identified for each transaction.
Most administrators perceive students as the customer of the academic staff members in the classroom, a metaphor, which is thought by many academics to be too commercial (Johnson & Hirt, 2011). Satisfying customers (students) and giving them what they want will not necessarily lead to a high quality education, since what the student wants may simply be to pass the examinations and graduate, which implies a concern with short-term satisfaction only, opposed to a long-term vision of education (Ensby & Mahmoodi, 1997). Unfortunately, students are increasingly seeing themselves as customers and are therefore behaving accordingly (Tavares & Cardoso, 2013). Finney & Finney (2010) argue that students who perceive themselves, as customers are more likely to feel entitled and see complaining as beneficial. In addition, they are likely to hold attitudes and engage in behaviours that are not conducive to success.
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Students have been described in several ways; they can be seen as clients, customers, beneficiaries and consumers. Popov et al. (2012), state that students in the higher education context should be perceived as a collaborative partner rather than as a customer. Continuing, they assert that considering students as a partner it becomes easier for the institution and the student to establish the relationship that exists between them. Franz (1998) asks the question: if students are not customers, then who is the customer? Is it the parents, employer or the board of trustees? In a way, it is all of them. Society is the customer. The task of education is to equip men and women in such a way as to help them become effective participants in society. It might then be questionable as to who the students are. Some authors think students are products (Tavares & Cardoso, 2013; Saunders, 2015). They come to the higher education institution as raw material, full of potential, in need of shaping and polishing into a usable form.
Kanji et al. (1999) divide customers into different groups that affect processes of education:
Existing and potential students;
Employees;
Employers;
Government; and
Industry
According to Kanji et al. (1999), these customers can be classified into primary and secondary groups on basis of their location, which indicates the dual-level customer groups of the HE in which it can be understood that students are the internal and external customers and education is the product. In addition, Koris et al. (2014) state that, students expect to be treated as customers in some cases, but not all categories of educational experience that an HEI offers.
In contrast, there are different views of the student being referred to as a consumer or customer. Svensson & Wood (2015) strongly disagree that it is both unacceptable and threatening that the business marketing principles are accepted in the Higher Education context. Altbach (2015) identifies Higher Education as a service and not as a product and claims that it should not be marketed this way. This has also been
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reported by Lumpe et al. (2012) who state that education should be based on the positive relationship between institutions and students. However, faculty and administrators in the HE sector find it difficult to refer to students or anyone else as a customer, in the same way as considering themselves as customers driven would be (Lewis et al., 1994). Canic & McCarthy (2000) argue that using the term customer to address students is likely to awaken many emotions, misconceptions and pre- conceptions. Further, students as customers have caused a misinterpretation of the relationship between universities and students (Darling-Hammond, 2012). In the light of this, students should not be viewed as customers of the university but as citizens of the university community (Svensson & Wood, 2007; Svensson & Wood, 2015), while Pitman (2000) argues that Administrative staff tend to relate closely to students, perceiving them as internal customers. In addition, it has been argued that students must be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve and not be called customers but co-workers. Shaping students as co-workers in the educational venture presents them with the dependability for their own education (Franz, 1998; Michael, 2013). It also transforms the role of the teacher from marketer or manufacturer to coach and the task of teaching from packaging knowledge to collaborating with people. However, shaping students as co-workers is not a guarantee of equality. Furthermore, educational institutions should bear in mind that in the case that students are considered as partners in the education process then courses, majors and programs should be designed based on that consideration (Tat et al., 2008). In addition, based on empirical studies, Obermiller et al. (2005) find that faculty commonly prefer identifying students as products whereas students, in contrast, would prefer to be recognised as customers.
International students in Jordan can be treated as customers or consumers because they pay for their tuition and can change their destination of education when desired. HE management tends to perceive and treat international students as customers especially as they tend to provide different services according to the specific needs of the students (Ensby & Mahmoodi, 1997; Brochado, 2009; Manthorpe et al., 2010; Cardoso et al., 2011). Bearing this in mind, in this research, the researcher will perceive international students in Jordan as consumers. Having understood how the student is being perceived and described by several authors then it is important to understand education marketing in higher education.
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3.2.1 Higher Education Marketing in the Literature
The earliest literature on education marketing was based on marketing models used in the business sector, mainly in the US but also in countries such as Australia, Canada and the UK (Oplatka & Hemsley-Brown, 2004). Kotler & Fox (1985, p. 6) define education marketing as, “The analysis, planning, implementation and control of carefully formulated programmes designed to bring about voluntary exchanges with a target market to achieve organisational objectives.” Later definitions of education marketing drew more on the concepts from the services marketing field but this trend started in the 1980s. For example, Lovelock (2010) identified five criteria to describe and examine education services: the ‘people based’ nature of the service ‘transaction’ (e.g., co-creation/production); the (long-term) relationship between the education provider and the student; the level of customisation (e.g., small tutorials versus mass lectures); the nature of demand relative to supply (e.g., availability of resources – staff and physical resources – and under/over-capacity); and the method of service delivery (e.g., traditional on campus, distance/web-based, offshore).
During the 1990s, much of the higher education marketing literature focused on the promotion element of the marketing mix and on marketing communications (Gatfield et al., 1999; Hesketh & Knight, 1999). Although marketing researchers began to consider students as consumers, educational researchers and practitioners were typically, and in many cases, still are, opposed to the notion of students as customers. For example, Barrett (1996, p. 70) wrote “It is both regrettable and ominous that the marketing focus, explicitly borrowed from business, should be accepted and even welcomed.” In contrast, Kotler & Pfoertsch (2006) argue that the key to successful marketing lies in identifying the core business of the organisation and then aligning the development process in a way that reflects the needs of customers.
In countries all around the world, marketisation policies and market-type mechanisms have been introduced in higher education systems (Jongbloed, 2003). The literature indicates that the higher education market is now well established as a global phenomenon, particularly among western nations (Binsardi & Ekwulugo, 2003; Hemsley-Brown & Oplatka, 2006). In response to the processes of globalisation, deregulation and marketisation; and in order to gain a competitive advantage, HEIs have increasingly adopted marketing theories and concepts that have already been
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proven effective in the business world (Hemsley-Brown & Oplatka 2006). In addition to the issue of increasing competition, HEIs have also had to deal with funding issues and pressures from a diverse range of stakeholders, demanding or expecting, for example, widening participation (Altbach, 2015).
Sojkin et al. (2012) argue that students will increasingly become informed consumers making rational choices, and much of the literature on marketing for higher education examines student choice and decision-making, specifically the decision-making of international students (Mazzarol & Soutar, 2002; Hemsley-Brown & Oplatka, 2006; Wilkins et al., 2011). Hemsley-Brown & Oplatka (2006) argue that, although research on higher education marketing draws its conceptualisations and empirical frameworks from the more established services marketing field, the higher education marketing literature remains largely incoherent, lacking theoretical models that reflect upon the particular context of higher education. The next section will present some of the challenges faced by higher education.
3.2.2 Challenges Faced by Higher Education
In considering the challenges faced by Higher Education, it is important to consider its funding and the role of administration, knowing that HE must offer services for many different students and provide a wide variety of interests. Giroux (2013) argues that HE institutions are likely to face a number of challenging issues. Many unpredicted shocks, whether social, economic, political or environmental, can face universities, forcing them to take precautions and make themselves prepared to handle such situations (Garrison & Kanuka, 2004; Altbach et al., 2011).
If the JHE is to compete in this globalised market, it must be built on developing human capital and investing in a knowledge-based economy, where knowledge is the main mechanism and the most important force for economic growth to enhance competitiveness (Elasrag, 2010). Globalisation should reduce costs for both the transportation of information and communication that will enhance knowledge and increase regional integration. In Jordan, reduced government funding due to hardships in the Jordanian economy, as well as the decrease in family income, have affected the nature of HE institutions, changing the process of learning into a product (Scott, 2005;
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UNDP, 2013b). As a result, employing and retaining the best people in the HE sector is a significant challenge, especially as HE tends to be affected by burdens that stem from several challenges in Middle Eastern countries, as result of unexpected political, economic and social problems and disasters. In the case of Jordan, scarcity of natural resources such as petroleum and water hurt the country’s economy and increase its debt (Badran, 2014).
Other challenges faced by HE include students enrolling in the system being unprepared, without the skills required to learn and work independently, thereby pressuring the system to offer extra support so as to enable students to achieve success and make progress (Blythman & Orr, 2002; Attree, 2006). Khader (2010) identifies guaranteeing the progress of students from different backgrounds as one of the major challenges faced by JHE. Other challenges include setting up new designs to represent expansion of systems, responding to several diverse social changes and the increase in educational spending (Baldwin, 2009). Among these challenges is campus violence perpetrated by consumer misbehaviours. In achieving its aim and objectives, this study will concentrate more on campus violence instigated by consumer misbehaviours.