The objective of this study is to apply the cocreation initiative as a marketing tool in the context of university undergraduate programs. Considering that cocreation is a practice that involves stakeholders in different phases of product production or service, this research analyzes the interactions between some of the factors during the cocreation process as students collaborate with the university. These factors are participation, communication, cocreation, and satisfaction, and this study focuses on how they fuse together at the moment of cocreation. After a literature review, which supplied the basis for creating a model, we used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to validate the hypothesized relations between the variables; finally, the proposed cocreation model was verified. The results could empower academic institutions to develop managerial strategies in order to increase students’ collaboration and satisfaction.
Higher education has been involved in recent trends such as the increasing competition in the university market, budget reductions, the internalization of education, the growth of quality standards, and clients (students) becoming more demanding and competitive in the recruitment market. Facing this situation, universities need to reevaluate their strategies and gain a marketing orientation [
Higher education institutions generate alternatives to increase their loyalty rates through active interaction with the student. Considering that consumer satisfaction positively affects loyalty [
At the current research, cocreation is conducted as a marketing alternative to increase the institutions’ service satisfaction at the educational level. Cocreation assures interactions and connections among different stakeholders, generating communications and collaborative ties among them [
Although the university world differs considerably from the business sector, academic institutions are looking to increase their service quality and stakeholder satisfaction in order to gain a competitive advantage in the current situation [
The purpose of this investigation is to fill the existing gap in the academic market and to determine whether it is plausible to apply cocreation at higher education institutions. This viability is explored in terms of the impact of the two principal factors (participation and communication) on the cocreation process and the impact of cocreation on student satisfaction. Researching the links among those elements will permit us to confirm whether cocreation is applicable in this sector. The principal research questions are do communication and student participation have a positive impact under cocreation in the university context? What are the consequences of applying cocreation in higher education institutions? Does student satisfaction increase due to the cocreation experience?
Although studies by [
In this section, the theoretical basis of the proposed cocreation model will be analyzed. Four principal constructs were identified (participation, communication, cocreation, and satisfaction), which have been detailed below by comparing the conceptual relationships existing among them at the university level.
Communication and participation are two elements that have important impacts on cocreation when applied to the business world. Reference [
In their research, [
We find that the direct link between these two elements is maintained in the educational environment. To strengthen the relationship between university and student, it is actually a necessity to consolidate value through cocreation. Through the communication, dialogue, and participation of the involved stakeholders, it is possible to develop strategies such as knowledge cocreation in this field [
Authors in [
On the other hand, student participation in formal and informal education on campus not only contributes to education quality but also positively affects the key competencies that students acquire [
Regarding the relationship between communication and participation, we hypothesize the following: H1: communication has a direct, positive impact on participation.
At the market and university context, participation refers to the client’s collaboration with the institution, which is important in order to develop a solid exchange of information to know the consumer’s (students) desires and ideas and to avoid misunderstandings and ambiguous situations [
The user’s involvement in different steps of the processes allows the coproduction development [
The ties existing between participation and cocreation in the university context have been addressed in some studies. For example, students’ behavior is predominantly active in what is called Education 3.0, in which collaboration allows them to gain a “strong sense of ownership of own education, cocreation of resources and opportunities” [
Educational services include stakeholders such as students and professors; the students are emotionally and behaviorally involved during the service consumption, playing a dynamic role during the interaction. Some the benefits of such a collaboration are the facilitation of learner control, enhancement of program adaptation, and learning flexibility [
Another study [
Yeo [
Based on the findings obtained by the aforementioned author, we hypothesize the following: H2: participation has a direct, positive impact on cocreation.
As [
Communication between firms and clients (students) has an important influence in the cocreation process [
Social networks are a tool used to create content, as different participants can communicate and thus cocreate knowledge. Applied to the educative framework, to assure an effective dialogue, “universities/colleges and the customer must become equal and joint problem solvers” to cocreate value [
As [ H3: communication has a direct, positive impact on cocreation.
Satisfaction refers to a positive reaction in front of a state of fulfillment [
At higher education institutions, satisfaction is linked with “a short term attitude which arises from the students’ evaluation of the educational experience, which is subjective in nature” [
In the academic context, it has been proven that when curriculum is cocreated with student collaboration, the satisfaction level increases for both teachers and students [
In their study, [
As [
On the relationship between cocreation and student satisfaction, we hypothesize the following: H4: cocreation has a direct, positive impact on satisfaction.
The model to be validated is shown in Figure
The cocreation research model.
The hypotheses to be studied are four and presented in Table
Hypothetical links in the research model, the constructs analyzed, and the related questionnaire items.
Hypothesis | Construct | Items |
---|---|---|
H1: communication has a direct, positive impact on participation. | Communication | com1, com2, |
Participation | par1, par2, | |
| ||
H2: participation has a direct, positive impact on cocreation. | Cocreation | cocre1, cocre2, |
Participation | par1, par2, | |
| ||
H3: communication has a direct, positive impact on cocreation. | Cocreation | cocre1, cocre2, |
Communication | com1, com2, | |
| ||
H4: cocreation has a direct, positive impact on satisfaction. | Cocreation | cocre1, cocre2, |
Satisfaction | sat1, sat2, |
The technique applied during the investigation’s development to recollect information was a structured questionnaire comprising of 31 questions; only 12 questions were analyzed in the present research related to the variables studied. A Likert scale with 7-level items, from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7), was applied. The questionnaire composition proceeded from previously accomplished investigations [
Our measurements were adapted from existing scales developed in other studies in order to measure the four constructs (communication, participation, cocreation, and satisfaction). Participation was adapted from a validated questionnaire created by [
To analyze the results, we applied a confirmatory factor analysis to explore the associations between items and constructs and, lastly, SEM to investigate the causal relationships existing between constructs.
EFA was applied in order to check whether the principal components detected by this technique were similar to the components identified by the authors, recognizing that items that are pooled jointly measure the same factor [
A Varimax rotation and the maximum likelihood extraction method were used with the four fixed components. Table
Exploratory factor analysis results.
EFA first iteration | EFA second iteration | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Components | Components | |||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
par1 | 0.552 | 0.521 | ||||||
par2 | 0.714 | 0.615 | ||||||
par3 | 0.504 | 0.485 | ||||||
par4 | 0.660 | 0.766 | ||||||
com1 | 0.406 | 0.236 | ||||||
com2 | 0.179 | 0.489 | ||||||
com3 | 0.502 | 0.582 | ||||||
com4 | 0.501 | 0.563 | ||||||
cocre1 | 0.707 | 0.710 | ||||||
cocre2 | 0.766 | 0.786 | ||||||
cocre3 | 0.616 | 0.608 | ||||||
cocre4 | 0.647 | 0.654 | ||||||
sat1 | 0.679 | 0.667 | ||||||
sat2 | 0.792 | 0.746 | ||||||
sat3 | 0.448 | 0.457 | ||||||
Cronbach’s alpha | 0.890 | 0.781 | 0.783 | 0.822 | 0.890 | 0.766 | 0.743 | 0.835 |
Cronbach’s alpha (general) | 0.926 | 0.906 | ||||||
KMO | 0.936 | 0.910 | ||||||
Bartlett test | | | ||||||
gl = 105 | gl = 55 | |||||||
| | |||||||
Variance explained | 59.34 | 64.40 |
Cronbach’s alpha [
A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was carried out with the remaining items. In this step the SPSS Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) program was used, allowing us to assess the overall measurement model.
A convergent and discriminant analysis to evaluate the model’s validity was used. The convergent validity was studied through the composite reliability (CR), average variance extracted (AVE), and the factor loading of each item. Table
Confirmatory factor analysis, CR, and AVE.
Constructs | Factor loadings | |
---|---|---|
| ||
par1 I put a lot of effort into expressing my personal needs to the staff during the service | 0.753 | — |
par2 I always provide suggestions to the staff for improving the service outcome. | 0.696 | 10.784 |
par3 I have a high level of participation in the service | — | — |
par4 I am very much involved in deciding how the services should be provided. | 0.711 | 10.157 |
| ||
| ||
com1 The information provided by the university can be | — | — |
com2 In case of any problem, the university provides me with enough | — | — |
com3 The university allows me to have an interactive communication with | 0.844 | — |
com4 The university maintains a regular contact with me. | 0.756 | 14.735 |
| ||
| ||
cocre1 Overall, I would describe my relationship with this university as involving a high level of cocreation. | 0.866 | 24.495 |
cocre2 The final purchase solution was arrived at mainly through the joint effort of the university and | 0.901 | — |
cocre3 What I receive from this university is due to work jointly between the university and student. | 0.790 | 19.829 |
cocre4 I contribute actively to the final solution in the educational service I receive. | 0.721 | 17.235 |
| ||
| ||
sat1 Overall, I am pleased with the services offered by this university. | 0.904 | 17.844 |
sat2 The service offered by my university meets my | 0.793 | — |
sat3 I think I did the right thing when I enrolled in this | — | — |
Notes. CR: composite reliability. AVE: average variance extracted.
In looking for the discriminant validity, we noticed that the square roots of the AVEs had higher values than the correlations among the constructs. For example, cocreation and satisfaction have AVE values of 0.676 and 0.723, the square roots of AVE are 0.822 and 0.850, respectively, and both values are higher than the correlation between cocreation and satisfaction (0.806). The same occurred for the other constructs’ relationships, assuring the discriminant validity. These analyses are shown in Tables
Means, correlations (above diagonal), and covariance (below diagonal) among construct.
Mean | Participation | Communication | Cocreation | Satisfaction | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Participation | 4.63 | 1 | 0.680 | 0.630 | 0.568 |
Communication | 4.86 | 0.789 | 1 | 0.743 | 0.770 |
Cocreation | 5.39 | 0.751 | 0.945 | 1 | 0.806 |
Satisfaction | 5.27 | 0.633 | 0.916 | 0.984 | 1 |
The SEM approach was used in order to validate the proposed model and to confirm the relationship between the proposed construct, with the application of the SPSS AMOS software. SEM is widely used to build and validate theories [
In order to obtain a better model fit, the item errors from par1 and par2 were correlated. Figure
Structural model results. Estimates and model fit.
Hypothesis | Standardized coefficients ( | SE | | |
---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||
Communication | H1 | 0.677 | 0.067 | <0.001 |
Participation | H2 | 0.219 | 0.080 | 0.003 |
Communication | H3 | 0.625 | 0.080 | <0.001 |
Cocreation | H4 | 0.826 | 0.053 | <0.001 |
| ||||
| ||||
CMIN/DF | | |||
CFI | 0.962 > 0.95 | |||
GFI | | |||
AGFI | 0.903 > 0.8 | |||
RMR | 0.076 < 0.09 | |||
RMSEA | 0.077 < 0.08 |
SEM model.
The proposed model fits the data well. The comparative fix index (CFI) had an excellent value (0.962, over 0.95), and the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI) also had a good value (0.903 > 0.8). The root mean square residual (RMR) was 0.076, under 0.09; the normative fit index (NFI) was 0.948, and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.077 (less than 0.08; [
The squared multiple correlation (SMC) of cocreation showed that 62% (SMC = 0.623) of this element is explained by the direct effect of participation and the direct and indirect effects of communication, with a high value. Half of the variance of participation (46%; 0.459) was explained by the direct impact of communication; more than half of satisfaction’s variance (68%, 0.682) was explained by the direct effect of cocreation.
The four relationship studies have significant and positive impacts such as communication under cocreation with a value of
We researched mediation by participation in Hypothesis H3, studying the relationship between communication and cocreation. Authors like in [
Participation mediation between communication and cocreation.
Hypothesis | Direct effect | Direct | Indirect effect (3th sit.) | Mediation type observed |
---|---|---|---|---|
Partial mediation communication, participation, cocreation | | | | Partial mediation |
Direct effect of communication in cocreation.
Without mediator
With participation as a mediator
The obtained results allowed us to conclude that the four hypotheses raised in the initial phase of the research are accepted. Communication had a positive and significant impact on participation (0.68), and participation had a positive and significant influence on cocreation (0.22). Communication also significantly and positively affected cocreation (0.62), and cocreation in turn affected satisfaction (0.83), with the highest regression coefficient indicating that this relationship was the strongest of all analyzed.
Taking into account the principal objective of the research, the positive relationships existing between communication and participation, participation and cocreation, communication and cocreation, and lastly cocreation and satisfaction in the undergraduate context were verified. The research also validated a cocreation model, considering that participation and communication were the most important promoters of cocreation; cocreation also had a high impact on student satisfaction. This model assured the importance of a change to a management practice focused on cocreation, as was the original intent.
To face the reality of student satisfaction, higher education institutions are looking for innovative ways to improve their administration. Considering that cocreation had been studied previously by many authors with favorable effects in terms of satisfaction, trust, and loyalty, it is a pragmatic tool to be considered and implemented in the university context. It will be important to notice that the lowest detected interaction was between participation and cocreation. Based on this, undergraduate students mostly valued communication as a cocreation precursor. At this point, universities need to develop open dialogues and bidirectional conversations with students to enhance open talks and forums and to improve the communication channels based on information or virtual systems, Internet, or other portals where the scholar can interact with the school.
Despite satisfaction as a valuable factor in terms of competitive advantage, its existence is essential to obtain high loyalty levels. That is why it would be interesting and innovative to investigate loyalty inclusion as a new construct within the cocreation model aforementioned in further studies. Despite these relationships having been analyzed previously in postgraduate programs, they had never been researched in undergraduate programs.
It will be useful and timely to deepen our understanding of how we must change the institution’s process or how to move from the actual vision of rigid value chains to newer ones, with the objective of materializing and concretely practicing the cocreation approach. The benefits of strategic management oriented to this trend have been tested, but the implementation and the actions to be undertaken are a poorly explored field.
It is important to foment and explore methodologies for applying strategies such as cocreation in the university context in order to increase the level of retention, word of mouth, and student loyalty.
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.