Abstract:

Higher Education Institutions, such as Universities, perform a role as service providers that contribute to social and economic development. The services provided are aimed to several social agents that interact in a complex relationship network, which includes students, graduates, firms and institutions, and mass media. Among them, this study focuses on the relationships between Universities and firms and institutions (University-Organizations relationships).

Relationships between a University and organizations involve a wide array of services that benefit both parties It is a relationship that goes beyond the education and training from Universities to organizations, as it also includes the offer of stages for students in firms and institutions, the organization of meetings, seminars and conferences; the programme of University professors in organizations, among other activities. The management of the relationships between Higher Education Institutions and organizations in evolving towards a higher adaptation of the offer of the University services to the demands of the organizations and towards maintaining a relationship that provides value for both parties with the objective to build long-term loyal networks.

Under this framework the authors consider of interest to study the University-organizations relationships focusing on the quality of the relationship. Relationship quality is defined as the degree to which a relationship is able to meet the needs of the customers (Henning-Thurau and Klee, 1997).

In the relationship University-organizations the study of the relationship quality is particularly relevant because, according to Crosby (1990), analysing the quality of the relationship is of key importance when the service is complex, customized, and is produced through a number of transactions over times, as it happens with University services.

Relationship quality is operationalised as a second-order construct, that is, it is composed of a set of dimensions or first-order constructs, which are the variables that can be measured. The multidimensional nature of the construct relationship quality is agreed among researchers but there is no consensus regarding its integrating dimensions (Kumar et al, 1995; Roberts et al, 2003). Variables such as trust, commitment, satisfaction, conflict or service quality have been considered by researchers, however it is not yet established which of them reflect better the construct relationship quality. Also, most of the studies are applied to relationships among companies in the supply chain, leaving a research gap on the topic of relationship quality in the non-profit or institutional sector, such as the University networks.

The main aim of our study is to analyse if the construct relationship quality is of application to the University-organizations relationships, and to identify which dimensions integrate it. To this aim, we first discuss the particular features of the University-organizations relationships, and then we revise the literature on the topic of relationship quality and discuss its suitability for our research field; second, we suggest that relationship quality is composed of trust, commitment, satisfaction, and conflict, and we define a set of items to measure each of those first-order dimensions.

Keywords:

Relationship University-organization, service quality, trust, commitment.