Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Intellectual Capital

Corina Pelau et al.
institution and fur<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> benefits <strong>of</strong> a positive word <strong>of</strong> mouth to potential candidates (Grönroos 2004,
Priluck 2003).
The objective <strong>of</strong> education services is to <strong>of</strong>fer learning services for its students, on one hand, and future
employees for companies, on <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand. Seymour (Seymour 1993) argues that students are
customers for universities. But <strong>the</strong> term customer may broadly include also <strong>the</strong> parents <strong>of</strong> students, <strong>the</strong>
alumni and <strong>the</strong> employers. This paper focuses on <strong>the</strong> student as customer concept and derives <strong>the</strong>
survey on student’s satisfaction from this perspective.
The literature on <strong>the</strong> subject <strong>of</strong> customer satisfaction, agrees that <strong>the</strong> satisfaction construct is based on
<strong>the</strong> confirmation/disconfirmation paradigm (Eggert and Ulaga 2002, Chen and Tsai 2009, Appleton-
Knapp and Krentler 2006). Confirmation appears when <strong>the</strong> customer’s expectations are met by <strong>the</strong>
company. In <strong>the</strong> case <strong>of</strong> disconfirmation <strong>the</strong>re are two possible outcomes: (a) <strong>the</strong> customer’s
expectations are above <strong>the</strong> experienced performance, a case <strong>of</strong> negative disconfirmation; (b) <strong>the</strong>
perceived performance outranks <strong>the</strong> customer’s expectations, in which case a positive disconfirmation
appears.
Stewart (Steward 1997) defines intellectual capital as “<strong>the</strong> intellectual material – knowledge, information,
intellectual property, experience – that can be put to use to create wealth.” The intellectual capital model,
although defined differently in <strong>the</strong> literature, is based on three dimensions. Some <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> most popular
classification schemes proposed by researches are summarized by Akhilesh (Akhilesh 2008): Sveiby
speaks about internal structure, external structure and personnel competence; Stewart focuses on
human capital, structural capital and customer capital.
The Intellectual Capital Navigator developed by Skandia, presents one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> first evaluation tools. “The
total Market Value <strong>of</strong> a firm is equal to its Financial Capital plus its Intellectual Capital. The components
<strong>of</strong> IC are Human Capital, Structural Capital. Structural Capital can be deconstructed into Organizational
Capital and Customer Capital. Organizational Capital can in turn be deconstructed into Innovation Capital
and Process Capital.” (Van den Berg 2002). In our study <strong>the</strong> students’ satisfaction is an indicator for <strong>the</strong>
customer capital. The satisfaction level for different elements <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> knowledge flow also gives on
overview <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> way <strong>the</strong> process capital is perceived by <strong>the</strong> university’s customers. The research does
not strive to evaluate <strong>the</strong> intellectual capital as a whole as <strong>the</strong> construct is fairly complex and would
require additional effort. We focus on <strong>the</strong> satisfaction aspect as this <strong>of</strong>fers <strong>the</strong> basis for a future long term
relationship with students.
3. Research regarding <strong>the</strong> satisfaction <strong>of</strong> students with <strong>the</strong> knowledge flows at a
university
This article is based on a study which had as main objective <strong>the</strong> determination <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> satisfaction <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
students at <strong>the</strong> Academy <strong>of</strong> Economic Studies (ASE), Bucharest Romania and its impact on <strong>the</strong> attitude
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> students towards future attendance <strong>of</strong> study programs or recommendations. Therefore a study was
conducted on a sample <strong>of</strong> 1200 students from all faculties <strong>of</strong> ASE, from both <strong>the</strong> Bachelor and <strong>the</strong> Master
programs. There were asked questions about <strong>the</strong> satisfaction <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> students with <strong>the</strong> courses and <strong>the</strong>
seminars, <strong>the</strong> competences and <strong>the</strong> attitude <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> teachers and all o<strong>the</strong>r facilities <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> university such
as canteen, dorms, library, scholarships and so on. The research was done in <strong>the</strong> period April-May 2010
at <strong>the</strong> university. The survey contains both Likert-scale, multiple choice and open questions. The
questions regarding <strong>the</strong> satisfaction with several items in ASE were scaled from 1 to 7, where 7 was very
satisfied and 1 totally dissatisfied. Besides <strong>the</strong> satisfaction <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> students, <strong>the</strong>re were also asked
questions about demographic data, such as age, faculty.
There is analyzed <strong>the</strong> satisfaction <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> students with <strong>the</strong> knowledge flows and <strong>the</strong> impact <strong>of</strong> this
satisfaction on <strong>the</strong> overall satisfaction <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> students and <strong>the</strong>ir recommendation potential. For this we
analyze <strong>the</strong> following items: <strong>the</strong> scientific level <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> courses, <strong>the</strong> knowledge transfer, <strong>the</strong> relevance and
<strong>the</strong> actuality <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> transferred information, <strong>the</strong> visual aids used during <strong>the</strong> courses and seminars, <strong>the</strong>
applications and <strong>the</strong> examples given, <strong>the</strong> interactivity and <strong>the</strong> utility <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> subjects and <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> projects. All
<strong>the</strong>se aspects have been related to satisfaction <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> students with <strong>the</strong> university and <strong>the</strong> willingness to
continue <strong>the</strong> studies at <strong>the</strong> same university. In fig. 1 we can observe <strong>the</strong> absolute satisfaction <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se
items, on a scale from 1 to 7, where 7 means very satisfied and 1 means totally dissatisfied.
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