Organisational culture, job satisfaction and higher education service quality

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of organisational culture and job satisfaction on the quality of services provided in higher education and to raise questions about the successful implementation of quality assurance and evaluation systems recently launched in Greece. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on a sample of faculty and administration members at the Technological Educational Institution of Larissa, a structured questionnaire was developed to measure institute's culture, job satisfaction and the quality in services and internal processes. The Competing Values Framework was adopted to operationalise organisational culture, while higher education service quality was operationalised by adopting both the quality dimensions emphasising teaching aspects proposed by Owlia and Aspinwall and Waugh's measures of administration quality. Findings – Results indicate that specific culture archetypes are linked with different dimensions of higher education service quality. Hierarchy culture proved to be the most prevalent among administration staff, while clan and hierarchy archetypes dominated among faculty members. Practical implications – Understanding the nature of the association between organisational culture, job satisfaction and service quality would enable academics and administrators to reflect critically on the quality of teaching and quality improvement decisions and actions, so as to ensure the evaluation and successful implementation of service quality processes. Originality/value – The research led to the diagnosis of the culture profiles of both administration and faculty members. Findings also highlighted the importance of adhocracy culture in explaining the variance of all aspects of higher education service quality.