Applying services marketingprinciples to postgraduate

supervisionStephen Dann

ANU College of Business and Economics, Australian National University,Canberra, Australia

Abstract

Purpose – The paper aims to describe the application of two key service quality frameworks forimproving the delivery of postgraduate research supervision. The services quality frameworks are usedto identify key areas of overlap between services marketing practice and postgraduate supervision thatcan be used by the supervisor to improve research supervision outcomes for the student.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a conceptual and theoretical examination of thetwo streams of literature that proposes a supervision gap model based on the services gap literature,and the application of services delivery frameworks of co-creation and service quality.

Findings – Services marketing literature can inform the process of designing and deliveringpostgraduate research supervision by clarifying student supervisor roles, setting parameters andusing quality assurance frameworks for supervision delivery. The five services quality indicators canbe used to examine overlooked areas of supervision delivery, and the co-creation approach of servicesmarketing can be used to empower student design and engaged in the quality of the supervisionexperience.

Research limitations/implications – As a conceptual paper based on developing a theoreticalstructure for applying services marketing theory into the research supervision context, the paper islimited to suggesting potential applications. Further research studies will be necessary to test the fieldimplementation of the approach.

Practical implications – The practical implications of the paper include implementationsuggestions for applying the supervisor gaps for assessing areas of potential breakdown in thesupervision arrangement.

Originality/value – The paper draws on two diverse areas of theoretical work to integrate theexperience, knowledge and frameworks of commercial services marketing into the postgraduateresearch supervision literature.

Keywords Services marketing, Postgraduates, Service quality assurance, Supervising training,Service delivery

Paper type Case study

IntroductionPostgraduate research supervision is a complex service encounter drawing on thepedagogical structures of higher education and the interpersonal dynamics of highlycustomised service delivery. Within the postgraduate supervision structure there is aduality of responsibility for the successful completion of the research project betweenthe supervisor and the student that parallels that of complex service products wherethe customer and provider co-create the final service product.

The paper makes the fundamental assumption that postgraduate supervision is aform of service delivery. Research supervision takes the form of a highly complex,

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Received March 2008Revised May 2008

Accepted June 2008

Quality Assurance in EducationVol. 16 No. 4, 2008

pp. 333-346q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0968-4883DOI 10.1108/09684880810906481

individualised and customised service delivery, and as such, has similar strengths andvulnerabilities to complex commercial service products. The paper also supports andextends Stodnick and Rogers (2008) and Douglas et al. (2008) approach of assessingservice quality as an indicator of student satisfaction in higher education by applyingthe services marketing frameworks to research supervision arrangements.

This paper explores the value of services marketing frameworks to postgraduatesupervision pedagogy through an examination of the interplay of key services marketingmodels, and the postgraduate supervision experience. The frameworks employed in thisanalysis are customer co-creation of value, which recognises the contribution of thestudent to the success of the supervisory arrangement; the gaps model of service qualitywhich is used an analytical tools for examining how and where the supervision servicemay fail to deliver on implied or actual promises to the student, and the five factors ofperceived service quality expressed within the SERVQUAL analytical framework.

Services marketing and postgraduate supervisionThe paper is based on the application of services marketing practice for the design,delivery and quality assurance of research supervision. Academic research supervisorscan benefit from the use of the service delivery quality systems which aid insupervision design, understanding of student needs and expectations, and addressinggaps between what the student perceives, and the supervisor believes is occurring inthe supervision arrangement.

There are three levels of services products – search goods, experience goods andcredence goods – which are exist across a spectrum of the relatively certain outcome tohigh uncertain outcomes and subjective judgements. Search goods are easily exploredand understood by the consumer before encountering the service as the have higherlevels of physical products associated with them – for example, car repairs, tailoring ortake away food (Paswan et al., 2007). For the most part, the first type of service deliveryis less commonly identified with the higher education supervision process – althoughphysical products such as teaching notes, books or even the diploma are present, theyare not the core of the supervision arrangement.

Experience goods represent the less tangible, although still measurable,understandable and predictable by the consumer – whilst the services are usuallyhigh in experience, and can only be judged whilst in the service encounter, they can beassessed by the customer in terms of enjoyment, entertainment or overall satisfaction(Lovelock et al., 2007). This is often measured at the university level through subjectevaluation forms which address in-process issues of teaching quality, lectureenjoyment, content understanding and similar experiential aspects (Ramsden, 1991;Wilson et al., 1997)

Credence products are those complex service products that the consumer often hasno means by which they can determine the quality of the service before, during or afterthe experience (Lovelock, 1983; Zeithaml et al., 2006, Moorthi, 2002). The third categoryof services products is the most complicated for the customer and provider to deliverand assess. For example, a legal service is a credence product in that the customercannot tell through their own expertise whether they would have been better or worseoff without the use of the service.

The research higher degree supervision structure is a credence service product inmany respects. The nature of the process of being supervised through a research

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project involves high levels of commitment by the student, heavy opportunity costs tofocus on the research project, and, as a process that is difficult to judge during theexperience, it can be influenced by a wide range of factors that are not central to thesupervision arrangement. Few students, if any, can determine the medium to long termvalue of the education service experience even after the experience of the supervision,and as such, rely on alternative subjective measures of quality in determining theirsatisfaction with the supervision. This paper addresses the application of two servicesmarketing models that are frequently applied in commercial marketing to addresscredence product development, delivery and quality assurance – the service gapmodel, and the RATER quality metric.

Overview of services marketingServices marketing refers to the communication, management and delivery of anydeed, performance or effort which results in limited to no physical outcomes for thecustomer (Fisk et al., 2007; Zeithaml et al., 2006). Services are intangible, perishableactivities which do not always lead to the possession of a material object, and whichtake place in an interactive process aimed at creating customer satisfaction (Kasperet al., 2006). Services marketing is based on the principle that the customer will receivean experience, emotion, memory or other intangible outcome as the primary benefit ofthe service encounter. Whilst this does not prevent the service from providing someforms of tangible evidence that the service encounter occurred, the physical objects aresupporting evidence rather than the reason for the purchase. Within servicesmarketing theory, higher education is frequently cited as a key example of a servicewith limited tangible outputs (Zeithaml et al., 2006; Fisk et al., 2007; Stodnick andRogers, 2008). Higher education is classified as a service product with the primaryoutputs being the mental development, knowledge, skills and graduate outcomesrather than the ownership of an object such as the degree certificate that representstangible evidence of the education service encounter.

Recent developments in the broader marketing community have incorporated theintangibility of the service outcome into the wider marketing literature through theconcept of services-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). Services dominant logicproposes the concept that all marketing exchange is based on the provision of an actualservice which results in intangible outcomes or the delivery of a physical object which,when used by the consumer, contains an embedded service that results in an intangibleoutcome (Lusch et al., 2006). The recasting of the physical object as an embeddedservice delivery mechanism, rather than as the product in its own right, has twoimpacts for the use of marketing within the higher education service delivery. First,within the broader education framework, the physical evidence of higher educationsuch as readings, textbooks or other physical materials represent forms of embeddedservice delivery. The textbook becomes an embedded education service that isaccessed as a self service delivery mechanism through the student reading andinternalising the embedded knowledge. Co-creation of value occurs as the customercreates the service by using the physical product (Payne et al., 2006) Second, thephysical evidence of the research supervision process retains the intangible embeddedservice component – the creation of a physical thesis document at the end of theresearch supervision period is the development of an embedded education service thatcoexists with the graduate outcomes component of the supervision service product.

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Customer co-creation and higher educationCustomer co-creation of value has been a central tenet of services marketing theoryfrom the foundation of the discipline. Services products are usually produced andconsumed simultaneously, thus requiring various levels of consumer involvement inthe creation of the overall services product. Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) identifiedpreconditions for services co-creation as being the situations where the service productrequires joint problem definition and solving plus the creation of personalisedexperiences within an environment that is conducive to dialogue, co-construction of theservice and joint engagement in creating mutually beneficial outcomes.

Kotze and du Plessis (2003) presented a link between the existing customerco-creation literature and the role of the student in higher education as an activeparticipant in the creation of their learning experience. From the student-customerperspective, co-creation requires the contribution of mental, physical or emotionalinput into the services transaction (Rodie and Kleine, 2000; in Kotze and du Plessis,2003). Students at the postgraduate level are most likely to be required to engaged inmental input into the learning process – through active learning (Kotze and du Plessis,2003), methods of enquiry and creation of academic identity (Kamler and Thomson,2004), or various levels of self training in academic methods (Johnson et al., 2000) orBarrie’s (2004) graduate attributes.

Co-creation comes with a level of assumed risk for the consumer in that they assumea level of responsibility for the satisfactory nature of the outcome (Walker, 1995) andassociated risks from the activity undertaken (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). Theco-creation of the research supervision process requires research students to assume alevel of responsibility for the mental input into the process, and acceptance of the riskof the final outcome such as the relevance of the thesis topic or their level ofemployability/commercialisation potential of their research.

Supervision as service, service quality as factor in completion ratesIves and Rowley (2005) identified strong links between satisfaction with supervisionand the students’ progress through their theses. Similarly, Sinclair (2004), Manathunga(2005) and McCormack (2004) identified the influence of satisfaction as a factor inthesis completion rates and the relationship between drop-out/non completion ratesand dissatisfaction with the supervision experience. McCormack (2004) identified thetension between the student’s expectations of the research degree and their livedexperience of the process as a contributing factor to thesis delays or drop out. This wassupported by similar findings in the work of Boud and Lee (2005) who identifiedcase-by-case differences between the expected experience and the reality of thesupervision. Conflicts between expectations and actual experiences are a recognisedaspect of the services quality literature. The “services gap” model is a specificmeasurement benchmark tool created by Zeithaml et al. (1990) to identify and addresscauses of the breakdown between what is promised, and what is actually experienced.

Defining service qualityService quality is seen as a subjective measure of the difference between what thecustomer expects, and what they perceived they have received during the serviceencounter. This has been explored as two separate, yet connected, approaches tomeasuring services quality – the services gap model (Zeithaml et al., 1985) and the

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SERVQUAL service quality measurement instruments (Zeithaml et al., 1985). Servicequality is also connected to satisfaction with the performance of a service – in thecontext of this paper, satisfaction with the supervision service is considered to be ameasure of the quality of the supervision service.

Perceptions versus expectations: the customer gapMcCormack (2004) identifies the gap between the expectations of the research processand the reality of the research experience as a primary factor in the non-completion ofthe subject’s thesis components. In services marketing, this is identified as thedisconfirmation of expectations model, and is a core element of the management ofservice quality and service delivery. The disconfirmation model is simply thedifference between the expected level of a service and the perceptions of the servicereceived (Q ¼ P 2 E) with three outcomes of satisfaction from the levels matching (0)positive disconfirmation resulting in satisfaction (þ ), and negative disconfirmation(2 ) resulting in dissatisfaction with the service.

Mayer et al. (2003) outline a range of influence of the customer perception includepersonality, cultural factors, and other influences based on temporary subjectivefactors such as mood, and the perceived risk associated with the service. Key customerinfluences for students in the process have been identified as cultural influencesincluding gendered role expectations (Johnson et al., 2000), importance of the researchto the individual and the risk associated with failure or breakdown in the supervision(McCormack, 2004). From a research supervision design perspective, there are limits tohow these influences on the perceived service can be influenced as they are residualelements of the student.

Perceived qualityPerceptions and expectations of quality in services are based around a series ofmeasurement variables that can be tracked against an expected or idea level and thesubsequent perceived level encountered during the service process. Berry et al. (1990)outlined a five-part quality metric of reliability, assurance, tangibility, empathy andresponsiveness (RATER). Although primarily designed for commercial servicedelivery, the RATER model was successfully applied to higher education teaching byStodnick and Rogers (2008), who note the value of the approach for explainingvariances in student satisfaction, and student learning outcomes.

Reliability has been consistently regarded as the most important attribute of servicedelivery in that it represents the capacity of the service organisation to deliver thepromised service (Zeithaml et al., 2006). Assurance is the combination of personalfactors such as competence, courtesy, credibility and the sense of security that inspirestrust between the service provider and customer (Shanin, 2005). Tangibility representsthe physical environment, and any physical objects involved in the service deliveryprocess (Sultan and Simpson, 2000). Empathy is connected to the Assurance variable inthat it represents the interpersonal connection between service provider and the serviceconsumer through a concerted effort to understand the consumer’s needs (Ham et al.,2003). Responsiveness is the willingness to assist the customer by providing promptservice, fast responses and reacting to consumer questions and requests (Parasuramanet al., 1991). Table I outlines a summary of the five elements and a proposed list ofequivalent service characteristics within the postgraduate research context.

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The provider gap: four potential gaps in supervision deliveryThe service provider gap model demonstrates the influencing of the delivery of theactual service, and the creation of the expectations in the minds of the customer interms of controllable factors that are influenced by service product design. Theservices gap model is presented as a conceptual framework for analyzing points ofpotential breakdown in any service delivery process (Zeithaml et al., 2006).Consequently, the model is presented as a series of negative constructs that identifypotential points of failure in the process – this negatively framed focus is a feature ofthe model as a service-failure audit system. The four identified points of breakdownare:

(1) Gap 1: not knowing what customers expect.

(2) Gap 2: not having the right service designs to deliver what the customerexpects.

(3) Gap 3: not delivering to service standards that are set.

(4) Gap 4: not matching performance to promises.

Figure 1 outlines the four provider gaps in the context of a service delivery framework.In the postgraduate supervision context, these gaps can arise between the failure to

communicate the expectations of the supervisor-student arrangement (gap 1), failure toset appropriate standards for both parties (gap 2), and failure to meet those establishedarrangements (gap 3 and 4). Figure 2 illustrates the revised supervision gaps model.

Criteria Definition Supervision equivalence

Reliability Ability to perform the promised servicedependably and accurately

Competency to superviseArea expertiseAppropriate research experience orqualification

Assurance Knowledge and courtesy of employeesand their ability to inspire trust andconfidence

Supervision experienceTechnical knowledge of methodologySubject area/content knowledgeInterpersonal relationship betweenstudent and supervisor

Tangibility Physical facilities, equipment, andappearance of personnel

Office spaceTutorial roomsLecturer appearance

Empathy Caring, individualized attention thefirm provides its customers

Understanding student outcomes fromthe thesis, requirements of thesupervision arrangementPersonalised research agenda

Responsiveness Willingness to help customers andprovide prompt service

Willingness to assist the studentSpeed of response to submittedmaterialsOpen door policy

Sources: Parasuraman et al. (1991); Zeithaml et al. (2006); Sultan and Simpson (2000); Bills (2004);Nerad and Heggelund (2005); Ribeiro (2005)

Table I.Service quality in highereducation

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The proposed four supervisor gaps are supported by the undergraduate andpostgraduate research identifying problems in the differing concepts of research andexpectations of the role of supervisors between students and academics (Bills, 2004;Brew, 2001; Kiley and Mullins, 2005; McCormack, 2004).

Student gap: the difference between the expected and the perceived supervisionMcCormack (2004) emphasized this gap as the major contributing factor to thesis dropout as the tension between the student’s perception of the supervision, and theirexpectations for the supervision arrangement overwhelmed the research project. Thestudent gap is influenced by the external communications from the university,supervisor and word of mouth from current or former research students. The externalcommunications represent a form of socialization of the research students into the

Figure 1.Services gaps model

Figure 2.Supervision gap

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research agenda of the university, and the expectations of the research supervisionproject (Kotze and du Plessis, 2003; Johnson et al., 2000). In the broader servicesliterature, this gap is frequently measured against the SERVQUAL framework.

Gap 1: not knowing what student expectsGap 1 is perhaps the easiest gap to close during the initial stages of the researchsupervision as the student and supervisor negotiate their respective roles and agree tothe structure and nature of the supervision project. Direct question of studentexpectations and assumptions, along with the development of a research contract(Hockey, 1996), or through the recasting of the supervisor-student relationship frommaster-apprentice to a more advisory role (Boud and Costley, 2007) may reduce thisprimary gap. The failure to establish the expectations of the student had a significantimpact on the completion rates (McCormack, 2004; Boud and Lee, 2005) and overallstudent satisfaction with the research experience (Ives and Rowley, 2005).

Gap 2: not having the right supervision designs to deliver what the students expectsThe second gap is most likely to be the enduring problem of generational changebetween supervisor and student, with the expectations held by supervisors beingshaped by their research scholarship experience. Anderson et al. (2006) examined theperceptions of supervisors as to the roles of the student, and highlighted a range offactors that supervisors believed were the pre-existing attributes required of a researchcapable student. Gaps in the supervision design can also be attributed to thesupervisor’s assumptions regarding the nature of graduate attributes as eitherpre-existing (level 1) or secondary by-product of the supervision process (Barrie, 2004).Where the supervisor believes the role of the supervision process does not extend tolevel 3 or level 4 of the Barrie (2004) model of attribute development, the supervisiongap has the potential to exist, and to influence the design of the supervisionarrangements.

Similarly, Todd et al. (2006) emphasized the design of the research process and the“fading” method of progressively reducing the active role of the supervisor in thedecision making processes as the student gained experience and confidence in theircapacity as a researcher. However, without the research design matching the needs ofthe student, or having been clearly communicated to the student, the supervision gap islikely to widen as the supervisor “fades” out the support in the belief that the student isready or willing to accept the responsibility. Manathunga (2005) also outlined the earlywarning signs of research student drop out which included the failure of the researchsupervision designs to meet the needs of student in terms of support, access orguidance. This also impacts on the capacity of the supervision to match the reliabilityaspect of the supervision quality, and reduces the sense of assurance in the capacity ofthe supervisor to deliver a satisfactory supervision experience.

Gap 3: not delivering to supervision arrangementsThe third gap is relatively straightforward in terms of supervision failure, eitherthrough non-delivery of the promised supervision, or other failures of the researchprocess incurred by the supervisor or university including the departure of thesupervisor from the research project (Ives and Rowley, 2005). The supervision failuresrange from non-delivery of supervision through to delays in responding to requests for

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feedback, failure to read draft material, or avoiding contact with the student (Ives andRowley, 2005; Pearson and Brew, 2002; McCormack, 2004; Boud and Lee, 2005). Gap 3can arise from personal performance by the supervisor, or through structural issuessuch as time management, staff resource overloading or poor timetabling whichreduces the capacity of the supervisor to provide adequate supervision to the students.Non-delivery of the promised supervision will influence the perceived reliability andthe assurance factors, along with perceptions of responsiveness of the supervisor inreacting to student requests.

Gap 4: not matching supervision performance to supervision promisesThe fourth gap in the process is the distance between explicit and implicit promises forthe research supervision and the nature of the thesis project, and the reality of theresearch experience. This gap can be created by explicit promises made in the researchsupervision process such as those noted by Johnson et al. (2000), Boud and Costley(2007), or Ives and Rowley (2005) where the research process is “sold” to theprospective student as a dynamic research environment which, in reality, is far more ofa solo exercise in self guided research and development. Similarly, the reputation ofuniversity research including the communicated experiences of previous researchstudents can create the gap between the promised service and the reality of thesupervision.

Beyond the breach of explicit promises, the fourth gap also represents thesocialization process of higher education. McCormack (2004) and Boud and Lee (2005)both noted that the dissatisfied students felt they have been given the misleading ormisguided impressions as to the nature of the research supervision, and the thesisproject. Kotze and du Plessis (2003) discuss the role of socialization processes inpreparing customers and students into their roles in co-creation of the service product.It is this socialization process that creates a series of implicit promises to the studentthat can be the root cause of gap 4. Translation attributes and enabling attributes, asidentified by Barrie (2004), socialize students into disciplinary specific expectations ofautonomy, self-identification and development as a researcher. Kamler and Thomson(2004) also emphasize the role of the writing process in supervised research as thecreation and development of the academic identity of the author, and the socializationof the student into the expectations, promises and boundaries of their chosen discipline.

Closing the gaps with co-creationCo-creation provides the opportunity for the student and supervisor to frame thestandards and expectations for the supervision, the research higher degree process andthe expectations regarding the timelines for the thesis. For example, when dealing withthe aspects of responsiveness or reliability, co-creation provides the opportunity for thestudent and supervisor to negotiate the expectations and the delivery of the supervisionperformance. Students who would prefer greater responsiveness in the supervisionrelationship can establish tight timelines for students and supervisor turnaround ofwritten material.

Services marketing utilises co-creation as a mechanism for consumer ownership ofthe service product and delivery process (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). Incommercial marketing, co-creation can be implemented in either an explicit contractualapproach, or as an implicit part of the service environment (Zeithaml et al., 2006). For

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example, in business consulting, both parties contractually agree to the provision oftimely responses to request for information, and provision of access to theorganization. The contract cannot provide an optimal or even satisfactory servicewithout company meeting the co-creation obligations. Contract based co-creation hasbeen raised in the higher education sector, with Hockey (1996) drafting a samplecontract which incorporates explicit recognition of the delivery promises forsupervisors and students, which may alleviate some problems frommiscommunication of expectations and responsibilities that arise in supervisor gap 4.However, contractual co-creation does have some level of limited applicability whereneither party can enforce the arrangement beyond a moral commitment to adhering tothe guidelines of the documented agreement (Grant, 2005; Hockey, 1996).

Implicit co-creation in service delivery is more common in commercial servicesmarketing as a socialization process whereby the consumer learns through recurringexperience with the service what aspects of the service product are created by theservice provider, and which aspects require the co-creation involvement of thecustomer (Boyle, 2007; Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004; Matthing et al., 2004). Kotzeand du Plessis (2003) raise the idea of student socialisation as a key aspect ofimplementing co-creation in higher education at the level of undergraduate study.Based on Kotze and du Plessis (2003) and Grant (2005) who argues the role of thesupervision arrangement is less contractual and more realistically a negotiatedframework, implicit co-creation can be implemented in the thesis process. This can takethe form of transparent and documented (albeit non contractual) agreements to setexpectations in the areas of mutually agreed goals, set timelines for documentturnaround for supervisors and students, appropriate communication protocols formaintain contact, particularly where the student is under distance supervision (i.e. noton the same campus as the supervisor) and what sanctions, if any, will apply whereeither student or staff member does not deliver to the agreed expectations. Byproviding this level of negotiation as the agreed roles in the creation of the supervision,it can clarify the respective areas of responsibility between student and supervisor forthe creation of the optimum supervision delivery (Kotze and du Plessis, 2003).

Limits of the service delivery modelThe view of a student as a customer in a service transaction is not universal. First, thebasic application of the model assumes a service delivery framework ofprovider-recipient, which is based on assumptions of expert driven guidance by thesupervisor, and restricted engagement by the student. This model ofmentor-supervisor may not be applicable to all forms of research higher degreesupervision. As part of this approach, the model is based around an assumption of along-term direct supervision project as part of the research higher degree. Thelonger-term thesis supervision relationship creates the necessary opportunities forthe service delivery framework outlined in the paper to occur. Consequently, theframework proposed may not hold for thesis supervisions in laboratory team projects,or where the research higher degrees awarded by publication, extensive course work orother non-thesis structures.

Second, services marketing theory was developed primarily for commercialmarketing exchanges between paying customer and service provider, and as such, hasa set of limitations and assumptions that underpin the application of any services

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model into higher education. Higher education practitioners may not necessarily seetheir roles in terms of service delivery, product creation or as part of a set of businessbehaviours. Whilst marketing educators feel comfortable with interchangingpedagogical language with the terminology of their discipline to express teachingand learning concepts in the business language, this is neither universally accepted,nor should it necessarily be seen as an optimum approach by all disciplinary areas.Consequently, the model is restricted in applicability to those educators who wish toexplore the commercial conceptual frameworks as material to inform and improvesupervision.

Finally, the service-gap model is underpinned by the assumption that the customerhas an expectation of service quality, understands their role in the service deliveryprocess, and has a level of insight and prior experience to form their initial expectations(Mukherjee and Nath, 2005). The underlying factors may not be present within thestudent-supervision framework, as the student may not regard themselves as“customers” of their supervisors, or participants in a services encounter. Consequently,the RATER and gap model’s applicability would be restricted, if applicable at all, incircumstances where the student driven service design and service expectations cannotbe ascertained. This limitation of the model is also a weakness of the serviceco-creation approach whereby the student may not be self-identifying as an activeparticipant in the co-creation process. Similarly, the extent of co-creation will berestricted to the environment of the research supervision, nature of the research project,and the broader disciplinary structures underpinning the supervision.

ConclusionThis paper has presented customer co-creation, the RATER model of services qualityand the service gap model as a starting point to adapt commercial services marketingto supervision service delivery. As higher education has been increasinglycommercialised, the opportunity exists to adapt commercial services marketing toolsto use in enhancing the student and supervisor experience in the postgraduatesupervision service delivery. Postgraduate supervision is a form of non-financial basedservice delivery based on co-creation of the research project between the activeinvolvement of the student-customer and the supervision service delivery by thesupervision-provider.

Co-creation in the commercial services environment is designed to empower thecustomer with the opportunity and responsibility for contributing to their ownsatisfaction with the provided service. In implementing services marketingframeworks into research supervision, student co-creation of the supervisionexperience allows for the empowerment of the student as an active participant inthe process. However, although co-creation is a process aimed at empowerment, itcannot be used as an abrogation of responsibility for supervisor, or a mechanism forblaming poor supervision satisfaction on the student where the supervisor has notcontributed to their side of the “co” in co-creation. As postgraduate supervision is acomplex service based on the dynamic interpersonal interaction between supervisorand student which results in the creation of intangible knowledge products, skillsacquisition and student learning, services marketing is ideally suited to contributestructures, techniques and frameworks to assist the delivery of sound supervisionpedagogy.

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Corresponding authorStephen Dann can be contacted at: Stephen.dann@anu.edu.au

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