The Impact of Cocreation On The Student Satisfaction
The Impact of Cocreation On The Student Satisfaction
The Impact of Cocreation On The Student Satisfaction
Research Article
The Impact of Cocreation on the Student Satisfaction:
Analysis through Structural Equation Modeling
Copyright © 2016 Odette Pantoja Dı́az et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
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.
1. Cocreation and the University value through client participation, with an active role during
the service process or product production [6] assuring a
Higher education has been involved in recent trends such as competitive advantage in the market [7].
the increasing competition in the university market, budget Although the university world differs considerably from
reductions, the internalization of education, the growth of the business sector, academic institutions are looking to
quality standards, and clients (students) becoming more increase their service quality and stakeholder satisfaction
demanding and competitive in the recruitment market. in order to gain a competitive advantage in the current
Facing this situation, universities need to reevaluate their situation [8]. Thus cocreation is analyzed with the objective
strategies and gain a marketing orientation [1, 2] in order to to research the impact of students’ inclusion in activities such
avoid the intense competitive force [3]. as curriculum and program development and the teaching-
Higher education institutions generate alternatives to learning process. The importation of cocreation to higher
increase their loyalty rates through active interaction with the education institutions allows universities to adopt a market-
student. Considering that consumer satisfaction positively ing orientation to seek excellence and recognize quality levels.
affects loyalty [4], a strategic goal for universities is to enhance The purpose of this investigation is to fill the existing
student satisfaction. gap in the academic market and to determine whether it is
At the current research, cocreation is conducted as a plausible to apply cocreation at higher education institutions.
marketing alternative to increase the institutions’ service This viability is explored in terms of the impact of the
satisfaction at the educational level. Cocreation assures two principal factors (participation and communication)
interactions and connections among different stakeholders, on the cocreation process and the impact of cocreation
generating communications and collaborative ties among on student satisfaction. Researching the links among those
them [5]. This approach allows the companies to generate elements will permit us to confirm whether cocreation is
2 Abstract and Applied Analysis
applicable in this sector. The principal research questions are guarantees quality and effective education. In this sense, the
do communication and student participation have a positive cocreation concept comes to life because the student plays an
impact under cocreation in the university context? What are important role when he collaborates actively in the teaching-
the consequences of applying cocreation in higher education learning process.
institutions? Does student satisfaction increase due to the On the other hand, student participation in formal and
cocreation experience? informal education on campus not only contributes to edu-
Although studies by [9, 10] have researched cocreation at cation quality but also positively affects the key competencies
the university level, they have only focused on postgraduate that students acquire [18]. Junco [19, p.168] described the
programs. The current investigation aims to respond to the effect of participation in social media such as Facebook,
aforementioned research questions by analyzing the relation- where it has been demonstrated that students’ active roles are
ships between four principal constructs (participation, com- “related to out-of-class engagement.”
munication, cocreation, and satisfaction) in undergraduate Regarding the relationship between communication and
programs as the target. Through the study of these relation- participation, we hypothesize the following:
ships, it is possible to validate the proposed model, which
has cocreation as its cornerstone. The principal qualitative H1: communication has a direct, positive impact on
tools of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and participation.
structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to confirm or
reject the different hypotheses and to validate the proposed
cocreation model. The research was developed by examining 2.2. Participation versus Cocreation. At the market and uni-
a case study of undergraduate students from 11 Ecuadorian versity context, participation refers to the client’s collab-
universities. oration 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 misun-
2. Relationships between Communication, derstandings and ambiguous situations [20].
Participation, Cocreation, and Satisfaction The user’s involvement in different steps of the processes
allows the coproduction development [21], leading customers
In this section, the theoretical basis of the proposed cocre-
to become partial employees [22]. Several studies (e.g.,
ation model will be analyzed. Four principal constructs were
[23–29]) had been analyzing the interrelationship between
identified (participation, communication, cocreation, and
participation and cocreation and found an interesting result
satisfaction), which have been detailed below by comparing
that supported the link between these two constructs at
the conceptual relationships existing among them at the
several industries.
university level.
The ties existing between participation and cocreation in
the university context have been addressed in some studies.
2.1. Communication versus Participation. Communication For example, students’ behavior is predominantly active in
and participation are two elements that have impor- what is called Education 3.0, in which collaboration allows
tant impacts on cocreation when applied to the business them to gain a “strong sense of ownership of own education,
world. Reference [11] commented about the positive effect cocreation of resources and opportunities” [30, p. 2]. In this
of communication on cooperation between stakeholders. standard the main objective is the generation of a more open
Communication with customers allows for positive client and free learning system. That is why one of the conditions
participation in open innovation processes [12], and the for developing this education level is the promotion of cocre-
Internet allows broad communication with a higher user- ation by creating multidirectional participation involving the
participation rate [13]. affected parts.
In their research, [14] revealed that communication tech- Educational services include stakeholders such as stu-
nologies have a positive influence on the interaction process, dents and professors; the students are emotionally and behav-
allowing the generation of new products. Terblanche [15] iorally involved during the service consumption, playing a
reflected on the employer’s role as an important generator in dynamic role during the interaction. Some the benefits of
the communications process. such a collaboration are the facilitation of learner control,
We find that the direct link between these two elements enhancement of program adaptation, and learning flexibility
is maintained in the educational environment. To strengthen [8].
the relationship between university and student, it is actu- Another study [31] remarked on the positive impact
ally a necessity to consolidate value through cocreation. of student participation in the curriculum design process.
Through the communication, dialogue, and participation of Across this collaboration in the cocreation activities, the
the involved stakeholders, it is possible to develop strategies teacher becomes a facilitator of learning, giving the students
such as knowledge cocreation in this field [16]. more responsibility at the individual and collective levels.
Authors in [17] have commented on the application Student collaboration and participation in different processes
to universities of methodologies such as blended learning, during the educational exchange allow satisfactory results in
which integrates the traditional face-to-face system with “both pedagogical and business outcomes” [8, p. 36].
online courses. The online learning approach, supported Yeo [32, p. 72] commented that, in the transformative
by the Internet and solid communication with students, view, students participate actively, improve their knowledge
Abstract and Applied Analysis 3
Table 1: Hypothetical links in the research model, the constructs 4. Empirical Results: Multivariate Analysis
analyzed, and the related questionnaire items.
To analyze the results, we applied a confirmatory factor anal-
Hypothesis Construct Items ysis to explore the associations between items and constructs
com1, com2, and, lastly, SEM to investigate the causal relationships existing
Communication
H1: communication has a direct, com3, com4 between constructs.
positive impact on participation. par1, par2,
Participation
par3, par4 4.1. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). EFA was applied in
cocre1, cocre2, order to check whether the principal components detected
Cocreation
H2: participation has a direct, cocre3, cocre4 by this technique were similar to the components identified
positive impact on cocreation. par1, par2, by the authors, recognizing that items that are pooled jointly
Participation
par3, par4 measure the same factor [49, 50]. Every variable was included,
cocre1, cocre2, taking into account the theoretical basis and allowing the EFA
Cocreation
H3: communication has a direct, cocre3, cocre4 to corroborate whether those statements were correct. EFA
positive impact on cocreation. com1, com2, granted the validity of each construct through the principal
Communication
com3, com4 components method [51]. It used the SPSS v19 program, and
cocre1, cocre2, the results showed that there are four principal components,
Cocreation
H4: cocreation has a direct, cocre3, cocre4 as established in the proposed model (participation, commu-
positive impact on satisfaction. sat1, sat2, nication, cocreation, and satisfaction).
Satisfaction A Varimax rotation and the maximum likelihood extrac-
sat3
tion method were used with the four fixed components.
Table 2 reflects the results of the first and second iteration.
In the first iteration, problems with four items were detected
3. Methodology, Data Collection, (par3: I have a high level of participation in the service
and Technique process, com1: the information provided by the university
can be trusted, com2: in case of any problem, the university
The technique applied during the investigation’s develop- provides me with enough information, and sat3: I think I
ment to recollect information was a structured questionnaire did the right thing when I enrolled in this university). The
comprising of 31 questions; only 12 questions were analyzed items par3, com1, and com2 had loading differences under 0.1
in the present research related to the variables studied. A with several constructs. The item sat3 had a loading difference
Likert scale with 7-level items, from strongly disagree (1) to above 0.1, but its highest loading values do not correspond
strongly agree (7), was applied. The questionnaire composi- with the construct relative to satisfaction. For that reason,
tion proceeded from previously accomplished investigations those four items were dropped; the rest of them (11 items)
[9, 43–46] and was distributed in two ways, physically and remained in the analysis.
electronically, in 11 public and private Ecuadorian universi- Cronbach’s alpha [52] is an indicator that reflects the
ties. We obtained 395 responses (92 women and 303 men) homogeneity in the instrument’s consistency; the second and
among the different versions distributed in order to prevent last iteration had an excellent value of 0.906 (above 130 0.7).
possible bias and to randomize the question order [47]. The The explained variance of the four principal components is
questionnaire was applied only in undergraduate programs, about 64.4%. The KMO value is 0.910, higher than 0.5 [53],
including students in their fourth through tenth semesters, and the Bartlett test returned as 𝑝 = 0.000. The differences
considering those scholars have a solid perception about the in these indicators between the first and the second EFA are
university’s services. minimal, and despite the diminished Cronbach’s alpha (from
0.926 to 0.906) and decreased KMO (from 0.936 to 0.9910),
3.1. Measures. Our measurements were adapted from exist- both indicators had excellent values.
ing scales developed in other studies in order to measure
the four constructs (communication, participation, cocre- 4.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis. A confirmatory factor
ation, and satisfaction). Participation was adapted from a analysis (CFA) was carried out with the remaining items. In
validated questionnaire created by [43] measuring the degree this step the SPSS Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS)
of the information students shared with the university and program was used, allowing us to assess the overall measure-
how much they were involved in the institution’s process. ment model.
Communication was extracted from [44, 48] investigations, A convergent and discriminant analysis to evaluate the
analyzing the exchange of information among the parties model’s validity was used. The convergent validity was studied
involved. Cocreation’s construct checked how the students through the composite reliability (CR), average variance
were involved in the different academic and administrative extracted (AVE), and the factor loading of each item. Table 3
processes, and it was measured by four items adapted from shows AVE values for the four constructs, and all of them
[9, 45, 46]. Satisfaction is comprised of items extracted from had values above 0.5, proving that the variance captured by
[45, 46] and studied the contentment that the user has with the constructs is larger than the variance due to measurement
the institution. Since all questions were originally in English, errors, as stated by [54]. The CR, as [55] mentioned, brings a
they were translated to Spanish for this study. proportion of variance attributable to only the latent variable
Abstract and Applied Analysis 5
Table 4: Means, correlations (above diagonal), and covariance (below diagonal) among construct.
𝜁1 𝜁2
0.74
0.62 cocre1 𝜀4
0.57 0.46 0.86
𝜀1 par1 0.75
0.79
0.89 cocre2 𝜀5
0.48 0.70 𝜂1 𝛽1 𝜂2
𝜀2 par2
participation cocreation 0.80 0.63
0.71 0.22 cocre3 𝜀6
0.50 0.72
𝜀3 par4
0.52
cocre4 𝜀7
𝛽2
𝛾1 0.68 0.62
0.83
𝛾2
0.72 0.85 0.91 0.83
𝛿1 com4 sat1 𝜀8
𝜉1 𝜂3
0.79
0.57 communication satisfaction 0.62
𝛿2 com6 sat2 𝜀9
0.75
0.68 𝜁3
with a recommended value greater than 0.7, putting the four The proposed model fits the data well. The comparative
constructs’ CR values above the upper bound and confirming fix index (CFI) had an excellent value (0.962, over 0.95), and
the model’s reliability. Also, all the factor loadings are higher the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI) also had a good
than 0.5, and the estimated coefficients of each item are all value (0.903 > 0.8). The root mean square residual (RMR) was
significant (𝑡-value > 2.0; [21, 56]). 0.076, under 0.09; the normative fit index (NFI) was 0.948,
In looking for the discriminant validity, we noticed that and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA)
the square roots of the AVEs had higher values than the cor- = 0.077 (less than 0.08; [59]).
relations among the constructs. For example, cocreation and The squared multiple correlation (SMC) of cocreation
satisfaction have AVE values of 0.676 and 0.723, the square showed that 62% (SMC = 0.623) of this element is explained
roots of AVE are 0.822 and 0.850, respectively, and both by the direct effect of participation and the direct and
values are higher than the correlation between cocreation indirect effects of communication, with a high value. Half
and satisfaction (0.806). The same occurred for the other of the variance of participation (46%; 0.459) was explained
constructs’ relationships, assuring the discriminant validity. by the direct impact of communication; more than half of
These analyses are shown in Tables 3 and 4. satisfaction’s variance (68%, 0.682) was explained by the
direct effect of cocreation.
4.3. The Structural Model. The SEM approach was used The four relationship studies have significant and positive
in order to validate the proposed model and to confirm impacts such as communication under cocreation with a
the relationship between the proposed construct, with the value of 𝛾 = 0.62 (𝑝 < 0.001), as many authors had
application of the SPSS AMOS software. SEM is widely used highlighted [21, 26–28]. Communication had a high impact
to build and validate theories [57, 58]. The SPSS AMOS on participation (𝛾 = 0.68, 𝑝 value < 0.001; [12, 13, 56]),
module was used, since it was primarily created for SEM and participation also had a positive effect on cocreation,
analysis. though with a lesser impact (𝛽 = 0.22, 𝑝 value = 0.003),
In order to obtain a better model fit, the item errors from supporting the relationship established by authors like in
par1 and par2 were correlated. Figure 2 shows the results of [5, 22, 60]. Cocreation had the highest impact on satisfaction
the SEM model and Table 5 shows the model fit indices and (𝛽 = 0.83, 𝑝 value < 0.001), as authors like in [24, 61] had
the structural model estimates. remarked.
Abstract and Applied Analysis 7
0.148
Participation Cocreation
0.625
Communication Cocreation
Communication
0.631
(a) Without mediator (b) With participation as a mediator
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