Exploring the relation between postgraduate student satisfaction and academic staff satisfaction
type: CreativeWork
description: The Higher Education (HE) sector is a major contributor to the UK economy. Beyond its financial contribution HE adds value to society and generally advances global culture. Along with funding, league tables ranking and rising tuition fees one of the major challenges HE faces is competition on both national and international levels. So as to gain competitive advantage HE institutions need to satisfy their stakeholders. This research is concerned with two categories of HE stakeholder: Postgraduate (PG) taught studentsAcademic staff.The focus of this study is to explore the relation between postgraduate student satisfaction and academic staff satisfaction. The University of Salford’s Salford Business School (SBS) in the UK was chosen to be an exploratory case study. This study is underpinned by two research questions: How can PG student satisfaction be linked to academic staff satisfaction and explored in relation to Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory and the Balance Theory?How does the marketisation affect PG student perceptions of HE?Unlike previous studies which adopted positivist standpoints, this research uses an interpretive paradigm. A total of twenty-eight in-depth interviews were conducted between the 20th October 2014 and the 30th November 2015. The data subjects were twenty PG students and eight academic staff in a dyadic relationship. Participants were selected based on their knowledge and experience of SBS. NVivo software was used to analyse the semi-structured interviews as well as critical incidents discussed. This study contributes to knowledge by investigating the relation between student satisfaction and staff satisfaction, using both Herzberg theory and the Balance theory. Findings of this research suggests there is a relation between PG student satisfaction and academic staff satisfaction, although in some cases it was not activated. It contributes to Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory in that it shows a need to augment his framework with the im…
abstract: The Higher Education (HE) sector is a major contributor to the UK economy. Beyond its financial contribution HE adds value to society and generally advances global culture. Along with funding, league tables ranking and rising tuition fees one of the major challenges HE faces is competition on both national and international levels. So as to gain competitive advantage HE institutions need to satisfy their stakeholders. This research is concerned with two categories of HE stakeholder: Postgraduate (PG) taught studentsAcademic staff.The focus of this study is to explore the relation between postgraduate student satisfaction and academic staff satisfaction. The University of Salford’s Salford Business School (SBS) in the UK was chosen to be an exploratory case study. This study is underpinned by two research questions: How can PG student satisfaction be linked to academic staff satisfaction and explored in relation to Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory and the Balance Theory?How does the marketisation affect PG student perceptions of HE?Unlike previous studies which adopted positivist standpoints, this research uses an interpretive paradigm. A total of twenty-eight in-depth interviews were conducted between the 20th October 2014 and the 30th November 2015. The data subjects were twenty PG students and eight academic staff in a dyadic relationship. Participants were selected based on their knowledge and experience of SBS. NVivo software was used to analyse the semi-structured interviews as well as critical incidents discussed. This study contributes to knowledge by investigating the relation between student satisfaction and staff satisfaction, using both Herzberg theory and the Balance theory. Findings of this research suggests there is a relation between PG student satisfaction and academic staff satisfaction, although in some cases it was not activated. It contributes to Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory in that it shows a need to augment his framework with the im…
author: Nassar, M
language: en
date published: 2026
date modified: 2026-07-24T04:26:41Z
provider: U. of Salford
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: U. of Salford