A student evaluation of teaching effectiveness (SETE) is often the most influential information in promotion and tenure decision at colleges and universities focused on teaching. Unfortunately, this instrument often fails to capture the lecturer's ability to foster the creation of learning and to serve as a tool for improving instruction. In fact, it often serves as a disincentive to introducing rigour. This paper performs a qualitative (e.g. case studies) and quantitative (e.g. empirical research) literature review of student evaluations as a measure of teaching effectiveness. Problems are highlighted and suggestions offered to improve SETEs and to refocus teaching effectiveness on outcome-based academic standards.

Compares the benefits and consequences of two different educational philosophies adopted by business schools: the customer-oriented approach and the product-oriented approach. The customer approach suggests that faculty treat the students as their customers and the product approach requires that faculty treat the students as their products. Under a student-customer program, enrollment and levels of student satisfaction increase at the expense of learning and program quality. The product approach shifts the focus from student satisfaction to student capabilities and holds business programs responsible for producing knowledgeable, effective students who possess skills and talents valued by public and private corporations.

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PurposeThis study seeks to examine customer satisfaction (CS), productivity, and profitability in terms of the organizational commitment (OC) and job involvement (JI) of company customer contact personnel. Additionally, the study aims to investigate the relationship between the OC and JI of customer contact personnel in team and non‐team structures.Design/methodology/approachA field design is used for testing the study's four hypotheses and for examining the relationships between the independent variables and organizational profit and productivity. The study uses the service departments of 40 geographically diverse franchised automobile dealerships from one original equipment manufacturer.FindingsThe OC of customer contact personnel was significantly correlated with CS but not profit and productivity. On the other hand, the JI of customer contact personnel was significantly correlated with CS, profit and productivity. There was a significant difference between the team and non‐team structures for JI, but not for the OC of customer contact personnel.Research limitations/implicationsFuture studies need to focus on the potential effect of compensations schemes on the relationships between OC, JI and CS within team and non‐team structures.Practical implicationsThis study offers some insight to whether teams provide any motivational benefit in terms of commitment and job involvement. Further, there is clear evidence that team structures increase productivity and net profit. It is hoped that this research will offer more support for the need to shift some of an organization's strategic service vision inward onto the employees.Originality/valueThis is one of the few studies that examine the dependent variables of profit, productivity and customer satisfaction across 40 different service organizations.

This article examined whether the use self-directed work teams increased profit and customer satisfaction. It also examined whether leadership styles and the compensation system moderated how teams affected performance. All the firms involved in this study were automobile dealer service garages. Service garages using teams had significantly higher profits than service garages that did not use teams. The differences in customer satisfaction levels between service garages using teams and those not using teams were significant at the .10 level.