Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine systematically and reflectively the relevance of four different aspects/types of the learning organization idea to higher educational institutions (HEIs), from three ideal-typical stakeholder perspectives: the managerial perspective, the employee perspective and the societal perspective. Design/methodology/approach – Literature review of 73 prior works on the relevance of the learning organization idea to HEIs, and a systematic examination from different stakeholder perspectives, i.e. an examination based on a “multi-stakeholder contingency approach.” Findings – The learning organization idea needs to be reformulated to some extent to become fully relevant to HEIs. Research limitations/implications – The “multi-stakeholder contingency approach” can be used advantageously in any contextualization study of the learning organization idea as well as in contextualizing any other fashionable management idea. Practical implications – The learning organization idea should not be adopted uncritically by HEIs, nor should it be uncritically rejected. In particular, HEIs should avoid becoming too organic and instead, be moderate when adopting the “learning structure” aspect/type of the learning organization idea. Social implications – It is recommended that the societal perspective be prioritized, in that HEIs are mainly for society. Originality/value – In contrast to the previous stock of literature on HEIs as learning organizations, which, generally speaking, is non-cumulative, uncritical, incongruent and unsystematic, this paper systematically and reflectively examines the relevance of various definitions of the learning organization from diverse and explicit stakeholder perspectives.

We are facing a world where business schools have made it their primary aim to enhance student career prospects and/or salaries by teaching business solely from a business perspective. The authors of this article explore international business students' viewpoints on the purpose of business school teaching and business school graduates. Having operationalized a typology of business school graduates as a student survey, the authors show that students expect a balanced education. As a business school graduate, they see their purpose not only to replace the existing successful managers and increase the effectiveness of organizations but also to be able to ensure humane, ethical and eco-friendly organizations promoting economic and social welfare and justice. In addition, and quite contrary to what many claim in extant literature, students value and identify with intellectual curiosity, critical thinking and introspection which would ultimately pave the way for serving the public interest. We therefore suggest that for a business school to 'legitimately' position itself as a university and rightfully provide academic degrees, it should, in addition to providing students with a profit-maximization toolkit, deliver a wider education balancing different (human, moral, environmental, social and so on) perspectives.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study Bayesian dependency modelling (BDM) to validate the model of educational experiences and the student-customer orientation questionnaire (SCOQ), and to identify the categories of educatonal experience in which students expect a higher educational institutions (HEI) to be student-customer oriented. Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs a cross-sectional quantitative survey study, mixed methods research, exploratory factor analysis and BDM. Findings – The validated model of educational experiences and the SCOQ; results indicate that students expect to be treated as customers in some, but not all categories of educational experience. Research limitations/implications – The authors contribute to existing literature on two fronts: the validated model of educational experiences and the categories of educational experience in which students expect to be treated as customers. Practical implications – The validated SCOQ presented in the paper may be used by other HEIs to assess the degree to which students expect a particular HEI to be customer oriented. Also, HEIs should assess students’ expectations concerning student-customer orientation before employing such an approach. Originality/value – The paper presents a validated model of educational experiences and a SCOQ. Additionally, the study does not investigate whether students expect a HEI as such to be student-customer oriented (as most studies have done so far); instead, the aim is to find out whether, in which categories of educational experience and to what extent students expect a HEI to be student-customer oriented. Thus, the study explores the phenomenon of student-customer orientation at a deeper level, i.e. separately at the level of educational experiences.

Existing literature is polarized and primarily conceptual on the topic of student-customer orientation. Research into this phenomenon has failed to realize that higher education as such consists of several different educational experiences and has therefore addressed and studied the issue at too general a level, i.e. at the level of the higher education institution (HEI) as a whole, not at the level of educational experiences that an HEI provides. Based on a validated model of educational experiences, validated student-customer orientation questionnaire [Koris, R., & Nokelainen, P. (in press). The student-customer orientation questionnaire (SCOQ): Application of customer metaphor to higher education. International Journal of Educational Management] and a survey conducted among business students (N ¼ 405) in Estonia, the aim of this article is to identify whether in which categories of educational experience and to what extent students expect an HEI to be student-customer oriented. The results of the study show that students expect to be treated as customers in some, but not all categories of educational experience that an HEI offers.

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