Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of leadership roles on the quality of
services provided in higher education.
Design/methodology/approach – Drawing upon a sample of 134 faculty and administration
members at the Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Larissa, a structured questionnaire is
developed to measure leadership roles and quality in services and internal processes. The competing
values model is adopted to operationalise the eight leadership roles.
Findings – Results indicate that different leadership roles are linked with different dimensions of
higher education service quality. The importance of the innovator and monitor role in explaining the
variance of two out of four teaching quality aspects is confirmed, while the broker and facilitator roles
are strongly associated with both dimensions of administration quality. The producer, director and
coordinator proved to be the most prevalent roles among administration staff, while the director,
coordinator and mentor roles dominated among faculty members.
Research limitations/implications – The possibility to generalise the results to other countries
with different characteristics (e.g. regulatory framework, economic development) needs to be verified,
by executing similar research projects.
Practical implications – Understanding the nature of the association between leadership and
higher education service quality would enable academics and administrators to pursue or cultivate
these roles and behaviours fostering both the quality of teaching and administration.
Originality/value – The research led to the diagnosis of the leadership role profiles of both
administration and faculty members. Findings also highlight the importance of specific leadership
roles in explaining the variance of different aspects of higher education service quality.
Keywords Leadership, Customer service quality, Higher education, Greece
Paper type Research paper