A Systematic Literature Review: Are Students Customers, or not?

Abstract

There has been a longstanding debate over whether students are customers. Nevertheless, there is still a complexity about who the students are and their role. This theme-based systematic literature review seeks to enrich the discourse on students through a comprehensive and detailed review of 86 papers from 2006-2022. Our review provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the relevant debate, establishes an agenda to encourage research, and exhibits favorable outcomes for practitioners. We found that the role of students has been transformed from a passive audience to an active participant in the co-creation of educational service experience in the long term. Consequently, viewing students as co-creators of value would be more appropriate rather than treating them as customers or service users.