Gaps in perceived quality of facility services between stakeholders in the built learning environment

Purpose - This paper aims to identify perception gaps on the quality of facility services among different users of educational buildings, and provide possible explanations for these perception gaps, and discussing the consequences regarding Facility Management (FM) governance.
Design/methodology/approach - This paper is based on the first preliminary analyses of a national online survey among members of the Board of Directors (n=17), education managers (n=211), facility managers (n=76), and lecturers (n=1,755) of 18 Dutch Universities of Applied Science. We used Mann-Whitney U tests to analyse the data.
Findings – The results seem to indicate a misfit between the perceived quality of facility services of Board of Directors and facility managers of the different institutions on the one hand, indicating an above average quality level, and the education managers and lecturers on the other hand, indicating an under average quality level. FM likely acts in accordance with the Board and both seem dissociated from the primary process and users’ support needs.
Practical implications – Based on the research findings, we propose that, when it comes to determining service requirements, FM aligns more with the users of the built learning environment and puts their interests and needs first. Following a user focus approach may contribute to the value-adding capability of FM.
Originality/value - This study is the first to find that FM (implicitly) is aligned with the Board, which however seems to result in users' needs to be underestimated.