**1. Introduction**

As a key to value creation in modern societies, improvement in higher education has received considerable attention from policy makers [1,2]. The way Higher Education Institutions have put into practice organizational learning is considered a key element [3]. Organizational learning is interpersonal and relational, and it has often involved learning to coordinate work in new ways [4]. Coordination has been explained by organization design and contingency theorists such a Kundu et al. [5], as an information-processing problem. Some authors such a Faraj and Sproull [6] and Margalina et al. [7] have perceived

**Citation:** Checa-Morales, C.; De-Pablos-Heredero, C.; Carreño, A.L.; Haider, S.; García, A. Organizational Differences among Universities in Three Socioeconomic Contexts: Finland, Spain and Ecuador. Relational Coordination Approach. *Educ. Sci.* **2021**, *11*, 445. https:// doi.org/10.3390/educsci11080445

Academic Editors: Sandra Raquel Gonçalves Fernandes, Marta Abelha and Ana Teresa Ferreira-Oliveira

Received: 22 July 2021 Accepted: 18 August 2021 Published: 20 August 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

coordination as shared understanding of work, and the context in which the activity is carried out has been defined as a relational process. According to Fu et al. [8], coordination is an important management strategy which helps organizations to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Gittell [9] defined relational coordination (RC) as a mutually reinforcing process of communicating and relating for the purpose of task integration. RC is a mechanism based on human factors. Even though excellence is measured by results, it is generated in intangible, personal and human processes [10]. The RC model could become a helpful tool to measure and encourage effective coordination. RC is based on human relationships among emotional beings [11]. For this reason, it attempts to group together all the connections between them, not merely as tasks, tools or technical needs, but rather in real ways to make it possible for people to work efficiently. RC has been built around work coordination, by considering all aspects of team's relationships. It recognizes, therefore, the need for the relational side of coordination to achieve organizational effectiveness [12,13].

Gittell et al. [14] structured the RC model around two dimensions: communication and relationships. The communication dimensions are: (i) frequent communication helps to establish relationships via roles through the proximity generated because of repeated interaction; (ii) timely communication, communication provided on time; (iii) accurate communication, in the context of relevant information, this plays a critical role in the effectiveness of a group's tasks performance; (iv) problem-solving communication, referred to effective coordination to solve problems. The relationship dimensions are: (i) shared goals: these play a key role in the coordination of highly interdependent tasks; (ii) shared knowledge: communication among those involved in the various tasks that constitute a process is not always effective because of different social backgrounds, training and experience; (iii) mutual respect, that generates an effective coordination, because participant's profiles in the same process value the contribution of others and consider the impact of their own actions in others too.

Understanding the RC factor relationships helped to know how resources can be organized best in order to maximize an institution's performance [10,11]. Existing research showed that RC was positively linked to organizational performance in several sectors. Gittell et al. [11] applied it to different medical units inside hospitals and observed that units with higher levels of RC produced best performance. Havens et al. [15] explained higher levels of job satisfaction, work engagement and decrease of burnout from the RC perspective. Haider et al. [13] applied the RC to the banking industry to explain the relationship between high performance work systems and job satisfaction. Gallego et al. [16,17] and Margalina et al. [7] applied the RC model to explain best results in online systems in higher education. The model was also applied to face-to-face learning. At Quevedo State Technical University (Ecuador), a typology of organizational models was built [18]. In addition, the level of quality in education of Agricultural Polytechnic of Manabi "MFL" and Quevedo State Technical University [19] was estimated. Furthermore, Checa et al. [20] located RC factors oriented towards sustainability in higher education.

Quality is an important performance indicator for education, and it is one of the main issues examined by modern scholars and practitioners from the international education market [21]. The main problem lies in the subjectivity of the concept of quality, which makes it difficult to measure [22]. According to Gallego et al. [16], an indicator to measure the quality was the degree of students' satisfaction. Satisfaction showed a customer orientation, linking what it is expected from one student with the obtained result [23]. Student's perceived satisfaction showed the efficiency of organizations at different areas of activity: Academic services, administrative services, teaching staff, training programs, etc. [24]. However, there is still a lack of empirical research that examines the relationship between RC and students' satisfaction to solve some questions such us: How deep is that relationship? Does an improvement in RC increase student satisfaction? Furthermore, in the current literature, the findings are based on cases that can hardly be extended to other universities. Addi-Raccah and Gavish [25], Lee and Yu [26] and Noël et al. [27] identified

organizational differences through discriminant analysis. A comparison among universities allows identifying the key organizational factors that differentiate them. This can enable the design of strategic measures oriented to improve the quality of performances.

We pose the following research questions: (RQ1) Do universities located in developed countries showed a higher level of RC? (RQ2) Do the most satisfied students have a higher level of RC? (RQ3) Is it possible to build an organizational model that differentiates the three institutions?

Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify the organizational differences among three universities with different socioeconomic contexts and two levels of student satisfaction, from the RC perspective. The cases of Arcada University of Applied Science (ARCADA) in Finland, University of Cordoba (UCO) in Spain and Agricultural Polytechnic of Manabi "MFL" (ESPAM) in Ecuador with different satisfaction levels and socioeconomic contexts were selected. The analysis was developed in two stages. In the first stage, considering the 23 organizational variables proposed, those variables with significant differences among the three universities and between the two levels of satisfaction by general linear model (GLM) were identified. In the second stage, the organizational differences among the three universities were explained by discriminant analysis.

#### *Socioeconomic Contexts*

The knowledge of local culture and the socioeconomic situation are essential to establish competitive educational leadership and management strategies [28]. In this research, three universities were selected as representative instruments of three international socioeconomic contexts with different organizational structures. ARCADA represented Finland, which has a high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Table 1). This university is in the position 18 out of 35 in the ranking of Finnish Universities [29]. UCO represented Spain, which has a medium GDP (Table 1). UCO is a non-private university and appears in position 53 out of 120 in the ranking of Spanish universities [30]. Ecuador presented the lowest GDP (Table 1) and was represented by ESPAM. This is university is in the position 41 out of 61 universities in Ecuador [31]. In Table 1, the main differences between the three socioeconomic contexts and the positions in the higher education rankings of the three universities were shown.

The three countries were compared using the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) report. This study carried out by the countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), measures the academic performance of students according to subjects such as mathematics, science and reading. Finland and Spain showed their data in the regular PISA report [32,33], while Ecuador presented their data in the "PISA for development" or PISA-D report [34], an OECD initiative for low-and middle-income countries. Ranking Web of Universities showed the position of each university worldwide [35].

*Educ. Sci.* **2021**, *11*, 445


**Table1.**Socioeconomiccontexts(pre-COVID19).

Gross Domestic Product: \$/person/year. 2 Status students over performance. 3 Ranking web universities [35].

Arcada University of Applied Science (ARCADA) is a private university located in Finland, in Northern Europe. It is composed of 2443 students, 165 employees, 4 educational departments, 17 grade programs and 10 Master programs. U-Multirank ranking evaluates five dimensions of higher education centers (teaching and learning, research, knowledge transfer, international orientation and regional engagement). ARCADA overall profile showed higher performance on several indicators, with "A" scores (very good) overall. According to U-Multirank [36], ARCADA was strongest in Regional Engagement. ARCADA was in position 4589 out of 30,585 in the Ranking Web of Universities [35]. Within the three world rankings that classify the top 1000 universities, University of Cordoba (UCO) was ranked at position 800 in The Higher Education World Universities Ranking [37], position 700–800 in the Shanghai Ranking [38] and position 101–150 in QS World Universities Ranking [39]. It presented a medium size dimension with 21,000 students, 1200 lecturers, 700 workers, 47 undergraduate studies and more than 50 postgraduate studies. Finally, it was classified in the position 686 out of 30,585 in the Ranking Web of Universities [35]. Moreover, Agricultural Polytechnic of Manabi, ESPAM, is a public institution located in Ecuador. It was graded with "C" category by the Council of Evaluation, Accreditation and Quality Assurance of Upper Education (CEAACES) [40]. This is a ranking applicable to Ecuadorian universities exclusively. This classification is distributed in a decreasing way from category "A" to "D". In this case, 2811 students and 176 employees compose ESPAM, and it offers 8 grade programs. In addition, it was ranked 15,330 out of 30,585 in the Ranking Web of Universities [35].
