Trading off benefits and costs in higher education: A qualitative research with international incoming students Martina G. Gallarza, Maja  Seri  c * , Manuel Cuadrado Department of Marketing, Faculty of Economics, University of Valencia, Spain article info Article history: Received 12 July 2016 Received in revised form 27 July 2017 Accepted 4 August 2017 Available online 23 August 2017 Keywords: International incoming students Benefits Sacrifices Value-trade off Focus groups Universities abstract Globalization has brought new challenges to Higher Education Institutions such as inter- national exchange programs. In this context, the purpose of this work is to analyse stu- dents’ value trade-off in their terms abroad. Specifically, a multidimensional framework on value as trade-off is applied: two negative dimensions of sacrifice: monetary (price) and non-monetary (time and efforts), and three groups of benefits: functional (location, fa- cilities, infrastructure, timetables, etc.), social (relationships with instructors, with other students, networks, etc.), and emotional (having fun while being a student). For that purpose, an exploratory research was undertaken using qualitative techniques. Three focus groups were conducted with 17 undergraduate students from eight different nationalities staying at the University of Valencia (UV), Spain. Results have endorsed the idea that ac- ademic experiences can be evaluated as a value trade-off (benefits vs. costs) since par- ticipants have shown agreements and differences on the five dimensions of value. This suggests that international students show a multifaceted and contrasted experience, which needs to be managed by Universities interested in their positioning as competitive destinations. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Understanding the process of creating and attributing value has become a cornerstone of marketing and consumer behavior (Gallarza, Gil-Saura, & Holbrook, 2011). Consumers co-create value in their consumption process, while experi- encing the value offered by companies and organizations (Gr€ onroos & Voima, 2013). Considering the “Student-as-Customer” orientation (Bunce, Baird, & Jones, 2016; Woodall, Hiller, & Resnick, 2014), it is clear that Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are highly engaged in these value co-creation processes. One crucial decision of this particular behavior concerns interna- tional students, as they choose among a wide range of Universities when deciding where to perform their academic expe- rience in a foreign country (through Erasmus program or others), trying to identify and anticipate the student value offered by each option. Different ways of exploring conceptual representations of customer value for HEIs (e.g. Angulo, Pergelova, & Rialp, 2010; Ledden, Kalafatis, & Mathioudakis, 2011, 2007) have been suggested. The most common one is the value trade-off (benefits vs. sacrifices) based on the seminal work by Zeithaml (1988). In accordance with other works that considered perceived value as a multidimensional assessment (Holbrook, 1999; Sweeney & Soutar, 2001:; Mathwick, Malhotra, & Rigdon, 2001; Leroi- * Corresponding author. E-mail address: maja.seric@uv.es (M.  Seri c). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect The International Journal of Management Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijme http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2017.08.001 1472-8117/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The International Journal of Management Education 15 (2017) 456e469