Abstract
African Tertiary institutions (universities) are confronted with many challenges including those of poorly supported students, academics that have little resources to conduct their jobs, and support staff that are deemed as “less important”. In order to develop the African tertiary institution into one that can compete on a global level and develop students that can find creative and context related solutions to burgeoning African business problems, it is essential that these institutions understand how all areas of the institution function collectively and support each other. The concept of systems theory states that all areas within the institution should work in an integrated way and combining the aspect of co‐creation, each area should co‐ create and increase the value provided to each stakeholder at each point of interaction. The aim of this study is to explore the experiences of support staff within an African Tertiary institution in order to identify where gaps in the service delivery and the overall co‐creation process lie. An exploratory research design and interpretivistic research philosophy was used to conduct qualitative in‐depth interviews with 10 support staff (ranging from programme co‐ordinators to general academic support staff, faculty officers and secretaries). From the nine themes identified from the findings it is evident that support staff deal with many stakeholders within the tertiary institution and that it is important to ensure that daily tasks and systems are improved for better co‐creation with other stakeholders.