|
第一章:介绍1.1综述-CHAPTER
1: INTRODUCTION 1.10verview
人们总是因为许多原因开始他们的业务,但是业务总是归结于两件事。就是收入增长和创造利润。这就是为什么成功的企业主是那些知道在业务性能中哪里可以去应用他们的资源实现对企业绩效产生最大的积极影响。现在,网上购物是一个非常普遍和有效率的方式。消费者可以不用出去通过互联网就可以购买产品。他们只需要连接互联网,使用他们的电脑在网上买任何他喜欢的东西。在竞争激烈的市场中,公司总是想出许多不同的、特殊的解决方案来吸引顾客购买他们的产品。然而,在线服务是他们用来吸引客户的其中一个服务。
一个成功企业的例子,马来西亚亚洲航空公司在8年前开始运作利用低成本预算开创了电子商务和在线业务。目前75%的网上商业交易完成。平均每月有1600万的独立访客(李,2009)通过便利的互联网,低成本的预算,“每个人都能飞”的口号,当人们想飞的时候就马上有了亚航有限公司的固定图像。
1.10verview
Peoples always start their businesses in many reasons, but staying in business always comes down to two things. That is growing revenues and generating a profit. That's why successful business owners are those who know where to apply their resources for achieving the greatest positive impact on business performance. Nowadays, onlinepurchase is a very commons and efficient way in the world. Consumer can purchase product like shopping via the internet without going out. They just need to connect with the internet, use their computer to buy whatever they like through the internet. With the competitive market, companies always come out with many different and special solutions to attract customer to buy their product. However, online service is the one of the service they used to attract customer.
An example of a successful corporate, Malaysia's AirAsia Berhad used Low-Cost budget pioneered e-commerce and online business when it began operation 8years ago. Currently 75% of its business transactions are done online. It has an average of 16 million unique visitors a month. (Lee, 2009) With the convenience of the internet, low-cost budget, and the slogan of "Everyone can fly", AirAsia Berhad had fixed an image when people think for Fly.
There are around 888 million users of Internet for worldwide in 2004. It is expected to growth until 1.35 billion by 2007 (Internet World Stats, 2005). In the global online population, Asia rank the highest percentage followed by Europe and then North America with Asia is 34, Europe is 29.2 and North America is 24.9 (Internet World Stats, 2005). By 2010, there will be 17 million internet users in Malaysia. (David, 2009) In other words, Malaysia internet users are increasing speediness year by year. Small business should focus on online business to gain more revenue. By the way, online purchase will also increase in Malaysia's market.
Service Quality is determined by customer satisfaction. Service Quality is an attitude of consumer after they used your business product and service. Besides, traditional service quality is different with the service quality via internet. Traditional service quality is services by using face to face communication ways with customer, however service quality via internet are not working for face to face. They usually used post to deliver product and communication by the e-mail. Between, online service can provide customer non-stop in every year 365 days and everyday 24 hours service but traditional businesses are unable to do this. This had reasoned some of the small business is creating theirs own website to offer customer this convenience.
In this study, there are 5 independent variables used. Include Responsiveness, Personalization, Trust, Reliability and Convenience. In this study, I will to find out the impact of service quality on the online business in Malaysia.
1.2 Research Background
Lamb et al. (1992) defined that service includes all interactions between a business and its customers. It is beginning with the initial contact and extending through the delivery service and actual sale of a product in order to include all the services provided afterward. With this definition, service is delivered in all market transactions, whether any intangible goods or tangible goods are involved on it.
Nowadays, service quality is always emphasized by consumer. Peoples today are not only stand on the quality of the product but also the quality of the service. We can see that the important of service is more and more be concern by the consumer. For example, in 1988, Zeithaml had defined customer's assessment of the overall excellence or superiority of the service is all about the perceived of service quality. In the same way, Ciampa (1992) explained that customer expectations is a function of product or service quality, which extend beyond the product itself into every aspect of the relationship between the business and the customer. Consumers today are always required the quality of the service that the company provide more than the quality of the product. For example, comparing with the Dell and Acer companies, consumers prefer buy the product from Dell more than Acer. This is because Dell Company can provide a better service that brings a lot of convenience to their customer.
With the condition for exist. Small & Medium Enterprise (SME) is an operated and privately owned with no more than 500 employees. Example of small business includes fast-food restaurant, floral, CD shops, neighborhood grocery stores, gown boutique. Many small business enterprises had finding much kind of different ways to achieve customer satisfaction. Service provide from the company include delivery, call center, friendly customer service and other.
1.3Problem Statement
In a competitive market place understanding customer needs become a very important factor. As a result, many companies have to move to customer centric position from a product-centric companies(Hanson, 2000). Some of the companies had set up company's website to provide a better quality service to achieve customer's needs. With this service, they can help their business to get higher profit. After fully used of this advantage, companies and customer have get into the competitive advantage.
In the result, world internet usages are increased every year. It is same go with Malaysia. Nowadays, many companies found that it's difficult to make their physical product differ with other competitors. So, they are now more focus on the differentiation of service that can make more competitive advantage.
From the Internet World State (2009) reported, Malaysia internet user in 2007 have 13,528,200 peoples, that is 47.8%, while in the year of 2008, user are increase to 62.8%. Other than that, Internet World State also shows that in the latest survey which is end of June in 2009, there are 16,902,600 internet users in Malaysia. It had increased 2.9% compare with half year before in the year of 2008. In Asia area, there is only 18.5% internet user are staying online to connect to the world. In other world regions such as Europe there is a 50.1% internet user, Australia is 60.1% users and North America is 73.9%. Compare with Asia and other world region, Asia has lesser internet user.
In other words, compare with other countries such as North America, Malaysia small business is less adoption to the internet to implement the new technologies for the strategic purpose. Internet adoptions in other countries' business had been a very long history in the industry. Information gathering, marketing, advertising, customer support and service and electronic transaction are the earlier of adopters for the internet that was used for the range of functions. Malaysia small business should learn from other country to fully use the advantage of internet to improve their business and extend their market. A good service quality can improve the relationship between customers and make them more loyalty to your business.
Besides that, some of the Malaysia companies don't really understand the way to attract new customer or retain current customer to buy their product and services by the advantage of internet. With the convenience of the internet, it can help to increase their company profit and let more customers know about their business. So, I had come out with this problem statement which is, what is the impact of service quality in the online business today to gain a competitive advantage with online business?
1.4 Objective of study
This study is to find out the important of service quality that provide in the online business in this technology era.
- To study the important of service quality attitude.
- To identify the relationship between responsiveness of service quality and online businesses in Malaysia
- To identify the relationship between personalization of service quality and online businesses in Malaysia
- To identify the relationship between trust of service quality and online businesses in Malaysia#p#分页标题#e#
- To identify the relationship between reliability of service quality and online businesses in Malaysia
- To identify the relationship between convenience of service quality and online businesses in Malaysia
1.5 Research Question
Based on the research objective, this research attempt to answer these research questions:
1. What is the important of service quality attitude that bring to customer?
2. With the Service Quality attributes, which are most affecting the customer?
3. What have brought the online service to business?
1.6 Justification of Study
This research is conducts of the service quality that will bring any impact in the online business environment especially in the small business enterprise. This had implemented to discuss based on the important of service quality that include the internet adoption for business in Malaysia. Nowadays, there are not only academic have increased the attention of research but market as well. This research had benefited the entire social network to more understand the important of service quality that impact to the online business. This can help to effectiveness the company who owned the business to satisfied consumer expectation. An effective research has to be used with fidelity. Every type of intervention, assessment, or curriculum product and service today are carries the label research based.
Doing business always need to assure their service quality is pleased by the public. With the advantage of improvement in technology and wide use of internet, it can help business to more satisfy customer needs. Online business is getting popular around the world. The percentage of online purchase and having the advance service quality through the online system are keeping increasing. Since there are a lot of competitors, e-service quality plays a very important role to maintain customer still loyalty to the business. Customers are not only purchase the products, they also enjoy the service provided by the company.
1.7 Chapter Outline
As the discussed above, the main objective of this research is want to gain a better understanding of how internet effect service quality in small business enterprise. This study will overcome 5 chapters. Each chapter has different aspect ranging from the different explanation of e-service quality and small business enterprise from different authors of journals to statistical analysis of the research study.
In the chapter 1, we will overview of current Malaysia internet population, some successful business, problem statement, objective and justification of this study.
In the chapter 2, the literature review lists out studies concerning the present research with definitions of e-service quality and Malaysia small business environment. Other than that, the variable involved in the effect of e-service quality will also being discussed and defined in this section.
Chapter 3 will discuss the samples of population and research methodology defined. Data collection methods, sample size and evaluation periods are defined in detail. A discussion on the respondents will also take place in this chapter.
For the chapter 4, is the analysis and results. This chapter will emphasize on the findings and analysis of data obtained through questionnaire surveys and interview. Two sets of questionnaire surveys will be given out to the targeted undergraduates and Form Six students to know their perception regarding the Estate Management programme. The data obtained will be converted to chart form to facilitate the reader
Chapter 5 is the last chapter of this study. This will be a conclusion chapter. First section will summarized the major effect of e-service quality on small business. Then, conclusion of this study found. In the final part is discussion on the research limitation and the suggestion to the future research.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.1 Definition of Terms
There are few terms to explain the important word of this study to help reader more understand and clearly master about this study. Its include service quality, small business enterprise (SBE), internet, customer expectation, and e-business.
* Service quality - Quality of service is the ability to provide different priority to different applications, users, or data flows, or to guarantee a certain level of performance to a data flow. It also can explain as a widest term that is used in two application. That is customer care evaluations and in technological evaluations. In both of this applications, the quality of service has to do with measuring the incidence of errors within a process that result in the creation of issues for an end user. The goal of any quality of service evaluation is to minimize the incidence of transmission issues and the error rates that may result. (Malcolm, 2009)
* Small business Enterprise (SBE) - A small business enterprise is a for-profit enterprise that is independently owned and operated, but it is not dominant in the field of operations. It is in bidding, and qualified as a small business under the criteria(Bdeing, 2009).
* Internet - "The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. The Internet carries a vast array of information resources and services, most observably the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail"(Joomla, 2009).
* Customer expectation - "The needs, wants, and preconceived ideas of a customer about a product or service. Customer expectation will be influenced by a customer's perception of the product or service and can be created by previous experience, advertising, hearsay, awareness of competitors, and brand image. The level of customer service is also a factor, and a customer might expect to encounter efficiency, helpfulness, reliability, confidence in the staff, and a personal interest in his or her patronage. If customers' expectations are met, then customer satisfactions are result"(Bnet, 2009).
* E-Business - commonly referred to as "eBusiness" or "e-business", may be defined as the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) in support of all the activities of business (Beynon.D.P, 2004).
2.2 Malaysia Internet
About 1.7million peoples around the world used internet (Internet World State, 2009). Computer has become indispensable tools in the businesses, personal lives and schools. From the Internet World States (2009), it shows that in the latest survey which is end of June in 2009, there are 16,902,600 internet users in Malaysia. It had increased 2.9% compare with half year before in the year of 2008.
The birth of the internet has surrounded in our daily lives. Internet has experienced growth and the Internet traffic has grown exponentially in the last decades. People access internet for different reason. Business access to the internet for trading, teenager accessed to internet for entertainment used and so on.
Since 1996, Malaysia has operating an international public relations campaign to draw technology research and development to its (MSC) Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC, 2009). MSC is a high-tech business center and communications infrastructure designed to help Malaysia become an international information technology leader.
Currently, P1W1MAX, Streamyx, Maxis broadband, Celcom Broadband are the famous internet provider in Malaysia. Streamyx is the second higher speed for downloading that is 4.0 Mbps. While the latest package of higher download speed is up to 10Mbps that provided by P1 W1MAX.
2.3 Service Quality
Service Quality can be determined as customer satisfaction. Lewis and Booms (1983) leading the area by defining service quality as a "measure of how well the service level delivered matches the customer's expectations". Today, service quality is always concern by all the organization. But, the definition of service quality may vary explain in different person or situation. For example, in 1999, Juran elaborates the definition of customer led quality as "features of products which meet customers' needs and thereby provide customer satisfaction." As service quality relates to meet the customers' needs, we will be looking at "perceived service quality" in order to understand consumers (Arnauld et al., 2002). Ghobadian et al. (1994) defined service quality fall within the "customer led" category and it had been supported by Khalidah (2004). Other researcher such as Bitner et al. (1994) define service quality as 'the consumer's overall impression of the relative inferiority / superiority of the organization and its services'.
Other than that, there are few concepts define by few researcher. Researcher often used special dimensional on their self-report to measures and capture the concept of service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1988). The first concept is perspective advocated by Grönroos (1984) who argues that service quality consists of two dimensions, which is technical quality and functional quality. Functional quality means service is delivered, whereas technical quality is what the customer receives. Continue, Lehtinen and Lehtinen (1982) evaluated service quality in 3 dimensions. It includes physical quality, corporate quality, and interactive quality. Example of physical quality include equipment, corporate quality include company's image. And the interactive quality defines as interaction between contact personnel and customer. The next concept of service quality is defined by Parasuraman et al. (1988). These authors had developed a measuring instrument called Service Quality (SERVQUAL). This SERVQUAL is used to measure service quality from the customers' perspective. The SERVQUAL scale comprises of five service quality dimensions. That includes reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles. An additional dimension which is convenience had added. In 1994, Rust and Oliver contend that service quality consists of three dimensions: service product (technical quality), service delivery (functional quality), and the service environment. According to Janda et al. in 2002, they had developed 4 dimensions for e-service quality. It includes sensation, access, security, and information or content. All of these factors have been studied by researchers who used to identify the internet customer satisfaction based in e-commerce. Besides that, there are few researcher have attempted to identify key attributes to fit in the online business environment. Zeithaml (2000) has found 11 dimensions of online service quality in a series of focus group interviews. It includes flexibility, reliability, assurance/trust, personalization, access, ease of navigation, efficiency, security, responsiveness, site aesthetics, and price. From this, we can see that service quality can be defined in multiple dimensions.#p#分页标题#e#
It is a largest impact of small business enterprise because many large businesses have already established to links between businesses. The accessibility of the Internet makes electronic commerce a realistic possibility for SMEs and is likely to lead to it widespread diffusion (OECD, 1999). Unfortunately, small businesses still have a very high failure rate and as many as 60 to 80 percent fail in their first five years of operation (Jeffcoate et al. 2002). This had shows that Malaysia small business enterprise is still need to improve in this area to gain more benefits and competitive advantage.
2.3.1 Service Quality Dimensions
There are many service quality dimensions defined by many different authors/researcher. One of the most noticeable by peoples is the SERVQUAL that measure by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry in the year of 1988. SERVQUAL is a service quality framework.
Parasuraman et al. (1988) define the first service quality dimensions in 1985. Ten dimensions includes: Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness, Communication, Credibility, Security, Competence, Courtesy, Understanding the customer, and Access. While in 1988, ten dimensions were purified and distilled into 5 dimensions. The latter 5 service quality dimensions includes: Tangibles, Empathy, Assurance, Responsibility and Reliability. These 5 SERVQUAL had base of a global measurement for service quality.
Table 2.1: 5 SERVQUAL dimensions
Dimension Meaning of the Dimension
Tangibles
Tangible refers to a service's look or feel.
Empathy
Empathy is when a service employee shows that she understands and sympathizes with the customer's situation. The greater the level of this understanding, the better. Some situations require more empathy than others.
Assurance
Assurance refers to the level of certainty a customer has regarding the quality of the service provided.
Responsiveness
Responsiveness refers to the reaction time of the service and ability to responses to customer's need quickly.
Reliability
Reliability refers to the dependability of the service providers and their ability to keep their promises. It is consists on performance.
Sources: Parasuraman et al.(1988)
SERVQUAL had been support by many researchers and business school. Much responded has been in positive. However, SERVQUAL had also been critic and detractors by few researchers. According to Cronin & Taylor 1994, SERVQUAL is paradigmatically flawed because of its ill-judged adoption of this disconfirmation model. "Perceived quality", they claim is best conceptualized as an attitude. Cronin & Taylor criticize Parasuraman et al. for their hesitancy to define perceived Service Quality in attitudinal terms, even though Parasuraman et al. (1988) had earlier claimed that service quality was similar in many ways to an attitude. This had support by Micheal (2001). Cronin and Taylor (1992) proposed a Performance-Based of service quality measurement scale called Service Performances (SERVPERF). They reported that their unweighted Performance-Based SERVPERF scale was a better way to measuring service quality than SERVQUAL that created by Parasuraman et al.. They contended that the SERVPERF scale consistently outperformed the SERVQUAL scale in terms of reliability and validity.
Although the scales of SERVQUAL and SERVPERF have been compared in many research, but most of them have been used in either domestic or mono-cultural settings. In general, those comparisons in previous studies are in favor of the SERVPERF perspective, contending that the performance-only approach yields more stable results than the disconfirmation approach in measuring service quality (Lee, 2007).
Table 2.2 : Determinants of 10 Service Quality Dimensions
Responsiveness
It is willingness or readiness of employees to provide service
Reliability
It is consistency of performance and dependability
Competence
It is required skill and knowledge to perform the service
Access
It involves approachability and ease of contact
Courtesy
It involves politeness, respect, consideration, and friendliness
Communication
It means keeping customers informed in language they can understand
Credibility
It involves trustworthiness, believability, and honesty
Security
It is freedom from danger, risk, or doubt
Understanding/Knowing
It involves understand customer's need
Tangible
It involves physical evidence of the service
Sources: Parasuraman et al. (1985)
Table 2.3 : Model for Service Quality
Source: Paulo et al., 2009
Figure 2.1: Service Quality Dimensions
Adapted From: Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry
2.4 Service Quality Gaps
Gap analysis is a method for monitoring the consumer-seller transaction in quality of service. The gap is refers to the rift between customer expectation and satisfaction. The gap analysis can provides an easy way to indentify the flaws in service quality. (Headley et al., 1992)
Table 2.4 : 6 Service Quality Gap
Type of Quality Gap
Proposed Solutions
Gap 1 - Management Perception Gap
Educate Management About What Customer Expect.
- Sharpen market research procedures, including questionnaire and interview design, sampling, and field implementation, and repeat research studies once in a while.
- Increase the interaction between customer and management.
- Implement an effective customer feedback system that includes satisfaction research, complaint content analysis and customer panels.
Gap 2 - The Policy Gap
Establish the right service processes and specify standards.
- Get the customer service processes right.
- Develop tiered service products that meet customer expectation.
- Set, communicate and reinforce measurable customer-oriented service standards for all work units.
Gap 3 - The deliver gap
Ensure that the performance meet standards and that customers understand the quality level delivered.
- Ensure that customer service teams are motivated and able to meet service standards.
- Install the right technology, equipment, support processes and capacity.
- Manage customers for service quality.
Gap 4 - The External Communications Gap
Close the internal communications Gap by ensuring that communications promises are realistic and correctly understood by customers.
- Educate managers responsible for sales and marketing communication about operational capabilities.
- Ensure that communication content sets realistic customer expectations.
- Be specific with promises and manage customers' understanding of communication content.
Gap 5 - The Perception Gap
Tangibles and Communicate the SQ Delivered.
- Make service quality tangible and communicate the service quality delivered.
- Closer Gaps 1 to 5 to consistently meet Customer Expectations.
Gap 6 - The Service Gap
- Gap 6 is the accumulated outcome of all the preceding gaps. It will be closed when gaps 1 to 5 been addressed.
Sources:Parasuraman et al. (1985)
2.5 Online Small Business
In this 21century, many companies had set up their connection to the internet. Internet is a unique medium which allow information access by customer without graphically location constrains. It is a communication tools to connect to the world by delivery message with sound and even animated picture. Internet is important to consumer and overall economy. Internet can help to improve people's daily life, including games, entertainment, computing, productivity, communication, security and information needs (Stephen, 2005). While example for business service and application includes online trading, public safety and so on.#p#分页标题#e#
Many traditional brick and mortar business had created their online presence, it allows their customers to literally shop twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. By committing corporate resources to the online system as Dot-com Company, business men not only expect an increase in sales, but also an increased public awareness of their company products and expend their market share.
With the IT department, company can computerize all their company to a system. It can help the company to reduce cost to hire employee and make convenience to both company and customer. But still, with some of the reason, many companies still have not set up an IT department. High cost for setting up the department is their main problem that affects them still in the outdated business. Normally those businesses without set up any internet service they only can use dial up and face-to-face to communicate with their customer. The first step for business who just wants to come out with this e-commerce idea always is start with email address. Following, business will start to set up a company website and even make online advertisement through the internet. Google, Yahoo! Are most of the business choice to choose where to advertise their company's product and services. With the respond of business, Google had come out with some strategic to get the competitive advance to small business. Adwords, and AdSense can allow small business host the advertising. And, Google allow their search engine system focus on local search.
According to Stephen (2005), some factor make business did not participate to use the internet. It includes firm size and high cost/price. Size of firm effect company did not participate into online business because in the average, they have fewer employees. The firms are in the lower spending levels. According to a survey by Stephen (2005), rural company able to pay higher cost than urban business do. This fact had reflects the added cost of serving higher cost areas and a lack of competition in rural areas.
2.6 Factor Influence Service Quality
2.6.1 Responsiveness
According to Parasuraman.et al. (1988), responsiveness concerns the willingness or readiness of employees to provide service. It includes timeliness of service. Such as mailing a transaction slip immediately, call back to customer quickly, and setting up an appointments quickly. Other than that, refers to Moss and Hollye (2007), the responsibility is reaction time of the service and ability to response to customer's need quickly. This is to enhanced responsiveness to all customers, true empowerment of employees, members or associates through teamwork, participation, and systematic analysis of task-related problems are essential for learning concepts and applying skills to improve customer service processes. Responsiveness includes real time to deliver time, rapid response to customer, and transaction time. Identify dimensions of customer satisfaction in actual time and estimated complain handling time as a function of satisfaction. The ability to response client quickly is very important, because no peoples like to wait (Young, 2009). Judged in all service industries to the most important aspect of service quality (Young, 2009).
To achieve the customer needs, business must always get ready to respond to customer's request in anytime. The willingness of employees to help customers and provide prompt service to meet their expectations (Barton and Robin, 2002; Patrick, 2002). For example, make sure the staff can answer customer question in very short times.
Prompt response can be very critical in the real time, automated responses to internet orders to improve the inventory management and in providing customers satisfaction. Other words, customer may become very mad if the internet retailers do not notify them the product are out of stock until what is perceived to be an inordinate period, such as few days after an order has been made (Yang et al., 2001).
Another unique responsiveness dimensions is time of waiting for information download from the website. Dellaert and Kahn (1999) conducted 4 computer based experiments to understand how waiting time of information download negatively affects consumers' perception of the performance of the Web site. Evaluated negative if the website information download are unexpected slower, or even there is uncertainty about the duration of wait. However, this negative effect can be prevent if the duration of wait are show to visited, so in psychology they are ready to wait for downloading.
2.6.2 Personalization
Giving a "good service" is the major concern by all the business or organization. Which, personalization is significantly that will influences customer experience and evaluation of the service provided. Business deliver services in interactive encounters with their customers, personalization are most important part to determinant of perceived service quality and customer satisfaction. There is one important factor that determines the quality of web-based customer service. It is the ability of the website to provide individual attention (Eunjin and Byungtae, 2009). While Poulineet al., 2006 explain that with the coming of e-commerce in this new economy, the personalization of the product becomes a key competitive factor. Manufacture need to develop capabilities to fulfill the personalization need of customer that still respecting the price, quality and service. By the way, Hoffman and Novak (1997) pointed out that personalization is the basic by which Internet firms valorize the Internet as a unique consumer market.
Raisch (2001) said that the personalization was one of the effective methods of solving problem of "managed-chaos", which is already existed in the current art of the measurement and data mining in the web-centered area of industries. Huang and Lin (2005) said that personalization gives each customer a unique experience. In order to match service with different customers, usually customers are asked to fill in questionnaires by conducting interview face to face or in Q & A method. Customers behaviors are observed online through the use of a cookies, or customers previous experiences behaviors are analyzed (Turban et al., 2004).
Therefore, personalization constitutes also one of the factor to determine customer perceived of service quality (Zeithaml et al., 2000; Yang and Jun, 2008; Parasuraman, 2002). To show the best personalization to customer, Internet companies may add personal support to staff telephones, answer e-mail, and train customers in the use of the Internet medium (Yang et al., 2008).
2.6.3 Trust
Trust is important not only for short-term but also for long-term effectiveness of e-commerce in business performance. In business, trust is viewed as one of the most relevant antecedents of stable and collaborative relationships. Researchers had established that trust is essential for building and maintaining long-term relationships (Singh and Sirdeshmukh, 2000; Rousseau et al., 1998).
Morgan and Hunt (1994) stated that trust exists only when one party has confidence in an exchange partner's reliability and integrity. While, Moorman, et al. (1993) believe that trust is referred to the willingness to rely on an exchange partner in whom one has confidence.
Simon et al. (2008) found that the desirable effect on trust increased in accordance with the extent to which service employees provided courteous and attentive service. Mean that, the more knowledgeable the customers were about the service products available, the more they appreciated good customer service and timely information. As customer education efforts increased, attentive and courteous service had an even greater impact for clients who were already expert. Simon et al. (2008) also suggest that customer education affects the relative importance of technical and functional service quality for building customer trust in a firm.
There are few keys for building website trust. It include maximize cues that build trust on your website, use virtual-advisor technology to gain customer confidence and belief, provide unbiased and complete information, include competitive products, provide open and transparent organizational communication and the most important part is keep your promises.
2.6.4 Reliability
Refer to Parasuraman et al. (1988), reliability refers to the performance and dependability of the service providers and their ability to keep their promises. This means that the firm perform the service right the first time. Other than that, it also means that the firm honors its promises. Specifically involve accuracy in billing, performing the service at the designed time and keeping record correctly.
The ability to perform the promised service accurately and dependably to the customer (Barton et al., 2002; Patrick 2000; Yang et al., 2008), service performance (Young, 2009), timely manner and order delivery (Yang et al., 2008).
Customers view reliability as the most critical dimension. Since customer always very concerned about the service they received and the quantity of transaction that they order from the company. So, the important part for reliability is fulfilment of promise related to the product or service. Example question such as, is the service performed work at the right time? Can the users depend on information obtained from library staff, from catalog records and from library resources (Peter and Ellen, 1995).#p#分页标题#e#
However, e-fulfillment centers require very accurate operations and a logistics infrastructure that meets or exceeds customer expectations (Ward et al., 1997). Many internet retailers have utilized third party logistic service providers for their order fulfillment strategies; they have often had difficulty in controlling delivery quality and timing (Ward et al., 1997).
In reality, product and service fulfillment still is a big challenge for online suppliers. Because most of the online consumers feel disappointed with the poor service reliability provided by virtual stores (Yang et al., 2008). The main reasons are business lack of strong internal and external collaboration. External collaboration means integration of supply chain partners. Such as suppliers, packaging and shipping companies. Internal collaboration includes tight integration of Web sites with customer service operations and communication among different functional departments. (Yang et al., 2008)
2.6.5 Convenience
Today, convenience service always attention by consumers. It is an important consideration for most consumers. According to Berry et al. (2002), the perception of service convenience may affect customers' satisfaction and fairness. They also explained that convenience is the part of marketing for both goods and services and merits deeper examination. In other studies, convenience is explained that related all the product activity that saves customers time and effort. Such as frozen dinner and child care are the example of laboursaving and services. Locational proximity, hour of operation, and service convenience had never been establish before in the service of convenience. Every single type of convenience that can reduce customer's time and effort is belong to the domain of service convenience. Such as operation hour of the company and credict available. With the technological advances and migrating socioeconomic standings, consumer expectation for convenience methods of in business has increased very speedy (Berry, 1979; Seiders et al., 2000). Service providers have employed methods such as live technical online chat capabilities, internet commerce (e-commerce), and mobile telecommunication services to meet the increasing convenience demands of consumers (Dabholkar et al., 2003) and to minimize potential customer loss (Keaveney, 1995). In 1988, Zeithaml argued that conveniences are includes time and search cost, effort, and further influences value.
Nevertheless, the available operation of working hour by a business can help consumers easily process their stuff. Online businesses are prepared this convenience system to public. 24 working hour per day make visited/customer can flexibility to arrange their time. According to the Burke et al. (1997) convenience was the most frequently cited reason for desires to shop electronically. Similarly, in a survey of 220 consumers from Jarvenpaa and Todd in 1997 had found that convenience was the single salient benefit for internet shopping.
Other than that, website is a modern ways of communications. Via website provided by business, consumer can easily get the information through the internet. So, it can reduce the wasting time for them to go to the physical shop personally. With an updated websites, it can help consumer always update themselves without go with the physical shop. Examples such as online order stock renew. Website is efficient and dependable solution, it's easy to get in quickly. Website provides clear guidance and information can easily understood by users. Offer the complete range of services included the delivery service can satisfy customer needs.
Convenience in the service quality makes everything easy for customers to learn about their business without being intrusive.
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
In this chapter, the methods are using to test the variables which are conducted such as through primary and secondary data. This report will focus on the factors contribute to Internet adoption for small businesses in Malaysia and Malaysia companies don't really understand the way to attract new customer or retain current customer. The contents that will cover on this chapter are theoretical frameworks, hypothesis development, data source and collection to gather information, sample selection to involve in the survey or interview. Then, data measurement scale, data analysis and a simple conclusion in this chapter. Both primary data and secondary data were collected in the present study. Secondary information was collected from existing research and literature. Next, a simple conclusion will be developing in the end of this chapter.
3.2 Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework of this research. The small online businesses have some factors of Malaysia companies don't really understand the way to attract new customer or retain current customer and less adopted Internet in Malaysia. The factors are responsiveness, personalization, trust, reliability and convenience that can contribute for the service quality.
3.2.1 Research Variables
3.2.1.1 Dependent Variable
The dependent variable for this study is service quality. This concern about how the service quality effect the online system.
3.2.1.2 Independent Variable
Responsibility
To provide a quality service, time is very important. The transaction time, delivery time and rapid respond to customer is what customer concern today. A good deliver of time will bring good image to the online business.
Personalization
Personalization is significantly that will influences customer experience and evaluation of the service provided. Business deliver service in interactive encounters with their customers, personalization are most important part to determinant of perceived service quality and customer satisfaction in online business.
Trust
Trust is viewed as one of the most relevant antecedents of stable and collaborative relationships. This is a long-term relationship between customer and the company. The trust customer to the company will strongly effect the online business profit.
Reliability
Customer always reliability of the company. To keep the customer to retain make profit to the customer, fulfilment of promise, controlling delivery quality and timing are cannot be slighting.
Convenience
Provide a convenience service such as website information, online teaching can help the business to gain more profit. Convenience was the single salient benefit for internet shopping customer.
3.3 Hypothesis Development
In the discussion of the theoretical framework, there are 5 hypotheses are formulated to test the relationship. The five hypotheses guiding this study are as follows:
3.3.1 Responsibility
H1a: A company's responsibility with the Service Quality provided is significantly positively affect their customer.
H1b: A company's responsibility with the Service Quality provided is not significantly positively affect their customer.
3.3.2 Personalization
H2a: A company's personalization with the Service Quality provided is significantly positively affect their customer.
H2b: A company's personalization with the Service Quality provided is not significantly positively affect their customer.
3.3.3 Trust
H3a: A company's trust with the Service Quality provided is significantly positively affect their customer.
H3b: A company's trust with the Service Quality provided is not significantly positively affect their customer.
3.3.4 Reliability
H4a: A company's reliability with the Service Quality provided is significantly positively affect their customer.
H4b: A company's reliability with the Service Quality provided is not significantly positively affect their customer.
3.3.5 Convenience
H5a: A company's convenience with the Service Quality provided is significantly positively affect their customer.
H5b: A company's convenience with the Service Quality provided is not significantly positively affect their customer.
3.4 Source of Data and Collection
3.4.1 Primary Data
In this research, there are two type of data are used. It includes primary data and secondary data. The primary data will be collected by using survey distributed to the respondents who have online experience directly and through the mail survey. With the purpose of this study is looking for the information about effect of service quality on online business, so respondents will being asked whether they had purchase the goods through online before or participate in the business. Once confirm, they will been given a set of questionnaire and being asked to participate in the survey.#p#分页标题#e#
3.4.2 Secondary Data
The secondary data will be collect from journals, articles, books, periodicals collected from sources namely the internet and also libraries from Segamat (Johor), Emerald Online database, Multimedia University (MMU), Google, and University Malaya (UM). These data is mainly used to support the research idea in the introduction and literature review.
3.5 Description of Questionnaire
Every respondent will get the explanation regarding details of this study given before them participating in this survey. They have the right to refuse not to participate in this survey if they are unwilling. Moreover, participant's privacy and confidential are secured.
The survey conducted is self-administrated questionnaire based without interviewer. However, respondents are free to ask if there is any doubt about the questionnaire. Respondents are asked to indicate their degree of agreement or disagreement with each image trait.
3.5.1 Questionnaires
The survey questionnaires design will in closed-ended question format which requires the respondent to make a selection from a list of question.
In the first part of the questionnaire will focus on the demographic data. It includes gender, age, marital status, race, occupation, income status, and so on. While the second part is require respondents about the introduction of the Internet adoption. The third part will focus on the respond of the respondent toward the factors of service quality for online businesses in Malaysia. (Appendix A)
3.6 Validity
There are few type of validity tests are used to test the valid question and writers use different terms to denote them. Validity used includes content validity, criterion-related validity and construct validity.
Content Validity is used to ensures the measure includes an adequate and representative set of items that tap the concept. This is the most obvious type of validity evidence needed. It may be gathered by having some competent colleagues who are familiar with the purpose of the survey examine the items to judge whether they are adequate for find out what people are supposed to find and are they are a representative sample of the behavior domain under investigation.
However, Criterion-related validity is establish when the measure differentials individual as on a criterion it is expected to predict. This is to test after responses were obtained, observations were made to see whether the actual behaviors of the subjects agreed with their expressed answer. This criterion-related validity can be finish by establishing concurrent validity or predictive validity.
Construct Validity is used to proof how well the results obtained from the theories to fit in the test designed. There are 2 validity assessed through. It includes Convergent Validity and Discriminate Validity. Convergent validity is established when 2 different instruments are in the same highly correlated. While Discriminate Validity is established when 2 variables are predicted to be uncorrelated, and the scores are indeed empirically found to be.
3.7 Reliability
Reliability is the ability of a survey instrument to produce a very consistent and accurate results without bias. There are some procedures to estimate the exits of reliability. Two of which can be used to be computed in SPSS. The first is split-half reliability, this item in the scales is divided into 2 groups. It is either randomly or on odd-even basis. The relationship between respondent' scores for the 2 halves of an instrument. Secondly, the currently people are used Cronbach's alpha to essentially calculates the average of all the possible split-half reliability coefficients. There are also 2 test of stability, there are Test-Retest Reliability and Parallel-Form Reliability. Test-Retest Reliability can be established by computing the correlation between the same tests administered in the 2 different time period. Other than that, Parallel-Form Reliability is obtained when a high correlation on two comparable set is measures.
3.8 Sampling Selected
In the sampling selected part, this research will use convenience sampling to complete this survey. Total 100 respondents will be select to respond to the questionnaires. This study is regarding impact of service quality on online business in Malaysia. So, the respondents who are user in online business or ever been doing online business are encourage to be selected in this survey. The participants will be made up by three races that are from Malaysia, they are Malay, Chinese and Indian. Besides that, this study will also focus those respondents who are age between 20 to 45 years old and located in Malacca and Johore. It includes come from different demography such as sex, age, worker, student, married and so on.
3.9 Data Measurement Scales
According to research text book, data measurement consists of four type of scales, it includes Nominal Scale, Ordinal Scale, Interval Scale, and Ratio Scale. This four types of scales is a way of tool could be a gross one in the sense that would broadly categorize individuals on certain variables and tool that would differentiate individuals on varying degrees of sophistication. In this study, the overall design of questionnaire is mainly by using two type of scales. That is Nominal Scale and Ordinal Scale. Nominal scale will assign subjects to certain categories or groups. In this study, it will test in the demography part example like gender : male or female, marital status, education level, age and others. Meanwhile, ordinal scales is in addition to identification the information provides about the relative amount of some characteristic possessed by an event or object, and to determine of the greater or lesser. For each question in the Part C, respondents are required to circle which is the best described their level of agreement with the statements. It will divide into 5 categorizes, includes ranging from 1= Strongly Disagree, 2= Disagree, 3= Natural, 4 = Agree, and 5= Strongly Agree.
3.10 Pilot Testing
This questionnaire was conducted to assess content validity or face validity of measurement scales. Content validity is used to ensures that the measure includes an adequate and it used to representative set of items that tap the concept. Face validity is considered by some as a basic and minimum index of content. It indicates that the items that are intended to measure a concept. As it names, it do on the face of it look like they measure the concept. Face validity can be evaluated by a group of judges who are expert in read or look at measuring technique and decide their own opinion it measures what its name suggest.
The objective of pilot testing is to make sure all the respondents are understand the questions in the questionnaire instead of confuse them. 10 samples have been selected as for this pilot testing.
3.11 Data Analysis and Measurement
The list of data is test valid and reliability in the core choice model. The data includes responsibility, personalization, trust, reliability and convenience will be test.
The data collected through the survey questionnaire and then will be analyzed by using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) and reviewed by Multimedia University. Besides that, SPSS can generate useful graphs and tables such as pie charts, bar charts and so on for a better decision making. With the SPSS, it is easy to understand the variable among the effect of service quality on online business in Malaysia.
3.11.1 Analysis of variance (ANOVA)
ANOVA is a collection of statistical models. It used to helps to test the significant. It mean differences among more than 2 groups on an interval or ratio-scaled dependent variable. There are several type of ANOVA. It depending the way they are applied to the subjects in the experiment and also in the number of treatments.
One-way ANOVA is used to test for differences among two or more independent groups. Normally, It is used to test for differences among at least three groups. According to the research text book, one-way ANOVA is a statistical test that used to test the null hypothesis of more than 2 population means. If the test shows significance, the null hypothesis is rejected. The conclusion can be results that there is a difference between the population means.
3.11.2 Descriptive Statistic
According from Sekaran (2004), Descriptive Statistic is a statistics that describe the phenomena of interest. It involve transformation of raw data into a form that can provide information to explained a set of factors in different situations. It provided by frequencies, measures of central tendency, and dispersion. This descriptive statistic is done through ordering and manipulation of the raw data collected by researcher.
3.11.3 Exploratory Factor Analysis
According to Anna and Jason (2005), Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) is a complex, multi-step process and widely utilized. It is also a broadly applied statistical technique in the social sciences. In some cases, options always vary in terminology across software packages, and some cases particular options are not well defined. Furthermore, study design, data properties, and the questions to be answered all have a bearing on which procedures will yield the maximum benefit.#p#分页标题#e#
3.11.4 Cronbach's Alpha
According to Sekaran (2004), Cronbach's Alpha is a reliability coefficient that indicates how well the items in a set are positively correlated to one another. It computed in terms of the average intercorrelations among the items measuring the concept. Cronbach's Alpha commonly used as an estimator of the internal consistency reliability of a psychometric test score for a sample of examinees. Normally, alpha can take values between negative infinity (-∞) and 1. But, some of the professionals are require a reliability of 0.70 or higher before they will use an instrument (Wikipedia, 2009).
3.11.5 Inferential Statistical
Inferential statistics are used to draw inferences about a population from a sample. According to Sekaran (2004), Inferential Statistics can be categorized to two. It is parametric and nonparametric. Parametric is used when data are collected on an interval or ration scale and it is also based on the assumption that the population from which the sample is drawn. For nonparametric statistic, it makes no explicit assumption regarding to the normality of distribution in the population and it used when the data are collected on a nominal or ordinal scale.
3.11.6 Correlation Coefficient
Correlation Coefficient is a concept from statistics. It measure of how well the trends in the predicted values follow trends in past actual values or forecast model "fit" with the real-life data. Correlation Coefficient is a number between 0 and 1. If there is no relationship between the predicted values and the actual values, mean that the correlation coefficient is 0 or very low. If relationship between the predicted values and actual values increases are in strengths, so does the correlation coefficient. Higher the correlation coefficient the better, but the perfect fit gives a coefficient of 1.0.(Financial Forecast Center , 2009)
3.11 Ethic issue
The proposed of ethic issues is want to make sure that the research is ethical and acceptable by all the respondent. All the respondent are requested to fill up the questionnaires with truthfully and willingly. All the demographic information that provided by respondent will be kept in private and confidential. Before the respondent doing the questionnaires, they will be explained by the researcher that their privacy and the information provided is kept and just for research purposes. This is to ensured that all the respondent know their right and make them feel secure when doing the questionnaires.
|
 |
|||
| 网站地图 |
