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服务质量作为第一个变量
这两位学者认为顾客满意是一个因素,影响到前面的服务质量,但很多学者认为,服务质量是一个前期影响因素顾客满意度。
Service quality as the first variable
These two scholars believed that customer satisfaction was a front factor that affected the quality of service, but many scholars held that the quality of service was an antecedent factor that affects customer satisfaction.
马丁et al(2008)发现,服务质量是一个重要的因素构成客户满意度、客户感知一个高质量的服务,增加客户满意度。Usha et al(2009)主张,一个好的服务质量会导致消费者的满意度,顾客的满意度会提高服务质量的评估,他的研究结果表明,服务质量会影响满意度,它也会影响消费者的感知的服务质量显著。
Martin et al (2008) found that service quality is an important factor which constitutes customer satisfaction, customer perceive a high quality of service, which will increase customer satisfaction. Usha et al (2009) advocated that a good quality of service could lead to consumers’ satisfaction, and customers’ satisfaction would improve assessment on the quality of service, and his research results showed that quality of service would affect satisfaction, it would also affect consumers’ perception of service quality significantly.
Michael et al (2011) were based on cognitive and emotional perspectives to bring forward that service quality and perceived value had a positive impact on customer satisfaction, while negative emotions have a negative impact on customer satisfaction, while positive emotions affected customer satisfaction indirectly through perceived value.
Usha et al (2009), Kisang and Heesup (2010) conducted a study on service quality towards service of banking, epidemic control, dry cleaning and fast food shops and concluded that customer satisfaction had a significant impact on customers’ purchase intention, and quality of service was an antecedent variable of customer satisfaction, they also pointed out that the impact of quality of service on purchase intention was less than the impact of customer satisfaction.
2.5.3 Summary
There is no authoritative answer about the relationship between the two currently. This paper argued no matter which one was the antecedent factor, one thing was certain that there was a link between service quality and customer satisfaction. No matter what kind of link between them, the ultimate goal was to increase customer loyalty, because only when customer loyalty has been improved, could it bring an enterprise more benefits. And a large number of studies of Usha et al (2009), Kisang and Heesup (2010) have shown that the impact of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty is more than the impact of service quality. Therefore, so this study agreed with the view that quality of service was an antecedent factor, quality of service affected customer satisfaction, thereby affecting customer loyalty.
2.6 Critical analysis
2.6.1 Critical analysis on the content of service quality
In this study, it first explored TIANQIAO’s service quality. Although there are some common characteristics in quality of service of various industries, in specific details, contents of quality of service of different industries are still different, and the past research has not provided a unified measurement dimension for contents of quality of service. In this essay, it was based on the common of quality of service to add several items which investigate the contents of quality of service of the store’, there are: whether it can provide to timely and effective feedback to customer complaints, whether it is able to provide consumers with a fair environment of payment, whether it can improve its corporate image through its social responsibility strategy.
2.6.2 Critical analysis on evaluation criteria of service Quality
This next step of this study was to determine the evaluation standards towards TIANQIAO’s service quality. Although SERVQUAL model is a recognized evaluation model of service quality, with the progress of technology and marketing practices, it also has shortcomings. This study was based on SERVQUAL model to add three criteria: prospectively, stability, and extensibility.
2.6.3 Critical analysis on the measurement of customer satisfaction
Then this article explored how to evaluate and measure consumers’ satisfaction towards TIANQIAO. Researches in the past were always from a cognitive perspective to evaluate customer satisfaction, and this study considered that customer satisfaction included not only rational components, such as cognition, but also feelings, emotions and other emotional components, which was more in line with human nature. Therefore, this study was not only from product performance and customer expectation to measure customer satisfaction, but also from payment fairness and consumers’ sentiment to investigate customer satisfaction.
2.6.4 Critical analysis on the Relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction
At the end of this study, it hoped to identify the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction, through the review of the literature it could be found that past studies failed to point out that in the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction, which was the antecedent factor. This study was from the perspective of the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction to regard service quality as the antecedent factor, the quality of service affected customer satisfaction, thereby affecting customer loyalty. Such views helped to understand in which aspects of quality of service TIANQIAO’s had problems, thereby affecting customers’ service satisfaction and customer loyalty towards TIANQIAO.
2.7 ConclusionThe significance of theoretical innovation of this study lies in that, it is more targeted, it aims at characteristics of retail industry to establish the content of evaluation towards service quality. It is more comprehensive to improved service quality and customer satisfaction evaluation criteria based on some latest theories and practical experience. It has a more practical guidance, this article identifies the relationship between quality of service and customer satisfaction, confirming the research idea that by improving customer satisfaction form improving service quality will ultimately increase customer loyalty, which helps TIANQIAO with develop relevant measures according to findings of this article's.
Chapter 3 Philosophy of the Research Design and the Methodology to be used
3.1Theoretical component covers
This chapter will have business and management research methodology and methodology used in study about them.
Figure 1 the research process 'onion'
Source:Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill, 2007
3.2 Research philosophy
The research philosophies are mainly positivism, interpretivism and realism. . Different research philosophies have different views about the way in which the knowledge will be developed and judged to be accepted. (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2007). Positivism: Two contrasting traditions are positivism and social constructionism. The key idea of positivism is that the social world exists externally, and that its properties should be measured through objective methods, rather than being inferred subjectively through sensation, reflection or intuition. The view that positivism provides the best way of investigating human and social behaviour originated as a reaction to metaphysical speculation. The idea of social constructionism focuses on the ways that people make sense of the world through sharing their experiences with others via the medium of language. (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Jackson, 2002)
As the research objectives and research questions in this dissertation are the service quality and customer satisfaction, this paper will not only describe the research questions, but will also aim at explore their experience of services, which will have its practical significance. Service quality and customer satisfaction are visible that can be measured and reflected by quantitative data, so it is very suitable to apply quantitative analysis, like questionnaires, and explore their experience of services. Thus, the research philosophy can be divided into positivism.
3.3Research approach
The research approach includes two types: deductive and inductive. Deductive means that you are going to develop a theory and hypothesis and design a research strategy to test the hypothesis. Inductive means that you are going to collect data and develop theory as a result of your data analysis. (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2007).
Literature review shows that research can be conducted with the deductive approach, which will be useful and helpful to collect data from those who have experienced the quality of service. The author will also questionnaires survey the customers, staff and managers of TIANQIAO department store, through which the author will gain important knowledge and explore their attitudes toward service quality, as well as the concept of service quality associated with it, especially the retail industry. Robson (2002) lists the sequential stages through which deductive research will progress: 1. Deduce a hypothesis from the theory; 2. express the hypothesis in operational terms, which propose a relationship between two specific variables; 3. Test this operational hypothesis; 4. Exam the specific outcome of the inquiry; 5. If necessary, modifying the theory in the light of the finding. However, there are many other approaches to improve the quality of service. So we can apply the deductive approach to test the new system of service quality. #p#分页标题#e#
3.4Research design
Two major types of research design are specified by Yin(2003) as exploratory and conclusive. Exploratory research “tends to tackle new problems on which little or no previous research has been done (Adams and Schvaneveldt, 1991)” and offer findings that may are not usually concrete and final. Conclusive research, on the other hand, offer final solutions to the research problems and can be descriptive or casual.The issues of the survey are service quality and customer satisfaction, as well as a discussion on the best way to improve service quality so as to improve customer satisfaction, which show that this survey would bring any final result, so it is suggested to use an exploratory design.
3.5 Research strategies
Research strategies contain experiments, survey, case study, grounded theory, ethnography, archival research, etc. The survey strategy is usually associated with the deductive approach. It is popular and common strategy in business and management research and is most frequently used to answer who, what, where, how much and how many questions (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Jackson, 2002).
There are several research approaches for making surveys, such as questionnaire and interview. In consideration of the research questions and research objectives of this dissertation, the aim of this survey is to evaluate the situation, therefore, the information and suggestions from the employees and be collected by questionnaire. As the research is quantitative, the author will select some appropriate persons to questionnaire survey, such as the customers of TIANQIAO department store, to explore whether this type of service quality can get customer satisfaction and how to improve it.
3.6 Ethical issues
Research issue refers to questions that how researcher plans and carries out to achieve the research objectives (Zikmund ,2000).
Generally speaking, the people participated in the questionnaire survey should be volunteers. The basic premise of the survey is that it aught to be an ethical one and the people should know what kind of survey they are participating.
It is necessary to do some favorite social research in order to avoid the risk of the participants in the survey. With the concern on ethical issues, the customer of TIANQIAO department store, who involved in this survey, should be questionnaire survey voluntarily. Only when the respondents agreed, can the questionnaire survey begin. In addition, the privacy of those participants, including their words or actions, should be protected. In the questionnaire survey, the researcher should provide some spiritual award or material award, such as remuneration, bonuses, or assistance, which can please them and make them think it worth doing so. The researcher should believe what the participants answers. The most important thing for a survey to be ethical is to promise reward with no exaggeration and send them as promised.
Chapter 4 Data collection
Primary data and secondary data will be used in research. Primary data collected through questionnaire. Secondary data collected through the Internet, books, magazines, newspapers and other different ways. (Bell, 2005)
4.1Using secondary data
Figure 2 Sources of Secondary Data http://www.ukassignment.org/uklunwen/
Source:Easterby-Smith,Throp,Jackson,2002
Secondary data include both quantitative and qualitative data, and they can be used in both descriptive and explanatory research. And secondary data has three main subgroups: documentary data, survey-based data, and those compiled from multiple sources(Dale,Arber and Proctor,1988) The author has collect some secondary data through the company's annual report (2006-2010), the speech of the company’s director, newspapers or materials about retail industry. At the same time, the author has also collected some useful data on the Internet. All the secondary data collected contribute to the research. The most important thing is that the secondary data provides valuable information about cultural, historical, political, and legal background for the study, which can help the researchers save time and money. The secondary data in this research can be helpful for collecting primary data in the interviews. Most of the relevant materials, such as the company's annual report (2006-2010), the internal documents of TIANQIAO department store, the authoritative media’s report of its service quality and customer satisfaction, are useful and can help design the questionnaire.
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