Description
Over the past few years, the service sector has become the dominant element in many economies including the economy of the USA. In many industrialized countries, service sector accounted for more that 50 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
Quality management in service
?rms: sustaining structures of
total quality service
Atul Gupta, Jason C. McDaniel and S. Kanthi Herath
School of Business and Economics, Lynchburg College, Lynchburg,
Virginia, USA
Abstract
Purpose – Proposes developing a conceptual model that can be used in understanding the
relationships between sustaining structures that support the total quality service (TQS) philosophy
and customer satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach – Integrating the SERVQUAL instrument and other work in the
service quality literature, especially the Deming management model, this paper develops a model for
understanding the interactions between customer satisfaction and sustaining structures.
Findings – This conceptual paper develops three constructs: leadership, organizational culture and
employee commitment, which are very important in achieving total quality service objectives. The
proposed model links these three constructs with business processes and total quality service.
Research limitations/ implications – It is not an empirical investigation of customer satisfaction
and sustaining structures. The paper does not review in detail the impact of the three constructs on
business processes. A researcher who plans to do a customer satisfaction study could bene?t from the
proposed model as it will provide valuable insights about the interactions between customer
satisfaction and sustaining structures.
Originality/value – This paper provides an important conceptual framework for evaluating the
relationships between customer satisfaction and sustaining structures.
Keywords SERVQUAL, Customer satisfaction, Quality management, Customer service quality
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
Over the past few years, the service sector has become the dominant element in many
economies including the economy of the USA. In many industrialized countries, service
sector accounted for more that 50 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). For
instance, in 1989 the service sector accounted for 69 percent of the USA’s GDP; 67
percent of France’s GDP; 62 percent of the UK’s GDP; 60 percent of Germany’s GDP;
and 56 percent of Japan’s GDP (World Bank, 1991). These ?gures represent only the
service sector’s contribution (Ghobadian et al., 1994) and in addition, many
manufacturing companies have started to provide services traditionally not
provided by them (Douglas and Fredendall, 2004). The employment in service
industries in the USA has also increased from 30 percent in 1900 to over 85 percent in
2000 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2002). The service sector in many economies
embraces a diverse and complex range of organizations and enterprises including:
.
national and local government: for example, education, health, social security,
police, the military, transport, legal, information, and credit;
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister www.emeraldinsight.com/0960-4529.htm
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Managing Service Quality
Vol. 15 No. 4, 2005
pp. 389-402
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0960-4529
DOI 10.1108/09604520510606853
.
non-pro?t private services: for example, charities, churches, research
foundations, mutual societies, and art foundations; and
.
for-pro?t private services: for example, utilities, hotels, airlines, architects,
restaurants, solicitors, retailers, entertainment, banks, insurance companies,
advertising agencies, consultancy ?rms, market research companies, and
communications (Ghobadian et al., 1994, p. 43).
Customer service has become a distinct component of both product and service sectors
and with the developments in information technology many business ?nd demanding
and knowledgeable customers. The worldwide trend toward service quality was
initiated in the 1880s when businesses realized that a quality product, in itself, is not
guaranteed to maintain competitive advantage (van der Wal et al., 2002). Many
researchers recognize that service quality can bring an organization a lasting
competitive advantage (Moore, 1987; Lewis, 1989). Quality of services can be the
difference between success and failure in both service and manufacturing ?rms. Service
quality, customer satisfaction and customer value have become the main concern of
both manufacturing and service organizations in the increasingly intensi?ed
competition for customers in today’s customer-centered era (Wang et al., 2004).
As a result, many organizations are paying increasing attention to improve service
quality. In some manufacturing industries “service quality” is considered a more
important order winner than “product quality” (Ghobadian et al., 1994, p. 43). Service
quality improvements will lead to customer satisfaction and cost management that
result in improved pro?ts (Stevenson, 2002). Literature suggests that total quality
philosophy can be usefully deployed in the service sector too. As an initial step in an
empirical investigation of service quality management, this study incorporates the
SERVQUAL model and the total quality management (TQM) model, and develops
several hypotheses for empirical testing.
Quality management models
The development of quality management systems has substantially been in?uenced by
several American and Japanese quality experts: Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum, Crosby
and Ishikawa. The main theme of Deming is that by improving quality it is possible to
increase productivity, which results in the improved competitiveness of a business
enterprise (Kruger, 2001). According to Deming, the quality improvement of the
company’s work processes, both manufacturing and service, will result in less
reworking and less waste of manpower, material resources and the number of errors
will be reduced. Deming stressed the importance of constant and forever improvement
of the system of production and service. Management must continuously reduce waste
and improve the quality of every activity in the company and this includes all functions,
such as procurement, engineering, transportation, sales, methods of distribution,
accounting, service to customers, etc. (Kruger, 2001). Early quality gurus recognized
that both product and service quality will create competitive advantages for ?rms.
Juran contributed to TQMby highlighting the importance of quality Control. According
to Juran, once managing the quality issue was delegated to the subordinate hierarchy, it
was no longer considered to be vital for the top management of the company to participate
personally in managing quality and this progressive removal of the company’s
management from managing the quality issue led to negative effects on quality (Kruger,
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2001). The ultimate result is that in the end, nobody in the ?rm will be responsible for
quality and the visible leadership and personal involvement of top management in
inspiring quality is very important for the achievement of strategic and operational goals.
Juran stresses that quality control should be an integral part of the management functions
and the ?rm culture and leadership can play a major role in quality management.
Ishikawa provided four aspects of TQM quality circles, continuous training, the
quality tool “Ishikawa diagram”, and the quality chain. According to Ishikawa, to
practice quality control is to develop, design, produce and service a quality product,
which is most economical, most useful, and always satisfactory to the consumer. To meet
this goal, everyone in the company should participate in and promote quality control,
including top executives, all divisions within the company, and all employees (Ishikawa,
1985). According Ishikawa, TQMis not limited to the quality department but involves all
departments within the business organization and it stresses a clear customer
orientation – both internal and external (Kruger, 2001). The Deming Management Model
has been tested in both manufacturing and service industries and the founders of total
quality portrayed this management philosophy as universally oriented.
Contemporary service sector ?rms are compelled by their nature to provide
excellent service in order to prosper in increasingly competitive domestic and global
marketplaces (Sultan and Simpson, 2000). As service ?rms ?nd themselves in an
increasingly competitive and complex business environment, they are inevitably
driven to examine their service delivery processes critically. The focus of such internal
analysis is ultimately about customer satisfaction, and how bottom-line results can be
actualized through delivering quality services to customers via ?awless interface
platforms. This is not only the case in the private sector, but it also is increasingly so in
the public sector. Public sector ?rms are trying to make administration more ef?cient
and more citizen-oriented (Scharitzer and Korunka, 2000).
Despite services being a large and important segment of the world economies the
concepts and practices of service quality are not as well developed as those of
manufacturing quality (Douglas and Fredendall, 2004, Ghobadian et al., 1994). The
literature reveals that service organizations are lagging behind their manufacturing
counterparts in terms of the effective use of TQM practices aimed at achieving
organizational objectives (Yasin et al., 2004). The views of the quality gurus (i.e.
Deming, Juran, Taguchi, Ishikawa, Crosby, and Feigenbaum) are prominent in the
manufacturing literature and they can be easily deployed for services. There have been
many such attempts in recent years.
The theoretical foundations and methods of total quality, however, support its use
for both manufacturing and services. Although the literature addressing the total
quality management have been developed separately for products and service sectors,
the founders of quality management reveal that quality concepts are universally
applicable. In addition, quality awards have been established to generate awareness
and interest in quality improvement in both service and manufacturing sectors. For
example, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards (MBNQA) program,
established by the US Congress in 1987, includes seven categories that could be applied
to any organization, whether in manufacturing or services (Bell and Keys, 1998). These
seven categories on which applicants are evaluated are: leadership, information and
analysis, strategic planning, human resource management, quality assurance of
products and services, quality results, and customer satisfaction (Stevenson, 2002).
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Most organizations have, however, become enamored with the framework, vision,
and techniques subsumed in the rubric of TQM, because of the results it has reliably
produced in a variety of business environments. However, the contemporary literature
in regard to quality management tends to be overwhelmingly manufacturing oriented,
as there are far fewer empirical studies regarding the service sector (Sureshchandar
et al., 2001a). Because it is now well understood that the fabrication of products is quite
different than the delivery of services (Robinson, 1999), the concept of total quality
service (TQS) has gained increased attention. TQS is often considered as having a
long-range perspective, implying that organizations embracing TQS can achieve the
rewards of their quality improvement initiatives only after many years of toil and hard
work (Sureshchandar et al., 2003).
In brief, TQS is TQMapplied in service organizations. However, it is also much more
than that, because of the complex implementation issues surrounding service delivery,
as well as the increased number of variables involved in such delivery. Services differ
from manufacturing goods on a number of dimensions: service intangibility,
simultaneity of production, delivery and consumption, perishability, variability of
expectations of customers, and the participatory role of the customers in the service
delivery (Sureshchandar et al., 2001b). Measuring the quality of service outputs is often
more dif?cult than measuring the quality of a good, because services are abstract rather
than concrete, transient rather than permanent, and psychological rather than physical
(Meredith and Shafer, 2002). Hence, because of the increased complexity regarding
measuring service rather than manufacturing quality, TQM cannot be said to be purely
synonymous with TQS. Rather, a more malleable framework is needed to account for
the intricacies of service delivery effectively in a variety of business settings. TQM
concepts including the Deming management model does not measure customer
satisfaction directly but they are relevant in developing a visionary leadership structure
and organizational culture which are very important for quality service. This research
will incorporate TQM concepts with SERVQUAL, a widely used customer satisfaction
instrument in developing sustaining structures for total quality services.
The SERVQUAL instrument
The notion of service quality has produced considerable debate with regard to de?ning
it as well as measuring it, with a lack of emerging consensus. The instrument that has
become most prominent in attempting to operationalize service quality is the gap
model of service or SERVQUAL (van der Wal et al., 2002; Wisniewski, 2001).
Parasuraman et al. (1985) developed a conceptual framework for the SERVQUAL
model to measure consumer perceptions of service quality and later re?ned the model.
Although this model was originally developed for application within the ?nancial
services sector, it has been deployed to measure those components of services that
generate satisfaction in other service sectors such as telecommunications, healthcare
and hospitality (Curry and Sinclair, 2002; van der Wal et al., 2002; Sultan and Simpson,
2000; Saleh and Ryan, 1991). SERVQUAL assumes that service quality is critically
determined by the disparity between the expectations and perceptions of the customer,
and the service actually delivered (Curry and Sinclair, 2002; Ninichuck, 2001). The
Parasuraman et al. (1988) study re?ned the model and has ?ve dimensions: tangibles,
reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy.
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In recent years, SERVQUAL has frequently been used to measure customer
satisfaction (Harvey, 1998; Curry and Sinclair, 2002; van der Wal et al., 2002; Gabbie and
O’Neill, 1997). Researchers support the continued use of SERVQUAL to measure
customer satisfaction, although they recommend that more work is needed to improve its
scales (Eastwood et al., 2005; Wang et al., 2004; Landrum and Prybutok, 2004; Kettinger
and Lee, 1999). SERVQUAL is based on the underlying premise that service quality can
be de?ned as the extent to which a service meets a customer’s needs or expectations.
Thus, service quality can be operationally de?ned as the difference between customer
expectations of service and perceptions of actual service delivery (Wisniewski, 2001).
Service quality is critical because such failure by management to interpret customer
desires accurately can result in loss of business and possible bankruptcy for some
(Gabbie and O’Neill, 1997). Many previously developed tools have tended to focus
exclusively on customer perceptions of service, measuring what the customer thinks of
present service delivery. SERVQUAL is seen as superior, because it also focuses on an
adequate understanding of customer expectations. However, comprehending the
expectations of customers is not an easy task, because often consumers either do not
really know what they want, or do not tell you directly what they want (Lim and Tang,
2000). This is all the more reason to utilize a valid instrument such as SERVQUAL to
focus on capturing the functional aspects of quality management in service ?rms.
Although models explicating the essential elements of TQS will differ, consensus on
the importance of TQS as a practical framework certainly exists. Thus, the question of
how one effectively implements, monitors, and maintains TQS in a ?rm is crucial. Are
there speci?c elements of the organizational environment that support the realization and
preservation of TQS in all crucial processes of the business? Moreover, are there certain
“sustaining structures” that buttress the TQS philosophy and make the implementation
of such run smoothly? In this context, “sustaining structures” refer to underlying,
intangible constructs of the business, which substantially facilitate the delivery of TQS to
the customer. It would logically appear that certain key business elements related to the
human factors of the enterprise would play a prominent role in achieving a TQS
environment, because service delivery by its very nature is concerned with the intricacies
of human interactions. The quality of the leadership team, the commitment of the
organization as a gestalt, and the encompassing organizational culture would all appear
to be crucial elements in attaining a fully functional TQS environment.
Visionary leadership, organizational culture and employee commitment
Visionary leadership is core to the Deming management model and leadership is
essential in order to create a service organization that has both internal and external
cooperation (Douglas and Fredendall, 2004). Deming’s “system of profound
knowledge” emphasizes the need for a lifetime of dedication to the ?eld of quality
management and it is in reality a complex set of interactions that requires a precise ?t
to an organization, and the individuals that constitute that organization (Gapp, 2002).
Literature suggests that system of profound knowledge to be successful leadership and
management styles should play a profound role. The system of profound knowledge is
holistic in that the various components “interact” with one another and, therefore,
cannot be separated (McNary, 1999, p. 20). McNary further discusses several
distinctive differences between “Deming and non-Deming managers”. Deming
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managers will create a more favorable leadership style and an organizational culture to
achieve service quality than non-Deming managers (McNary, 1999).
Deming managers will support holistic thinking that will support sustaining
structures, which ultimately increase customer satisfaction through high levels of
quality management programs. Visionary leadership is very important in developing
holistic organizational cultures and gaining employee commitment. Kanter (1983, p. 28)
is concerned about the consequences of the absences of a visionary leadership, “The
lack of holistic thinking has ultimately created a ‘segmentalist’ organisational culture
that has proven to be dysfunctional because of its inability to respond quickly to
changes and its obstruction of creativity that impedes improvement and innovation”.
Boerstler et al. (1996) observed that hospitals that ranked high on employee
participation, teamwork, and an adaptable, ?exible culture were most successful in the
quality management initiatives. Employee commitment is essential for service quality.
Employee commitment can be gained through effective communication, training and
development, and employee motivation. Service quality literature recognizes that
employee cooperation and commitment can be gained through well-managed human
resource programs. Distinctive items that should be included in such human resource
programs are communications, training, recognition of support for quality objectives,
and employee satisfaction (Cook and Verma, 2002).
Anderson et al. (1994) observe that employee commitment can be measured by job
satisfaction and pride in their work. Sureshchandar et al. (2001a, b) suggest that ?rms
must focus on employee job satisfaction because there is a high association between
employee perceptions of well-being and the customers’ perception of service quality.
Increased employee relations and satisfaction will lead to successful quality
implementations in the service sector.
TQS is TQM, the same continuous-improvement process requiring the same kinds
of leadership, measurement tools and organizational culture (Karen, 1997). The only
difference is that the product delivered to the customer is a service rather than a
manufactured object and customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal in both cases
(Karen, 1997).
Sustaining structures of the TQS model
This research developed three major constructs from the review of literature of service
quality: organizational culture, leadership and employee commitment. The
relationships between these constructs and service quality are displayed in Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Model of total quality
service
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This model focuses on customer needs and expectations. The ?rm should gain an
understanding of customer needs and expectations before designing and
implementation of services quality improvements. The ?rm then should establish
sustaining structures for organizational culture, leadership and employee commitment,
which are the building blocks of a good total quality service program. Customer
satisfaction and expectations are attitudes and they can easily be changed under
different circumstances. Thus, the model exhibits a two-way ?ow between customer
needs and expectations and the three constructs. This model highlights the feedback
loop that affects the three constructs. A well-established leadership system, an
organizational culture and a team of committed employees will lead to improved
business processes. Improved business processes will result in improvements in
service quality. This can be an improvement in service performance outcomes or
cost-based values. Finally, improved levels of service quality will lead to high levels of
customer satisfaction.
Hypotheses
In this section, we observe the relationships between the constructs and develop three
hypotheses regarding some underlying structures that support total quality service:
H1. The effective implementation and sustainment of TQS will be positively
correlated with an organizational culture that is pervasively quality focused.
H2. Effective TQS will be positively correlated with a strong, strategic-minded
leader or leadership team.
H3. Effective TQS deployment and maintenance will be positively correlated with
a total commitment from all employees of the ?rm.
This paper will critically examine TQS in the context of the above explicated
hypotheses, and conclusions will be drawn that contribute to a better understanding of
the under girding structures of TQS.
Organizational culture and TQS
The term organizational culture refers to a system of shared values and beliefs that
gives identity to members of a group. Culture in places of work is important in
stabilizing and making sense out of the social system, as well as generating
commitment beyond oneself to the organization as a whole. It is the soft foundation on
which the ?rm is built. Many researchers have attempted to understand the effects of
organizational culture on the delivery of quality services. Maull et al. (2001) maintain
that the organizational culture construct is a primary condition for the successful
implementation of quality management. They have examined culture both as
something that is an objective, tangible phenomenon injected as a transforming
intervention into the organization, and as something that is created by and becomes
one with the essential fabric of the organization itself. Firms that have cultures
supportive of strategy are likely to be successful, while businesses that have an
insuf?cient “?t” between strategy and culture must adapt, because organizational
culture plays such a central supporting role in the creation of viable strategic objectives
(Maull et al., 2001).
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To practice quality control is to develop, design, produce and service a quality
product, which is most economical, most useful, and always satisfactory to the
consumer. To meet this goal, everyone in the company must participate in and promote
quality control, including top executives, all divisions within the company, and all
employees (Ishikawa, 1985).
Sureshchandar et al.(2001a, b) suggest that culture signi?cantly affects service
pre-eminence, because it enables people to adopt a common vision of the organization
and its goals, and it aligns various organizational functions towards a shared target,
thereby ensuring seamless processes that contribute to the overall delivery of high
quality service. Just as important, Sureshchandar et al.(2001a, b) argue that, in service
organizations, there is a very frail and permeable layer between the organization’s
employees and the customers that they serve. Thus, a ?rm characterized by the
qualities of reliability, responsiveness, and empathy within the relationships of
front-line employees and managers will be much more likely to manifest those traits to
external customers, in such a way that the patrons will perceive them as genuine in the
display of such characteristics. In a separate study, Sureshchandar et al. (2002)
concluded that the soft issues of TQS seem to be more useful than do hard issues in
positively in?uencing customer-perceived service quality. Very prominent among the
soft issues was the pervasive infusion of a service-focused organizational culture.
Leveraging such a means of in?uencing customer perception is essential, when one
considers that a service ?rm’s ?scal health and longevity is largely based on how
clientele perceive their business interactions with the organization.
Leadership involvement and TQS
Leading is one of the primary functions of management, but the complexities of
leadership as a theoretical concept continue to elude scholars. The magnitude of
strategic leadership appears to be increasingly signi?cant among high caliber ?rms,
because it is leadership that establishes and transmits to all employees the overarching
direction of the organization. All other company plans and activities ?ow from this
articulated vision. Sureshchandar et al.(2001a, b) suggest that top management
commitment to TQS is a prerequisite for effective and successful implementation of
high quality services. Visionary leadership with a clear understanding of the concepts
of service satisfaction, quality, and values is needed to stimulate the entire organization
toward accomplishing a TQS vision. Because of increased competition in service
industries, leadership efforts consume a greater share of top management’s time and
effort, particularly in the start-up phase of a business venture. Awareness, knowledge,
and understanding of basic TQS principles are prerequisites for top executives in
committing to service quality improvement (Nwabueze, 2001).
Tsang and Antony (2001) likewise submit that supervisory leadership sets the
foundation for the implementation of TQS in an organization. If one assumes a Theory
Y view of employee motivation (Fatt, 2002), then it follows that intrinsic motivation is
forti?ed by providing employees with equilibrium of freedom, support, and
encouragement to do their jobs. Among other things, effective leadership requires
top management to articulate values and beliefs to employees, develop clear and
effective strategies for achieving company objectives, and empower employees to
execute processes critical for supporting these objectives.
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Burke (2001) conducted an exploratory study examining organizational correlates
of service quality. Among those variables studied was the quality of supervision.
Burke (2001) argues that leaders should have extensive knowledge of customer
characteristics and expectations, and thus managers in service ?rms should
continuously think how activities in which they are involved will strategically
impact customer service. In this manner, company executives should be actively
involved in the recruitment, hiring, training, and appraisal of front-line service
workers. Results of the investigative study demonstrated that quality of supervision
had direct effects on reducing barriers to service, and increasing supports for service,
job satisfaction, and quality of services (Burke, 2001). Thus, not only did organizational
leadership have a reinforcing effect on pro-customer behaviors exhibited by front-line
employees, but it also was instrumental in neutralizing hindrances to the effective
delivery of TQS.
Zineldin (2000) indicates that present day managers should ensure that every
employee in all parts of the organization places top priority on continuous
improvement of customer-driven quality. Under the paradigm of total relationship
management (TRM), the ?rm focuses on all integrated activities within the
organization, including internal and external relationships with employees,
customers, and collaborators. Collaborators may include bankers, trade unions,
politicians, or various public bodies, which do not directly interact with the
organization around core technology business functions, but which provide important
ancillary resources to the enterprise as a whole. Thus, the main philosophy behind this
holistic approach to company relationships is to facilitate, create, develop, enhance, and
continuously improve appropriate and advantageous internal and external
relationships (Zineldin, 2000). The main goal is to deliver services with an adequate
level of functional and technical quality, adequate price, and fast response times, while
allowing the ?rm to realize targeted short and long term pro?ts, growth, and
competitive advantage (Zineldin, 2000). It is therefore incumbent upon the leadership of
the organization to inspire employees and hold them accountable for utilizing TRM as
a tool to achieve a genuine TQS environment.
Employee commitment and TQS
As opposed to historically hierarchical corporate structures, modern work
environments are increasingly characterized by ?at organizational charts, with
efforts made to increase collaboration across company boundaries. Many ?rms are
shifting toward a team-based environment, where employees are encouraged, if not
required, to participate actively in service design as well as delivery. Upper
management is learning the value of utilizing all the human resources at its disposal
for the purposes of innovation, increasing organizational ef?ciency throughout
essential work processes, and problem solving to overcome barriers to top
performance. A total commitment from all employees toward company objectives is
highly desirable.
Geralis and Terziowski (2003) have conducted research on employee empowerment
practices as they are related to service quality. Empowerment is based on a Theory Y
conceptualization (Fatt, 2002), which assumes that all of the employees of the ?rm have
an underlying desire, if appropriately tapped, to produce good quality work and take
pride in that service delivery to customers. Empowerment strategies thus seek to
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motivate employees by appropriately authorizing them with the autonomy to
accomplish important organizational tasks. This is essentially a decentralization
strategy, which frees managers by relying heavily on the skills and decision-making
abilities of their subordinates to get essential work done, without a lot of excessive
monitoring by management. Geralis and Terziowski (2003) utilized quantitative
analysis to ?nd that empowerment practices have a favorable effect on employee well
being, productivity, performance, and service quality. This suggests a connection
between employee satisfaction, trust in internal ?rm relationships, and the emergence
of a TQS environment.
Sureshchandar et al. (2001a, b) argue that it is indispensable for service
organizations to look on human resource management as a source of competitive
advantage. Although ?rms may be tempted to invest heavily in technology as a means
of gaining an advantage, in service settings, they must remember that it is the
interaction between the service provider and the customer that eventually determines
the quality perceptions and satisfaction of the consumer. Customers often equate
employees with the service they are delivering. As employees are treated as valuable
resources by their employers, they will, in turn, treat their customers as valuable and
evolve into a committed workforce who is prepared to give their best toward
accomplishing organizational goals. Sureshchandar et al. (2001a, b) conclude that
employee involvement in quality improvement efforts is vital for effective TQS
implementation.
Hopkins (2002) examined “organizational citizenship” in social science service
agencies. Organizational citizenship behaviors were de?ned as extra-role activities that
are not formally required by the job, but that clearly bene?t both the organization and
its clients. These kinds of employee behaviors not only demonstrate a desire to go
above and beyond the call of duty to satisfy the customer, but they are also crucial for
many organizations needing to maximize business results with fewer available
resources. The ?ndings of her research demonstrate that worker’s reports of
organizational support, developmental experiences, and quality of work performance
and professional education were positively related to workers’ citizenship behavior
(Hopkins, 2002). This would suggest that an organization, which invests in human
capital and seeks to support its staff, bene?ts by eliciting increased motivation from
workers to focus on the needs of its patrons.
Conclusion
The model of TQS has become increasingly relevant in modern service ?rms, because
it focuses on rigorously analyzing and continuously improving customer-oriented
service processes. The ultimate ends of the TQS philosophy are the achievement of
short and long term ?nancial goals, the realization of increased market share, and the
creation a sustainable competitive advantage. TQS is a comprehensive methodology,
which engages crucial elements of the ?rm toward a vision of delivering increasingly
high quality services to consumers. It was hypothesized that a quality focused
organizational culture, a strategically inclined leadership team, and a fully committed
employee population, as “sustaining structures” of TQS, would be positively correlated
with the achievement and preservation of a TQS environment. The contemporary
literature supports these three hypotheses, and it suggests that the human issues
involved with service delivery appear to be the best predictors of whether a TQS
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environment will ?ourish within a given organization. Within the literature, there
appears to be an underlying theme that professional camaraderie, trust, and
interdependence among employees set the stage for superior service delivery. In the
future, service ?rms must learn how to harness these soft issues in order to survive,
and even thrive, in the prevailing markets.
An important contribution of the current research is the incorporation of TQM
models, especially the Deming management model and the SERVQUAL instrument for
doing research in service quality. Literature suggests that it is important for
researchers to incorporate the variables in the Deming management model into their
research about service quality as previous research observes that the Deming
management model is as applicable to services as it is to manufacturing. The
SERVQUAL criteria better serve the quality implementations in organizations.
Incorporation of these two models will give an important message to managers:
visionary leadership will be directly involved in all aspects of quality programs. This
research developed a model for TQS based on three major constructs: leadership
involvement, organizational culture, and committed employees. Future research will
empirically validate the use of the Deming management model, combined with the
SERVQUAL instrument in the service quality research. That will be the next step of
the current research.
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pp. 28-31.
Cook, L.S. and Verma, R. (2002), “Exploring the linkages between quality system, service quality,
and performance excellence: service providers’ perspectives”, Quality Management
Journal, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 44-56.
Curry, A. and Sinclair, E. (2002), “Assessing the quality of physiotherapy services using
SERVQUAL”, International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 15 Nos 4/5,
pp. 197-205.
Douglas, T.J. and Fredendall, L.D. (2004), “Evaluating the Deming management model of total
quality in services”, Decision Sciences, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 393-423.
Eastwood, D.B., Brooker, J.R. and Smith, J.D. (2005), “Developing marketing strategies for green
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pp. 39-49.
Gabbie, O. and O’Neill, M. (1997), “SERVQUAL and the Northern Ireland hotel sector:
a comparative analysis – part 2”, Managing Service Quality, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 43-9.
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Gapp, R. (2002), “The in?uence the system of profound knowledge has on the development of
leadership and management within an organization”, Managerial Auditing Journal, Vol. 17
No. 6, pp. 338-42.
Geralis, M. and Terziowski, M. (2003), “A quantitative analysis of the relationship between
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Ghobadian, A., Speller, S. and Jones, M. (1994), “Service quality: concepts and models”,
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pp. 583-97.
Hopkins, K.M. (2002), “Organizational citizenship in social science service agencies”,
Administration in Social Work, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 1-15.
Ishikawa, K. (1985), What Is Total Quality Control?, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Kanter, R.M. (1983), The Change Masters, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.
Karen, A. (1997), “Grant brings quality service principles to nonpro?ts”, Grand Rapids Business
Journal, Vol. 15 No. 12.
Kettinger, W.J. and Lee, C.C. (1999), “Replication of measures in information systems research:
the case of IS SERVQUAL”, Decision Sciences, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 893-9.
Kruger, V. (2001), “Main schools of TQM: the big ?ve”, TQM Magazine, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 146-55.
Landrum, H. and Prybutok, V.R. (2004), “A service quality and success model for the information
service industry”, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 156 No. 3.
Lewis, B.R. (1989), “Quality in the service sector – a review”, International Journal of Bank
Marketing, Vol. 7 No. 5.
Lim, P.C. and Tang, N.K.H. (2000), “The development of a model for total quality healthcare”,
Managing Service Quality, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 103-11.
McNary, L.D. (1999), “Leadership in the new economic age: quality management and the revival
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Maull, R., Brown, P. and Cliffe, R. (2001), “Organisational culture and quality improvement”,
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Meredith, J.R. and Shafer, S.M. (2002), Operations Management for MBAs, 2nd ed., John Wiley &
Sons, New York, NY.
Moore, C.D. (1987), “Outclass the competition with service distinction”, Mortgage Banking,
Vol. 47 No. 11.
Ninichuck, B. (2001), “Service quality is the key to good business”, Pest Control, Vol. 69 No. 9.
Nwabueze, U. (2001), “Chief executives – hear thyselves: leadership requirements for 5-S/TQM
implementation in healthcare”, Managerial Auditing Journal, Vol. 16 No. 7, pp. 406-10.
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Berry, L.L. (1985), “A conceptual model of service quality
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Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Berry, L.L. (1988), “SERVQUAL: a multiple-item scale for
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pp. 12-37.
Robinson, S. (1999), “Measuring service quality: current thinking and future requirements”,
Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 21-32.
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Saleh, F. and Ryan, C. (1991), “Analysing service quality in the hospitality industry using the
SERVQUAL model”, The Service Industries Journal, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 324-45.
Scharitzer, D. and Korunka, C. (2000), “New public management: evaluating the success of total
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Stevenson, W. (2002), Production and Operations Management, 7th ed., McGraw-Hill, New York,
NY.
Sultan, F. and Simpson, M.C. (2000), “International service variants: airline passenger
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No. 3, pp. 188-216.
Sureshchandar, G.S., Rajendran, C. and Anantharaman, R.N. (2001a), “A conceptual model for
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No. 3, pp. 343-63.
Sureshchandar, G.S., Rajendran, C. and Anantharaman, R.N. (2001b), “A holistic model for total
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pp. 378-412.
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Further reading
Anderson, J., Rungtusanatham, M. and Schroeder, R. (1994), “A theory of quality management
underlying the Deming management method”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 19,
July, pp. 472-509.
Crosby, P.B. (1979), Quality Is Free, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
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structures of
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Deming, W. (1986), Out of the Crisis, Institute of Technology Press, Cambridge, MA.
Feigenbaum, A.V. (1983), Total Quality Control, 3rd rev. ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, p. 112.
Ishikawa, K. (1989), Introduction to Quality Control, JUSE Press, Tokyo.
Juran, J.M. (Ed.) (1988), Quality Control Handbook, 4th ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
Kruger, V. (1998), “Total quality management and its humanistic orientation towards
organisational analysis”, TQM Magazine, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 293-301.
Parasuraman, A., Berry, L.L. and Zeithaml, V.A. (1991), “Perceived service quality as a
customer-based performance measure: an empirical examination of organizational barriers
using an extended service quality model”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 30 No. 3,
pp. 335-60.
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doc_251748649.pdf
Over the past few years, the service sector has become the dominant element in many economies including the economy of the USA. In many industrialized countries, service sector accounted for more that 50 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
Quality management in service
?rms: sustaining structures of
total quality service
Atul Gupta, Jason C. McDaniel and S. Kanthi Herath
School of Business and Economics, Lynchburg College, Lynchburg,
Virginia, USA
Abstract
Purpose – Proposes developing a conceptual model that can be used in understanding the
relationships between sustaining structures that support the total quality service (TQS) philosophy
and customer satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach – Integrating the SERVQUAL instrument and other work in the
service quality literature, especially the Deming management model, this paper develops a model for
understanding the interactions between customer satisfaction and sustaining structures.
Findings – This conceptual paper develops three constructs: leadership, organizational culture and
employee commitment, which are very important in achieving total quality service objectives. The
proposed model links these three constructs with business processes and total quality service.
Research limitations/ implications – It is not an empirical investigation of customer satisfaction
and sustaining structures. The paper does not review in detail the impact of the three constructs on
business processes. A researcher who plans to do a customer satisfaction study could bene?t from the
proposed model as it will provide valuable insights about the interactions between customer
satisfaction and sustaining structures.
Originality/value – This paper provides an important conceptual framework for evaluating the
relationships between customer satisfaction and sustaining structures.
Keywords SERVQUAL, Customer satisfaction, Quality management, Customer service quality
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
Over the past few years, the service sector has become the dominant element in many
economies including the economy of the USA. In many industrialized countries, service
sector accounted for more that 50 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). For
instance, in 1989 the service sector accounted for 69 percent of the USA’s GDP; 67
percent of France’s GDP; 62 percent of the UK’s GDP; 60 percent of Germany’s GDP;
and 56 percent of Japan’s GDP (World Bank, 1991). These ?gures represent only the
service sector’s contribution (Ghobadian et al., 1994) and in addition, many
manufacturing companies have started to provide services traditionally not
provided by them (Douglas and Fredendall, 2004). The employment in service
industries in the USA has also increased from 30 percent in 1900 to over 85 percent in
2000 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2002). The service sector in many economies
embraces a diverse and complex range of organizations and enterprises including:
.
national and local government: for example, education, health, social security,
police, the military, transport, legal, information, and credit;
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister www.emeraldinsight.com/0960-4529.htm
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Managing Service Quality
Vol. 15 No. 4, 2005
pp. 389-402
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0960-4529
DOI 10.1108/09604520510606853
.
non-pro?t private services: for example, charities, churches, research
foundations, mutual societies, and art foundations; and
.
for-pro?t private services: for example, utilities, hotels, airlines, architects,
restaurants, solicitors, retailers, entertainment, banks, insurance companies,
advertising agencies, consultancy ?rms, market research companies, and
communications (Ghobadian et al., 1994, p. 43).
Customer service has become a distinct component of both product and service sectors
and with the developments in information technology many business ?nd demanding
and knowledgeable customers. The worldwide trend toward service quality was
initiated in the 1880s when businesses realized that a quality product, in itself, is not
guaranteed to maintain competitive advantage (van der Wal et al., 2002). Many
researchers recognize that service quality can bring an organization a lasting
competitive advantage (Moore, 1987; Lewis, 1989). Quality of services can be the
difference between success and failure in both service and manufacturing ?rms. Service
quality, customer satisfaction and customer value have become the main concern of
both manufacturing and service organizations in the increasingly intensi?ed
competition for customers in today’s customer-centered era (Wang et al., 2004).
As a result, many organizations are paying increasing attention to improve service
quality. In some manufacturing industries “service quality” is considered a more
important order winner than “product quality” (Ghobadian et al., 1994, p. 43). Service
quality improvements will lead to customer satisfaction and cost management that
result in improved pro?ts (Stevenson, 2002). Literature suggests that total quality
philosophy can be usefully deployed in the service sector too. As an initial step in an
empirical investigation of service quality management, this study incorporates the
SERVQUAL model and the total quality management (TQM) model, and develops
several hypotheses for empirical testing.
Quality management models
The development of quality management systems has substantially been in?uenced by
several American and Japanese quality experts: Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum, Crosby
and Ishikawa. The main theme of Deming is that by improving quality it is possible to
increase productivity, which results in the improved competitiveness of a business
enterprise (Kruger, 2001). According to Deming, the quality improvement of the
company’s work processes, both manufacturing and service, will result in less
reworking and less waste of manpower, material resources and the number of errors
will be reduced. Deming stressed the importance of constant and forever improvement
of the system of production and service. Management must continuously reduce waste
and improve the quality of every activity in the company and this includes all functions,
such as procurement, engineering, transportation, sales, methods of distribution,
accounting, service to customers, etc. (Kruger, 2001). Early quality gurus recognized
that both product and service quality will create competitive advantages for ?rms.
Juran contributed to TQMby highlighting the importance of quality Control. According
to Juran, once managing the quality issue was delegated to the subordinate hierarchy, it
was no longer considered to be vital for the top management of the company to participate
personally in managing quality and this progressive removal of the company’s
management from managing the quality issue led to negative effects on quality (Kruger,
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2001). The ultimate result is that in the end, nobody in the ?rm will be responsible for
quality and the visible leadership and personal involvement of top management in
inspiring quality is very important for the achievement of strategic and operational goals.
Juran stresses that quality control should be an integral part of the management functions
and the ?rm culture and leadership can play a major role in quality management.
Ishikawa provided four aspects of TQM quality circles, continuous training, the
quality tool “Ishikawa diagram”, and the quality chain. According to Ishikawa, to
practice quality control is to develop, design, produce and service a quality product,
which is most economical, most useful, and always satisfactory to the consumer. To meet
this goal, everyone in the company should participate in and promote quality control,
including top executives, all divisions within the company, and all employees (Ishikawa,
1985). According Ishikawa, TQMis not limited to the quality department but involves all
departments within the business organization and it stresses a clear customer
orientation – both internal and external (Kruger, 2001). The Deming Management Model
has been tested in both manufacturing and service industries and the founders of total
quality portrayed this management philosophy as universally oriented.
Contemporary service sector ?rms are compelled by their nature to provide
excellent service in order to prosper in increasingly competitive domestic and global
marketplaces (Sultan and Simpson, 2000). As service ?rms ?nd themselves in an
increasingly competitive and complex business environment, they are inevitably
driven to examine their service delivery processes critically. The focus of such internal
analysis is ultimately about customer satisfaction, and how bottom-line results can be
actualized through delivering quality services to customers via ?awless interface
platforms. This is not only the case in the private sector, but it also is increasingly so in
the public sector. Public sector ?rms are trying to make administration more ef?cient
and more citizen-oriented (Scharitzer and Korunka, 2000).
Despite services being a large and important segment of the world economies the
concepts and practices of service quality are not as well developed as those of
manufacturing quality (Douglas and Fredendall, 2004, Ghobadian et al., 1994). The
literature reveals that service organizations are lagging behind their manufacturing
counterparts in terms of the effective use of TQM practices aimed at achieving
organizational objectives (Yasin et al., 2004). The views of the quality gurus (i.e.
Deming, Juran, Taguchi, Ishikawa, Crosby, and Feigenbaum) are prominent in the
manufacturing literature and they can be easily deployed for services. There have been
many such attempts in recent years.
The theoretical foundations and methods of total quality, however, support its use
for both manufacturing and services. Although the literature addressing the total
quality management have been developed separately for products and service sectors,
the founders of quality management reveal that quality concepts are universally
applicable. In addition, quality awards have been established to generate awareness
and interest in quality improvement in both service and manufacturing sectors. For
example, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards (MBNQA) program,
established by the US Congress in 1987, includes seven categories that could be applied
to any organization, whether in manufacturing or services (Bell and Keys, 1998). These
seven categories on which applicants are evaluated are: leadership, information and
analysis, strategic planning, human resource management, quality assurance of
products and services, quality results, and customer satisfaction (Stevenson, 2002).
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Most organizations have, however, become enamored with the framework, vision,
and techniques subsumed in the rubric of TQM, because of the results it has reliably
produced in a variety of business environments. However, the contemporary literature
in regard to quality management tends to be overwhelmingly manufacturing oriented,
as there are far fewer empirical studies regarding the service sector (Sureshchandar
et al., 2001a). Because it is now well understood that the fabrication of products is quite
different than the delivery of services (Robinson, 1999), the concept of total quality
service (TQS) has gained increased attention. TQS is often considered as having a
long-range perspective, implying that organizations embracing TQS can achieve the
rewards of their quality improvement initiatives only after many years of toil and hard
work (Sureshchandar et al., 2003).
In brief, TQS is TQMapplied in service organizations. However, it is also much more
than that, because of the complex implementation issues surrounding service delivery,
as well as the increased number of variables involved in such delivery. Services differ
from manufacturing goods on a number of dimensions: service intangibility,
simultaneity of production, delivery and consumption, perishability, variability of
expectations of customers, and the participatory role of the customers in the service
delivery (Sureshchandar et al., 2001b). Measuring the quality of service outputs is often
more dif?cult than measuring the quality of a good, because services are abstract rather
than concrete, transient rather than permanent, and psychological rather than physical
(Meredith and Shafer, 2002). Hence, because of the increased complexity regarding
measuring service rather than manufacturing quality, TQM cannot be said to be purely
synonymous with TQS. Rather, a more malleable framework is needed to account for
the intricacies of service delivery effectively in a variety of business settings. TQM
concepts including the Deming management model does not measure customer
satisfaction directly but they are relevant in developing a visionary leadership structure
and organizational culture which are very important for quality service. This research
will incorporate TQM concepts with SERVQUAL, a widely used customer satisfaction
instrument in developing sustaining structures for total quality services.
The SERVQUAL instrument
The notion of service quality has produced considerable debate with regard to de?ning
it as well as measuring it, with a lack of emerging consensus. The instrument that has
become most prominent in attempting to operationalize service quality is the gap
model of service or SERVQUAL (van der Wal et al., 2002; Wisniewski, 2001).
Parasuraman et al. (1985) developed a conceptual framework for the SERVQUAL
model to measure consumer perceptions of service quality and later re?ned the model.
Although this model was originally developed for application within the ?nancial
services sector, it has been deployed to measure those components of services that
generate satisfaction in other service sectors such as telecommunications, healthcare
and hospitality (Curry and Sinclair, 2002; van der Wal et al., 2002; Sultan and Simpson,
2000; Saleh and Ryan, 1991). SERVQUAL assumes that service quality is critically
determined by the disparity between the expectations and perceptions of the customer,
and the service actually delivered (Curry and Sinclair, 2002; Ninichuck, 2001). The
Parasuraman et al. (1988) study re?ned the model and has ?ve dimensions: tangibles,
reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy.
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In recent years, SERVQUAL has frequently been used to measure customer
satisfaction (Harvey, 1998; Curry and Sinclair, 2002; van der Wal et al., 2002; Gabbie and
O’Neill, 1997). Researchers support the continued use of SERVQUAL to measure
customer satisfaction, although they recommend that more work is needed to improve its
scales (Eastwood et al., 2005; Wang et al., 2004; Landrum and Prybutok, 2004; Kettinger
and Lee, 1999). SERVQUAL is based on the underlying premise that service quality can
be de?ned as the extent to which a service meets a customer’s needs or expectations.
Thus, service quality can be operationally de?ned as the difference between customer
expectations of service and perceptions of actual service delivery (Wisniewski, 2001).
Service quality is critical because such failure by management to interpret customer
desires accurately can result in loss of business and possible bankruptcy for some
(Gabbie and O’Neill, 1997). Many previously developed tools have tended to focus
exclusively on customer perceptions of service, measuring what the customer thinks of
present service delivery. SERVQUAL is seen as superior, because it also focuses on an
adequate understanding of customer expectations. However, comprehending the
expectations of customers is not an easy task, because often consumers either do not
really know what they want, or do not tell you directly what they want (Lim and Tang,
2000). This is all the more reason to utilize a valid instrument such as SERVQUAL to
focus on capturing the functional aspects of quality management in service ?rms.
Although models explicating the essential elements of TQS will differ, consensus on
the importance of TQS as a practical framework certainly exists. Thus, the question of
how one effectively implements, monitors, and maintains TQS in a ?rm is crucial. Are
there speci?c elements of the organizational environment that support the realization and
preservation of TQS in all crucial processes of the business? Moreover, are there certain
“sustaining structures” that buttress the TQS philosophy and make the implementation
of such run smoothly? In this context, “sustaining structures” refer to underlying,
intangible constructs of the business, which substantially facilitate the delivery of TQS to
the customer. It would logically appear that certain key business elements related to the
human factors of the enterprise would play a prominent role in achieving a TQS
environment, because service delivery by its very nature is concerned with the intricacies
of human interactions. The quality of the leadership team, the commitment of the
organization as a gestalt, and the encompassing organizational culture would all appear
to be crucial elements in attaining a fully functional TQS environment.
Visionary leadership, organizational culture and employee commitment
Visionary leadership is core to the Deming management model and leadership is
essential in order to create a service organization that has both internal and external
cooperation (Douglas and Fredendall, 2004). Deming’s “system of profound
knowledge” emphasizes the need for a lifetime of dedication to the ?eld of quality
management and it is in reality a complex set of interactions that requires a precise ?t
to an organization, and the individuals that constitute that organization (Gapp, 2002).
Literature suggests that system of profound knowledge to be successful leadership and
management styles should play a profound role. The system of profound knowledge is
holistic in that the various components “interact” with one another and, therefore,
cannot be separated (McNary, 1999, p. 20). McNary further discusses several
distinctive differences between “Deming and non-Deming managers”. Deming
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managers will create a more favorable leadership style and an organizational culture to
achieve service quality than non-Deming managers (McNary, 1999).
Deming managers will support holistic thinking that will support sustaining
structures, which ultimately increase customer satisfaction through high levels of
quality management programs. Visionary leadership is very important in developing
holistic organizational cultures and gaining employee commitment. Kanter (1983, p. 28)
is concerned about the consequences of the absences of a visionary leadership, “The
lack of holistic thinking has ultimately created a ‘segmentalist’ organisational culture
that has proven to be dysfunctional because of its inability to respond quickly to
changes and its obstruction of creativity that impedes improvement and innovation”.
Boerstler et al. (1996) observed that hospitals that ranked high on employee
participation, teamwork, and an adaptable, ?exible culture were most successful in the
quality management initiatives. Employee commitment is essential for service quality.
Employee commitment can be gained through effective communication, training and
development, and employee motivation. Service quality literature recognizes that
employee cooperation and commitment can be gained through well-managed human
resource programs. Distinctive items that should be included in such human resource
programs are communications, training, recognition of support for quality objectives,
and employee satisfaction (Cook and Verma, 2002).
Anderson et al. (1994) observe that employee commitment can be measured by job
satisfaction and pride in their work. Sureshchandar et al. (2001a, b) suggest that ?rms
must focus on employee job satisfaction because there is a high association between
employee perceptions of well-being and the customers’ perception of service quality.
Increased employee relations and satisfaction will lead to successful quality
implementations in the service sector.
TQS is TQM, the same continuous-improvement process requiring the same kinds
of leadership, measurement tools and organizational culture (Karen, 1997). The only
difference is that the product delivered to the customer is a service rather than a
manufactured object and customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal in both cases
(Karen, 1997).
Sustaining structures of the TQS model
This research developed three major constructs from the review of literature of service
quality: organizational culture, leadership and employee commitment. The
relationships between these constructs and service quality are displayed in Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Model of total quality
service
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This model focuses on customer needs and expectations. The ?rm should gain an
understanding of customer needs and expectations before designing and
implementation of services quality improvements. The ?rm then should establish
sustaining structures for organizational culture, leadership and employee commitment,
which are the building blocks of a good total quality service program. Customer
satisfaction and expectations are attitudes and they can easily be changed under
different circumstances. Thus, the model exhibits a two-way ?ow between customer
needs and expectations and the three constructs. This model highlights the feedback
loop that affects the three constructs. A well-established leadership system, an
organizational culture and a team of committed employees will lead to improved
business processes. Improved business processes will result in improvements in
service quality. This can be an improvement in service performance outcomes or
cost-based values. Finally, improved levels of service quality will lead to high levels of
customer satisfaction.
Hypotheses
In this section, we observe the relationships between the constructs and develop three
hypotheses regarding some underlying structures that support total quality service:
H1. The effective implementation and sustainment of TQS will be positively
correlated with an organizational culture that is pervasively quality focused.
H2. Effective TQS will be positively correlated with a strong, strategic-minded
leader or leadership team.
H3. Effective TQS deployment and maintenance will be positively correlated with
a total commitment from all employees of the ?rm.
This paper will critically examine TQS in the context of the above explicated
hypotheses, and conclusions will be drawn that contribute to a better understanding of
the under girding structures of TQS.
Organizational culture and TQS
The term organizational culture refers to a system of shared values and beliefs that
gives identity to members of a group. Culture in places of work is important in
stabilizing and making sense out of the social system, as well as generating
commitment beyond oneself to the organization as a whole. It is the soft foundation on
which the ?rm is built. Many researchers have attempted to understand the effects of
organizational culture on the delivery of quality services. Maull et al. (2001) maintain
that the organizational culture construct is a primary condition for the successful
implementation of quality management. They have examined culture both as
something that is an objective, tangible phenomenon injected as a transforming
intervention into the organization, and as something that is created by and becomes
one with the essential fabric of the organization itself. Firms that have cultures
supportive of strategy are likely to be successful, while businesses that have an
insuf?cient “?t” between strategy and culture must adapt, because organizational
culture plays such a central supporting role in the creation of viable strategic objectives
(Maull et al., 2001).
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To practice quality control is to develop, design, produce and service a quality
product, which is most economical, most useful, and always satisfactory to the
consumer. To meet this goal, everyone in the company must participate in and promote
quality control, including top executives, all divisions within the company, and all
employees (Ishikawa, 1985).
Sureshchandar et al.(2001a, b) suggest that culture signi?cantly affects service
pre-eminence, because it enables people to adopt a common vision of the organization
and its goals, and it aligns various organizational functions towards a shared target,
thereby ensuring seamless processes that contribute to the overall delivery of high
quality service. Just as important, Sureshchandar et al.(2001a, b) argue that, in service
organizations, there is a very frail and permeable layer between the organization’s
employees and the customers that they serve. Thus, a ?rm characterized by the
qualities of reliability, responsiveness, and empathy within the relationships of
front-line employees and managers will be much more likely to manifest those traits to
external customers, in such a way that the patrons will perceive them as genuine in the
display of such characteristics. In a separate study, Sureshchandar et al. (2002)
concluded that the soft issues of TQS seem to be more useful than do hard issues in
positively in?uencing customer-perceived service quality. Very prominent among the
soft issues was the pervasive infusion of a service-focused organizational culture.
Leveraging such a means of in?uencing customer perception is essential, when one
considers that a service ?rm’s ?scal health and longevity is largely based on how
clientele perceive their business interactions with the organization.
Leadership involvement and TQS
Leading is one of the primary functions of management, but the complexities of
leadership as a theoretical concept continue to elude scholars. The magnitude of
strategic leadership appears to be increasingly signi?cant among high caliber ?rms,
because it is leadership that establishes and transmits to all employees the overarching
direction of the organization. All other company plans and activities ?ow from this
articulated vision. Sureshchandar et al.(2001a, b) suggest that top management
commitment to TQS is a prerequisite for effective and successful implementation of
high quality services. Visionary leadership with a clear understanding of the concepts
of service satisfaction, quality, and values is needed to stimulate the entire organization
toward accomplishing a TQS vision. Because of increased competition in service
industries, leadership efforts consume a greater share of top management’s time and
effort, particularly in the start-up phase of a business venture. Awareness, knowledge,
and understanding of basic TQS principles are prerequisites for top executives in
committing to service quality improvement (Nwabueze, 2001).
Tsang and Antony (2001) likewise submit that supervisory leadership sets the
foundation for the implementation of TQS in an organization. If one assumes a Theory
Y view of employee motivation (Fatt, 2002), then it follows that intrinsic motivation is
forti?ed by providing employees with equilibrium of freedom, support, and
encouragement to do their jobs. Among other things, effective leadership requires
top management to articulate values and beliefs to employees, develop clear and
effective strategies for achieving company objectives, and empower employees to
execute processes critical for supporting these objectives.
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Burke (2001) conducted an exploratory study examining organizational correlates
of service quality. Among those variables studied was the quality of supervision.
Burke (2001) argues that leaders should have extensive knowledge of customer
characteristics and expectations, and thus managers in service ?rms should
continuously think how activities in which they are involved will strategically
impact customer service. In this manner, company executives should be actively
involved in the recruitment, hiring, training, and appraisal of front-line service
workers. Results of the investigative study demonstrated that quality of supervision
had direct effects on reducing barriers to service, and increasing supports for service,
job satisfaction, and quality of services (Burke, 2001). Thus, not only did organizational
leadership have a reinforcing effect on pro-customer behaviors exhibited by front-line
employees, but it also was instrumental in neutralizing hindrances to the effective
delivery of TQS.
Zineldin (2000) indicates that present day managers should ensure that every
employee in all parts of the organization places top priority on continuous
improvement of customer-driven quality. Under the paradigm of total relationship
management (TRM), the ?rm focuses on all integrated activities within the
organization, including internal and external relationships with employees,
customers, and collaborators. Collaborators may include bankers, trade unions,
politicians, or various public bodies, which do not directly interact with the
organization around core technology business functions, but which provide important
ancillary resources to the enterprise as a whole. Thus, the main philosophy behind this
holistic approach to company relationships is to facilitate, create, develop, enhance, and
continuously improve appropriate and advantageous internal and external
relationships (Zineldin, 2000). The main goal is to deliver services with an adequate
level of functional and technical quality, adequate price, and fast response times, while
allowing the ?rm to realize targeted short and long term pro?ts, growth, and
competitive advantage (Zineldin, 2000). It is therefore incumbent upon the leadership of
the organization to inspire employees and hold them accountable for utilizing TRM as
a tool to achieve a genuine TQS environment.
Employee commitment and TQS
As opposed to historically hierarchical corporate structures, modern work
environments are increasingly characterized by ?at organizational charts, with
efforts made to increase collaboration across company boundaries. Many ?rms are
shifting toward a team-based environment, where employees are encouraged, if not
required, to participate actively in service design as well as delivery. Upper
management is learning the value of utilizing all the human resources at its disposal
for the purposes of innovation, increasing organizational ef?ciency throughout
essential work processes, and problem solving to overcome barriers to top
performance. A total commitment from all employees toward company objectives is
highly desirable.
Geralis and Terziowski (2003) have conducted research on employee empowerment
practices as they are related to service quality. Empowerment is based on a Theory Y
conceptualization (Fatt, 2002), which assumes that all of the employees of the ?rm have
an underlying desire, if appropriately tapped, to produce good quality work and take
pride in that service delivery to customers. Empowerment strategies thus seek to
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397
motivate employees by appropriately authorizing them with the autonomy to
accomplish important organizational tasks. This is essentially a decentralization
strategy, which frees managers by relying heavily on the skills and decision-making
abilities of their subordinates to get essential work done, without a lot of excessive
monitoring by management. Geralis and Terziowski (2003) utilized quantitative
analysis to ?nd that empowerment practices have a favorable effect on employee well
being, productivity, performance, and service quality. This suggests a connection
between employee satisfaction, trust in internal ?rm relationships, and the emergence
of a TQS environment.
Sureshchandar et al. (2001a, b) argue that it is indispensable for service
organizations to look on human resource management as a source of competitive
advantage. Although ?rms may be tempted to invest heavily in technology as a means
of gaining an advantage, in service settings, they must remember that it is the
interaction between the service provider and the customer that eventually determines
the quality perceptions and satisfaction of the consumer. Customers often equate
employees with the service they are delivering. As employees are treated as valuable
resources by their employers, they will, in turn, treat their customers as valuable and
evolve into a committed workforce who is prepared to give their best toward
accomplishing organizational goals. Sureshchandar et al. (2001a, b) conclude that
employee involvement in quality improvement efforts is vital for effective TQS
implementation.
Hopkins (2002) examined “organizational citizenship” in social science service
agencies. Organizational citizenship behaviors were de?ned as extra-role activities that
are not formally required by the job, but that clearly bene?t both the organization and
its clients. These kinds of employee behaviors not only demonstrate a desire to go
above and beyond the call of duty to satisfy the customer, but they are also crucial for
many organizations needing to maximize business results with fewer available
resources. The ?ndings of her research demonstrate that worker’s reports of
organizational support, developmental experiences, and quality of work performance
and professional education were positively related to workers’ citizenship behavior
(Hopkins, 2002). This would suggest that an organization, which invests in human
capital and seeks to support its staff, bene?ts by eliciting increased motivation from
workers to focus on the needs of its patrons.
Conclusion
The model of TQS has become increasingly relevant in modern service ?rms, because
it focuses on rigorously analyzing and continuously improving customer-oriented
service processes. The ultimate ends of the TQS philosophy are the achievement of
short and long term ?nancial goals, the realization of increased market share, and the
creation a sustainable competitive advantage. TQS is a comprehensive methodology,
which engages crucial elements of the ?rm toward a vision of delivering increasingly
high quality services to consumers. It was hypothesized that a quality focused
organizational culture, a strategically inclined leadership team, and a fully committed
employee population, as “sustaining structures” of TQS, would be positively correlated
with the achievement and preservation of a TQS environment. The contemporary
literature supports these three hypotheses, and it suggests that the human issues
involved with service delivery appear to be the best predictors of whether a TQS
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environment will ?ourish within a given organization. Within the literature, there
appears to be an underlying theme that professional camaraderie, trust, and
interdependence among employees set the stage for superior service delivery. In the
future, service ?rms must learn how to harness these soft issues in order to survive,
and even thrive, in the prevailing markets.
An important contribution of the current research is the incorporation of TQM
models, especially the Deming management model and the SERVQUAL instrument for
doing research in service quality. Literature suggests that it is important for
researchers to incorporate the variables in the Deming management model into their
research about service quality as previous research observes that the Deming
management model is as applicable to services as it is to manufacturing. The
SERVQUAL criteria better serve the quality implementations in organizations.
Incorporation of these two models will give an important message to managers:
visionary leadership will be directly involved in all aspects of quality programs. This
research developed a model for TQS based on three major constructs: leadership
involvement, organizational culture, and committed employees. Future research will
empirically validate the use of the Deming management model, combined with the
SERVQUAL instrument in the service quality research. That will be the next step of
the current research.
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