Employee behaviour and relationship quality: impact on customers

What Role Does Patient Gratitude Play in the Relationship Between Relationship Quality and Patient Loyalty?

The environment in health care organizations is becoming increasingly competitive. Therefore, to improve patient return rates, health care organizations need to examine how to enhance the physician-patient relationship. In particular, the role of patient gratitude on the physician-patient relationship in health care organizations is still ambiguous. The specific role of patient gratitude in the medical service industry needs to be identified. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate physician-patient interactions with reference to relationship marketing and to further understand the relationships among relationship quality, patient gratitude, and patient loyalty. The potential effects of patient gratitude on the physician-patient relationship were examined by testing mediation effect. The results demonstrated that patient gratitude had a notable effect on the association between relationship quality and patient loyalty. To improve the physician-patient relationship in the medical service industry, health care managements should not ignore the 3 relationship quality tactics perceived by patients, specially the role of the potential effect of patient gratitude on relational building.

Measuring internal service quality: the case of the Greek public higher education institutions

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the idea of internal service quality in public organizations. An attempt is made to determine the key elements that define the concept of internal service quality and to identify the factors that support the attainment of high levels of internal quality. Internal service quality refers to the quality of services offered between units and/or employees within an organization and achieving internal quality in public authorities can contribute to the sustainability of the public sector.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey was conducted among administrative staff of the publicly owned Greek Higher Education Institutions. The research instrument uses a three-level approach on internal service quality: individual, departmental and organizational. The model was tested using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis.

Findings

Findings reveal a five-factor structure of internal service quality by adding the factors of interdepartmental quality and the human aspect of internal service provision. Analysis of the data suggests that internal service quality is dependent on the level of responsibility of the respondent’s job.

Research limitations/implications

There is evidence that the individual internal service quality factor needs to be enhanced with more items. In addition, in order to gain generalizable results, further research should be conducted in various types of public organizations.

Originality/value

This study examines a questionnaire that evaluates internal service quality and proposes a basic five-factor model for estimating this type of service quality. It also triggers the use of internal service quality theory within public sector organizations.

Do HRD practices affect perceived market performance through operational performance? Evidence from software industry

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of human resource development (HRD) practices on perceived operational and market performances in the software companies in India, and also the mediating effect of operational performance in the relationship between HRD practices and market performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 516 professionals working in 37 software companies in India. Partial least square (PLS) was used to test the proposed structural equation model.

Findings

The findings reveal that the HRD practices significantly affect market performance. However, operational performance, as a mediator, was found to have a crucial role in transferring the effects of HRD practices to market performance.

Research limitations/implications

The findings of this study are in line with the theory of HRD which suggests a positive relationship between HRD and organizational performance.

Practical implications

The results suggest that to enhance the market performance, organizations need to enhance operational performance by meticulously designing and implementing the series of HRD practices.

Originality/value

This study is one of its kind to overcome the limitations of earlier studies to examine the effect of comprehensive dimensions of HRD on operational and market performance.

Analyzing perceived healthcare service quality on patient related outcomes

Purpose

Through the lens of a total quality management approach, this paper aims to examine the effects of health-care service quality on patient satisfaction, repatronage intention (RI) and positive word-of mouth (PWOM) at a public hospital specialized in women and children’s diseases. The contribution is to measure and compare patient expectations and perceptions related to the public health service quality.

Design/methodology/approach

A structured questionnaire was distributed to in-patients who stayed at a public training and research hospital for at least three days. To analyze the relationship between variables, multiple regression analysis was used. To test the difference between expected and perceived service quality, the paired-sample t-test was used.

Findings

The findings provided empirical evidence that perceived service quality significantly influenced patient satisfaction, RI and PWOM. The “responsiveness and reliability” factor was found to be the most influential on patient RI and PWOM. The “tangibility” dimension had the strongest influence on patient satisfaction.

Practical implications

The results reveal that a reliable and responsive service, empathic personnel behaviors and appropriate tangibles are the outstanding factors for high levels of patient satisfaction, RI and PWOM.

Originality/value

Although the concepts of perceived service quality, patient satisfaction, RI and PWOM are explored frequently in service literature, there are few researches that focus on specialized health services for women and children’s diseases. By evaluating the service quality, it is hoped to provide an insight to health-care managers about the service quality dimensions and their relationship with patient satisfaction, RI and PWOM, specifically based on women patients.

Should relationship quality be measured as a disaggregated or a composite construct?

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to report the results of an empirical study that tested two competing models of relationship quality for superiority and further examined the effect of relationship quality antecedents as well as relationship quality constructs on customer loyalty.

Design/methodology/approach

– Quantitative cross-sectional data generated from 332 informants who are experienced users of banking services formed the final database. The construct validity and reliability of the data set was confirmed. The two competing models were tested with partial least squares structural equation modelling technique.

Findings

– Although the two competing models support all the hypothesised relationships as expected, the disaggregated model of relationship quality was found to be a better predictor of customer loyalty than the composite model of the construct. The two models also show that relationship quality does transmit the effect of customer orientation, expertise and information sharing to customer loyalty. But each of these determinants contributed differentially to relationship quality in both models just as trust and satisfaction contributed differentially to customer loyalty in the disaggregated model.

Research limitations/implications

– This paper questions the predictive ability of all previous models that tested relationship quality as a composite construct. The concern is that outputs from those studies may not have reflected the accurate explanation of the construct on companies’ bottom line. Future research integrating the construct into behavioural models should, therefore, examine the construct from a disaggregated viewpoint.

Practical implications

– Retail managers especially those within the banking sector are better placed to enhance customer loyalty when relationship quality implementation is initiated from the lens of both trust and satisfaction as separate and interdependent constructs, rather than a composite measure. Such approach widens the latitude to identify areas where attention to improvement is needed most.

Originality/value

– The uniqueness of this paper is the measurement of relationship quality both as a disaggregated and composite construct in one study. As far as could be established, in exception of Rafiq et al. (2013) whose model was rather too simplistic, no study of this sort is found within the relationship marketing literature in general and the financial services sector in particular. Based on the two competing models tested, the disaggregated model of relationship quality ahead of the composite/global measure emerged as a superior approach to testing the construct.

Modeling passengers’ future behavioral intentions in airline industry using SEM

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to examine the interrelationships among the extracted constructs of airline service quality (SQ), perceived image, perceived value, passenger satisfaction and their influence on passengers’ future behavioral intentions in the domestic aviation sector market in Indian context.

Design/methodology/approach

– A conceptual framework is developed based on previous studies. In order to address a lack of comprehensive evaluation of airline SQ, this study extracted the dimensions of airline SQ and used them in the structural model. The conceptual model is tested using structural equation modeling approach using maximum likelihood estimation technique. A sample of 526 domestic full-service passengers was used to test the hypothesized relationships among the constructs.

Findings

– Out of the three dimensions of airline SQ extracted, convenience and promptness with reliability dimension of SQ was having a direct influence on perceived image, perceived value and passenger satisfaction which in turn influence BI. The findings of this study indicate the passenger evaluation process flows from perceived image to satisfaction via passenger perceived value and not directly from perceived image to passenger satisfaction. Only passengers’ satisfaction was found to have a direct influence on passengers’ future BI.

Originality/value

– This study modified SERVPERF instrument for airline settings and empirically validated the instrument using data from Indian domestic passengers. This research adds to the body of knowledge by providing a conceptual framework which gives an empirical insight into the interrelationship among the constructs of airline SQ, perceived image, perceived value, passenger satisfaction and its effects on passenger’s future BI. The conceptual model developed and tested in this paper will act as a reference in forming suitable marketing strategies for airline’s competitive advantage.