Entrepreneurship... The Women's Power by Jolito Ortizo Padilla

Entrepreneurship... The Women’s Power… by Jollto Ortizo Padilla.

Please take note that the name and the company does not exists in the country. This is an illustration of how women can contribute to the country’s economic growth.

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1.      Background of the Entrepreneur

Aisha is the President of Bahrain’s leading construction company, the Aisha Contracting Company and has the stake at the family owned corporation, The Aisha Group of Companies. She perseveres until the company has attained a million Bahraini Dinar. Some of her friends encourage her to retire, but she laughs it off since working hard and loving it is part of her daily life. She is passionate about working with the company and employees.  Her father serves as the inspiration and is the motivating factor to work with insights towards achieving the objectives and goals in life.

The Aisha Contracting Company was established in 2005. She was influence by her father to establish the company during the time when the construction sector was booming in the GCC region due to high oil prices worldwide. Her father has predicted what industry will be at the forefront of the future economy in Bahrain; hence this construction company was born. In addition she expanded the business by opening electrical retail outlets in consonant to the contracting company.

When she was young, she has a passion of business. By that time she was taking part with the business of her father because he believed in women’s power which is dominated by men. She was sent to London to learn and acquired business knowledge. The father perception was perfectly right because despite of turmoil and political instability for the past years, the business has dramatically continues to grow into a powerhouse business in Bahrain.

Bahrain’s business slightly fluctuate in the early 2000s due to worldwide economic crisis, but because of her passion motivated by positivism, her struggles succeeded and the company continuously grows as expected.  For the last ten years of existence in Bahrain it has grown by 30%. The company has tremendously expanded in the neighboring countries like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Oman where construction sectors grow dramatically. In the late 2000s, the expansion continues to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait where huge investment was being called for, and does not deter the process of expansionism.

The presence of competitors does not hinder such capacity to grow.  In fact Aisha thinks of it as a challenge. Armed with her knowledge in Business during her studies in London, she continues to plan ahead with the objectives and goals of becoming the biggest contracting company in the Gulf Countries. The business grows rapidly up to the early 2000s, when the oil started to increase from $100 a barrel to $120 per barrel. This provides Aisha to an aggressive campaign to build more buildings and houses in Gulf Countries. She says; “ There’s no stopping”. She explores this opportunity to build her business empire.

However, in the early decade of 2000s, political turmoil has wrapped Bahrain which part of the so-called Arab Spring. All businesses and construction halted the booming economy of Bahrain. The business was down and most of the investors flew to their country of origin which results to capital flight. The investors went on the “wait and see” attitude and there were speculations among the investors. At that moment, banks have the liquidity problem because of capital flights. The revenue fall by 30% that provides her to go back to her drawing board.

But all of these negative situations did not stop Aisha to relegate her business acumen. She then plan strategic alliances with other investors that give her leeway to reorganized and restructure the systems of the company. Concurrently, the strategic plan works and it creates more employment to most Bahrainis who have the willingness to work in the pressured environment.

2. The decision to start up a Business

Aisha always emphasizes “creativity”. The word is a magic to her in starting a business and convert the empire as the way it is now. She describes it as the ability of the management to apply any thought of imagination that yields innovative solutions to huge problems that beset the organization. She coins the word of Padilla, J (2001)  in defining such term as “ Organizations and teams which practice reflexivity and are prepared to continually challenge and redefine their organizational goals, roles and paradigms, via the process of innovation, develop a more comprehensive and penetrating representation of their role. They better anticipate and manage problems, and they deal with conflict as a valuable process asset within the organization and encouraging growth and development. The most reflexive organization are those within which there is a maelstrom of activity, debate, argument, innovation and the real sense of involvement of all employees.

The fascination of Aisha to understand this concept draws her insight of inspiration as she was given a special gift to have such business knowledge with the help of her father’s money. Armed with her background of studies in one of the best business university in London, the London University, and her father’s training from her childhood days to the present time, she was able to establish the company into a million dollar conglomerate.

Her interest is drawn into creativity, innovation, sensitivity and skills in communications become a guide to prepare herself to such big challenge. Being proactive and imaginative in management approach is one of the essential elements that she professes in order to be successful in his chosen endeavor in life. In addition, she believes she could navigate the traditional business practiced by businessmen in Bahrain and can changed into the world of creative mindset thus a generation of innovation can be fulfilled. This according to her without such characteristics can hinder the growth of the business and the fulfillment process is compromised.

Despite  the fact that she knew that there are some obstacles that affect the business externally and internally, this does not stops her from pursuing such intensive training and development in order to sharpen her knowledge and improves her level of business knowledge. She knew that one of the characteristics of human activity is learning. There is a growth level if she takes steps to venture into a business as it involves insights and the taking place of change in many ways as a life -long experience. In her mind she needs to learn and develop the way on how to help and support her father to grow the business and provides employment to the citizens of Bahrain. Understanding the concept of dynamism and active dimension of business life draws her attention to such perspective.

Learning from her father’s style of management and financial approaches recognizes a useful process to enhance her effectiveness and this serves as a challenge to her. This creates the idea of how knowledge is link to the learning process. The teaching of her father that knowledge and foresight forms an act of innovation to this competitive world can directly give a direction to an effective and efficient organization. This teaching makes a great track on the mind of Aisha to pursue her career in business.

The thought of being an imaginative and innovative in terms of management capabilities has increasingly brought her to try this method to create a business of the future. Another way is that business requires a creative feeling and intuitive activity that stops the blockage of being creative. The advantage of being coach and mentored by her father contributes to her desire to this challenging business world.

3. The subsequent management and development of the new venture:

Aisha Contracting has a grade AA, the highest grade among contractor in Bahrain awarded by the government. It has several projects from both private sectors and private sector. With the highly skilled people recruited by the company, it developed many successful projects which recently includes The Supreme Council for Women, Nissan Garage in Sitra, Gulf Hotel, RUF Automobile Assembly Plant, Crescent Villas in Amwaj Island and the a multi-million Addax in Seef. It also built the 400 houses for the Ministry of Housing in Wadi Al-Sail and the Ebrahim Tower in Seef.

The financial capability of the company under the leadership of Aisha has been liquid although it has been affected by external factors such as political conflicts in the region and economic changes in the US and European countries. It has fully implemented the quality assurance to ensure reliability and safety among its customers.

A challenging scenario in Bahrain since the political unrest in 2011 is on its headway. There is a continued volatility in the market that results to the country instability. Capital flight and uncertainty undermine the confidence of the investors. The threat towards the economy is going into a “fiscal cliff” to the fragile construction business. Suddenly Bahrain has the sluggish market growth and the healthy property sector becomes a nutshell. Concurrently because of such scenario, the sector is faced with challenges on the social equilibrium which added to the crisis, The Bahrain Weekend News (2015)

 

There is a strain of cohesion with a threat of outside boundaries that yields to unemployment and constraints to the growing resources which has a direct impact on the business. However, the business is convinced that if the proper authority can address directly to these concern and the need to accelerate the fragile market through impending infrastructures the country will prosper in the long period of time. The strategic elements lies on Aisha’s Sustainable Plan and through this vision will double the revenue and business profit resulting to the positive growth. As stated on the plan, the evidence is clear that it will improve and accelerate growth that will certainly contribute to a strong year ahead from thereon to the future. 

For the year 2014, the turnover has increased by 10.5% taking through a BD200 Million to a significant BD500 million. The company has grown by 4 years of operation. Growth was broadly enhanced by a sound balance of price and location .Emerging markets like expatriates has a broad based in property making it as the primary structural engine for the second consecutive years by about 11% and accounts for 55% of the business. Despite the heavy investments in machineries and tools to support the infrastructure the growth is profitable of 0.5% in condominium market to the main margin of operation to 13.8%.
 
In line with the strategic priorities, the company has speeded to invest in office buildings continuously as the company key growth drivers that provides an income of BD150 million a year. The company has continued to strengthen its foothold by means of a joint venture with Bahrain Development Bank and disposed some of its non-performing equipments and businesses. The launching of the two constructed building in Seef area last year has been the company’s successful project adding to BD100 million turnovers.

 

The year 2016 was expected to be as hard and challenging. The company has reviewed and validates its Sustainable Plan strategy and believes that the strategy will work out. A strategy of re-establishing trust with the customers and meeting their needs is a signpost that the strategic planning will succeed. In line with this they focus on the sustainable corporate environmental responsiveness to address this challenges overtime. The company was accredited with ISO 14001 as part of their marketing strategy which guarantee the future in property sector with ambitions of the highest working partnership with suppliers and customers as a key to deliver a good and better relationships.

The company has played a major role in leadership by helping resolve some issues such as climate change. The company approach is to be recognized externally and a leader of the sector in Gulf Country and work as a catalyst organization. It seeks to be proud as a key player in the market where they operate. The company’s growth is sustainable and demonstrate the powerful purpose from where it stand that makes the company “fit to win” in the future scheme of endeavor.
 
The model is to sustain growth in the property sector. They have to address such issues towards the direction of innovative housing and a happy living. The company is duty bound to address such perspectives. The model content is sustainable growth and has a direct impact to the environment. The Company is to invest into an innovative housing in order to double their revenue and profits. To strengthen the components between the property buyers and the company, the equity must be strong to provide leverage by focusing on projects that are huge that improves margin and efficiency. This will drive a product that is superior and innovative that will drive profitable growth. In order to deliver such profitable growth the company deliver value by enhancing service to the customers and quality housing facilities for customers satisfaction and faster innovations to the market where they operates.
 
The company builds its leadership capabilities by attracting the best talent to support the sustainable model of business and becomes a tool to the regenerative development that gives life. This will reduce cost and improve marginal profit while sourcing the sustainable methods of developing products and the innovative opportunities to improve the lives of the employees.

Aisha also emphasizes that people is the most important at the heart of the organization. They will pursue a sustainable competitive advantage by building their potential through training and development. It requires a challenging set by redefining their capabilities and understands the reality about the organization. Trust and inspiration are the key components that influence them to work with precision and build a model among peers at work.

 

The company has to realize that respect shares the common characteristics of a good organization. The model of open system can enhance relationships and continuous interaction and communications with both the external and internal environment on which they are a part. What really arises in the structure of organization of the company is the way people integrate according to their psychological and social needs. The most urgent characteristic is influence by high morale, satisfaction at work, motivation and performance at work.

There appear to have a reflection of complete harmony in the climate of organization. The conflict is being handled and managed by the group and appropriate adoption of the strategies that could damage the harmful effect of conflict.

On a broader approach of leadership, satisfaction of the job aims to provide a person with greater autonomy to plan, execute and to control their work. It also gives a person with a job that is challenging and an opportunity for growth. The company permits freedom to schedule and pace their work. Giving the workers an opportunity to challenge their skills is to fully utilize their expertise to build their skills. Self management provides them with a greater responsibility to monitor their own performance at the minimal supervision.

Aisha believes that “ In an organization, empowerment means that each staff member is responsible for creating that organization’s culture. There aren’t many motivating forces more potent than giving your staff an opportunity to exercise and express their idealism,  Roddick M , (2013).

 

 References:

The Bahrain Weekend News; Bahrain’s Elite Business Entrepreneur, pp 13;14; March 2015 edition.

Padilla, J, Strategic Management, 2^nd edition, 2012; pp 345, Pearson

Roddick , Anita. Human Resource Management, 2^nd edition, p234, Pearson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Measuring Customer's Perception of E-Commerce Services in Bahrain by Jolito Ortizo Padilla

Measuring Customer’s Perception of E-Commerce Services in Bahrain by Jolito Ortizo Padilla

 

Note: Copyright Infringement is punishable by Law

 

1.1  Introduction

 

Developing profitable and long-term relationships with customers is a major objective in the e-commerce sector (Webster, 1992; Achrol, 1997). As a result, researchers focused on understanding the pre-requisites for establishing and maintaining long-term and profitable relationships with customers. The emerging area of “relationship marketing” underpins this focus. Within this area, the level of quality in the way a firm delivers its service to industrial customers has also become a central issue.

 In recent years, substantial research has examined the level of quality (and its dimensions) in the performance of a service. Research has found empirical support for the relationship between perceived service quality and business performance (Athanassopoulos et al., 2001; Caruana et al., 1995), probably reflecting the difficulty to imitate (e.g. Hise and Gabel, 1995).

 Consequently, a validated instrument to measure the customer’s perceptions about the service being delivered is crucial, especially since there is evidence which show that the customer’s evaluation of service quality and the resulting satisfaction/dissatisfaction is connected to repurchase, loyalty, and willingness to maintain a long-term relationship with the provider (Iacobucci et al., 1994; Athanassopoulos et al., 2001).

 Responding to this need, researchers have devised and examined various instruments to measure perceived service quality. Nonetheless, in the service realm, most of the research has focused on measuring service quality in the consumer sector and particularly using the Service Quality scale as developed and subsequently modified by Parasuraman et al. (2011) or some variation.

The application of this scale to the consumer sector contrasts sharply with the relative absence of studies employing it in the b2b context (e.g. Durvasula et al., 2012). Moreover, whenever Service Quality was applied results were mixed: While Pitt et al. (2011) report that the instrument’s reliability and validity scored well in the mainframe software sector, Durvasula et al. (2012) found the opposite. In fact, this led the authors to make a call for devising an instrument that will be designed to measure perceived service quality in the b2b context.

Responding to the need for developing and validating an instrument for measuring perceived service quality in the e-commerce context, this study attempts to do so by examining the psychometric properties of service quality vis-a` -vis an alternative measure, individual service. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. First, the differences between consumer and e-commerce services are discussed and the need for tailoring a e-commerce specific measure of perceived service quality is established.

 

Then, a brief discussion of the problems associated with the use of service quality is detailed. Following this, alternative approaches that have been considered in measuring perceived e-commerce services and an integration of these approaches into the suggested measure is offered. Next, the methodology and the analysis of the data are presented. The paper concludes with the discussion of the findings and the limitations and suggestions for future research sections.

 

Conceptualizing and measuring perceived service quality in the e-commerce context

 

The differences between consumer and industrial goods are well documented in the literature and an extensive review would be unessential. Very briefly, the differences in the buying behavior, the evaluation criteria for appraising alternative suppliers, the existence of buying centers are, among others, the most eminent distinctions of industrial buyers. As a result, the marketing effort and priorities of the producers vary accordingly. When it comes to b2b services, the context is even more dissimilar because of the fundamental characteristics of services: Their intangible nature and the inseparability between production and consumption.

 

For instance, services purchased from organizations e- commerce are provided by qualified professionals whose expertise and skills are key elements of the quality of the service provided (Yorke, 1990). They interact closely with managers from the buying organization and on a very frequent basis (Hausman, 2003). In addition, e-commerce services, are far more complex and require the management of a larger number of parameters to ensure their flawless provision and outcome (Lovelock, 1996). Jackson and Cooper (1988), also stress this increased demand for specialization.

1.2  Objectives of the Study

 

1.     The primary objective of the research is to measure the perception of the customers in e-commerce services in terms of service quality which is a critical concern in e-commerce because of its impact on the organizational customers’ own service to their customers.

2.     To evaluate the dimensions of perceived service quality in order to diagnose quality drawbacks in the service they deliver.

 

1.3  Importance of the Study:

 

Perceived quality is important because it is related with satisfaction which is known to influence positively the firm’s performance. Various studies have investigated the link between perceived service quality and buyer’s satisfaction and have demonstrated that satisfaction is related with the ability of the firm’s outcome to meet an optimum level on certain – specific characteristics that are of importance for the buyer. In turn, these characteristics are frequently referred to as “satisfaction drivers” and are at the core of the notion to perceived service quality, as opposed to laboratory quality (i.e. the level of quality depicted on the service blueprint) and delivered quality (i.e. the extent to which the firm’s ability to actually match the standards described in its blueprints). Given that overall satisfaction with the provision of a service is a function of the buyer’s degree of satisfaction with various aspects of the service offered, perceived service quality has been suggested to follow the same rational

 1.4 Research Methodology

 Data collection and sample

 To collect the data a questionnaire was mailed to four companies from different industries. Respondents were identified by approaching companies from four service industries, namely consultants offering middle and senior management training and recruitment services, banks offering corporate banking, software development and maintenance houses and consumer goods Company in the Kingdom of Bahrain. We then asked them to name their five most important customers in terms of the annual income they generate for the firm. We also asked for the details of the line manager of their client with whom they usually liaise more closely. In total, 80 service providers responded positively and collaborated. This process produced a list of four companies from various industries in Bahrain. Although the sample is clearly a cross-section one, such samples are frequently used in research efforts in order to increase the researchers’ ability to generalize. In fact two recent meta-analysis studies (Geyskens et al., 1998; VanderWerf and Mahon, 1997), report that that heterogeneity and the resulting increased variation that is present in cross-section data does not impede the researcher from drawing reliable conclusions because they transcend industry-specific methodologies (Makhija, 2003) as well as attitudes and values (Lowe et al., 2002) and, thus, allow the researcher to draw conclusions that can be generalized (Greene, 1997). With regard to the respondents, the line management positions more frequently were from senior management position (e.g. marketing and/or financial director).

 

1.5 Research Problem

 There are major issues concerning the perception of this service quality measure has been raised since it was originally introduced:

1.     The linkage between satisfaction and quality to assess perceived quality.  

2.     The increased demand for specialization, which in a way is a consequence of the increased customization that is required when serving organizational buyers. As a result, selecting, evaluating and deciding on the continuation of the relationship with a e-commerce service provider. (Jackson et al., 2012).  

1.6 Research Question:

There are questions that need to be answered and explored to resolve pertaining on how e-commerce in the service company can be perceived.

1.     What are the effects that the service offered created for the customer, after it has been implemented?

2.     What dimension of perceived service quality relates to the search attributes that customers use in order to evaluate the provider’s ability to perform the service before the relation has actually begun?

3.     How to capture the communal elements of the interaction between the managers from the companies, such as understanding customer’s needs and personality match?

1.7 Research Hypotheses

The researcher hypotheses measure the customer perception of E-Commerce Services in Bahrain are as follows:

 Ho – The perceived service quality is the main determinants of performance in E- Commerce transactions.

H1 – The perceived service quality is not the determinant of performance in E-Commerce transactions..

 

 

 

1.8 Limitation of the Study

 

1.     There is limited time duration of preparing the research study having only about five months to do the activity that result to inadequate structure of the concept.

2.     The distribution of the questionnaires to respondents greatly affects the research study. There are some respondents that take time to answer the questions due to the fact that they don’t have an immediate time to answer or are busy of their activities.

3.     Due to time constraints, the sample size is limited to only 50 respondents that affects the statistical elements of the findings.

4.     The travel time to distribute, follow up and collect the questionnaires to different companies also affects the research studies.

5.     The constraints that there will be having a continuation of the study in the future.

 

Chapter 2:

Theoretical Framework

 2.1 E-Commerce Services

 Service quality is a critical concern in e- commerce services because of its impact on the organizational customers’ own service to their customers. For instance, poor shipping services can have drastic consequences on the exports business of the organizations that may face loss of orders, increased claims, lower prices, delayed payments and generally lower supplier ratings (Mehta and Durvasula, 2000). Yet, as pointed by Asubonteng et al. (1996), little empirical work has focused on deriving or even empirically testing and validating an integrated instrument for assessing perceived quality in e-commerce service. On the contrary, the majority of the studies conducted in the e-commerce context employ the service quality  (Parasuraman et al., 1998 ) instrument which, originally, was developed using a sample of various consumer services. More importantly, although widely applied, this instrument has received heavy criticism on various issues, the most important of which are summarized in the following paragraphs.

Three major issues concerning e-commerce measure have been raised since it was originally introduced: The properties of the measurement, the linkage between satisfaction and quality and the use of gaps (difference scores) to assess perceived quality are perception on how e-commerce are being measured.

 

With regard to the properties of service quality, several studies report similar Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients for the five service quality dimensions (e.g. Babakus and Boller, 2012; Babakus and Mangold, 2012; Carman, 2000; Cronin and Taylor, 2000) and at least equally high as the Parasuraman et al. (2008) reported. These findings validate the internal reliability or cohesiveness of the scale items forming each dimension. However, the validity of the instrument has raised major concerns. Most studies imply greater overlap among the service quality dimensions – especially among responsiveness, assurance, and empathy (Peter et al., 2003) – than implied by Parasuraman et al. (1985), which puts the instrument’s discrimination validity under questioning. A detailed discussion on the issue is provided by Asubonteng et al. (1996). Convergent validity has also been questioned since the factor loading patterns in none of the studies are similar to those obtained by Parasuraman et al. (2008).

 

In addition, concurrent validity has also been questioned (e.g. Babakus and Boller, 1992; Brensinger and Lambert, 2000) and some interesting findings have been documented: For instance, Babakus and Boller (2002) found that perception scores have stronger correlations with other dependent measures (e.g. overall quality) than do the actual service quality scores   When it comes to the instrument’s link with satisfaction, a study in the health care context (O’Connor et al., 2004) reported that certain dimensions of the original e commerce  measure on service quality were not identified as significant predictors of customer satisfaction. With regard to the use of gaps (difference scores) to assess quality, Teas (2003, 2004) pinpoints two potential problems regarding discrimination validity that are associated with the use of difference scores. Since difference score measures are usually less reliable than non-difference score measures, they appear to possess discrimination validity simply because such measures are unreliable (Peter et al., 2003). Empirical findings have demonstrated that expectations about the performance of a service may change after it is used once (Halstead and Page 2002), which in turn reduces the reliability of a difference score based on those measures.

 Additionally, when using difference scores to predict some outcome (e.g. satisfaction), it is assumed that the components of the difference score have equal but opposite effects on the criterion variable (Edwards, 2004). A detailed discussion on the issue is provided by Page and Spreng (2002). Finally, many practical concerns have also been voiced (e.g. Cronin and Taylor, 2002, 2004) regarding the operations, since performance-only models have been found superior than difference scores (e.g. Babakus and Boller, 2002; Brown et al., 2003; Cronin and Taylor, 2002, 2004; Durvasula et al., 2009). In summary, the findings from studies provide some support for reliability and face validity for the service quality scores on the five dimensions. However, serious concerns have been raised regarding the validity of the instrument as well as the use of difference scores to assess service quality.

 

 

1.2       Contemporary developments in conceptualizing and measuring perceived service quality

A recent stream of research that has developed over the last few years treats perceived customer service as an individual construct. Spreng and Mackoy (2006) as well as Dabholkar et al. (2000) are among those researchers who have pursued this approach. More specifically, Spreng and Mackoy (2006) studied an integrated model of perceived service quality and satisfaction among students regarding their assessment of undergraduate advising. In that study, overall perceived quality was treated as an individual construct which was assessed by asking the respondents to evaluate the quality of the service they received with three seven-point scales anchored by “Extremely poor/extremely good”, “Awful/ excellent” and “Very low/very high”. Dabholkar et al. (2000) used a similar approach when assessing the quality. In their study, overall perceived quality was also treated as an individual construct measured through four items, namely, “excellent overall service”, “service of a very high quality”, “a high standard of service” and “superior service in every  way”, while factors such as service reliability, personnel attention are treated as antecedents to perceived service quality.

This approach in conceptualizing service quality has the merit that, in comparison to the more “traditional” approach, i.e. that service quality represents the congeries of different estimation of service quality; the assessment of perceived service quality is more simplified, particularly for practitioners. The latter, following this approach, have not to measure all the sub-components of perceived service quality. Instead, they can derive a more holistic appraisal of the quality of their offering and, given the limited length of the measure, do so more regularly (Dabholkar et al. 2000).

 On the other hand though, one has to notice that, in both studies that have treated perceived service quality as an individual construct, the measure of overall perceived service quality appears to be a tautology of the items that were employed in each case. For instance, one would have difficulty to tell how “excellent overall service quality”, when compared to “service of a very high quality” or to “a high standard of service”, delineates a different facet of the same phenomenon that the latter items capture. This view is in line with various efforts to obtain a direct measure of overall service (e.g. Babakus and Boller, 2000; Cronin and Taylor, 1992) using a single item measure while

it is also echoed by Dabholkar et al. (2000, p. 166) who concede that even for practitioners it is required to evaluate the antecedents/sub-dimensions of perceived service quality in order to diagnose quality drawbacks in the service they deliver.

 Service quality as a multi-level construct alternative approach in conceptualizing service quality has been proposed by Shemwell and Yavas (2009). In their view, perceived service quality is better conceptualized as a multilevel-hierarchical notion that is comprised of search, credence and experience attributes. Their conceptualization was validated in the consumer services context (health care services) and their study provided strong empirical evidence of face validity. A similar view is also proposed by Brady and Cronin (2011). Using the retail services as the frame of analysis, they investigated the possibility of conceptualizing perceived service quality as a three-level construct. In their view, service quality is comprised of three primary dimensions, each consisting of three sub-dimensions. Customers aggregate their evaluations of the sub-dimensions to form their perception of the firm’s performance on each of the three primary dimensions they propose. Then, these perceptions lead to an overall service quality perception (Brady and Cronin, 2011). In an attempt to bridge the different perspectives adopted by the so called “American” perception (based on the disconfirmation paradigm on which service quality was originally developed) with the “Nordic” one (which focuses on the technical and functional sub-dimensions of quality), the primary dimensions suggested by the authors are interaction quality, physical environment quality and outcome quality.

 The rationale behind this multilevel/multi-dimensional conception of service quality is rooted on the work of Carman (2009) who noted that customers tend to perceive service quality as the aggregation of different quality sub dimensions. Subsequent researchers (e.g. McDougall and Levesque, 2004; Mohr and Bitner, 2005; Carman, 2012) provided support to this approach, despite the divergence of their findings regarding the sub-dimensions that each study identified. It also must be noted that, in all previous studies that pursued this approach, the frame of analysis remained the context of retail services. The main disadvantage of this approach is that it makes it quite cumbersome for practitioners to measure perceived customer service since, before an overall evaluation can be derived, it is required to administer a lengthy instrument. On the other hand though, the conception and measurement of perceived service quality becomes robust since verbosity is avoided. Also, this approach is in-line with marketing theory regarding the multifaceted nature of many constructs, such as satisfaction, market orientation (e.g. Flynn et al., 2003; Kohli and Jaworski, 2000) and so on. Such constructs (global constructs), are comprised by distinct subcomponents (subconstructs) which, however, contain a significant amount of shared variance attributed to their common relation with the higher order global construct (Bagozzi and Heatherton, 2004)

 

It is also echoed by Dabholkar et al. (2000, p. 166) who concede that even for practitioners it is required to evaluate the antecedents/sub-dimensions of perceived service quality in order to diagnose quality drawbacks in the service they deliver. Service quality as a multi-level construct alternative approach in conceptualizing service quality has been proposed by Shemwell and Yavas (2009). In their view, perceived service quality is better conceptualized as a multilevel-hierarchical notion that is comprised of search, credence and experience attributes. Their conceptualization was validated in the consumer services context (health care services) and their study provided strong empirical evidence of face validity. A similar view is also proposed by Brady and Cronin (2011). Using the retail services as the frame of analysis, they investigated the possibility of conceptualizing perceived service quality as a three-level construct. In their view, service quality is comprised of three primary dimensions, each consisting of three sub-dimensions. Customers aggregate their evaluations of the sub-dimensions to form their perception of the firm’s performance on each of the three primary dimensions they propose. Then, these perceptions lead to an overall service quality perception (Brady and Cronin, 2011). In an attempt to bridge the different perspectives adopted by the so called “American” perception (based on the disconfirmation paradigm on which service quality was originally developed) with the “Nordic” one (which focuses on the technical and functional sub-dimensions of quality), the primary dimensions suggested by the authors are interaction quality, physical environment quality and outcome quality.

 

The rationale behind this multilevel/multi-dimensional conception of service quality is rooted on the work of Carman (2009) who noted that customers tend to perceive service quality as the aggregation of different quality sub dimensions. Subsequent researchers (e.g. McDougall and Levesque, 2004; Mohr and Bitner, 2005; Carman, 2012) provided support to this approach, despite the divergence of their findings regarding the sub-dimensions that each study identified. It also must be noted that, in all previous studies that pursued this approach, the frame of analysis remained the context of retail services. The main disadvantage of this approach is that it makes it quite cumbersome for practitioners to measure perceived customer service since, before an overall evaluation can be derived, it is required to administer a lengthy instrument. On the other hand though, the conception and measurement of perceived service quality becomes robust since verbosity is avoided. Also, this approach is in-line with marketing theory regarding the multifaceted nature of many constructs, such as satisfaction, market orientation (e.g. Flynn et al., 2003; Kohli and Jaworski, 2000) and so on. Such constructs (global constructs), are comprised by distinct subcomponents (subconstructs) which, however, contain a significant amount of shared variance attributed to their common relation with the higher order global construct (Bagozzi and Heatherton, 2004).

 

Chapter 3

Methodology

 3.1 Data collection and sample

 To collect the data a questionnaire was distributed to customers from different industries. Respondents were identified by approaching companies from four service industries, namely consultants offering middle and senior management training and recruitment services, banks offering corporate banking, software development and maintenance houses and freight shipping providers in the Kingdom of Bahrain. We then asked them to name their five most important customers in terms of the annual income they generate for the firm. We also asked for the details of the line manager of their client with whom they usually liaise more closely. In total, all of these service providers responded positively and collaborated. Although the sample is clearly a cross-section one, such samples are frequently used in research efforts in order to increase the researchers’ ability to generalize.

 In fact two recent meta-analysis studies (Geyskens et al., 1998; VanderWerf and Mahon, 2007), report that that heterogeneity and the resulting increased variation that is present in cross-section data does not impede the researcher from drawing reliable conclusions because they transcend industry-specific methodologies (Makhija, 2013) as well as attitudes and values (Lowe et al., 2012) and, thus, allow the researcher to draw conclusions that can be generalized (Greene, 2007). With regard to the respondents, the line management positions more frequently were from the management position (e.g. marketing, purchasing and/or financial director). The distribution of questionnaires produced 80 useable questionnaires (response rate about 100 percent). Non-response bias was investigated through a t-test between early and late respondents (Churchill, 2001). The analysis indicated absence of non-response bias.

 3.2 Variables measurement

With regard to the service quality instrument, the items were derived from the refined version published by Parasuraman et al. (2001). In this version five major dimensions are employed to capture the elements of perceived quality namely tangible elements, elements pertaining to the provider’s reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. All items were measured using a seven-point scale of agreement anchored “I strongly disagree” to “I strongly agree”. Yet, given the concerns and the criticism regarding the computation of difference scores that was presented in previous paragraphs, we assessed directly the service performance of the service providers as perceived by the respondents.

 The development of the individual (customers) service instrument was also based on known scales which were combined to form an alternative integrated approach to measure perceived service quality for e-commerce services. Thus, to measure soft and hard process quality the scales suggested by Kaynak et al. (2004) were employed. Potential quality was measured using the scale suggested by Bochove (1994) while the scales suggested by Halinen (1994) were employed to capture immediate and final outcome quality (a more detailed presentation of the items and descriptive statistics are offered in Figure 1.

 For validation purposes, other measures were also employed. Respondents were asked to use seven-point scales to indicate their overall satisfaction with their provider, their conception of the overall quality of the service they receive and their intention to develop a long-term commitment with the specific provider.

 

          Note: This is for reference purposes only. The final findings and data is with the  author..........................