MEASURING B-TO-B SERVICE QUALITY AND RELATIONSHIP PERFORMANCE: SCALE DEVELOPMENT AND MODEL TESTING
pp.1082-1084
Introduction
Service quality is becoming an important business factor even in the business-to-business markets. Actually, the various service factors such as technical level, lead time and after-sales service play the role as the important factors regarding decision making on purchasing other than price in the trade of B2B market. Most researches that measure the service quality in service field have focused on B2C consumer goods and the limited number of researches are only being carried out regarding the service quality in B2B area. Initial studies in B2B borrowed the service quality scale that was made mainly based on consumer goods (Gounaris 2005) by partially using the measure of SERVQUAL that was developed and collected by Parasuraman et al. (1988). In this study, we tried to investigate two main objectives: (1) develop the measurement scale to facilitate assessments of B-to-B service quality and (2) investigate the structural model which deals with the relation between the service quality and B2B relationship performance. Considering that most previous researches about service quality were conducted in the business-to-consumer area, this study conceptualizes the various quality aspects of service that are considered in B2B market and proposes our research model which is the detailed quality measurement scale of B2B service. We developed a measurement scale called B-SERVQUAL for B2B service quality and tested research hypotheses and structural model.
Conceptual background
This study carried out the comparative analysis against the measured items of previous researches and the contents acquired from the qualitative research. Various different measuring items and aspects related with service quality evaluation can be drawn out through the in-depth interview with companies’ purchasing staffs. To develop items for B2B service quality scale, we followed the procedure proposed by Churchill(1979), and Gerbing and Anderson(1988). First, in-depth interview with purchasing staffs was performed regarding transaction experience with B2B service providers. As proposed by Homburg and Garbe(1999), B2B service was classified into professional service that is provided by service expert company and industrial service that is provided by manufacturer of machine equipment. The responders were instructed to answer some important factors required to evaluate service providing company and items for current service provider to improve. After performing the pre-test with the filtered measuring items, the scale of service quality specialized for B2B service was developed after checking reliability and validity of measurement items. Based on such results of pre-test, we finally carried out the survey of respondents of B2B companies. Our final scales to measure the service quality were composed of 5 factors with 19 items such as economic quality, technical quality, process quality, empathy quality and convenience quality. We determined to call this scale ‘B-SERVQUAL’.
Research design
We developed research hypotheses and proposed our research model to analyze the effects of service quality on relationship performance in B-to-B market. To verify the sets of hypotheses and study model, we conducted questionnaire survey, targeting the personnel in purchase departments of public corporation and in the field of distribution/logistics, financial services, construction, manufacturing (electricity / machine, textile leather, food). A total of 250 questionnaires were distributed directly or through mail and 230 responses were used for the final analysis.
Result and conclusion
Through the confirmatory factor analysis, reliability and validity of the study constructs were verified. By using the structural equation model, research hypotheses were tested and most research hypotheses were statistically significant and accepted. The final research model also showed the statistical significance with the goodness-of-fit indices. We found that service quality has a positive effect on relationship bonding, indicating that the superior service quality of service providers leads relationship bonding with buyers. Five dimensions considered in this study bring not only structural bond but also the social bond that refers to the emotional bonding. Relationship bonding has a positive effect on commitment. Relationship commitment appeared to be an important factor that has a positive effect on relationship performance, which demonstrates the reduction of management cost through commitment. This study reflected the economic and convenience aspects of services that haven’t been highlighted in the previous studies in the business marketing area. This study has academic implications in that it reflected the economic aspects of services, which have been dealt with conceptually by some scholars such as profitability, productivity, and cost. From the viewpoint of B2B service providers, the B-SERVQUAL proposed in this study will be helpful guide for B2B marketers to specifically identify the customers’ needs and manage their service quality in the business market.