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Service Quality
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Service Quality
Research Perspectives



November 2003 | 200 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
"This book is not a 'one-minute' guide for managers in search of alleged quick-fixes of service quality. Instead, it is thirty years of accumulated theory and research that can help serious students understand and analyze this complex phenomenon. The book succeeds in embedding the often overlooked customer within organization studies, using the interdisciplinary approach that scholars preach but seldom practice, and closing with an agenda for future research that others might even find worth pursuing."

                      --Dr. David E. Bowen, Professor of Management and Dean of Faculty and 
                                                                                                    Programs, Thunderbird

"Schneider and White promise to deliver insight into the intriguing intricacies of providing excellent services. They deliver sagacity, the intelligent application of knowledge. They do this by being eclectic, disciplined, and thoughtful... Facts about service – what it is, how it happens, what is required to make it better – thankfully dominate this book, supported by good thinking and good methods. No one interested in service quality should miss this book. There is no other book like it."

                                                 --Rick Guzzo, Ph.D., Mercer Human Resource Consulting

"The coverage is excellent. Among other things, it does a nice job of providing a rationale for why researchers and managers need to understand the perspectives of their customers."

                                                                     --Susan E. Jackson, Ph.D., Rutgers University

The last three decades have seen a dramatic increase in the attention businesses devote to their quality of service. Scholars and researchers in a number of disciplines, including marketing, human resources I/O psychology, sociology, and consumer behavior, have all made substantial contributions to understanding what service is, how service and service delivery quality are experienced by customers, and the role of employees and their organizations in service delivery. Service Quality: Research Perspectives presents a comprehensive overview and analysis of the field and its research, including its growth, emerging trends, and debates.

Authors Benjamin Schneider and Susan S. White cover the diverse conceptual and empirical approaches that characterize thinking and research on service quality, especially service delivery. It introduces the concept of service and the important ways service production can differ from goods production. It also presents a history of the concept of product quality and the emergence of concern for service quality.

Key Features 
  • Summarizes conceptual and empirical research from the marketing perspective on the measurement of service quality and customer satisfaction 
  • Deals with concepts and approaches to service characteristic of operations management, especially the role of customer variability in service production 
  • Introduces research promoting the linkage of service climate experienced by employees to the service quality experienced by customers 
  • Presents several HR/OB approaches to organizational design and useful frameworks for integrating ideas from marketing and operations management into HR/OB research 
  • Offers six key research questions that integrate three different perspectives and provide important avenues for additional analysis and research

 
Chapter 1 Introduction
Approach Of The Book

 
What Are Services

 
What Is Quality?

 
Why Is the Study Of Service Quality Important?

 
Overview Of The Rest Of The Book

 
 
Chapter 2 Conceptualization And Measurement Of Service Quality: Marketing Perspectives
Dimensions Of Service Quality

 
Gap Models And The Role Of Expectations In Service Quality

 
Overall Service Quality

 
Service Quality And Customer Satisfaction

 
Survey Development: An Integrated Perspective

 
 
Chapter 3 Service Operations And The Presence Of The Customer
The Customer Contact Model Of Service Delivery

 
Classification Of Services By Christopher Lovelock

 
Potential Benefits Of Customer Co-Production

 
Managing Variability Through A Focus On The Customer

 
Reducing Variability Through A Focus On The Facility

 
Linking Operational Procedures To Service Quality And Profits

 
Revenue Management

 
 
Chapter 4 A Service Climate
Defining Climate

 
Climate For Service

 
Linkage Research

 
Creating A Service Climate

 
 
Chapter 5 Where Are We And Where Do We Go From Here?
How Customers And Service Are Viewed In The Different Fields

 
Integrated Approaches From Services Management

 
Introducing Service Quality Into HR/OB

 
Conclusion: Future Research Agenda

 

"Schneider and White promise to deliver insight into the intriguing intricacies of providing excellent services. They deliver sagacity, the intelligent application of knowledge. They do this by being eclectic, disciplined, and thoughtful... Facts about service – what it is, how it happens, what is required to make it better – thankfully dominate this book, supported by good thinking and good methods. No one interested in service quality should miss this book. There is no other book like it."

Rick Guzzo, Ph.D.
Mercer Human Resource Consulting

"The coverage is excellent. Among other things, it does a nice job of providing a rationale for why researchers and managers need to understand the perspectives of their customers."

Susan E. Jackson, Ph.D.
Rutgers University

“This book is not a ‘one-minute’ guide for managers in search of alleged quick-fixes of service quality. Instead, it is thirty years of accumulated theory and research that can help serious students understand and analyze this complex phenomenon. The book succeeds in embedding the often overlooked customer within organization studies, using the interdisciplinary approach that scholars preach but seldom practice, and closing with an agenda for future research that others might even find worth pursuing.”  

David E. Bowen
Thunderbird

"At any point in time a limited number of research-based volumes will rise to the top of one's reading list. This reviewer predicts that this volume will be one of them for readers interested in the topic of service quality. Schneider and White combine their academic and professional expertise to present a highly intense, exceedingly well researched literature review on service quality. Clearly beyond the course text market, this volume is a must for one or more of the organizational sciences."

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Key features
  • Summarizes conceptual and empirical research from the marketing perspective on the measurement of service quality and customer satisfaction 
  • Deals with concepts and approaches to service characteristic of operations management, especially the role of customer variability in service production
  • Introduces research the linkage of service climate experienced by employees to the service quality experienced by customers Presents several HR/OB approaches to organizational design and useful frameworks for integrating ideas from marketing and operations management into HR/OB research
  • Six key research questions are presented that integrate three different perspectives and which provide important avenues for additional analysis and research