Qualidade Em Serviços

Quality management in service

firms: 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 benefit 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 figures 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

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Sustaining

structures of

TQS

389

Managing Service Quality

Vol. 15 No. 4, 2005

pp. 389-402

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0960-4529

DOI 10.1108/09604520510606853

. non-profit private services: for example, charities, churches, research

foundations, mutual societies, and art foundations; and

. for-profit private services: for example, utilities, hotels, airlines, architects,

restaurants, solicitors, retailers, entertainment, banks, insurance companies,

advertising agencies, consultancy firms, 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 find 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 firms. Service

quality, customer satisfaction and customer value have become the main concern of

both manufacturing and service organizations in the increasingly intensified

competition