Showing papers by "Chandrasekharan Rajendran published in 2001"

Customer perceptions of service quality: A critique

Abstract: Empirical research on service quality and satisfaction has unearthed multitudinous archetypes by various researchers across the world. However, all of them have been primarily built on the SERVQUAL instrument, a 22-item scale that measures service quality. The efficacy of SERVQUAL in measuring service quality has been criticized by different authors for diverse reasons, such as the operationalization of expectations, the reliability and validity of the instrument's difference score formulation and the scale's dimensionality across disparate industrial settings. In spite of these animadversions, there is a universal conformity that the 22 items are reasonably good predictors of service quality in its entirety. But a scrupulous scrutiny of the scale items connotes that the scale is not all-inclusive in the sense that it fails to address some of the critical aspects of customer perceived service quality. This paper endeavours to unearth and unravel such critical constituents of service quality which, hithert...

A holistic model for total quality service

Abstract: Total quality service (TQS) is a socio‐technical approach for revolutionary and effective management. However, the contemporary quality management literature is overridingly manufacturing oriented and there seems to be a dearth of comprehensive studies (from the management’s perspective) addressing the critical dimensions of TQS that will depict a holistic TQM philosophy in service organizations. The present study is an earnest endeavour to fill this void. Based on a thorough review of the prescriptive, practitioner, conceptual and empirical literature, the study has identified 12 dimensions as crucial for the inculcation of a TQM ambience in a service set‐up. The criticality of each of these dimensions from a service perspective is corroborated in detail. An instrument for measuring TQS with specific reference to the banking sector has been developed. Data have been collected from executives from banks in a developing economy. The instrument has been empirically tested for unidimensionality, reliability and construct validity using a confirmatory factor analysis approach. A model for TQS has also been proposed, illustrating the relationships between the various dimensions. The present research work offers a systematic framework for the conceptual and empirical understanding of TQS and its critical factors.

A Conceptual model for total quality management in service organizations

Abstract: The manufacturing landscape of the corporate world has undergone a quality revolution, resulting in a plethora of research works on the tools, techniques, critical dimensions and other organizational requirements for the effective implementation of total quality management (TQM). But the same cannot be said with certainty of service industry management. Research works on total quality service (TQS) is not exhaustive in the sense that there appears to be a vacuum in the literature as far as a holistic model (from the perspective of the management) is concerned. The present study is an attempt to fill this gap. Based on an extensive review of the vast literature on TQM and TQS, the study has identified 12 dimensions of TQS as being critical for effective implementation of quality management in service organizations. The momentousness of each of these dimensions from the manufacturing and service perspectives has been authenticated. The different roles that these dimensions play in the manufacturing and serv...