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primarios son deforestados cada ao. Esto equivale a la superficie de un estadio de ftbol cada segundo. El cambio climtico es un problema que nos afecta a todos, por lo que todos somos responsables de actuar al respecto. ESAN, escuela de negocios lder en el Per, asume un compromiso con el medio ambiente a travs de acciones concretas que contribuyan a preservar nuestro medio ambiente. Parte de este compromiso es la distribucin de materiales de la semana internacional en formato digital. Con su apoyo, reducimos el consumo de ms de 160 millares de papel, adems de tinta contaminante y folders plsticos. Cada accin cuenta en el cuidado de nuestro medio ambiente. Es el nico que tenemos y por eso agradecemos su colaboracin. Ahora piense en cuntos estadios de ftbol fueron deforestados en el tiempo que le tom leer esta declaracin.
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Torres-Moraga, E., Jara-Sarrua, L. y Moneva, J.M. (2008). Measuring supermarket service quality : proposal for a scale. International Journal of Services and Standards, 4 (1) pp. 8196.
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Measuring supermarket service quality: proposal for a scale Eduardo Torres-Moraga and Luis Jara-Sarrua
Faculty of Economics and Business Studies University of Chile Diagonal Paraguay 257, Santiago, Chile E-mail: eduardot@unegocios.cl E-mail: ljaras@fen.uchile.cl
Jose M. Moneva*
Department of Accounting and Finance University of Zaragoza Gran Via 2, Zaragoza, Spain E-mail: jmmoneva@unizar.es *Corresponding author
Abstract: The success of the retail industry and especially that of supermarkets is largely determined by the services they offer. Even though service quality scales have been developed in different sectors, because of the unique characteristics of supermarkets, it seems convenient to create a specific scale for them. The results of this study indicate that supermarket service quality is a multidimensional construct (made up of reliability, personal attention, assurance, hygiene, tangibility and accessibility) that is different from the standard constructs previously proposed. These results provide an important tool which enables the assessment and management of supermarket service quality. Keywords: service quality; supermarkets; satisfaction; structural equations; standards. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Torres-Moraga, E., Jara-Sarrua, L. and Moneva, J.M. (2008) Measuring supermarket service quality: proposal for a scale, Int. J. Services and Standards, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp.8196. Biographical notes: Eduardo Torres-Moraga holds a PhD in Business Administration from the Faculty of Economics and Business Studies at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. He is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Chile, Chile. His main research lines are service marketing and e-banking. Luis Jara-Sarrua is a PhD candidate in Economic and Business Sciences for the University of Zaragoza, Spain. At present, he is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Economy and Business of the University of Chile. His current research interests include corporate social responsibility and the retail industry.
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Introduction
Stiff competition in todays supermarket industry, the limited differentiation which can be attained by means of products sold and increasingly demanding customers have forced supermarkets to concentrate their efforts on providing a range of additional quality services for their customers. Service quality has become a fundamental issue for supermarkets, not just from an operational point of view but also from a strategic perspective. Well aware of this challenge, supermarket managers have centred their efforts on determining which factors best represent how customers perceive the service quality offered by these establishments and, at the same time, on using this information to improve service processes in order to provide satisfaction and eventually achieve customer loyalty (Abdul et al., 2007). Although related literature has proposed a series of models and scales to be used for determining service quality in different lines of business (Sasser et al., 1978; Grnroos, 1982; Rust and Oliver, 1994), it is the scale proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1988; 1991) which has been most widely accepted by researchers and marketing managers. Notwithstanding the fact that this scale (Servqual) has been used to assess supermarket service quality (Morales, 1999), it is known that its application cannot be generalised to all kinds of services (Carman, 1990). In fact, it needs to be adapted to the conditions of each industry, especially when it comes to the supermarket sector. Given the fact that supermarkets commercialise food, their dimensions could differ considerably from those which make up part of the Servqual scale, whose dimensions have proven to be highly relevant for other kinds of services. Thus, we believe it could be necessary to create a scale specially designed to assess supermarket service quality, that is to say, a scale which contains the specific items and dimensions to be applied to any company in this industry. The present study aims to design a scale with a high degree of reliability, validity and dimensionality to enable the assessment of supermarket service quality. By means of this instrument, supermarket managers will be able not only to assess the quality of the services they offer, but also to compare them with those of their competitors. In this way, the necessary actions may be taken in order to improve management and, consequently, to meet present and potential customer satisfaction. In order to achieve this objective, we first carry out an exhaustive analysis of the industry to construct a specific scale for supermarkets. Then, using the concept of the latent variable, we carry out a psychometric analysis of the data, which allows us to design an optimum scale to measure the service quality of supermarkets.
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Different models for assessing service quality have been proposed in the literature. In the 1970s, Sasser et al. (1978) proposed a model which integrated some factors that go beyond basic attributes. It considers that consumers translate their expectations into attributes associated not only with the base service but also with adjacent services. Later, Grnroos (1982) proposed a model which based service quality on two fundamental factors: 1 2 functional quality, which comes from the way service is provided to the customer technical quality, which is based on characteristics inherent to the service (for example, opening hours, check-out queues, product variety).
Grnroos (1982) considers functional quality a more determining factor than technical quality. In fact, he stated that interaction between the service provider and the customer builds the foundation of quality. Subsequently, Rust and Oliver (1994) added a third dimension to this model, which they called service environment. In addition to these models, we should highlight one of the most famous scales created to assess the quality of service (Parasuraman et al., 1988; Parasuraman et al., 1991). The Servqual scale considers service quality to be fundamentally made up of two elements: customer perception of service quality and the expectations that consumers have about a specific service. In an earlier study, Parasuraman et al. (1985) proposed ten dimensions made up of 97 items in their construct. All of them were used to assess both consumer expectations and perception. In a subsequent study, the ten dimensions were reduced to five (reliability, responsibility, empathy, assurance and tangibility), made up of a total 22 items or indicators (Parasuraman et al., 1991). Finally, Cronin and Taylor (1992) developed the Servperf scale, which is a modification of the Servqual scale, since the latter was not suited to assessing service quality. In their study, four different opinions were analysed in order to assess service quality based on variables proposed by the Servqual scale. The results enabled them to conclude that the Servperf scale is superior to the Servqual scale in several aspects. This conclusion has been further supported by subsequent studies (Brown et al., 1993; Boulding et al., 1993; Hartline and Ferrell, 1996; Avkiran, 1999).
The real effectiveness of the Servqual scale has been questioned in the literature (Robinson, 1999). Some authors have argued that this scale only assesses delivery processes and not service results, which is what should really be assessed (Buttle, 1996). Other authors have focused their criticism on the validity of the dimensions making up the scale, arguing that they have not been universally proven (Babakus and Boller, 1992) and that they are not as generic as the scales creators have proposed (Carman, 1990). Other criticisms have focused on expectations as a key factor in the assessment of service quality. Boulding et al. (1993) propose that performance alone should be used to measure service quality and not the gap that exists between performance and expectations. This criticism of the Servqual scale is directly related to the findings of
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Teas (1993) and Babakus and Manglod (1992). Both studies determined that there was little theoretical and empirical evidence to support the idea that customers value service quality in terms of the gap between performance and expectations and, in addition, determined that it is consumer perception (performance) which should be considered when it comes to assessing service quality. This result is backed up by the proposal of Avkiran (1999). According to this author, customers expectations are always higher than their perceptions, which turns the gap into something unavoidable, and therefore it would make no sense to use it to assess service quality. Some authors have been even more specific in their analysis, pointing out that what renders the Servqual scale inappropriate is its low discriminatory validity, a result of the high correlation it presents between expectations and performance (Brown et al., 1993). This does not occur with the Servperf scale. In addition, these authors argue that expectations, as opposed to performance, show a high average and low standard deviation, which restricts the variance of the Servqual scale. This was supported by Cronin and Taylor (1994), who found that assessment using the Servperf scale explains greater variance than the Servqual scale. Finally, it is relevant to mention that in addition to this criticism, the use of expectations by the Servqual scale has generated some problems even for questionnaire applications. The lengthy content of the questionnaire because of the separation of expectations and performance means that the person being interviewed is asked the same questions twice (Brown et al., 1993). This is not the case with the Servperf scale, since it reduces the number of questions by 50% (Teas, 1993) and thus facilitates the pooling of data and their effectiveness (Newman, 2001).
Methodology
In order to obtain a scale with enough reliability and validity, the procedure suggested by Deng and Dart (1994) was applied. The first stage consists of building an assessment scale and trying to ensure its content validity, in order to subsequently develop the questionnaire and pool data for a representative sample. The second stage consists of using the previously collected data to analyse the psychometric properties of the assessment scales. This procedure aims to identify the most suitable scales for assessing supermarket service quality. The Servqual scale proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1991) was used as the basis to develop a scale with a suitable degree of content validity. This scale was subsequently adjusted by means of an exhaustive analysis recommended by De Wulf and Odekerken-Schrder (2003). A series of analyses was used consisting of successive focus groups made up of customers from different sectors of the city of Santiago, Chile, as well as interviews with the marketing managers of different supermarkets. These activities permitted the analysis of the different dimensions and indicators included in the initial construct proposed by this study (Bagodi and Mahanty, 2007). This analysis enabled the addition of dimensions and/or indicators which more suitably represent supermarket service quality. It also enabled the readjustment and/or elimination of dimensions and/or indicators which are conflictive or redundant for the concept studied. The scale was finally made up of six dimensions and not the five proposed in the Servqual scale. To be precise, the dimensions of empathy and responsiveness (now called personal attention) turned out to belong to a single dimension and not separate
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ones as proposed in Parasuraman et al. (1991). Furthermore, two new dimensions (hygiene and accessibility), not considered in the Servqual scale, were incorporated. These new dimensions, especially hygiene, were very important for the participants in the focus groups. Lastly, we carried out a quantitative pretest on a random sample of 45 customers of different supermarkets, and with the data obtained, we carried out a factorial exploratory analysis and calculated the Cronbach alpha for each of the resulting dimensions. This prior analysis confirmed the existence of each of the dimensions that came from the focus groups. As a result, the definitive questionnaire was made up of 31 questions or items grouped into the dimensions of reliability, personal attention, assurance, hygiene, tangibles and accessibility (see the Appendix). These dimensions differ from those contained in the Servqual scale that has been used in previous studies to measure service quality in supermarkets (Morales, 1999). All the items of the scale were presented in a positive sense, and those surveyed were required to answer using a Likert scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). Service quality was assessed in keeping with the concept proposed by Cronin and Taylor (1992) in their Servperf scale. This consists of assessing service quality considering only consumer perception and not expectations. The field study was performed during June and July 2006 on a sample of 405 customers. The sample was representative of the market quotas of the supermarkets that operate in Chile. Of the people surveyed, 34.6% were between 25 and 35 years old and 40.5% between 36 and 55 years old. Fifty-four percent were women and 66.8% had some level of university studies.
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dimension produced a value of 0.74, personal attention 0.90, assurance 0.72, hygiene 0.90, tangibles 0.82 and accessibility 0.80. Notwithstanding these good results, one of the scales did not meet the minimum items-total subscale correlation of 0.3 established for this analysis (Nurosis, 1993). The ASSU4 variable, which belongs to the assurance dimension, showed a correlation of 0.29, below the determined limit. Therefore, this variable was eliminated in order to increase the internal consistency of the assurance dimension.
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Table 2
Absolute adjustment measures 2 (d.f.) P NCP SNCP RMSR RMSEA NNFI IFI CFI AIC Normed 2 PNFI Minimum Minimum Minimum < 0.08 Near 1 Near 1 Near 1 Minimum [1; 5] Maximum p>0.05 1051.38 (390) p 0.001 661.380 1.633 0.177 0.091 0.799 0.822 0.820 271.382 2.696 0.667 991.18 (362) p 0.001 629.180 1.554 0.176 0.092 0.805 0.828 0.826 267.183 2.738 0.672 942.16 (335) p 0.001 607.160 1.499 0.174 0.094 0.807 0.831 0.829 272.164 2.812 0.674 879.35 (309) p 0.001 570.350 1.408 0.173 0.095 0.814 0.838 0.836 261.345 2.846 0.678 795.89 (284) p 0.001 511.890 1.263 0.172 0.094 0.826 0.849 0.848 227.889 2.802 0.685
Figure 1
0.87 R2 =0.55 0.62 R2 =0.61
R2 =0.57 0.70 R2 =0.51 0.72 R2 =0.48 0.68 R2 =0.54 0.62 R2 =0.62 0.60 R2 =0.64 0.70 R2 =0.51
REL
0.74*
0.69* 0.73*
0.73 R2 =0.47
PER
0.80* 0.85*
0.56*
ASSU
0.66* 0.63* 0.67* 0.81*
0.75 R2 =0.44 0.59 R2 =0.65 0.59 R2 =0.65 0.50 R2 =0.75 0.49 R2 =0.76
HYG
0.46* 0.49* 0.76*
0.81* 0.86*
TANG1
0.78*
0.59*
0.87*
TANG2
0.70*
0.46*
TANG
0.75* 0.79*
TANG3 TANG4
ACC
0.60* 0.86*
ACC5
Note:
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A rival model strategy (Hair et al., 1998; Flavian and Guinaliu, 2006) was implemented in order to determine whether the service quality variable in a supermarket context is multidimensional. This compared two alternative models, a first-order model and a second-order model (Steenkamp and Van Trijp, 1991). The analyses indicate that the second-order model (which is the model in which the service quality construct is represented by six dimensions) shows better adjustment levels than the first-order model (in which all indicators are weighted into just one factor). This analysis confirms the multidimensionality of the service quality variable in a supermarket context.
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Figure 1, which represents the model coming from the sifting process applied by means of confirmatory factorial analysis, we can state that the correlations between the latent variables which make up the service quality scale are, in all cases, relatively high and significant at 0.01 (t > 2,58). The results, therefore, confirm the presence of convergent validity. The proposed scales will have discriminatory validity if the factors used to assess them are not valid to assess other constructs or, in other words, if they are more correlated between themselves than with other factors or latent variables which are less related to the studied concept. The Chi-squared difference test and the confidence interval test (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988) were used to determine the presence of discriminatory validity. The first test consists of comparing Chi-squared values between the model coming from the confirmatory factorial analysis and different alternative models. Each of the 15 alternative models which were compared with the model coming from the confirmatory factorial analysis were made up of the same dimensions contained in the resulting model, but with the difference that a perfect correlation was assigned to two of these dimensions. Discriminatory validity will exist when the Chi-squared difference produced by this comparison is significant. As indicated in Table 4, the differences between the theoretical model produced by confirmatory factorial analysis and the different alternative models are highly significant in the cases studied.
Table 4 Constructs Reliability (F1) Discriminatory validity test for the service quality construct Construct pairs F1, F2 F1, F3 F1, F4 Personal attention (F2) F1, F5 F1, F6 F2, F3 Assurance (F3) F2, F4 F2, F5 F2, F6 Hygiene (F4) F3, F4 F3, F5 F3, F6 Tangibles (F5) Accessibility (F6) F4, F5 F4, F6 F5, F6
2 (d.f.); p-value
30.712 (1); 0.000 72.762 (1); 0.000 44.852 (1); 0.000 73.726 (1); 0.000 78.783 (1); 0.000 86.918 (1); 0.000 374.34 (1); 0.000 164.559 (1); 0.000 194.886 (1); 0.000 135.404 (1); 0.000 150.407 (1); 0.000 151.350 (1); 0.000 98.913 (1); 0.000 113.584 (1); 0.000 50.685 (1); 0.000
Test differences
Confidence intervals 0.763; 0.911 0.501; 0.745 0.646; 0.830 0.526; 0.758 0.469; 0.717 0.572; 0.772 0.447; 0.671 0.479; 0.703 0.358; 0.614 0.441; 0.677 0.319; 0.595 0.322; 0.598 0.671; 0.835 0.682; 0.842 0.721; 0.881
In the case of the confidence interval test, there is discriminatory validity between the two latent variables when the confidence intervals produced by determining the correlation between latent variables do not include the value 1. Table 4 shows that in no case does the value 1 occur. In addition, in all cases, the correlations were considerably distant from this value.
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Therefore, with these results, we can state that the service quality model proposed shows discriminatory validity between the latent variables which make it up. Finally, criterion-related validity analysis aims to determine whether the concept analysed is related to the criteria values, which theory indicates they should be related to. Give that the data was pooled at the same time, a special kind of criterion-related validity will be applied, concurrent validity. To determine whether this type of validity is fulfilled, the hypothesis that service quality might influence customer satisfaction was proposed (Taylor and Bullard, 1993; Kristensen et al., 1999; Martensen et al., 2000; Subramony et al., 2004; Li et al., 2004; Liu and Yun, 2005; Sadig and Saeed, 2005; Trkyilmaz and zkan, 2007). This hypothesis was tested using the structural equations model.2 For this analysis, we used the service quality construct which came from the previous psychometric analysis of data, as well as a scale which was created to assess supermarket customer satisfaction. As can be seen in Figure 2, there is an evident cause-and-effect relationship between perceived supermarket service quality and customer satisfaction. In addition, both the explanatory capacity of the model (R2 = 0.80) and its adjustment levels (CFI 0.929; RMSR 0.084; IFI 0.930; NFI 0.911; NNFI 0.902) are high. This enables us to deduce that the supermarket service quality construct proposed shows adequate concurrent validity and, therefore, that the criterion-related validity of this concept is satisfactorily backed up.
Figure 2
0.64 R2 = 0.59 0.68 R2 = 0.53 0.80 R2 = 0.37 0.64 R2 = R2 = 0.59 0.62 0.62 0.68
Concurrent validity. Relationship between Service Quality (SQ) and Satisfaction (SAT)
REL PER ASSU HYG TANG ACC
0.77* 0.73* 0.61* 0.77* 0.79* 0.74* 0.44 = 0.80 R2=0.80 0.91*
SQ
0.90*
SAT
0.91* 0.83*
R2 = 0.54
Note:
Finally, considering all the analyses performed in this study, it can be concluded that the subscales finally proposed to assess supermarket service quality provide a suitable level of reliability, validity and dimensionality (see the Appendix).
This paper strives to contribute to the literature on the assessment of supermarket service quality, as perceived by consumers, in order to establish a starting point which will enable the managers of such organisations to establish closer relationships with their customers. From this point of view, the objective of this study was to develop a valid and reliable scale to assess supermarket service quality as perceived by consumers, different from the Servqual scale (Morales, 1999) used in previous research.
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Thus, the Servqual scale has only been considered as a starting point, incorporating adaptations suggested by experts and customers who justify the need to design a new scale in order to assess service quality for the industry. Given that the scale emerging from this study shows a good degree of reliability, validity and unidimensionality in each of its dimensions, we should point out some of the differences it has with respect to the Servqual scale, which has been used to measure supermarket service quality (Morales, 1999). One of the fundamental differences is that it incorporates the dimensions of accessibility and hygiene, the latter being especially relevant in this industry. The set of dimensions included in the scale proposed is completed with reliability, customer service, safety and tangibles. Therefore, the scale which was finally selected was made up of six subscales which are clearly related and integrated in one exclusive construct, demonstrating the latent and multidimensional nature of the supermarket context. In fact, this study proved that service quality can be assessed from different perspectives, all of which are integrated into one exclusive assessment instrument, applied to supermarket customers in this case. This creates important challenges for supermarket managers, since many factors must be considered at the same time when planning and managing service quality. Keeping these different dimensions in mind and appreciating their relative importance is essential nowadays, when differentiation has become a key consideration for supermarkets. In fact, these companies have made substantial efforts to provide more and better services for their customers, such as a greater number of checkouts, larger parking lots, internet purchasing services and home delivery. All these aspects contribute to forming a general but at the same time detailed perception of supermarkets in the mind of the consumer. The results of the empirical analysis carried out in this study indicate that supermarket marketing managers should focus especially on service reliability; customer service; safety of the building and surrounding areas; hygiene of the establishment, employees and food handling; physical facilities; and access to products and services provided by the supermarket. As for service quality management for this sector, it is essential that managers clearly understand the parts played by different elements which make up the quality of service offered by the supermarket and understand how consumer behaviour and trust change in the event of variations in each of the factors analysed. In short, we could say that, within the increasingly competitive context of supermarkets, managers must be well aware of the consumer perception of service quality when making strategic plans for their companies. Finally, it is important to highlight that it would be a good idea for future studies to further analyse the validity of this scale, attempting to test its discriminatory validity by carrying out alternative tests related to service quality concepts with other constructs significantly different from those analysed in this study. Similarly, it would be convenient to test the criterion-related validity analysis carried out in this study. This could be done by means of a predictive validity analysis to determine whether the service quality construct analysed is able to predict future variables other than satisfaction. Likewise, it would be interesting to repeat the study in other geographic locations in order to test more reliably the possibilities of scale extrapolation developed in this study.
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Acknowledgements
Jose M. Moneva acknowledges the financial support from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologa, the European Social Fund (research project SIRCARSO-SEJ2006-08317) and Gobierno de Aragn (GESES research group).
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Notes
1 According to Hair et al. (1998), for a reliability level of less than 95%, such as our case, and for a sample size of approximately 400 (405 in our case), the minimum value which each factorial loading should show over the main factor is 0.25. We must consider that, in this model, the scale which represents service quality is made up of six indicators. These indicators were calculated as the average of all the indicators which were finally selected after sifting the scales and which represent each of the service quality dimensions.
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