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IJQRM 28,5

Bank Service Quality (BSQ) Index

An indicator of service performance
Firdaus Abdullah, Rosita Suhaimi, Gluma Saban and Jamil Hamali
Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Sarawak, Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose This study aims to design and validate a new measuring instrument of service quality, and ultimately to establish a national service quality index for the banking sector. The primary contribution is the insight offered regarding what factors affect service quality and the BSQ Index, a national indicator reecting the level of service quality within the banking sector. Design/methodology/approach A total of 3380 questionnaires were distributed to the customers of 21 commercial and Islamic banks, of which only 1,519 were deemed usable, yielding a response rate of 44.9 per cent. The proposed 29-item instrument has been empirically tested for unidimensionality, reliability and validity using both exploratory and conrmatory factor analysis. Findings A factorial analysis suggests that service quality has three dimensions namely Systemization, Reliable Communication and Responsiveness, and subsequent multiple regression analysis revealed that Systemization is the most important service quality dimension within the banking sector. The overall weighted BSQ Index of 4.00 implies that banking customers are generally pleased with the quality of services rendered by banking institutions. Practical implications The new Bank Service Quality Index (BSQ Index) is expected to be an important complement to traditional measures of economic performance, providing useful information to the banking institutions, shareholders, investors, government regulators, and customers. This composite index shall become an indicator reecting the level of service quality in the banking institutions. Originality/value The results from the current study are crucial because previous studies have produced scales that bear a resemblance to SERVQUAL, a generic measure of service quality, which may not be totally adequate to assess the perceived quality in the banking sector. Thus, the present study captured customers evaluation of service quality in a 29-item questionnaire exclusively adapted to the unique nature of the banking sector. Keywords Quality, Indexing, Banking, SERVQUAL, Customer service management, Malaysia Paper type Research paper

542
Received May 2010 Revised November 2010 Accepted November 2010

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management Vol. 28 No. 5, 2011 pp. 542-555 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0265-671X DOI 10.1108/02656711111132571

Introduction The nancial services industry is changing rapidly. Technology, government regulation, and increasing customer sophistication are forcing nancial service institutions to re-evaluate their current business practices. Financial institutions across the globe are re-examining how they are meeting their customers needs today and developing business plans needed to align them strategically to remain competitive and protable in the future. Service quality in banking has recently become a topic of interest for academicians and researchers alike despite being considered markedly important over the years. Such interest may be the result of a reduced customer base and decreased market share affecting a portion of the banking industry (Bowen and Hedges, 1993). Banks that excel in quality service can have a distinct marketing edge since improved levels of service quality are related to higher revenues, increased cross-sell ratios, higher customer retention (Bennett and Higgins, 1988), and expanded

market share (Bowen and Hedges, 1993). Likewise, provision of high quality services enhances customer retention rates, helps attract new customers through word of mouth advertising, increases productivity, leads to higher market shares, lowers staff turnover and operating costs, and improves employee morale, nancial performance and protability ( Julian and Ramaseshan, 1994; Lewis, 1989, 1993). Therefore, delivering quality service to customers is a must for success and survival in todays competitive banking environment (Samli and Frohlich, 1992). A review of literature indicates that there are many areas of disagreement in the debate over how to measure service quality. Recent research has raised many questions over the principles on which the instruments are founded. The use of existing measures, in particular SERVQUAL as a means of measuring service quality throughout the marketing sectors may have been tested with some degree of success, but this may not be the case for other service sectors, particularly the banking sector. As such, it may not be fruitful to continue pursuing the development of a standard measurement scale applicable to a wide variety of services. Instead, an instrument that is exclusively designed for a particular industry is a more viable research strategy to pursue. It is against this backdrop that a new service quality measurement instrument is developed and tested empirically, and eventually forms the basis for capturing the authentic determinants of service quality within the banking sector. In an effort to promote quality and create a more competitive and market oriented banking sector, BSQ Index reecting the level of service quality is proposed. The new index is expected to be an important complement to traditional measures of economic performance, providing useful information not only to the banking institutions themselves, but also to shareholders and investors, government regulators, and customers. Research background Many researchers (Parasuraman et al., 1985; Carman, 1990; Bolton and Drew, 1991) concur that service quality is an elusive concept, and there is considerable debate in literature about how best to conceptualise this phenomenon. They seem to come to an agreement that a comprehensive denition of service quality is notoriously difcult to produce. However, they acknowledge that service quality is a dynamic, multidimensional concept, incorporating a number of aspects of both past and present service experience. Nonetheless, there seems to be a broad consensus that service quality is an attitude of overall judgement about service superiority, although the exact nature of this attitude is still obscure. It is a well-established argument in the literature that a person learns about a concept and at the same time forms an attitude towards the concept. A substantial number of empirical studies on bank service quality were sighted in the literature, however most of these studies measured service quality by replicating or adapting the SERVQUAL model (Kumar et al., 2010; Petridou et al., 2007; Jabnoun and Al Tamimi, 2003; Blanchard and Galloway, 1994; MacDougall and Levesque, 1994a, b; Newman and Cowling, 1996; Athanassopoulos, 1997; Lloyd-Walker and Cheung, 1998; Marshall and Smith, 2000). However, the SERVQUAL model was questioned for its conceptual suitability by several authors. Carman (1990) and Babakus and Boller (1992) noted that the ve dimensions are not generic, and that they should be industry-specic. Both authors argued that some dimensions required expansion in order to capture service quality adequately across different services, and that service

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quality is a simple unidimensional construct in some context, but a complex multidimensional construct in others. Whereas the reliability and validity of SERVQUALs difference score formulation has been questioned by Babakus and Boller (1992) and Brown et al. (1993), and that SERVQUALs dimensionality has not proved universal. Likewise in the banking context, Lam (1995) reported some problems with the dimension of SERVQUAL thus raised a fundamental question of what is SERVQUAL measuring. The insufciency of SERVQUAL being a measure of service quality raised concerns whether SERVQUAL really is a reliable measure of service quality or, indeed whether it is measuring service quality at all. Seth et al. (2005) recognized that the outcome and measurement of SERVQUAL were dependent on type of service setting, situation, time and number of encounter, competitive environment and needs. Perhaps the most comprehensive study thus far was conducted by Avkiran (1994), who developed a utilitarian multi-dimensional instrument, for measuring customer-perceived quality, of retail branch banking. Berry et al. (1988) noted that most nancial institutions are alike in the services provided to their customers, and as they grow there is a tendency for service to give way to volume delivery to enhance protability. These large banks appear to have mistakenly concluded that quality service caused prots to erode. It would appear that service quality could make a difference according to Lewis (1993), who noted that service quality leads to reduced costs, increased protability, and other benecial elements. Acquiring customers and having them leave is not only disconcerting but it is counterproductive, and a prot drain on the organization. In todays banking environment, banks protability levels have been compressed due to increased competition and spread reductions. Banks once relied on products to make their prot margin in a highly regulated industry, and the customers basically were on the sidelines, but today, banks are driven by customers, who demand service quality (Stone, 1995). Berry et al. (1988) observed that quality of service is very important in separating competing businesses in the retail sector as well as in banking. Banks seeking to maximize protability have come to realize that good quality helps a bank obtain and keep customers and poor quality will cause customers to leave a bank. Lewis (1993) found that service quality was one of the most effective means of establishing a competitive position and improving prot performance. To establish a competitive position, it was noted by Hall (1995) that banks must measure and determine their level of service quality, if they desire to keep their customers and satisfy their needs. There have been a large number of researchers who identify service quality as a primary means of providing a competitive advantage to banks, and according to Soteriou and Stavrinides (1997) the importance of service quality has been documented in numerous studies. Research design and methodology This study aims to design and validate a new measuring instrument of service quality, and ultimately to develop a national service quality index for the banking sector in Malaysia. The stages involved are shown by means of the ow chart in Figure 1. The draft questionnaire consisted of four sections namely A, B, C and D. Section A contained ten questions pertaining to respondent prole. Whereas section B contained 31 items related to different aspects of banks service offering, and the items were

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Figure 1. Developing Bank Service Quality (BSQ) Index

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presented randomly as statements on the questionnaire, with the same rating scale used throughout. The items will be measured on ve-point Likert-type scales that vary from 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree. Multistage sampling procedure was used for the study. A total of 3,380 customers from 21 banking institutions were selected, from whom 1,519 corrected and completed questionnaires from 14 banks had been obtained, yielding a response rate of 44.9 per cent. The high response rate was due to the personal contact approach used followed by frequent follow-ups with the contact persons. Factor analysis Both exploratory and conrmatory factor analyses were used to assess the dimensionality of the service quality measure. One critical assumption underlying the appropriateness of factor analysis is to ensure that the data matrix has sufcient correlations to justify its application. A rst step is visual examination of the correlations, identifying those that are statistically signicant. All correlations are above 0.30, which is considered substantial for factor analysis (Hair et al., 1995). Furthermore, an inspection of the correlation matrix reveals that practically all correlations are signicant at p , 0:01, and this certainly provides an excellent basis for factor analysis. The next step involves assessing the overall signicance of the correlation matrix with Bartlett test of sphericity, which provides the statistical probability that the correlation matrix has signicant correlations among at least some of the variables. The results were signicant at p , 0:01, x 2 31; N 1519, which further conrmed that the data were suitable for factor analysis. Finally, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy was computed to quantify the degree of intercorrelations among the variables, and the results indicate an index of 0.98, a marvelous sign of adequacy for factor analysis (Kaiser, 1970). As for the adequacy of the sample size, there is a 49-to-1 ratio of observations to variables in this study. According to Nunnally (1978), the ratio for adequate sample size should be at least 10:1, which, in this case falls well within the acceptable limits. Exploratory factor analysis All the 31 items from Section B of the questionnaire were subjected to factor analysis, utilizing the maximum likelihood procedure, which was followed by a varimax rotation. The decision to include a variable in a factor was based on factor loadings greater than ^0:5 (Hair et al., 1995), and all factors whose eigenvalues was greater than 1.0 were retained in the factor solution (Tabachnick and Fidell, 1989). The next step was to assess the communality of each variable in order to decide which item loadings are worth considering in interpreting the factors. The variables communality, which represents the amount of variance accounted for by the factor solution for each variable was assessed to ensure acceptable levels of explanation. The results show that communalities in ve variables were below 0.50, [. . .] too low for having sufcient explanation (Hair et al., 1995, p. 387). Subsequently, corrected item-total correlation analysis was performed to determine which of the ve items with low communalities to be eliminated. In a reliable scale all the items should correlate with the total, thus items with low correlations or less than 0.30 (Field, 2005) may have to be dropped. Results showed that the corrected item-total correlation values of two

variables were 0.13 and 0.30 respectively, unacceptable due to low correlations with the overall score from the scale. Therefore, two variables were dropped from the scale leaving only 29 items in the nal questionnaire. Table I shows the results of the factor analysis in terms of factor name, the variables loading on each factor and the variance explained by each factor: Factor 1: Systemization of service delivery This factor relates to systematic and orderly arrangement of banks service delivery ` -vis their customers through effective, standardized and simplied procedures and vis-a processes. Factor 2: Responsiveness This factor describes the desire, willingness and readiness to assist customers and deliver prompt service. It suggests the importance of employees exhibiting a pleasant, courteous and friendly behavior in service delivery so as to instill condence among customers. Factor 3: Reliable communication This factor emphasizes the necessity to communicate and perform the services in a dependable, reliable and understanding manner. It is also concerned with the ability to ensure customers condentiality in banking transactions, and service personnel exhibiting professionalism, sympathy and reassurance when dealing with customers. Conrmatory factor analysis Table II shows the t indices using Chi-square test, GFI, AGFI, CFI, NNFI, IFI and RMSEA. The Goodness-of-Fit statistic (GFI) was generally considered as the most reliable measure of absolute t in most circumstances (Diamantopoulos and Siguaw, 2000). A GFI and AGFI value range between 0 and 1 and values of . 0:90 are usually taken as reecting acceptable t. In this model, the GFI 0.92 and the AGFI 0.90 indicating an evidence of unidimensionality for the scales. Next are Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI) and the Comparative Fit Index (CFI). Bentler and Hu (1999) have suggested NNFI value $ 0:95 as threshold. In the present model, the NNFI value is 0.99, an indication of a good t. The next t measure is the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), a revised form of the NFI, which takes into account sample size (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007). Bentler and Hu (1999) have also suggested that a CFI value of $ 0:95 is considered as indicative of good t and in the present model, the CFI value is 0.99, which implies that there is a strong evidence of unidimensionality for the factors (Sureshchandar et al., 2001). The next measure to consider is the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA). As reported in Table II, the RMSEA value for the three-factor model was 0.06, an evidence of reasonable t to the data. Therefore, it was concluded that the three-factor service quality model ts reasonably well and represents a close approximation in the population. Reliability analysis In this study, two internal consistency estimates of reliability namely coefcient alpha and split-half coefcient expressed as Spearman-Brown corrected correlation were

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Variables 1 Availability of nancial products and services at branches 2 Convenient operating hours and days 3 Provides services at time it promised to do so 4 Provides services right the rst time 5 Prompt service 6 Willingness to help and readiness to respond to request 7 Values and uses customers feedback to improve service delivery 8 Instill condence through behavior 9 Pleasant, courteous and friendly employees 10 Knowledge and competency to answer specic queries and request 11 Effective customer complaint procedures and processes 12 Provides caring and individual attention 13 Highly standardized and simplied delivery process 14 Technological capability and innovation 15 Atmosphere gives positive impression 16 Physical layout allows comfortable interaction 17 Artifacts are visually appealing and useful 18 Employees have neat and professional appearance 19 Good service at reasonable cost while maintaining quality 20 Allows customers to realize unexpressed needs 21 Branch locations in most convenient places 22 Promotes ethical conduct and CSR 23 Ensure condentiality 24 Knows customers need and how to satisfy them 25 Sympathetic and reassuring 26 Keeps accurate records 27 Efcient e-banking, phone banking and ATM facilities 28 Communicate in an understandable way 29 Services are dependable and reliable Eigenvalues % of variance Cumulative %

Factor 1: Systemization of Factor 2: Service Delivery Responsiveness

Factor 3: Reliable Communication

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0.541 0.560 0.692 0.753 0.524 0.605 0.643 0.530 0.627 0.533 0.605 0.536

0.591

0.573 0.537 0.545 0.600 0.508 0.575 0.518 0.686 0.610 15.146 52.227 52.227 1.241 4.278 56.504 1.107 3.817 60.322

Table I. Results of factor analysis (factor loadings)

computed for the three service quality constructs. An alpha value of 0.70 and above is considered to be the criteria for demonstrating internal consistency of new scales and established scales respectively (Nunnally, 1978). The values for both the coefcient alpha and split-half coefcient for all the service quality constructs are shown in Table III. All the values meet the required prerequisite of 0.70, thereby demonstrating that all the three constructs are internally consistent and have satisfactory reliability values in their original form (see Figure 2). Validity test Given that the questionnaire had been appropriately designed through a comprehensive review of relevant literature then ned-tuned based on the suggestions from various experts, both the face and content validity of the instrument were ensured (Bohrnstedt, 1983; Kaplan and Sacuzzo, 1993). Table IV displays the correlations among the three dimensions of service quality. The correlation coefcient values range from 0.77 to 0.80 and this indicate a moderate positive relationship between the three dimensions of service quality indicating evidence of convergent validity. In addition to that, multicollinearity was not a threat since the correlation value is less than 0.8 (Kline, 1998). A Chi-square difference test was employed to test the scale for discriminant validity. In this test, all the discriminant validity checks on the three service quality constructs have been conducted. All the tests were statistically signicant at the p 0:01 level thus indicating that all the three factors are distinct constructs, a strong indicator of discriminant validity. While criterion-related validity was established by correlating the constructs scores with three criteria namely service quality level, satisfaction level and loyalty. Table V indicates that all the constructs have a signicant positive correlations with the overall service quality, satisfaction level and loyalty. Hence, criterion-related validity is established for all the three factors.

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Dimension Chi-square (x ) (p 0:01) Degree of freedom df 206 Goodness-of-t index (GFI) Adjusted goodness-of-t index (AGFI) Comparative t index (CFI) Non-normed t index (NNFI) Incremental t index (IFI) Root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA)
2

Fit indices 1,313.23 0.92 0.90 0.99 0.99 0.99 0.06

Table II. Unidimensionality for service quality constructs

Dimension Systemization Responsiveness Reliable communication

Cronbach alpha (a) 0.90 0.91 0.90

Split-half coefcient (r) 0.86 0.90 0.87 Table III. Reliability for service quality constructs

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Figure 2. Path diagram of the three constructs of service quality

Multiple regression analysis The regression model considered the service quality level as a dependent variable and the service quality scores for the individual dimensions as the independent variables. A multiple regression analysis was subsequently conducted to evaluate how well the three dimensions predicted service quality level. The linear combination of the three dimensions was signicantly related to the service quality level, R 2 0:52, adjusted R 2 0:51, F 3; 1350 477:02, p 0:01. The sample multiple correlation coefcient was 0.72, indicating that approximately 52.8 per cent of the variance of service quality level in the sample can be accounted for by the linear combination of the three dimensions. Table VI shows the results of the regression analysis where the dependent variable was service quality level measured on a scale ranging from 1 very poor to 5 excellent. The resultant output had an adjusted R 2 of 0.51 (p 0:01) and yielded three dimensions contributing signicantly towards explaining the variance in the overall service quality level. All the bivariate correlations between the three dimensions and the service quality level were positive, and all the dimensions were statistically signicant (p , 0:01). Systemization is found to be the most important dimension of service quality in the banking sector, accounting for 10.7 per cent of the variance of service quality level followed by Reliable Communication and Responsiveness with 6.4 and 2.3 per cent respectively. BSQ index The weighted Banking Service Quality Index (BSQ Index) is calculated as: ! mj n X X wj X ij BSQ Index
j1 i1

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where, Wj Xij Standardized regression weight for dimension j Perception of performance for item i in dimension j

Dimension Systemization (SYS) Responsiveness (RES) Reliable communication (REL)

SYS 1.00 0.77 0.80

RES 0.77 1.00 0.77

REL 0.80 0.77 1.00 Table IV. Correlation matrix of service quality dimensions

Dimension Systemization Responsiveness Reliable communication

Satisfaction level 0.64 0.58 0.63

Service quality level 0.59 0.56 0.60

Loyalty 0.61 0.57 0.60 Table V. Correlations between the three factors and the criteria

Note: All correlations are statistically signicant at 0.01 level

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Mj N

Number of items in dimension j Number of dimensions in BSQ scale

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The dimensional weights are standardized coefcients b derived from multiple regression analysis. The weight reects the relative inuence of individual service quality dimensions based on customer perception (Parasuraman et al., 1988, 1991). The overall weighted score shall be within the range of 1 to 5 as per the ve-point Likert scale used in the instrument, where 1 very poor, 2 fair, 3 average, 4 good, and 5 excellent. The results of BSQ Index computation are shown in Table VII. The overall weighted BSQ Index is 4.00, and this implies that banking customers in Malaysia are generally pleased with the quality of services rendered. Conclusions The primary contribution of this study is the insight offered regarding what factors affect service quality and the BSQ Index, a national indicator reecting the level of service quality within the banking sector. This paper has also sought to contribute further to the fast growing literature on service quality by advancing a new 29-item measuring instrument, specically tailored for the banking sector. Such valid and reliable measuring scale would be a tool that banking institutions could use to improve service performance in the light of increased competition and uncertainty in the global nancial markets. The results from the current study are crucial because previous studies have produced scales that bear a resemblance to SERVQUAL, a generic measure of service quality, which may not be totally adequate to assess the perceived quality in the banking sector. Thus, the present study captured customers evaluation of service quality in a 29-item questionnaire exclusively adapted to the unique nature of the banking sector. The results conrmed that the three dimensions namely systemization, reliable communication and responsiveness were distinct and conceptually clear. Therefore, banking institutions should be able to assess all the dimensions of service quality to

Dimension Systemization Reliable communication Responsiveness Note: * Signicant at 0.01 level

Standarized coefcients (b) 0.33 * 0.29 * 0.15 *

Rank 1 2 3

Table VI. Relative importance

Dimension Systemization Reliable communication Responsiveness Weighted BSQ Index

Mean score 3.91 4.05 4.10

Standarized coefcients b 0.33 0.29 0.15

Weight 0.42 0.38 0.20

Weighted score 1.64 1.54 0.82 4.00

Table VII. Weighted BSQ Index

ascertain the level of services provided, and to determine which dimensions need improvement. Evaluating service quality level and understanding how various dimensions impact overall service quality would ultimately enable the banking institutions to efciently design the service delivery process. While many service quality attributes may inuence a customers perception to a certain extent, the results indicate that one attribute has a greater impact on the overall perception of service quality. Systemization which relates to such aspects as systematic and orderly arrangement of banks service delivery has signicantly inuenced the overall service quality perception. In other words, customers perceived systemization of service delivery to be more important than other dimensions in determining the quality of the service that they received. However, ndings suggest that banking institutions should also put emphasis on other service quality dimensions such as reliable communication and responsiveness. It is important for these institutions to provide adequate service on all dimensions, and then possibly to ascertain which dimensions may require greater attention. Results of the study reveal that reliable communication and responsiveness have a direct bearing on perceptions of quality. In terms of reliable communication, banks should be able to communicate and perform their services in a dependable, reliable and understanding manner to ensure customers condentiality, and service personnel exhibiting professionalism, sympathy and reassurance when dealing with customers. As for responsiveness, banks employees must have the desire, willingness and readiness to assist customers and deliver prompt service. The overall weighted BSQ Index, which stood at 4.00 implies that customers are generally pleased with the quality of services rendered by banking institutions in Malaysia. This new national indicator shall provide a comparative baseline for determining whether the customers are more or less pleased with the quality of services provided by the banking institutions over time.

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Nunnally, C. (1978), Psychometric Theory, 2nd ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Parasuraman, A., Berry, L.L. and Zeithaml, V.A. (1985), A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 49 No. 4, pp. 41-50. Parasuraman, A., Berry, L.L. and Zeithaml, V.A. (1991), Renement and reassessment of SERVQUAL scale, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 67 No. 4, pp. 420-50. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Berry, L.L. (1988), SERVQUAL: a multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 64 No. 1, pp. 12-40. Petridou, E., Spathis, C. and Glaveli, N. (2007), Bank service quality: empirical evidence from Greek and Bulgarian retail customers, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 24 No. 6, pp. 568-85. Samli, A. and Frohlich, C. (1992), Service: the competitive edge in banking, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 15-22. Seth, N., Deshmukh, S.G. and Vrat, P. (2005), Service quality models: a review, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 22 No. 9, pp. 913-49. Soteriou, A.C. and Stavrinides, Y. (1997), An internal customer service quality data envelopment analysis model for bank branches, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 17 Nos 7/8, pp. 780-91. Stone, S. (1995), Eureka! What if we treated customers as customers?, Journal for Quality & Participation, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 94-7. Sureshchandar, G.S., Rajendran, C. and Anantharaman, R.N. (2001), A holistic model for total quality service, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 378-412. Tabachnick, B. and Fidell, L.S. (1989), Using Multivariate Statistics, Harper, Cambridge. Tabachnick, B. and Fidell, L.S. (2007), Using Multivariate Statistics, 5th ed., Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA. Further reading Kline, P. (2000), The Handbook of Psychological Testing, 2nd ed., Routledge, London. Newman, K. (2001), Interrogating SERVQUAL: a critical assessment of service quality measurement in a high street retail bank, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 126-39. Parasuraman, A., Berry, L.L. and Zeithaml, V.A. (1993), More on improving service quality measurement, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 69 No. 1, pp. 140-7. Sureshchandar, G.S., Rajendran, C. and Anantharaman, R.N. (2002), Determinants of customer-perceived service quality: a conrmatory factor analysis approach, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 9-34. Corresponding author Firdaus Abdullah can be contacted at: r@sarawak.uitm.edu.my

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