Assessment of employees' perceptions of service quality and satisfaction with e-business

A 13-item EB-SERVQUAL instrument is proposed and can be used to improve and diagnose service quality with e-business and the causal relationship between service quality and user satisfaction is examined.

Abstract

In the competitive environments of frequent and rapid changes, electronic business (e-business), whose supply, production, and logistics and distribution networks are enabled digitally, is increasingly dependent on electronic interconnections that are innovative in their functionality. Conceivably, its ability to deliver functions and services is closely associated with and helpful for the completion of employees' tasks and jobs, leading to service quality being critically important for the employees and e-business. On the other hand, since e-business utilizes enterprise applications, user satisfaction, as a surrogate measure of information system or information technology (IS/IT) effectiveness/success, is important for enterprise applications success. Thus, this research attempts to extrapolate the results of marketing research about customers' perceptions of service quality and IS/IT research about employees' perceptions of service quality to e-business. First, we revise and refine SERVQUAL instrument to fit in context of e-business and measure employees' perceived service quality with e-business. Based on a survey of 161 respondents practicing mostly in seven international electronic businesses in Taiwan, a 13-item EB-SERVQUAL instrument is proposed and can be used to improve and diagnose service quality with e-business. Second, we examine the causal relationship between service quality and user satisfaction. The instrument and our findings in this paper would be valuable to researchers and practitioners interested in designing, implementing, and managing e-business.