Measuring perceived service quality of Portuguese Apparel Fashion Retail and its benefits

195 Pages·2016·2.18 MB·English

QUALITY IS NEVER OUT OF FASHION:
MEASURING PERCEIVED SERVICE QUALITY OF PORTUGUESE
APPAREL FASHION RETAIL AND ITS BENEFITS

Joana Catarina da Costa Vieira

Dissertation submitted as partial requirement for the conferral of
Master in Management of Services and Technology

Supervisor
Prof.ª Ana Lúcia Martins, Prof.ª Auxiliar, ISCTE Business School, Department of
Marketing, Operations and General Management

October 2016

"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."
Winston Churchill
Measuring perceived service quality of Portuguese Apparel Fashion Retail and its benefits

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Measuring perceived service quality of Portuguese Apparel Fashion Retail and its benefits

ABSTRACT
The fashion retail world is considered as well as dynamic, highly competitive and
customers are increasingly demanding. The quality of service can serve as basis for
obtaining differentiation, and therefore evaluating its service provision becomes relevant.
In this sense, the purpose of this dissertation is the evaluation of perceived service
quality provided by Fashion Apparel Retail in Portugal, from the customer's perspective.
To do so, the instrument proposed by Cronin and Taylor (1992), the SERVPERF, was used.
Additionally, in order to complete the analysis of this instrument, an approach to Service-
Dominant Logic was considered, including the evaluation of the product itself, as well as
the benefits arising from the use of the service (services and products). So this study aims
to make an approach to a global analysis of the service, including in a single study, the
evaluation of service quality and product, the relationship between service quality and
customer satisfaction, and further analysis of the benefits of use. So, several statistics and
exploratory analyses, such as hypothesis testing, principal component analysis or cluster
analysis, were conducted.
The results suggest that there are differences in customers’ perceived quality levels
among the different quality dimensions, as well as significant differences in most of the
independent variables in study. An alternative to SERVPERF to evaluated perceived service
quality of Portuguese Apparel Fashion Retail is presented, based on the available sample.
There is a relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction and customers can
be aggregated into homogeneous groups and further complemented with the most pursued
benefits.

Keywords: Service quality; S-D Logic; Retailing; Apparel fashion

JEL Classification:

L89 – Industry studies: service (other)
Y40 – Dissertations

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Measuring perceived service quality of Portuguese Apparel Fashion Retail and its benefits

RESUMO
O mundo do retalho de moda é considerado além de dinâmico, extremamente
competitivo e com clientes cada vez mais exigentes. A qualidade do serviço pode servir
como base para a obtenção de diferenciação e por isso, avaliar a sua prestação de serviço
torna-se relevante.
Neste sentido, o objetivo da presente dissertação é a avaliar a qualidade do serviço
prestado pelo retalho de moda em Portugal, na perspetiva do cliente. Para isso, utilizou-se
o instrumento proposto por Cronin e Taylor (1992), o SERVPERF. Adicionalmente, por
forma a completar a análise deste instrumento, foi considerada uma aproximação à Service-
Dominant Logic, incluindo a avaliação do produto em si, assim como dos benefícios que
advêm da utilização do serviço (serviços e produto). Assim este estudo pretende fazer uma
aproximação a uma análise global de serviço, englobando num único estudo, a avaliação de
qualidade dos serviços e do produto, a relação entre qualidade nos serviços e satisfação do
cliente e ainda, análise aos benefícios de utilização. Para isso, recorreu-se a diversas análises
estatísticas e exploratórias, como é o caso de testes de hipóteses, análise de componentes
principais ou análise de clusters.
Os resultados encontrados sugerem que existem diferenças nos níveis de qualidade
percebida pelos clientes nas diferentes dimensões de qualidade, assim como diferenças
significativas provenientes da maioria das variáveis independentes em estudo. É
apresentada uma alternativa ao SERVPERF para avaliação da qualidade percebido do
serviço nas unidades de retalho de vestuário, tendo por base a amostra disponível. Existe
uma relação entre qualidade do serviço e a satisfação do cliente e é possível agregar os
clientes em grupos homogéneos e ainda complementar esses perfis com os benefícios mais
procurados.

Palavras-chave: Qualidade no serviço; S-D Logic; Retalho; Moda de vestuário

JEL Classification:

L89 – Industry studies: service (other)
Y40 - Dissertations

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Measuring perceived service quality of Portuguese Apparel Fashion Retail and its benefits

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This dissertation represents the end of my academic life, at least for now, and presents
itself as one of the biggest challenges ever achieved. Reconciling a master's thesis and my
full-time job was not easy, not for me, nor the people around me, who deserve my greatest
thanks.
First, I thank everyone who spent time helping me by answering my long questionnaire
and the ‘specialists’ who participated in my Delphi exercise, who made the benefits
collection possible. Also, a thank-you to my favourite coffee house, for being my main
supplier of caffeine and my retreat after working hours.
Then, I thank my friends and colleagues, who were somehow involved in my everyday
crisis and whose main topic of conversation has been about the delivery of this paper. A
special thanks to my closest friends, for the long and late hours of work, for the fun and for
the hardest times. After all, we lived this challenge together.
I thank my parents, sister and grandmothers, for the unconditional support they have
given me over the last year and the infinite source of motivation.
Finally, I must thank my supervisor, Ana Lúcia Martins, to be more than just my
supervisor. As a teacher and friend, she was exceptional in the support she always gave me,
for the patience, the shared moments, the infinite talks and jokes, the motivation, the
consistency and the outstanding detail orientation, for the passion and for encouraging me
not to take the easiest path. Human and professional, always. I could not ask for more.
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Measuring perceived service quality of Portuguese Apparel Fashion Retail and its benefits

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Measuring perceived service quality of Portuguese Apparel Fashion Retail and its benefits

GENERAL INDEX
1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1
1.1. CONTEXTUALIZATION ..................................................................................... 1
1.2. GENERAL OBJECTIVE ....................................................................................... 2
1.3. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES ...................................................................................... 2
1.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS .................................................................................... 3
1.5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ........................................................................... 4
1.6. SCOPE ................................................................................................................... 4
1.7. GLOBAL STRUCTURE........................................................................................ 5
2. LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................ 7
2.1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 7
2.2. SERVICE QUALITY ............................................................................................. 7
2.2.1. THE CONCEPT OF SERVICE QUALITY .................................................. 7
2.2.2. SERVICE QUALITY AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION:
DIFFERENCES AND RELATIONSHIP .................................................................... 9
2.2.3. SERVICE QUALITY MEASUREMENT ................................................... 10
2.2.4. SERVICE QUALITY IN APPAREL FASHION RETAIL ......................... 12
2.3. SERVICE-DOMINANT LOGIC ......................................................................... 13
2.3.1. RESOURCES ............................................................................................... 14
2.3.2. TRANSITIONING FROM A GOOD-DOMINANT LOGIC ...................... 14
2.3.3. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF SERVICE-DOMINANT LOGIC ................ 16
2.3.4. BENEFITS ................................................................................................... 20
2.4. THE JOINT SHPERE........................................................................................... 21
2.5. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................... 22
3. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................. 23
3.1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 23
3.2. INVESTIGATION HYPOTHESES ..................................................................... 23
3.3. CONCEPTUAL MODEL .................................................................................... 25
3.4. MODEL OPERATIONALIZATION ................................................................... 26
3.5. DEFINITION OF INDEPENDENT VARIABLES ............................................. 28
3.6. DATA COLLECTION METHODOLOGY ......................................................... 30
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Measuring perceived service quality of Portuguese Apparel Fashion Retail and its benefits

3.7. DATA ANALYSIS TOOLS................................................................................. 31
3.7.1. HYPOTHESES TESTING ........................................................................... 31
3.7.2. CORRELATION COEFFICIENT ............................................................... 32
3.7.3. PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS ANALYSIS ................................................ 32
3.7.4. LINEAR REGRESSION .............................................................................. 33
3.7.5. CLUSTER ANALYSIS ............................................................................... 33
3.7.6. EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS .................................................................... 34
3.8. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................... 35
4. ANALYSIS OF RESULTS .................................................................................... 37
4.1. SAMPLE CHARECTERIZATION ..................................................................... 37
4.2. SERVICE CHARECTERIZATION .................................................................... 38
4.3. PERCEIVED QUALITY: GLOBA AND BY DIMENSION ............................... 39
4.3.1. RELIABILITY OF SERVPERF INSTRUMENT ....................................... 41
4.4. INFLUENCE OF THE FIVE QUALITY DIMENSION IN THE OVERAL
PERCEIVED SERVICE QUALITY .............................................................................. 42
4.5. HYPOTHESIS TESTING BY INDEPENDENT VARIABLE ............................ 43
4.5.1. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE “GENDER” ................................................ 43
4.5.2. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE “AGE” ........................................................ 44
4.5.3. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE “GROSS INCOME PER CAPITA” ........... 44
4.5.4. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE “GROUP OF STORE” ............................... 45
4.5.5. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE “STORE LOCATION” .............................. 46
4.5.6. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE “FREQUENCY OF VISITS” ..................... 46
4.5.7. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE “WAITING TIME” .................................... 46
4.5.8. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE “TIME TO GET TO THE STORE” ........... 47
4.6. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SERVICE QUALITY AND CUSTOMER
SATISFACTION ............................................................................................................ 47
4.7. PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS ANALYSIS (PCA).............................................. 48
4.7.1. PCA TO SERVPERF INSTRUMENT ........................................................ 48
4.7.2. PCA TO OTHER RELEVANT ELEMENTS ............................................. 49
4.7.3. PCA TO THE AGGREGATED MODEL ................................................... 50
4.7.4. MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION TO THE ALTERNATIVE MODEL
…………………………………………………………………………….. 51
4.8. CLUSTER ANALYSIS........................................................................................ 52
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