A Multilevel Investigation of the Relations among Service Quality Attributes, Image, and Customer Satisfaction at Taipei Sports Centers

• Main Authors: Huang, Mei-Ju, 黃美珠
• Other Authors: Chen, Mei-Yen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/10910653258325336308

博士 === 國立體育大學 === 體育研究所 === 102 === Increasing customers’ satisfaction and retaining customers have become increasingly important for sport services industry. A better understanding of key drivers of customer satisfaction is essential for sport organizations to improve organizational performance and competitiveness. Specially, the intangible characteristics of the participant sport services may enhance the crucial role of image and good service quality in influencing customers’ attitudes and behavior, and differentiating themselves from competitors. The main purpose of this paper is to test the relations among service quality attributes, image, and customer satisfaction at Taipei Sports Centers by utilizing multilevel analysis. Through purposive sampling, two studies (Ns = 245 and 260) are conducted among customers at 6 Taipei Sports Centers. This study adopts a cross-sectional design using self-administered questionnaires to collect data. Instrument of this study consists of two sections: service quality attributes, image, customer satisfaction, and demographics. Service quality and customer satisfaction are both translated and back-translated into Chinese in line with established cross-cultural translation procedures (Brislin, 1980). Confirmatory factor analysis is then conducted on each of the service quality, sport center image and customer satisfaction scales to estimate the convergent validity and discriminant validity of the measures at Study 1. The result indicates that the re-specified measurement model for service quality has three attributes (core service quality, personnel service quality, and peripheral service quality), while the re-specified measurement model for sport center image has uni-factor. From the analysis of the Study 1 results, two measurement models demonstrate adequate convergent validity and discriminant validity. Based on the reliability and validity analysis of study 1, the construct scales show satisfactory measurement qualities. Furthermore, this study tests the hypothesized model and the relations among the constructs by utilizing Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) at Study 2. Previous work on customer satisfaction has mostly focused on single-level analysis. This multilevel research is a step towards developing a more comprehensive model to know how factors across different levels interact with one another and jointly determine customer satisfaction. The result indicates that given control for individual demographics, individual-level core service quality and personnel service quality are both significantly associated with customer satisfaction, whereas peripheral service quality is not significantly associated with customer satisfaction. Given control for individual demographics and individual-level service quality attributes, organization-level sport center image is significantly associated with customer satisfaction. Furthermore, sport center image doesn’t moderate the relations between customer service quality attributes and customer satisfaction. This study is an attempt to advance knowledge by developing a multilevel model to identify individual- and organizational-level antecedents of customer satisfaction.