Karen Kueh

Developing a HospiSE scale for hospital service excellence

Purpose – This empirical survey research aims to identify the dimensions of service excellence culture for hospitals. Ultimately, a measurement tool was developed for hospital service excellence (i.e. HospiSE scale). Design/methodology/approach – The survey research involved qualitative and quantitative approaches in the scale development process. The structured questionnaire was carefully designed after literature review and focus groups discussions. The respondents were employees from the public and private hospitals in Malaysia. A total of 1,558 usable questionnaires were used for the quantitative analysis. The HospiSE scale was empirically tested for reliability and validity through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Findings – This measurement-oriented research had identified three dimensions of service excellence culture for hospitals, namely: employee orientation, patient orientation and competitor orientation. The multi-dimensional measure consists of 21 items. Research limitations/impl...

Service Satisfiers and Dissatisfiers Among Malaysian Consumers

Abstract Much research has focused on identifying the dimensions of service quality based on the assumption that each dimension contributes equally to customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Limited study has been done to investigate whether separate factors may act as satisfiers and dissatisfiers. This paper examines the issue using a sample of critical incidents collected from Malaysian consumers across a broad range of service industries. It was found that the determinants of satisfaction and dissatisfaction need not be the same. The type of service industry is also significantly associated with the nature of the service encounter. Results suggest that different service quality dimensions are important in affecting customer satisfaction depending on the type of service industry. The similarity of the findings with previous studies raises the possibility of a generic dimension to service satisfiers and dissatisfiers across different industries and cultures.

Developing a service culture-value chain for hospitals

This paper presents the empirical findings of a nation-wide survey to develop a multi-item scale for service culture and linked it to the various consequences from the employee’s and patient’s perspective. The qualitative and quantitative techniques were employment. The Focus Groups was conducted, then a nation-wide mail survey (more than 250 hospitals covered, employee questionnaire with n=1558). The scale development analysis process included various evaluations on the psychometric properties of the scale and AMOS software was used. The Exploratory Factor Analysis and structural equation modeling processes found that 21-item HospiSE scale was made up of three dimensions (i.e., Employee, Patient and Competitor orientations). The results of the measurement modelling process indicated that the multi-item measure has an overall good fit (e.g. GFI = 0.93, CFI = 0.917). The measure was found to be reliable and valid. It was also positively related with employee-perceived service quality and satisfaction. Besides, at the organizational level the findings indicated that service culture has a potential positive association with the patient-perceived service quality of the hospitals A new service culture-value chain was engineered for the benefits of hospitals.