Robin L. Snipes

Gender bias in customer evaluations of service quality: an empirical investigation

Purpose – The presence of gender biases in performance evaluations has been previously demonstrated in a number of studies. This study aims to extend current research by examining gender differences in customer ratings of service performance. A secondary research objective of this study is to investigate gender differences in perceptions of service fairness.Design/methodology/approach – Using the SERVQUAL scale to measure service quality perceptions, responses from a sample of 8,667 customers are examined in a hierarchical regression analysis to determine if gender biases are present.Findings – The results of this study show that biases exist in service quality evaluations. Specifically, the data show that male service providers will receive higher service quality ratings than female service providers. However, the gender bias seems to diminish when service fairness is considered. It appears that customer perceptions of fair treatment are far more powerful and important determinants of overall satisfactio...

A cross‐disciplinary model for improved information systems analysis

As organizations seek to prosper in ever more complex and changing environments, they will require ever more sophisticated analysis and design tools. Current systems analysis tools function well to identify hardware and software requirements – the mostly technical elements of systems – but are less well suited to address the human component, an understanding of which is crucial to successful organizational analysis and design. The best technically designed system can easily fail when human factors are not explicitly included. The authors show how a combination of systems analysis and communication auditing methods can jointly optimize both the social and technical elements of organizations as they undergo design or business process re‐engineering. As a result of this joint optimization, the authors maintain that systems analysis tools are enriched and thereby enable system designers to explicitly include human and organizational communication factors into an information or business system. A theoretical model and implementation examples are provided.

The effects of physicians’ communication satisfaction and their perceptions of empowerment on their likelihood to recommend a hospital to their peers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that may contribute to physicians’ dissatisfaction with their work environment, and subsequently, their likelihood to recommend a hospital to their peers.Design/methodology/approach – A mixed method research design was used to identify, through qualitative interviews and focus groups, and measure, through quantitative surveys, physicians’ satisfaction with organizational communication, perceptions of empowerment and their likelihood to recommend a hospital to their peer physicians.Findings – The results of the study indicate that physicians’ communication satisfaction and perceptions of empowerment contribute both directly and indirectly to their likelihood to recommend their organization to peers. The findings suggest that hospitals that facilitate positive workplace communications and provide work environments that allow professional discretion and autonomy are more likely to have satisfied physicians and positive word‐of‐mouth referrals.Research...

Information search in health care decision-making: a study of word-of-mouth and internet information users.

Abstract This paper investigates how individual consumers may differ in their information search behavior in health care decision-making. Results indicate that most consumers still use word-of-mouth as a primary information source for health care decisions. However, usage of the Internet is increasing. The results of this study indicate that consumers who are most likely to use the Internet for health care information are single, younger, and less educated, whereas consumers who are most likely to use word-of-mouth are middle-aged, married, with higher income and higher education. Surprisingly, no significant gender difference was found in information search behavior for health care decision-making. The results also suggest that consumers with the highest tendency to use word-of-mouth are also the lowest users of the Internet in health care decision-making. Implications of these findings are discussed.