engleski

Competetiveness through quality - a services marketing perspective

Until 1970's services sector has been largely ignored by management scholars which is, to a certain extent, understandable taken into account predominant role of manufacturing in national economies up to that time. However, as advanced economies shift towards service production, the pressure has been mounting on academia to focus its attention on issues of services management. As a result, service marketing as a separate field of academic interest emerged, and although it is still a rather new area with initial fundamental research in the field initiating some 20 years ago, its importance is not a matter of discussions. An area of study within services marketing busy with academic activity has been the area of service quality definition and measurement. As linkage between quality and organisational performance has been well established in many academic articles, the need for deepening of understanding of service quality construct and its measurement is easily understandable. Although there are still no definite agreements on a large number of issues regarding the notion of service quality, the importance of understanding the concepts related to services marketing and services quality management cannot be overstated. Contending with the view that successful provision of feedback is a basis for successful management, measurement of perceived service quality, using customer’ s point of view can provide service companies’ management with an important tool in the total effort to build competitive advantage through adjusting their marketing strategies for high-quality service provision in an increasingly volatile business environment and, ultimately, achieving profitability and long-term success of any company or institution. Recent period has seen another important addition to the on-going debate regarding services quality definition and measurement - the issue of cultural influences on customer's perception of service quality. Importance of this emerging perspective on services is relatively self-explanatory - it is only through understanding of implications local culture has on consumer's perceptions and priorities that organisational resources can be deployed in an effective and efficient manner. Being aware of such a lively debate regarding services marketing and service quality measurement and management in global academic community and perceiving that, to the best of author's knowledge, issues related to services marketing and management of service quality in Croatia have been given in general lacking attention, although with noteworthy contributions by individuals, the author of this article felt the need to provide a review of current developments in theoretical foundations of service quality concept. Through linkage of these foundations with Hofstede's work on cultures and reflection on several academic articles linking service quality concept with cultural differences author attempted to emphasize potential fields of interest for firms aiming to achieve perception of a high-quality service in Croatian environment, at the same time attempting to provide some proposals for further research within this field. Thus, although predominantly theoretical in nature, this work provides a research agenda for future academic research into this field and a foundation for collaboration with other academics and practitioners interested in field of services marketing.

services quality; services marketing; competetiveness; cultural influences

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