engleski

Entrepreneurship Initiative for Improving Service Quality

The search for a reliable method of measuring service quality has produced an extensive literature. However, there has been little consensus on a methodology which is of general applicability in all situations. In the absence of any other objective measure, disconfirmation model come to dominate the literature on the service quality from the early 1980s. Disconfirmation model have sought to define service quality in terms of the difference between an individuals expectations of a service and their perceptions of actual service delivery. Pre-eminent among these studies has been the work of Parasuraman et al. (1985) and the development of their SERVQUAL instrument. The service quality measurement scale (SERVQUAL) has been widely used in research to measure quality of service. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the use of SERVQUAL for measuring patient’ s perceptions of service quality of primary care doctors in Osijek. The paper also examines the validity and reliability of SERVQUAL and analyses its applicability to the health care sector in Osijek. The results indicate that SERVQUAL appears to be a consistent and reliable scale to measure service quality of primary care doctors. However, the proposed five dimensions of SERVQUAL are not confirmed. The results also indicate that perceived health care service performance generally falls short of expectations in all dimensions of service quality. The major implication for managers is that an improvement in the behavior and appearance of their employees is most likely to enhance consumer perception of service quality.

service quality; SERVQUAL instrument; measuring; multivariate statistical analysis

nije evidentirano