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研究生： 溫巧巧
Owen, Johanna
論文名稱： Managing Internal Service Quality in Taiwan: Accounting Departments as Service Providers
Managing Internal Service Quality in Taiwan: Accounting Departments as Service Providers
指導教授： 王慕容
James Stanworth
學位類別： 碩士
Master
系所名稱： 管理學院 - 國際經營管理研究所碩士班
Institute of International Management (IIMBA--Master)
論文出版年： 2009
畢業學年度： 98
語文別： 英文
論文頁數： 124
外文關鍵詞： Internal customer service, Internal service quality, Cultural context, Accounting department, Importance-performance grids
相關次數： 點閱：88  下載：4 
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    • The importance of external service is clear in terms of its impact on customer satisfaction and profits. Impacting external service quality is the quality of the service within the organization as work flows through the company towards the external customer. This is known as internal service. The quality of internal service also influences both efficiency of internal exchanges and costs.
    In order to better manage internal service quality it is necessary to understand the applicable service quality attributes and current perceived performance. These attributes differ between cultures. Consequently researchers and managers need to understand the context that service is delivered in. The specific aspect investigated here is internal service quality within the Taiwanese context. While the majority of previous research has applied outside attributes to the Taiwanese setting, this research is building upon a qualitative study previously conducted within Taiwan which extracted attributes directly related to this specific setting.
    A wide range of sources were applied over the course of several months to secure the sample used in this study. The findings yield both academic and practitioner benefits:
    (1) Exploratory factor analysis is used to develop a scale that can be used across industries. The scale can be used to investigate the perceived level of internal service quality currently being provided by companies’ accounting departments. It is quite different than those developed in other settings;
    (2) One-way ANOVA post-hoc analysis is applied to determine the segmentability of the accounting departments’ internal customers. No clear segments are found. The internal customers can therefore be grouped as one when investigating internal service quality as well as when accounting departments provide their internal services;
    (3) Top-5 partial importance rankings are used to investigate how members of accounting departments believe their internal customers rank the importance of the service quality attributes and how the internal customers actually rank them. General differences are found, which may be causing the accounting department to focus their energies in inefficient areas;
    (4) Importance-performance grids are used to apply the findings to a specific local municipal hospital. The results show that the Accounting Department’s perception does not align with that of their internal customers. They also show in which areas the Accounting Department should increase efforts in order to have the most impact on their overall level of internal service quality.
    The limitations of the study must be taken into consideration when evaluating the above interesting and significant results.

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I ABSTRACT III TABLE OF CONTENTS V LIST OF TABLES VIII LIST OF FIGURES XI CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Research Backdrop. 1 1.2 Research Purpose and Scope. 2 1.3 Research Structure and Process. 4 CHAPTER TWO MANAGING INTERNAL SERVICE QUALITY 5 2.1 Services and Service Encounters. 5 2.2 Internal Service. 6 2.2.1 Research Origins. 6 2.2.2 The Internal Service Encounter. 7 2.2.3 Comparing Internal and External Services. 7 2.3 The Importance of Internal Customer Service. 9 2.4 Internal Service Quality – Facilitation, Measurement and Evaluation. 10 2.4.1 Influencing Factors of Internal Service Quality. 10 2.4.2 Assessment of Internal Service Quality. 14 2.4.3 Determinants of Internal Service Quality. 19 2.4.4 The Impact Different Types of Internal Service Quality Attributes Have on Overall Perception. 21 2.5 Contextual Impact on Service Quality Attributes and Perception. 23 2.5.1 Cultural Context. 25 2.5.2 Chinese Cultural Context within Taiwan. 26 2.5.3 Internal Service within the Context of Taiwan. 29 CHAPTER THREE RESEARCH PROCESS DEVELOPMENT 35 3.1 Research Design. 35 3.2 Instrument Development Process. 36 3.2.1 Preliminary Testing of Instrument. 38 3.2.2 Section One – Service Evaluation. 38 3.2.3 Section Two – Overall Quality and Satisfaction. 39 3.2.4 Section Three – Importance Ranking. 39 3.2.5 Section Four – Basic Information. 40 3.3 Research Subject(s) and Firm Procurement. 41 3.3.1 Research Subjects for Scale Purification Process. 41 3.3.2 Firm Procurement and Difficulties Encountered. 42 CHAPTER FOUR ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENTS AS SERVICE PROVIDERS 43 4.1 Sampling Procedure. 43 4.2 Descriptive Analysis. 44 4.3 Assessing Factor Structure and Creating a Purified Scale. 47 4.4 Construct Validity. 54 4.4.1 Content Validity. 54 4.4.2 Convergent Validity. 54 4.4.1 Comparing Means – One-Way ANOVA and Independent t-Test. 55 4.4.2 Multiple Regression Analysis. 58 4.5 Relating the Factors and Items to Previous Research. 61 4.5.1 Scale Item Impact - Satisfiers, Dissatisfiers and Criticals. 61 4.5.2 Internal Service in Western Settings. 63 4.6 Segmentation Analysis. 65 4.7 Importance Rankings. 72 4.7.1 Accounting Department Rankings versus that of their Internal Customers. 73 4.7.2 General Importance Rankings based on Segments. 75 4.8 Applying the Findings from this Study. 76 4.8.1 Developing an Importance-Performance Grid. 77 4.8.1 Results for Local Municipal Hospital. 78 CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 88 5.1 Research Conclusion and Discussion. 88 5.2 Research Limitations. 92 5.3 Suggestions for Future Research. 93 REFERENCES 96 APPENDICES 102 Appendix 1: Example of Company Procurement Proposal 102 Appendix 2A: Questionnaire – English Version 110 Appendix 2B: Questionnaire – Chinese Version 118

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