کیفیت، رضایت و نیات رفتاری

Performance quality was conceptualized as the attributes of a service which are controlled by a tourism supplier, while satisfaction referred to a tourist’s emotional state after exposure to the opportunity. A structural equations model hypothesized that perceived performance quality would have a stronger total effect on behavioral intentions than satisfaction. This hypothesis was confirmed. The analysis also indicated that the perceptions measure of quality fitted the hypothesized model better than data derived from the subjective disconfirmation measure. Results suggested that evaluation efforts should include assessment of both performance quality and satisfaction, but since performance quality is under management’s control it is likely to be the more useful measure.

The literature related to quality and satisfaction in the tourism and recreation field dates back to at least the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission reports of 1962 (Manning 1986). The high level and sustained interest in this topic derives from a widely held belief that the primary managerial criterion for success should be defined in terms of level of satisfaction ( Bultena and Klessig, 1969 and LaPage, 1963). Implicit in this belief is the notion that improvement in performance quality and satisfaction will result in retention or expansion of tourist numbers, more vociferous and active tourism support, and ultimately enhanced profitability and political support. It seems intuitively logical that there should be a causal link between quality of a tourism supplier’s performance, level of consumer satisfaction, and the organization’s success. Higher quality of performance and levels of satisfaction are perceived to result in increased loyalty and future visitation, greater tolerance of price increases, and an enhanced reputation. The latter is critical both for attracting new tourists through positive word-of-mouth and media acclaim and, in the case of publicly owned amenities, for enhancing or retaining level of public tax investment in the amenity. Although a substantial literature has evolved in this area, there has been relatively little discussion of the distinction between the constructs of quality of performance and level of tourist satisfaction, nor has there been any assessment of their relative impact on subsequent behavior. Failure to resolve these issues is not unique to those working in this field. In the marketing field, the topic of service quality has probably been discussed and researched more than any other issue in the past decade. Despite this substantial investment of effort, there is vigorous debate on conceptualization of the performance quality and satisfaction constructs, and the nature of their interrelationships. The primary intent of this paper is to focus on the impact of performance quality and satisfaction on behavioral intentions, but this cannot be done without first addressing the conceptualization issue. Conceptualizations of the relationship between the constructs of quality and satisfaction have evolved independently in the tourism and marketing literatures. A detailed discussion of the definitions and nature of these two constructs, and how they differ in the two literatures has been provided by Crompton and Love (1995). Their conceptualization of the constructs as used in the tourism field was adopted in this study. The lack of consensus on conceptualization of the two constructs has resulted in confusion to the point where the two constructs are frequently used interchangeably (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry 1994a). Thus, for example, from his comprehensive review of the literature Manning does not differentiate between the two when he concludes that “The principal measure of quality in outdoor recreation has long been defined by visitor satisfaction” (1986:6). In the marketing field where debate on the two constructs has been particularly dynamic, Taylor and Baker have observed “Our understanding of the specific nature of the relationship between service quality and consumer satisfaction, as well as how these two constructs combine to impact consumer purchase intentions, continues to perplex marketing scholars” (1994:163). Part of the confusion is attributable to the most widely accepted conceptualization of both constructs being derived from the same theoretical source—the expectancy disconfirmation paradigm (Oliver 1980). This defines an individual’s perception of performance quality or level of satisfaction with an experience in terms of the magnitude of his or her disconfirmation. Both performance quality and satisfaction are assessed by relating perceptions of the former or experience to initial expectations, against which it is confirmed (met expectations), negatively disconfirmed (worse than expected), or positively disconfirmed (better than expected). There is a considerable body of empirical evidence that confirms the hypothesized impact of the disconfirmation of expectations, particularly in the area of satisfaction (Yi 1990). In the marketing literature, disconfirmation of expectations has been the predominant research paradigm in the area of satisfaction (Barber and Venkatraman 1986), and this probably holds true for the tourism and recreation field as well. In the marketing field, satisfaction and quality often have been differentiated by the standard of comparison used in the disconfirmation of expectations. In their early work, Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) distinguished between the two constructs by defining quality as a gestalt attitude toward a service which was acquired over a period of time after multiple experiences with it, whereas satisfaction was seen to relate to a specific service transaction. In adopting this distinction, they were building on the conceptualization provided by Oliver who defined satisfaction as “a function of an initial standard and some perceived discrepancy from the initial reference point”. He also stated, “satisfaction soon decays into one’s overall attitude toward purchasing products…. or quality” (1980:460). In the tourism and recreation field, distinctions have been made between quality of opportunity or performance, and satisfaction or quality of experience. These terms were first introduced by Brown (1988) in his review of the literature in outdoor recreation to that point, and were subsequently embraced by Crompton and Love (1995) in their discussion of the quality and satisfaction constructs in the context of tourism. Quality of performance, which may also be termed quality of opportunity, refers to the attributes of a service which are primarily controlled by a supplier. It is the output of a tourism provider. Evaluations of the quality of performance are based on tourists’o; perceptions of the performance of the provider. In contrast, satisfaction refers to an emotional state of mind after exposure to the opportunity. It recognizes that satisfaction may be influenced by the social-psychological state a tourist brings to a site (mood, disposition, needs) and by extraneous events (for example climate, social group interactions) that are beyond the provid’s control, as well as by the program or site attributes that suppliers can control. Thus, performance quality is conceptualized as a measure of a provider’s output, whereas level of satisfaction is concerned with measuring a tourist’s outcome. All else equal, higher quality performance in facility provision, programming, and service are likely to result in a higher level of visitor satisfaction. However, extraneous variables associated with factors outside the control of the provider make it likely that there will be a less than perfect correlation between the two measures. Tourists are an integral part of the service process, which is one of the characteristics that distinguishes services from products. Their involvement may be active or passive, but their presence influences what is delivered. However, individuals do not have to be exposed to an attraction to form perceptions of quality, because people may vicariously relate to others’ experiences at a destination or to promotional material associated with it. Hence, much of the image research reported in tourism measures perceptions of quality of a destination’s attributes. In contrast, satisfaction is purely experiential. It is a psychological state that can only be derived from interaction with the destination. Over most of the past decade in the marketing field, the prevailing differentiation between the quality and satisfaction constructs has been that quality relates to cumulative impact and satisfaction to transaction specific exchanges. However, Crompton and Love (1995) note that there is increasing evidence that marketers are moving towards the conceptualization suggested by them and by Brown (1988). Thus, in their most recent conceptual model of this relationship, Parasuraman et al state: This model posits a customer’s overall satisfaction with a transaction to be a function of his or her assessment of service quality, product quality, and price. This conceptualization is consistent with the “quality leads to satisfaction” school of thought. (1994a:121). Similar sentiments were expressed by Fornell and Manfred (1996), while Oliver observes, “the consumer’s psychology mediates the impact of performance observations on satisfaction judgements” and that “some agreement exists that, in the short term, service features determine quality which then satisfies consumer needs” (1997:40,184). These conceptualizations of the relationship of the two constructs are consistent with that advocated in the tourism and recreation field in that they do recognize quality as a precursor to satisfaction. Otto and Ritchie developed definitions and operationalizations that were essentially synonymous with the notions of quality of performance and user satisfaction. They used qualitative techniques to investigate the relative utility of the two constructs. Service experience focused on individuals’ affective responses. Its essence lay in individuals’ emotional reactions, rather than in their perception of the functional/utilitarian attributes of a service that characterize performance quality. The authors recognized that “specific emotions may intervene or act as a mediator, between performance and satisfaction” (1995:39). Spreng, MacKenzie and Olshavsky appear to further narrow the distinction in conceptualizations between the two fields. They define overall satisfaction as “an affective state that is the emotional reaction to a product or service”, which is consistent with the notion of satisfaction. They go on to propose that overall satisfaction has two chief antecedents which they term attribute satisfaction and information satisfaction. Their definitions of these concepts are consistent with the notion of quality of performance. Thus, they define attribute satisfaction as “the consumer’s subjective satisfaction judgment resulting from observations of attribute performance”, and information satisfaction as “a subjective satisfaction judgment of the information used in choosing a product” (1996:12,17,18). Spreng, Mackenzie and Olshavsky (1996:17) argue that “attribute-specific satisfaction is not the only antecedent of overall satisfaction, which is based on the overall experience, not just the individual attributes”. They point out that this conceptualization is consistent with the most recent view of Oliver (1993). It allows for other antecedents such as social-psychological state brought to the opportunity and extraneous events that impact it, which define the operational differences between perceptions of performance quality and satisfaction. It appears that if the Spreng et al (1996) definition is accepted by the marketing field, then differences in conceptualizing the quality and satisfaction constructs between the two fields become more semantic than substantive. Thus, the emerging view in marketing appears to recognize “that satisfaction is superordinate to quality—that is, quality is only one of the many potential service dimensions factored into consumer satisfaction constructs” (Taylor and Baker 1994:166). If the notion of “many dimensions” is broadened beyond “service” to embrace social-psychological states and extraneous events that are beyond the provider’s control, then this conceptualization of the quality and satisfaction constructs gets close to that advocated in the tourism and recreation field. Indeed, Taylor and Baker note “a large number of non-quality issues can help form satisfaction judgements (e.g. needs, equity, perceptions of ‘fairness’)”—these issues all appear to be affective or cognitive influences which it is difficult for the tourism supplier to exercise and control (1994:165). Otto and Ritchie (1995) point out that there is research in the marketing literature indicating that perceptions of the quality of service attributes act as causal antecedents to level of satisfaction with an experience. Thus, for example, Johnson and Zinkham, 1991 and Crosby and Cowles, 1986 demonstrated that service delivery personnel can have a direct impact on emotional reaction to a service, while Bitner (1992) pointed out that the physical environment may impact satisfaction with a service experience.

The LISREL models using the perceptions and the subjective disconfirmation measures were both significant, but the perceptions data performed somewhat better than the disconfirmation data. Data from the subjective disconfirmation measure did not fit the a priori conceptualization of the relationship of performance quality and satisfaction to behavioral intentions (Figure 1) as well as the perceptions measure, since the effect of quality was significantly mediated by satisfaction. In addition, the goodness-of-fit tests indicated that the subjective disconfirmation measure was somewhat inferior to that of data from the perceptions measure. The better fit of the perceptions measure meant that Hypothesis 2 was confirmed. This is consistent with previous studies that have compared the perceptions measure with a variety of alternative operationalizations of performance quality, including the widely used perceptions-minus-expectations measure, and concluded that it is superior from a predictive-validity standpoint ( Babakus and Boller, 1992, Babakus and Mangold, 1992, Boulding et al., 1993, Carman, 1990, Childress and Crompton, 1997, Crompton and Love, 1995 and Cronin and Taylor, 1992). The superior fit of the perceptions measure may be attributable to respondents finding it easier to answer perceptions questions compared to disconfirmation questions (Childress and Crompton 1997). Certainly, it simplifies the evaluation task for managers, since perception measures are easier to design and analyze than are disconfirmation measures. In the perceptions model, the total effect of performance quality on behavioral intentions was .79, of which .38 was indirect via satisfaction. This satisfaction did not fully mediate the effect of quality on behavioral intentions. This confirms Hypothesis 1 and is consistent with the findings reported by Gotleib et al (1994), but is antithetical to those reported by Cronin and Taylor (1992) who used similar operationalizations of satisfaction and perceptions measure of performance quality to those that were used in this study. The results also confirmed that satisfaction was enhanced by higher perceptions of performance quality which was consistent with the quality⇒satisfaction⇒behavioral intentions relationship flow that conceptually guided this study. In addition, perceptions data suggested that high performance quality encouraged participants to be more loyal, increasing the probability that they would return and that they would spread positive word-of-mouth about the festival. The strong linkage between the quality domains and willingness-to-pay more is consistent with the belief that those who perceive performance quality to be high are willing to pay more for the opportunity. The findings indicated that perceptions of quality of the generic features and specific entertainment features domains had a stronger linkage to quality (.94 and .88, respectively) than did the other two domains (.61 and .65). In the specific context of this festival, the strong link between quality and behavioral intentions suggests that the greatest potential for strengthening behavioral intentions of participants is by ensuring high quality generic and specific entertainment features. The weaker association of quality with the information sources and comfort amenities domains seems consistent with Herzberg, Mausner and Snyderman’s (1959) notion of hygiene and motivator domains. Research by Herzberg et al was developed in the field of job satisfaction, but their model can be adapted for use in this context. They identified two sets of factors—one generated satisfaction and the other dissatisfaction. The dissatisfiers were job context factors—analogous in this case to the basic infrastructure attributes of a festival exemplified by the information sources and comfort amenities domains. These factors can only cause dissatisfaction in their absence or dysfunction. They are the “ordinary” components of the festival, their presence is expected but unexciting; thus they have no satisfying consequences when fulfilled. Herzberg et al referred to these as maintenance or hygiene factors. In contrast, satisfiers are factors that satisfy, excite, and motivate. They are exemplified by the generic features and specific entertainment features domains. The absence of these “motivators” would not cause dissatisfaction; rather a neutral state would be manifest. The information sources and comfort amenities domains may be key in defining a base level of quality, so if these domains fall below this base level, then participants are likely to become dissatisfied with the festival. However, if they are exceeded, there is likely to be relatively little increase in their desire to visit because infrastructure is not intrinsically interesting or satisfying. In contrast, the generic and specific entertainment features are motivator domains that arouse a sense of excitement and potential enjoyment. These domains are more likely to motivate participants to return and provide a greater potential for increasing their satisfaction with the festival. This may partially explain the stronger linkages between perceptions of overall quality and these two domains. Thus, optimal investment of resources is likely to occur when tourism providers meet minimum acceptable level of performance quality for attributes comprising the information sources and comfort amenities domains, and concentrate resources so they exceed this to meet their standard for superior quality on the generic features and specific entertainment features domains. Results suggest that festival organizers should focus their evaluative resources on assessing both perceived quality of the performance and the satisfaction level of participants. While the total effect of satisfaction (.60) indicates that it is a useful predictor of their behavioral intentions, it is substantially lower than the total effect of the quality construct. Further, from a managerial perspective the measuring and attaining of performance quality is likely to be more useful, since it is under management’s control. The study findings support the theoretical position that enhanced performance quality leads to stronger positive behavioral intentions, and that visitor satisfaction does add to the explanatory power of quality. Since quality of performance is under control of the tourism provider, measuring its attributes is likely to offer the most guidance for making changes that would lead to stronger behavioral intentions. From a managerial perspective, it might be useful in evaluations to try and minimize the impacts of participants’ social-psychological states and extraneous events, and focus their attention on the quality of performance elements that the tourism provider can most effectively control. Such an instrument may include a statement saying “We cannot control your mood or the weather, but we aim to provide the highest quality of everything we can control. Please help us improve by evaluating the quality of the following features”. This study may be the first attempt to assess the relative impact and interrelationship of the quality of performance and satisfaction constructs in the tourism field. It included only a global measure of satisfaction, and future studies exploring this issue should also include more specific measures reflecting satisfaction with the particular benefits sought from the attraction at which data are collected. These may take the form, for example, of adaptations of the recreation experience preference scales (Manfredo, Driver and Tarrant 1996). It is anticipated that inclusion of these responses will improve the fit of the model, and would also enable the relationship between performance quality domains and satisfaction with specific experience outcomes to be explored.