تاثیر اقدامات کیفی بر رضایت مشتری و نتایج کسب و کار: سازمان های محصول در مقابل سازمان های خدمات

Research on the differences in customer satisfaction between product and service organizations has focused on an output perspective, or how customers evaluate performance. This study takes this research inside organizations to analyze and investigate how key internal quality practices of product versus service organizations (employee management, process orientation, and customer orientation) influence customer satisfaction and business results. Using a national quality survey from 482 companies in Sweden, our analysis shows that for product organizations, internal quality practices influence customer satisfaction and business results primarily through an organization's customer orientation. For service organizations, both customer and process orientation impact customers directly, and employee management has a direct impact on business results. The research also supports the claim that organizations with a quality foundation are in a better position to adopt a customer orientation.

A growing number of organizations use quality management as a strategic foundation for generating a competitive advantage (Reed, Lemak, & Mero, 2000) and improving firm performance Hendricks & Singhal, 1997, Lemak & Reed, 1997 and Samson & Terziovski, 1999. Firms that have won quality awards generally outperform other firms with respect to both income measures (Hendricks & Singhal, 1997) and stock market value (Lemak & Reed, 1997). It is no surprise that the links among market orientation, quality practices, and performance have attracted the attention of marketing and operations management researchers alike Ettlie & Johnson, 1994, Flynn et al., 1994, Kohli & Jaworski, 1990, Narver & Slater, 1990 and Samson & Terziovski, 1999. Quality practices have been shown to enhance organizational performance for both product and service organizations (Powell, 1995). However, there is relatively little research on how product versus service companies differ with respect to the impact of quality practices on performance. We know little about how these two different types of organizations view what they do, how well they do it, and its consequences. Rather, the growing body of research on products versus services has focused on external customer perceptions of quality and satisfaction rather than organizational knowledge of quality practices Anderson et al., 1997, Edvardsson et al., 2000, Fornell & Johnson, 1993, Fornell et al., 1996 and Huff et al., 1996. The goal of this research is to examine three key internal quality practices — employee management, process orientation, and customer orientation — and their role in creating customer satisfaction and business results. We examine the similarity and differences in the effects of these practices across a large sample of product and service organizations. One of the important questions raised in our study is: Does an organization's process orientation directly impact customer satisfaction? For service firms, we expect this to be the case. But for product firms, we expect one's process orientation to support a customer orientation or focus, which in turn impacts customer satisfaction. Another important question addressed here is: Given the critical importance of employee management in service firms, does employee management have a greater impact on performance for these firms? The answers to these and related questions are critically important for quality managers and executives who allocate resources across quality practices in their organizations. We first examine the differences between products and services and present our framework for linking quality practices to performance. We then provide theoretical arguments and evidence as to how these links differ. We use a broad-based survey of 482 Swedish companies (product and service firms) to investigate the effects of the quality practices. While our results show that product and service firms are similar in how quality practices support each other, they also support systematic and predictable differences in the effects of these quality practices on customer satisfaction and business performance. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of our results for quality management research and practice.

Quality management provides a strategic foundation for generating a competitive advantage for many organizations (Reed et al., 2000). There is a substantial body of empirical research that supports quality management's role toward improving firm performance. However, it is also becoming clear that the “one-size-fits-all” approach that has pervaded the quality management literature is flawed (Lemak & Reed, 2000). Our point of departure is that quality management processes work differently depending on the product versus service nature of the firm and associated production processes. An important contribution of this research is our framework for linking quality practices to performance. The framework allows us to theoretically identify how product and service companies are both similar and different with respect to the effects of quality practices on customers and business results. Another important contribution is that we use a large sample of product and service firms to show their empirical similarities and differences. For both product and service companies, internal quality practices support each other in a like fashion. Employee management supports both a firm's process and customer orientation, while process orientation also directly supports customer orientation. This provides basic support for the argument that organizations that have good internal quality management systems are typically in a better position to adopt a customer orientation (Johnson & Gustafsson, 2000). We also find systematic differences between products and services. In manufacturing organizations, both employee management and process orientation have their effects on customer satisfaction through a firm's customer orientation. That is, customers are only interested in the output of the process. In service organizations, both process orientation and customer orientation have direct effects on customer satisfaction. This is due to the role of the customer as a co-producer and the fact that a service is produced and consumed at the same time. The production process is simply more visible to service customers, and it is also one in which they are directly involved. We also find broad-based support for the prediction that employee management has a greater direct effect on business performance for services. Satisfying and creating committed employees important for all companies, but more so for services where frontline service providers are a service company's primary asset. Overall, our results support the notion that customer satisfaction and subsequent profitability are a more chain-like set of events for products. Consistent with quality improvement tools such as QFD Akao, 1990, Ettlie & Johnson, 1994 and Gustafsson & Johnson, 1998, bridging the gap between external customers and internal operations involves a translation of the voice of the customer into the voice of the company. However, for services, the translation is more complex because customers are part of a service factory and employee management has a direct impact on business results (Dubè et al., 1999). Our unexpected finding was that customer satisfaction did not have a greater impact on business results for services. In fact, the effect was directionally, but not significantly, in the opposite direction using both the self-reported measures of business performance and objective performance measures. There are at least two possible explanations as to why the results of Edvardsson, Johnson, et al. (2000) are not replicated here. First, this study only has two performance constructs, customer satisfaction and business results, whereas Edvardsson, Johnson, et al. included loyalty as a separate construct. If only the direct effects of customer satisfaction on business results are compared, Edvardsson, Johnson, et al. also found no statistical difference. Second, our measures of customer satisfaction come from the companies, while Edvardsson, Johnson, et al. used measures from customers themselves.