retail management - review of literature

8/11/2019 retail management - review of literature

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CHAPTER 4

THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL

FRAMEWORK OF RESEARCH

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CHAPTER 4

THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

OF RESEARCH

4.1 Definitions Pertaining to Research Topic

Service: Service (Lovelock, 2004) is an act or performance offered by one part to another

which is essentially intangible and does not result in the factors of production. It may be tied

to a physical product.

Services Marketing: Services Marketing and management (Kotler,2005) refers to a

customer-satisfaction-engineering tool whereby various complex issues like design, delivery,

encounters, quality, profitability and productivity are dealt with. Service is an act or

performance offered by one party to another which is essentially intangible and does not

result in the ownership of factors of production and may be tied to a physical product.

Quality: According to American Society for Quality, Quality is defined as the characteristics

of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs; or a product

or service free of deficiencies.

Service quality: Service quality is a focused evaluation that reflects the customer's

perception of specific dimensions of service: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, Empathy,

and tangibles. Service quality involves a comparison of expectations with performance.

Service quality is a measure of how well a delivered service matches the customers

expectations.

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SERVQUAL Dimensions: The five dimensions of Service Quality (SERVQUAL) proposed

by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry were:

- Tangibles - Physical evidence of the service): Appearance of physical facilities,

tools and equipments used to provide the service.

-

Reliability - The ability to perform the promised service dependably and

accurately: Consistency of performance and dependability, service is performed

right at the first time.

- Responsiveness - The willingness and/ or readiness of employees to help

customers and to provide prompt service, timeliness of service.

- Assurance - The knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey

trust and confidence: competence, courtesy, trustworthiness, security.

- Empathy - The provision of caring, individualized attention to customers:

informing the customers in a language they can understand, Understanding

customer's specific needs.

Service Failure and Recovery: Service failure (Michel, 2008) is any service-relatedmishaps

or problems (real and/or perceived) that occur during a consumers experience with the firm.

Service recovery is service providers action when something goes wrong. More recently,

service recovery hasbeen treated as a bundle of resources that an organization can employ

in response to a failure.

Perceived Justice: Perceived justice (Nadiri, 2009) proposes that the service recovery itself;

the outcomes connected to the recovery strategy; and the interpersonal behaviours enacted

during the recovery process and the delivery of outcomes are all critical in service recovery

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assessment. Hence, Tax et al. proposed a three dimensional concept of justice: distributive

justice, procedural justice and interactional justice.

Distributive justice: Distributive justice is concerned primarily with the specific outcome of

the recovery effort, i.e. what did the service provider do to pacify the offended customer and

whether the consequent outcomes more than offset the costs incurred by the customer. Some

often quoted distributive outcomes include compensation in the form of discounts, coupons,

refund, free gift, replacement, apologies and so on.

Procedural justice: Procedural justice focuses on the perceived fairness of the policies,

procedures, and criteria used by decision makers in arriving at the outcome of a dispute or

negotiation. Tax et al. described five elements of procedural justice including process

control, decision control, accessibility, timing/speed and flexibility.

Interactional justice: Interactional justice focuses on the fairness of the interpersonal

treatment people receive during the enactment of procedures. They further identified five

elements of interactional justice: explanation/causal account, honesty, politeness, effort and

empathy.

Hypermarket: A hypermarket tis a super store combining a supermarket and a department

store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one

roof, including full groceries lines and general merchandise. Hypermarkets allow customers

to satisfy all their routine shopping needs in one trip spread over a square feet area between 1

and 2 lakhs sq. feet.

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Merchandise Quality: This refers to the quality of goods (products) stocked in the retail

store.

Store Loyalty: Store loyalty refers to the tendency to repeat purchase at the same store.

Previous studies view customer loyalty as being both behavioural and attitudinal. In

measuring retail store loyalty, the attitudinal component of loyalty is operationalised as

commitment and the behavioural dimension as repeat purchase and positive word-of-mouth

4.2

Research Model

The research model comprising endogenous and exogenous variables are depicted in

Figure 4.1.

4.2.1 Endogenous (Descriptive) Variables

The endogenous (descriptive) variables used in the research are explained below:

a. Perceived Service Quality

b. Perceived Merchandise Quality

c. Satisfaction with Service Recovery

d. Store Loyalty

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Figure 4.I: Research Model

Reliability

Responsiveness

Assurance

Empathy

Tangibles

Distributive justice

Procedural justice

Interactional justice

RQ1 (H1a-H1e)

PerceivedService Quality

RQ2 (H2)

RQ3 (H3)

Perceived Store Loyalty

(Future Behaviour)MerchandiseQuality

RQ4 (H4a-H4c) RQ5 (H5)

Satisfaction with

Service Recovery

(response to

complaints)

Source: Compiled from various sources of literature

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4.2.2 Exogenous (Operational) Variables

The exogenous (operational) variables used in the research are explained below:

a.

Assurance

b.

Empathy

c.

Reliability

d. Responsiveness

e. Tangibles

4.3

Research Questions

Research Question 1 (RQ1): Do service factors have an effect on perceived service quality?

Research Question 2 (RQ2): Does perceived service quality has an effect on retail store

loyalty?

Research Question 3 (RQ3): Does perceived merchandise quality has an effect on retail store

loyalty?

Research Question 4 (RQ4): Do perceived justice factors have an effect on satisfaction with

service recovery?

Research Question 5 (RQ5): Does satisfaction with service recovery have an effect on store

loyalty?

4.4 Research Hypotheses

Research Question 1 (RQ1): Do service factors have an effect on perceived service

quality? H1a: Reliability has no effect on perceived service quality.

H1b: Responsiveness has no effect on perceived service quality.

H1c: Assurance has no effect on perceived service quality. H1d:

Empathy has no effect on perceived service quality.

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H1e: Tangibles has no effect on perceived service quality.

Research Question 2 (RQ2): Does perceived service quality has an effect on store

loyalty? H2: Perceived service quality has no effect on store loyalty.

Research Question 3 (RQ3): Does perceived merchandise quality has an effect on store

loyalty?

H3: Perceived merchandise quality has no effect on store loyalty.

Research Question 4 (RQ4): Do perceived justice factors have an effect on satisfaction with

service recovery?

H4a: Distributive justice has no effect on satisfaction with service recovery.

H4b: Procedural justice has no effect on satisfaction with service recovery.

H4c: Interactional justice has no effect on satisfaction with service recovery.

Research Question 5 (RQ5): Does satisfaction with service recovery have an effect on store

loyalty?

H5: Satisfaction with service recovery has no effect on store loyalty.

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retail management - review of literature

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