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The purpose of this paper is to study of services of front desk staff using SERVQUAL aims to measure the perception and expectations of the library users. The librarians, keeping in view the expectations will get an idea that how much the services should be improved while the users will have an idea that what they want, and what are they provided with. In additions, the difference between the perception and expectations of the male library users and female library users is explored to give an idea to the librarians that what dimension of the services they need to explore.

Quantitative research method was used to conduct this study. The SERVQUAL instrument was used to measure the levels of perception and expectation through a structured questionnaire at the five points Likert scale. The tool was used with the permission of the author Berry et al. (1985). All the libraries of affiliated medical college with the University of Health Sciences were the population for this study. Through random sampling technique, 20 questionnaires per medical colleges were filled by the students of medical colleges. In total, 202 questionnaires returned and were analyzed after data entry in Statistical Package for Social Science version 19.

Mean of the total respondents indicate that the improvement in all the five dimensions of the service quality is required as the expectations found to be higher in all the five dimensions as compared to the perceptions. Perceived values are higher among female library users, so the library front desk staff requires increasing the perceived values of male users through improving their services to male library users. While comparing the expectations between male and female users, the results indicate that male library users want more responsiveness and reliability from the staff.

This study measures the perceptions and expectations of the student library users of the medical college affiliated with University of Health Sciences, Lahore. Only main libraries excluding the small departmental libraries are included in this study. This study can be generalized in other private medical colleges as well as other researchers can study further in their own environment.

The results indicate that the expectations are higher. Keeping in view, the librarians will work to meet the expectations of the users. The expectation of the female users are higher in tangibility and empathy dimensions, while the male users expect more in reliability, responsiveness and assurance dimensions. In short, all the results showed that the expectations were higher than the perceptions. Keeping this study in view, the librarians can improve their weak areas of front desk staff services to meet the expectations of the users.

It is the first study of its type to measure the service quality of front desk staff. The service quality of front desk staff is never been measured in medical colleges using SERVQUAL in Lahore. The results of this study provide the guidelines to satisfy library users. The difference between the perception and expectations provides librarians and library managers with a road map to develop the service quality of front desk staff to meet the expectation level of the user’s for their satisfaction. This study can be generalized to the medical colleges other than Lahore.

To obtain a competitive advantage in the logistics market, international express companies should design services to stimulate customers’ usage intention by understanding customers’ affective perceptions (or in Japanese, Kansei) of the service offerings. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationships among the service elements of international express, customer Kansei perceptions, and intentions to use the service, to provide new ideas for the design of international express services (IESs).

By using Kansei engineering approach, customers’ Kansei perceptions related to elements of IES are first determined, and the logistic regression technique is then used to analyze three constructed models based on the relationships among the service elements of international express, customers’ Kansei perceptions, and usage intention.

Accordingly, five critical service elements that correspond to four vital Kansei words related to usage intention were obtained based on cross-comparisons of the results of three models. The findings have important implications for international express managers, in that the priorities in designing services should be those service elements that favorably elicit certain Kansei perceptions among customers and effectively lead to customers’ usage intention in the pre-purchase phase. Moreover, some important missing Kansei perceptions further derived from customers’ real service experiences in the post-purchase stage should be incorporated into future design considerations.

This study incorporated customers’ Kansei perceptions into the procedure of IES design. By understanding the service elements and feelings that customers deem important, international express companies can improve the content of existing services and strengthen the design of new services to increase customers’ behavioral intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of other customer perception (OCP) (Brocato et al., 2012) on focal customer’s service quality perception and revisit intention in high- and low-involvement services and the effect of customer’s need for uniqueness (NFU) as a boundary condition of the above relationships.

Following a theoretical methodology, hypotheses were developed to analyze the effect of OCP, service involvement and customer’s NFU. A 2 × 2 × 2 scenario-based experiment was designed. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to test the hypotheses.

The analysis reveals that the presence of conforming (versus non-conforming) other customers improves service quality perception and revisit intention of focal customers in high-involvement services, but not in low-involvement services. However, the relationship between similarity perception and outcome variables does not hold good for high-NFU customers.

This study suggests that conforming and non-conforming other customers are critical in forming service quality perception of high-involvement services, and highlights the boundary condition of this relationship. If service managers take service involvement and individual differences into account, and strategize their service offering aligned to their target customers, influence of other customers can be managed more efficiently.

As this study is one of the first empirical studies to focus on the effect of OCP on service quality perception and examine its boundary condition, it contributes significantly to the body of knowledge. Future research directions are discussed and managerial implications are proposed.

The purpose of this study is to determine the level of perception of a Muslim account holder in a conventional bank toward Islamic banking products and to determine the relationship between the perception levels of Nigerian’s account holder’s and their decision to patronize Islamic banking. Personal perception factor is operationalized as opinion or observations, which are able to influence customer’s decision to patronize Islamic banking products and services.

A field survey was conducted and samples drawn using proportionate stratified simple random sampling techniques. Out of the 500 questionnaires distributed by hand, only 304 were returned and 286 were usable for the data analysis using SPSS and PLS Modeling Software.

First, the means for personal perception variable was 4.91 with standard deviation of 1.007. This indicates the good perception level of Islamic products by Muslim account holders in a conventional bank in Kano, Nigeria. The respondents’ level of decision to patronize the Islamic banking products and services was satisfactory. Second, the results also showed that the research framework model, structural model and hypothesis were supported. In the measurement model, the convergent, discriminant validity and reliability/composite reliability of the perception construct were assessed favorably. The results revealed that perception was positively associated with a Muslim account holder’s decision to patronize Islamic banking products.

The study is subject to several shortcomings that limit interpretation of findings. One of the limitations of this study is the use of cross-sectional design for survey research and subjective self-reported perceptual measures in assessing the studies. Hence, the findings of this study cannot be generalized in a larger context across the cultures of other countries.

The implication of this study is for the Islamic banking industry to focus on the people’s level of perception, government support, quality and availability of Islamic banking products and services that would have an impact on customer decision to patronize Islamic banking products. The necessary suggestions on new area of research were recommended for future researchers.

Islamic banks have the potential to exploit and market to various segments of customers extending beyond those who are concerned with the legitimacy of the facility from the Islamic point of view and those who seek service quality, convenience and efficient transactions. To the practitioners in search of patronage of Islamic banking products and services, patronage studies on Islamic banking have so far largely focused on the combination of various religious, reputation, commercial, service satisfaction, staff, confidentiality and convenience factors.

The results of the present study establish the major problem that requires urgent attention needed to strengthen public education toward the distinctive characteristics of Islamic banks and how it may profitably suit the interest of customers in their financial dealings.

Context‐awareness is an essential property of any pervasive system perceiving its environment. Such a system captures and processes context, i.e. the features describing the relevant aspects of environment state and user behaviour. However, development of these systems still requires solving a number of research and engineering challenges. The purpose of this paper is to propose perception framework, a RESTful middleware which simplifies and accelerates the development of pervasive systems. Perception framework allows constructing services' application logic using rules and context. Moreover, it collects sensor data and produces the context information that is required for the rules. The authors present the architecture, design, complete implementation, and prototype‐based verification of perception framework.

Development of context‐aware services is achieved with a novel architecture supporting building of the logic of web services using rules which directly manipulate the available elementary context represented with the Web Ontology Language (OWL) ontology. These rules are described using the Rule Interchange Format (RIF) with support for different rule languages. The implementation of this framework is aligned with RESTful principles, providing a lightweight and flexible solution for large‐scale context‐aware systems.

The fully implemented prototype verifies the feasibility of constructing the logic of context‐aware web services with the rules supported by perception framework.

The contributions of this paper include: the requirement specification for a generic context‐aware pervasive middleware; and the design and implementation of the framework (i.e. perception framework) supporting the development of context‐aware web services. The perception framework includes a generic rule‐based reasoner allowing developers to use several RIF‐compliant rule description languages.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate user versus provider perceptions of management accounting system (MAS) services using the DeLone and McLean information system success model and the theoretical lens of social perception theory.

Quantitative survey data were collected and analyzed using ordinal regression. Qualitative interview data concerning user‐provider perceptions of MAS service information quality, importance, use, and satisfaction were utilized to corroborate and explain the data analysis.

The results suggest that there are significant perceptual differences about MAS service quality by users versus providers. For this organization, the paper identifies what these differences are, why they exist, and how organizations may identify and narrow identified gaps.

The paper is based on a case study that may not be generalizable to broader populations. It uses a cross‐sectional, correlational, self‐report survey, therefore is unable to make causal or directional inferences. Future research should assess MAS services in different organizations, industries, and cultures.

The paper is among the first to provide quantitative and qualitative evidence of perceived differences in accounting service quality, approaches to uncovering sources of differences, and steps that organizations may take to improve service quality.

This paper is the first to apply the DeLone and McLean information system success model in the context of MAS service quality. The paper examines perceptions of MAS providers and users to evaluate services and investigates perceptual differences across functions and at different organizational levels.

This study aims to investigate and explain the influence of cultural differences on foreign customers' perceptions of the local service marketplace through their consumption experience.

Exploratory research was conducted by conducting semi-structured interviews and using critical incidents technique to identify foreign customers' perception of each service. A purposive sampling method was used to collect 70 participants to recall their experience in the five most used services, including transportation, convenience stores, restaurants, healthcare, and banking.

The results found 286 critical incidents in four main categories of the physical environment, employee behavior, value, and functionality. The participants were likely to mention positive arguments. The results also provide evidence that Western customers were more likely than their Asian counterparts to have a negative perception of local services.

The study combines all the participants' perceptions of all the most used services together for measurement; therefore, it may imply some various results for individual services. This paper has several limitations that need to be recognized in interpreting its findings.

These results have cross-cultural implications, especially that foreign consumers really see services in a very simplistic manner. International service providers can take advantage of economies of scale and experience curve effects, while local service providers can also make efforts to attract foreign customers.

The findings provide an initial step towards developing a comprehensive understanding of foreign consumers' perceptions of local services and make a theoretical contribution to the applicability of cross-cultural marketing.

This study aims to develop and test a service‐based demographic framework for studying service quality perceptions. Specifically, the effect of level of service contact and key demographic variables of age, gender and income on service quality perceptions is examined.

A total of 224 customers of high‐ and low‐contact passenger transport services were surveyed using a self‐administered questionnaire.

The findings indicated that service quality perceptions differed according to the level of contact inherent to the service. Consumer age was also found to affect service quality perceptions; however, no differences in service quality perceptions on the basis of gender or income were found.

The results of the study enhance the understanding of service quality perceptions and provide useful insight for the management and delivery of service quality. Overall, the results suggest that managers in the train travel industry need to take the level of contact as well as the views of certain demographic segments into account if they want to maximize perceived service. Demographics provide managers with a means of determining which segments of the market are feasible in terms of achieving greater market penetration. The findings of this study show the importance of considering variables relating to individual characteristic or the service itself when investigating service quality.

Prior research has not examined empirically whether service quality dimensions vary on the basis of service type; thus, this paper contributes to knowledge in this field.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate customers' intentions to purchase mobile communications services and how these intentions are affected by the customers' price perceptions in two customer segments – a mobile segment and a combined segment. A further aim was to gain insight into the formation of price perceptions, and customer characteristics that underlie the differences between purchase intentions and price perceptions.

The study was conducted in the Finnish mobile services market. The sample data were collected through a postal survey (n=3,000) sent to customers of a Finnish teleoperator. In analyzing empirical data the explanatory factor analyses, linear regression analyses, and analysis of variance were applied.

The results indicated that a significant and positive relationship exists between customers' price perceptions and their purchase intentions, and that the formation of price perceptions is significantly influenced by satisfaction with pricing and services. Price transparency was found to be negatively associated with customers' price perceptions. Gender, age, and experience of service use were found to explain the differences in customers' perceptions.

By segmenting customers according to the research results and targeting pricing schemes specific to these segments would potentially improve customers' price perceptions and their intentions to purchase mobile services. The study also supported the use of multi‐dimensional pricing schemes as it was found to positively influence customers' price perceptions.

This paper provides new practical and theoretical insights into the relationship between purchase intentions and price perception, and into the formation of the price perceptions of mobile services customers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore consumers' perceptions of price unfairness in services, what are its antecedents and when it is important for the consumer. Thus, the central question of this research is whether consumers care about how much profit the service company is making and whether there are significant differences to physical goods.

Building on justice and equity theory, a causal model is developed – which analyses the main antecedents (seller profits vs customer value), moderators and consequences of perceptions of price unfairness. Structural equation modelling has been applied to test the proposed model.

The lack of specific tools to measure perceptions of price fairness required the development of a multi‐item scale to capture the complexity of the evaluation. This instrument has been tested for reliability and validity in a variety of settings, with excellent results, and can be appropriate when using the survey as a data collection method. Also, the authors have argued that there should be significant differences due to the nature of the product – service industries vs physical goods– as well as due to the number of available alternatives that the buyer has in the market.

The validity of a new model is tested by means of an empirical research conducted in four different settings, two different services (automobile repair services and music concerts) and their related physical goods (automobiles and music CDs). A multi‐item scale is also developed to capture the complexity of price fairness perceptions. Finally, significant differences between contexts, as well as due to the number of available alternatives present in the marketplace are examined.