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Purpose: We examined whether the five-service quality dimensions described by SERVQUAL (SQ) and SERVPERF (SP) are consistent with perceived dimensions of management accounting (MA) service quality and we compared responses from users and providers.

Design/methodology/approach: We surveyed experienced providers and users of MA services to learn their perceptions and expectations of accounting service quality using SQ/SP adapted to an MA context. We used principal components analysis (PCA) to investigate service quality dimensions.

Findings: Participant responses identified three dimensions of MA service quality. There was a high degree of correspondence in dimensions of service quality between users and providers, but with notable differences in service priorities. A performance-only (SP) approach seems to provide a better measure of overall service quality than performance minus expectations (SQ).

Research limitations/implications: Participants self-selected to participate. Respondents were not matched by organization. The SQ/SP instrument may not capture important organization specific attributes. Our approach may serve as a guide for future studies of accounting service quality.

Practical implications: SP may be more useful to managers who wish to evaluate overall service quality. SQ may be more useful to identify specific gaps between user perceptions and expectations. SQ/SP assessments may help to improve the quality of MA service delivery and provider-user communications.

Originality/value: This is the first empirical study to our knowledge that reports on MA service quality dimensions using both the SQ and SP instruments. This study investigated perceptions and expectations of MA service users and providers. Our sample is a cross-section of experienced professionals.

The global economic power shift towards the East has caused the governments of developed economies to support national businesses which are involved in the process of internationalizing and expanding across borders. Commercial diplomacy provides a means for governments to increase their international trade and to stimulate their national economies. Foreign posts play a crucial role in offering effective diplomatic support for international business. But what are the factors that can explain commercial diplomacy effectiveness at the foreign post level? This chapter presents the results of a survey that was conducted among commercial diplomats stationed at foreign posts. It appears that the amount of experience that commercial diplomats acquired at these foreign posts, combined with their established business network, form two of the most important factors which have a positive impact on the quality of commercial diplomacy. This extends further to include the importance of the client (business) preparedness in terms of knowledge and skills as well. Furthermore, the results indicate that the less favourable a cognitive institutional environment in a host country is, for instance in terms of information availability, the more relevance commercial diplomacy will have. The results of this study promote the understanding of how commercial diplomacy works and show how the debate on the future of commercial diplomacy can be taken a step further. This study should also be seen as a starting point for a holistic framework of commercial diplomacy effectiveness.

In 1985 the Colorado State Legislature mandated, in Article 13 of HB 1187, that institutions of higher education become “accountable for demonstrable improvements in student knowledge, capacities and skills between entrance and graduation” (Colorado Revised Statutes, 1988). As a result, the University of Northern Colorado Libraries became involved in the assessment process. In 1988 the UNC Libraries formed the University Libraries Assessment Committee, comprised of library faculty, classified staff and an administrator in an ex officio position. The Assessment Committee conducted the first survey to assess user satisfaction in the fall of 1988. Since that time, the committee has conducted an assessment program on an annual basis. Today, the UNC Libraries are evaluated in three areas: collections, services, and instruction. Over time, the assessment tools and survey methodologies have evolved, and a variety of program changes have resulted. In this article, we will summarize the history of the assessment program at the UNC Libraries, track selected questions through the years, and describe the resulting changes in the UNC Libraries programs.

The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.

This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.

This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

Academic libraries have endured rapid change in the past two decades that has had repercussions on how they manage their organization and deliver library services. Skyrocketing costs, especially for journals, explosive growth in new technologies, fiscal exigencies caused by a tightening of public financing of most academic institutions, demands for greater accountability, and the onslaught of electronic delivery of networked information, are just some of the major obstacles libraries are encountering (Lubans, 1996; Riggs, 1993; Shaughnessy, 1987). Customers of academic libraries are increasingly less satisfied because of limited resources and the difficulties they encounter in accessing printed material in a traditional library facility (Doughtery, 1992). The emergence of textual materials in electronic form has added a new dimension to this discontent. While such resources have the potential for meeting the information needs more dynamically, the costs for information have been exorbitant, particularly since full electronic texts have not been sufficient in coverage to supplant printed resources (Tenopir, 1993). These phenomena require academic libraries to use a more integrated and flexible approach to problem solving (Gapen, Hampton & Schmitt, 1993).

Quality management is high on the reform agenda of both universities and hospitals. This paper studies how quality management is implemented: who is responsible for QM and which instruments are used? The guiding research question is whether these two very distinct professional organizations respond in similar or different ways to a common reform trend. To analyze the extent of isomorphic tendencies a cross-sectoral, descriptive data analysis with data from 135 hospitals and 83 universities in Germany has been conducted. The results show that QM in hospitals is more elaborated in terms of quality instruments and at the same time more standardized. Universities, in contrast, follow quite individualistic ways to organize quality management.

This study used confirmatory factor analysis to analyze the secondary data resulting from a service quality survey conducted by a large public library. The library outsourced the development of this survey, which was founded on the well-recognized SERVQUAL and LibQUAL+ service quality models. Applying structural equation modeling and recognized fit indexes to the secondary data, this study determined that the library model did not fit the data and that the data itself were neither reliable nor valid. This study developed a nine-step process for implementing the SERVQUAL model that enables the data derived from SERVQUAL-type implementations to provide superior information for decision making.

Efforts aimed at evaluating quality in leisure, tourism and hospitality have concentrated predominantly on measuring perceived service quality using the SERVQUAL scale, either in its original form or with modifications. While these studies are of great theoretical and practical value, the focus on measuring consumer satisfaction may limit the potential scope of the quality-measurement process. This is particularly true in assessing the quality of complex services such as those found in the leisure, tourism and hospitality sectors, which may require the application of a range of measures that will collectively contribute to the identification of quality levels. This article critically evaluates the potentialities and limitations of the SERVQUAL scale in measuring quality in leisure, tourism and hospitality. It concludes that the SERVQUAL scale is a necessary but insufficient measure of quality within these sectors and specifies implications for future research.