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The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the literature related to accounting and auditing services quality.

The authors performed a systematic literature review that considered 22 papers on the topic. The authors also applied a bibliometric analysis in order to identify the main characteristics of these studies to discuss and provide research opportunities in this field.

The bibliometric results indicate that most papers were published in services and marketing journals. The accounting service quality theme has been rarely researched in accounting field. In addition, based on our review, it was possible to identify that most papers use quantitative methods, such as surveys. The papers' conclusions diverge from each other, demonstrating a still fragmented literature.

Taken together, the paper shows how accounting services quality is relevant and emerging topic that demands future research about accounting professionals' skills, their activities and how their customers perceive quality in an environment of constant change.

The analyses indicate that there are six broad areas for future research on this topic: successes and failures of accounting services providers; the role of “client centricity”; digital accounting services; services quality and accounting education; services quality when considering different types of accounting and auditing services and development of a measurement scale and a theoretical model for accounting services quality. This paper contributes for the ongoing debate about how competition, technology and innovation are changing the landscape for accounting and auditing services providers.

This paper aims to examine the strategy, selection and perception of facility management (FM) services and the effect it may have on perceived building quality.

Data was collected through a survey distributed to board members of cooperatives for newly constructed buildings in Sweden. Responses from 394 cooperative boards were included in the data set and analysed. The difference in cooperative choice of FM strategy and satisfaction with FM services was examined with non-parametrical Kruskal–Wallis tests and the effect of FM strategy and satisfaction with FM services on perceived building quality was examined with a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test.

The results suggest information asymmetry and indicate urgent need for an objective accreditation system for FM services, which will inform and assist housing owners in the FM selection process. The study validates the hypothesis that facilities management strategies applied by housing cooperatives have a significant effect on perception of building quality.

The findings will assist developers, facility and property managers to understand the needs and services valued by the housing cooperative. The findings highlight the information asymmetry, restricted techniques and weak signalling methods among FM services, and advocates promoting an objective accreditation system for FM services.

The study contributes to the discussion on the concept of building quality and the results presented provide a better understanding of facilities management strategy on perception of building quality.

The purpose of this study was to review existing healthcare service quality-measurement models.

A review of the literature was conducted utilizing keywords “healthcare’’, “service quality’’, “measurement models”, “SERVQUAL”, “SERVPERF”, “HEALTHQUAL”, “PubHosQual” and “HospitalQual”. These investigations were selected from the “Emerald’’, “ABI/Inform”, “ScienceDirect” and “EBSCOhost” databases. A range of studies used in the makeup of the healthcare quality-measurement model for a 36 years period (1979 to 2015) were examined in an exhaustive survey of the literature. Of 137 studies reviewed, 74 studies were selected for analysis.

As yet, no consensus has been reached among scholars on the definition and indicators and factors of the quality of the healthcare services. Moreover, most of the current models are of Western origin and incongruent with the cultural and economic contexts of developing countries. The previous studies create scales resembling the generic measures of service quality, which may not be completely appropriate for assessing the perceived quality of healthcare services. Furthermore, previous studies were too narrow, overemphasizing the quality of healthcare only as far as the functional aspect of the services were concerned and paying too little attention to the technical aspects, using the experience of healthcare providers. These results have much room for failures. This is therefore advising healthcare organizations that need to develop their own models for measuring the quality of their services.

Generic models no longer suffice in measuring the quality of healthcare services. Developing countries should try and develop their own models for measuring the quality of healthcare services.

This paper aims to examine the factors that affect the quality of healthcare services in the implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) at the local level in Ghana from the perspectives of health policy implementers and beneficiaries in public-private organisations.

This paper has adopted a mixed research method with both qualitative and quantitative data, with in-depth interviews, document analysis and focus groups discussions. A total of 107 participants took part in the interviews and the questionnaire survey.

The study found that these factors greatly affect the quality of healthcare services from the implementers’ perspectives — referrals, effectiveness in monitoring, timeliness, efficiency, reimbursement, compliance with standard guidelines of Ghana Health Service (GHS) and accreditation process. For the beneficiaries, three healthcare services factors are important, including medical consultations, diagnostic services and the supply of drugs and medicines. Some other factors are found to be the least prioritized healthcare services, namely the issuance of prescription forms, verification of identification (ID) cards and staff attitude. However, the study found that implementers and beneficiaries exhibited a mixed reaction (perspectives) on accessing some healthcare services. In some healthcare services where the implementers perceived that beneficiaries have more access to such services, the beneficiaries think otherwise, an irony in the perspectives of the two actors.

This paper adds to the extant literature on the perspectives of policy implementers and beneficiaries on factors that affect the quality of healthcare services in general and specifically on the implementation of NHIS in Ghana with the public-private dimension.

Total quality management is a valuable approach to continuously improve the quality of organizations; however, scholars debate its applicability to services, which require specific best practices that are different from those related to manufacturing. Moreover, digitization is pervading all kinds of services, but little has been written about total quality service practices in digital-based companies. For this purpose, the authors provide a holistic model of total quality service that reflects the peculiarities of such companies, guided by the question: how do total quality service practices change in digital-based service organizations?

The authors conduct an illustrative case study on Healthware Group, a global integrated digital health organization, to evaluate theoretical assumptions about total quality service practices in the digital environment.

The findings allow to validate the model provided. In addition, the study enables them to observe the changes the authors are witnessing in service provision in the digital era and the consequent transformation of best practices. To be accurate, the authors cannot refer to a full transformation in digital-based companies but rather to the enrichment and extension of TQS practices. The best illustration of these conclusions has been summarized in a set of propositions corresponding to seven of the key levers of a TQS model.

The paper represents the first attempt to discuss the relationship between total quality service and digitalization, offering a set of propositions for academics and insights for practitioners. The model can be used as a tool to visualize the different levers that successful implementation of TQS in digital-based services companies can rely on.

In the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers increasingly opt for, or are forced to, use home delivery services. The authors study retailers' decisions regarding “delivery mode”, which is about outsourcing (vs. insourcing) the delivery service to a traditional delivery company or an unbranded carrier and its effects on consumers' perceived overall quality, perceived hygienic quality, and subsequently, willingness to stay with the firm beyond the pandemic.

A pre-test, an experiment and a post-test were conducted with participants from the UK (Total N = 380).

The results of this study show that (1) in a pandemic, perceived hygienic quality overshadows perceived service quality as a key determinant of consumers' choices, and (2) while consumers have a relatively negative view of the hygienic level of unbranded carriers, they do not differentiate between traditional delivery carriers and retailer-branded carriers. Thus, they are equally interested in using the services of the latter ones.

This study shows that during a health crisis, consumers change their hierarchy of motivations to reflect the new protection motivations. The authors usher perceived hygienic quality as a variable that should be seriously considered as both a tactical and a strategic variable affecting the attractiveness of alternative home delivery methods and consumers' intentions to continue using them after the pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the indicators of service quality from the perspective of graduating students in a public university in Ghana. The identified indicators of service quality were rated and the extent of satisfaction among the students was determined. Another issue explored was whether the satisfaction among the respondents inures to their loyalty to the university.

A questionnaire was designed, pre-tested and administered to 500 graduating students, and 482 of them were returned for analyses. Principal component analysis was used to determine the indicators of service quality. Independent sample t-test and z-test for proportions were used to compare mean scores and proportions of respondents on various variables, respectively.

The results revealed three indicators of service quality which include quality of academic services and facilities, quality of lecturers and quality of academic programs. Graduands were satisfied with academic services, lecturers and programs. They were, however, not satisfied with the quality of facilities. Majority of the respondents will remain associated with the university as a result of their satisfaction with the services, lecturers as well as programs of the university. It is recommended that the university works assiduously on improving infrastructural facilities to help boost the confidence of the students in the university.

This paper argues that what constitutes quality service vary from one academic institution to the other. It is, therefore, needful for institutions to determine from the perspective of their students what may indicate quality service.

In this research, using an analytical framework on factors affecting the quality of auditing services, we consider factors that affect an expectations gap in providers and users of auditing services related to factors affecting auditing quality. Effective factors studied in this regard are professional features, including the professional role of individuals in the auditing process (auditors against preparers of financial statements), professional experience of individuals, professional rating and size of auditing firms. The first statistical society consists of certified public accountants (CPAs) working in the auditing organization and audit firms in Iran, and the second statistical society consists of all investment companies that operate under the supervision of the Tehran Stock Exchange Organization. Based on the results of the research, the role of professionals in the auditing process is not effective as an independent auditor or financial statements provider, as well as the professional experience of individuals in the expectations gap from factors affecting auditing quality, while the size and qualities of the auditing firms were influenced by the expectations gap of individuals in the field of auditing regulation.

The paper aims to investigate the practices facilitating the transformation of healthcare services, understanding the resulting outcomes in terms of well-being and uplifting changes. a systematic literature review (SLR) focusing on analyzing the healthcare sector under the transformative service research (TSR) theoretical domain is conducted to achieve this goal.

Employing a structured SLR developed based on the PRISMA protocol (Pickering and Byrne, 2014; Pickering et al., 2015) and using Scopus and WoS databases, the study identifies and analyzes 49 papers published between 2021 and 2022. Content analysis is used to classify and analyze the papers.

The SLR reveals four transformative practices (how) within the healthcare sector under the TSR domain, each linked to specific well-being outcomes (what). The analysis shows that both practices and outcomes are mainly patient-related. An integrative framework for transformative healthcare service is presented and critically examined to identify research gaps and define the trajectory for the future development of TSR in healthcare. In addition, managerial implications are provided to guide practitioners.

This research is among the first to analyze TSR literature in the context of healthcare. The study critically examines the TSR’s impact on the sector’s transformation, providing insights for future research and offering a roadmap for healthcare practitioners to facilitate uplifting changes.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of peripheral services offered by distance education (DE) institutes on student involvement in DE and, examine whether this impact is mediated by student experience quality.

Quantitative research approach based on cross-sectional survey design was used where data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Sample consisted of 400 undergraduates of the Open University of Sri Lanka, drawn using simple random sampling technique. Collected data were analyzed using the structural equation model.

Data analysis revealed that there is a significant direct impact of peripheral services offered by DE institutes on student involvement in the Sri Lankan context. Furthermore, it is validated that this impact is mediated by student experience quality.

Focus of the study is only on the impact of contextual elements rather than personal or demographic factors of students which can have an important impact on their experience quality as well as involvement.

Findings are useful in designing and redesigning service offering and policy development by DE institutes to make their services more appealing.

Even though previous studies have identified student dropout and lower academic excellence as issues in DE, how service offering can be used to overcome them via student involvement has not received considerable attention. Hence, the tested conceptual model developed on multiple theories is a novel contribution to the existing knowledge base.