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The topic for this article is quality improvement in service operations. Quality improvement is used as a collective expression for quality assurance, quality management and quality control. Service operations refer to private as well as to public service operations and to services in manufacturing companies. Although services play a predominant role as regards GDP and employment in the OECD countries, we still know very little about quality management in service operations. Concepts and models in organization theories, marketing and other fields are, to a great extent, based on studies of and experience from manufacturing companies. Quality is no exception, even though it has received some attention during the past 15 years, especially from researchers in Scandinavia.

The aim of this article is to contribute to widening the scope of service quality by focusing on dimensions beyond cognitive assessment. The focus is on the role of customers’ emotions in service experiences.

The article first discusses the service concept and implications for service quality. It then focuses on the role of customer experiences, and then discusses the role of emotions in service quality.

The paper presents six propositions related to service experiences when consuming services and the role of emotions in customer‐perceived service quality.

The paper contributes to widening the scope of service quality by focusing on dimensions beyond cognitive assessment.

According to John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends, the United States is moving from an industrial to an information society. This is evident in the rapidly growing service industry. From 1969 to 1976, ninety percent of the newly created jobs were white collar or service oriented positions. In 1981, almost seventy percent of all jobs were in the service industry. This percentage is expected to increase to near ninety percent by 1990. The Coalition of Service Industries, Inc. estimates that service industries generate two‐thirds of the United States Gross National Product, and service industries employ three out of four working Americans. Another reason for the increase in concern for service quality is the rise of the “get my money's worth” consumer, a value‐seeking shopper who thinks in terms of total use cost rather than just initial acquisition cost.

To evaluate the application of one particular quality measurement tool, the SERVQUAL instrument, as a potential mechanism to measure quality in services for children with disabilities

Staff and family of children with an intellectual disability in two organisations providing specialist therapy and day completed an adapted SERVQUAL questionnaire. A total of 81 SERVQUAL questionnaires were distributed and 59 questionnaires were returned (response rate of 73 per cent).

The SERVQUAL instrument can be considered as a useful diagnostic tool to identify particular strengths and areas for improvement in services for people with disabilities as the instrument lends itself for the monitoring of the effectiveness of quality improvement initiatives over time. The findings also showed relatively high customer expectations and the organisations involved in this research are currently not meeting all of these high expectations as significant quality gaps were found in the areas of reliability and responsiveness.

The sample size was relatively small and the measurement of quality using the SERVQUAL instrument remains a challenge, due to the conceptual and empirical difficulties.

The SERVQUAL instrument is probably most be attractive to service managers and funding organisations because of its ability to identify gaps in the quality of the service.

The tool had been used to measure quality in services for people with disabilities and the research has shown that this tool might be an important additional quality measurement tool for services.

Studies the relationship between perceived price and perceived quality for the three types of services, namely, pure, mixed, and quasi‐manufacturing classified by Chase and Tansik, and the relative importance of five dimensions of service quality identified by Parasuraman et al. Finds that the relationship between perceived price and the five dimensions of service quality appears to be very weak for pure and quasi‐manufacturing services, but is statistically significant for mixed service. Reliability dimension is statistically significant for all three types of service. Tangible dimension is a critical variable for mixed service while the empathy dimension is important for quasi‐manufacturing service. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived price and overall service‐quality is significant for quasi‐manufacturing service, but is weak for pure and mixed services.

Public sector policymakers have been preoccupied with quality, performance and impact initiatives, which constrain and define the strategic and operational objectives of public sector bodies. This theoretical article aims to review the quality, performance management and impact assessment regimes that currently impact on public and academic libraries in the UK, and to explore the challenges for managers in finding their path through this quality maze. Much of the literature focuses on individual initiatives, with little reference to the wider quality management context. Also seeks to urge consideration of the cumulative impact of such initiatives, with their different notions of quality, on public sector organisations and their quality management processes.

The article is an opinion piece that offers some conceptual frameworks, based on an analysis of literature, practice and web sites gathered over many years' investigation and observation. The tension between externally‐focused quality assurance and internally‐focused quality enhancement is taken as a point of departure. A further source of complexity is the quality management agendas that impact on library and information services from different levels in the organisation, otherwise described as the quality hierarchy.

A review of the approaches to collecting customer evaluations of service quality, enhancing quality and performance, and the accreditation of quality and performance illustrates the complexity associated with accommodating agendas arising from different contexts, and the competing notions of quality that are embedded in these different approaches.

The range of different influences on quality management, the sheer complexity and dynamism of the landscape and the management challenges associated with maintaining an appropriate quality management regime for any specific information service, are key messages that emerge from this review. Information managers in different posts experience the quality maze differently. Further research and reflection on practice are necessary.

This paper provides useful information for those managers trying to implement quality, performance and impact assessment regimes.

The aim of this article is to examine the differences in service quality between public and private hospitals in Turkey.

This study applies the principles behind the SERVQUAL model and compares Turkey's public and private hospital care service quality. The study sample contains a total of 200 outpatients. Through the identification of 40 service quality indicators and the use of a Likert‐type scale, two questionnaires containing 80‐items was developed. The former measured patients' expectations prior to admission to public and private hospital service quality. The latter measured patient perceptions of provided service quality.

The results indicate that inpatients in the private hospitals were more satisfied with service quality than those in the public hospitals. The results also suggest that inpatients in the private hospitals were more satisfied with doctors, nurses and supportive services than their counterparts in the public hospitals. Finally, the results show that satisfaction with doctors and reasonable costs is the biggest determinants of service quality in the public hospitals.

Consequently, SERVQUAL, as a standard instrument for measuring functional service quality, is reliable and valid in a hospital environment.

Addresses two shortcomings of service quality empirical research. Investigates the importance of service quality as a predictor of actual choice behaviour and examines the importance of process and outcome quality attributes as predictors of choice. Uses regression analysis to investigate the importance of service quality attributes on choice. Suggests that consumers utilise multiple process and outcome quality attributes in their choices.

Increasing competition in the service sector provides an opportunity for firms to differentiate their services from the competition by providing and improving service quality. The development of a quality strategy to improve service quality is presented and the critical points in customer processing are identified.

Proposes to develop a service quality model, based on test of a sample of business executives, which describes how the quality of services is perceived by customers. Looks at its marketing implications, in which functional quality is seen to be a very important dimension of a perceived service. Concludes that quality dimensions are interrelated and that the importance of image should be recognised.