Decision Sciences Journal
Volume 30, Number 3
Summer 1999
Cautions on the Use of the SERVQUAL Measure to Assess the
Quality of Information Systems Services
Thomas P. Van Dyke
Department of Management (MIS), College of Business and Economics,
University of Nevada Las Vegas, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas,
NV 89154-6009, e-mail: vandyke@ccmail.nevada.edu
Victor R. Prybutok and Leon A. Kappelman
Business Computer Information Systems Department, College of
Business Administration, University of North Texas, Denton, TX
76203-3677, e-mail: kapp@unt.edu
ABSTRACT. The SERVQUAL questionnaire (Parasuraman,
Zeithaml, & Berry, 1988) is one of the preeminent instruments
for measuring the quality of services as perceived by the customer.
In a recent Decision Sciences article, Kettinger and Lee (1995)
suggested the use of a modified SERVQUAL instrument to assess
the quality of the services supplied by an information services
provider. However, a number of problems with the SERVQUAL instrument
are discussed in the literature. This article provides an illustrative
example utilizing data collected from 138 executive and information
systems professional customers of a multibillion dollar information
services provider in order to examine the validity and reliability
of Kettinger and Lee’s (1995) modified SERVQUAL instrument.
Results of analyses do not confirm the findings of Kettinger
and Lee. Moreover, it appears that the use of difference scores
in calculating SERVQUAL contributes to problems with the reliability,
discriminant validity, convergent validity, and predictive validity
of the measure. These findings suggest that caution should be
exercised in the use of SERVQUAL scores and that further work
is needed in the development of measures for assessing the quality
of information services.
Subject Areas: Management Information Systems, Quality
Control, Service Operations, and Service Quality. |