The socially responsible customer segment is growing. Increasingly, customers are concerned about social, political, and environmental issues. These concerns have been shown to affect their attitudes towards the quality of goods and services as well as their buying behaviors. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of empirical research in the service literature on socially responsible customers. This study investigates the role that social responsibility plays in measuring service quality. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used in this study. Focus group and in-depth interviews were conducted to develop a scale measuring the social responsibility dimension in the evaluation of service quality. Confirmatory factor analysis and a multiple regression method were then utilized to test four hypotheses postulated in the study. The social responsibility scale consisted of eight items and was shown to be highly reliable. This scale along with the 22 items from the perception part of SERVQUAL formed the Socially Responsible Customer (SRC) SERVQUAL instrument used in this study. A total of 803 respondents completed the survey. The results of confirmatory factor analysis showed that social responsibility was a salient dimension of service quality and highly socially responsible customers used the concept of social responsibility more pronouncedly than the others when evaluating service quality. The social responsibility dimension alone significantly explained the variance in service quality. However, after accounting for the existing five SERVQUAL dimensions, the social responsibility dimension does not add a significant increment to the variance explained by the service quality regression model. / Ph. D.

Bakalauro baigiamojo darbo teorinėje dalyje aptariama paslaugos kokybės teorinė samprata, pristatomi paslaugos kokybės vertinimo teoriniai modeliai ir bendrieji paslaugos kokybės vertinimo kriterijai, kuriais remiantis parengtas tyrimo instrumentas – anketa, skirta vertinti P. Šimulio autoserviso paslaugos kokybę. Empirinėje dalyje pristatomi klientų nuomonės tyrimo rezultatai, kurie atskleidžia autoserviso klientų nuomonę apie techninę, funkcinę ir laukiamą kokybę. Tyrimo rezultatai patvirtina, kad P. Šimulio autoserviso paslaugų kokybė daugumos klientų yra vertinama gerai. Tyrimo metu nustatytos ir tobulintinos paslaugos kokybės sritys (aptarnaujančių darbuotojų kiekis ir jų apranga, darbuotojų mokėjimas pripažinti klaidą ir įmonės kainodaros sistema), kurias, remiantis vertinimo rezultatais, rekomenduojama gerinti. Darbą sudaro trys pagrindinės dalys: įvadas, teorinės dalis, empirinė – praktinė dalis, išvados ir rekomendacijos, literatūros sąrašas. Darbe yra aštuonios lentelės, 26 paveikslai. Atskirai pridedami šeši priedai. Darbo apimtis 67 p. teksto be priedų. / The theoretical conception of service quality is discussed in this final work of bachelor degree as well as the theoretical models of evaluation of service quality and overall criteria of evaluation of service quality are introduced in this paper. The instrument of this survey, the questionnaire, which was designed to evaluate the service quality of the P. Šimulis car care service centre, was based on them. The results of the clients’ opinions survey that show the service consumers’ views on technical, functional and expected quality are presented in the empirical part of the work. The obtained results confirm that the major part of the clients appreciate quality of service supplied by the P. Šimulis car care service centre. The improvement areas in quality of service (such as the quantity of operating personnel and their appearance, willingness to acknowledge their mistakes and the pricing system of the company) were identified during the survey and according to the evaluation of the results they should be improved. This final work consists of three main parts: introduction, theoretical part, empirical – practical part, conclusions and recommendations and the list of literature used. There are 8 tables and 26 pictures represented in this work. 6 annexes are listed separate. The bachelor paper consists of 67 pages excluding annexes.

Turizmo paslaugų kokybės poveikis jų konkurencingumui. Sunku įvertinti nuostolius, patiriamus dėl blogos kokybės. Tai papildomos išlaidos klaidoms taisyti, darbo laiko dėl blogo procesų organizavimo švaistymas ir, žinoma, galimybių praradimas, įmonės reputacijos blogėjimas, klientų praradimas. Nuostolių dėl blogos kokybės eliminavimas yra galimybė sumažinti paslaugos kūrimo bei teikimo išlaidas ir pasiekti didesnį veiklos efektyvumą. Didėjantis turizmo verslo vaidmuo tiek pasaulio, tiek šalies ekonomikoje verčia naujai pergalvoti šios ekonomikos šakos svarbą ir vaidmenį šalies ekonominiame augime ir pasverti, ar viskas yra daroma iš turizmo organizatorių pusės, kad būtų adekvačiai atsakyta į globaliniu mastu keliamą iššūkį toliau efektyviai plėtoti šį verslą ir maksimaliai išnaudoti jo teikiamas galimybes šalies gerovei kelti. Lietuvoje turizmo informacijos centruose vis dar pasitaiko įvairių nemalonių netikėtumų, dėl kurių turizmo informacijos centrų klientai vis dar nesulaukia jiems norimų – kokybiškų paslaugų. Turizmas yra itin plati sritis, todėl turizmo informacijos centro darbuotojams yra tikras iššūkis ne tik žinoti, bet ir perteikti šalies kultūrą, apgyvendinimo bei transporto galimybes, turizmo išteklius ir jų ypatumus bei daug kitos informacijos, todėl kokybiškos turizmo informacijos teikimas – tai nauja galimybė įgyvendinti klientų lūkesčius bei poreikius ir prisidėti prie Lietuvos turizmo plėtros. Šio darbo tikslas - išanalizuoti ir įvertinti VšĮ „Kelmės turizmo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The influence of tourism service quality to competitiveness. It is difficult to evaluate losses, suffered due to bad quality. This means extra expenses to correct the mistakes, wasting time due to inappropriate processing of work organization and losing opportunities and decreasing the enterprise image and loss of customers. The elimination of losses, caused by bad quality, means lower expenses of making a service and achieving better effectiveness of the work. The increasing importance of the tourism business in the world and country markets, makes us re-think the role of this business and ensure that everything is done to continue its spread effectively and maximize the use of its opportunities in the global world to improve the life quality. Customers of Lithuanian tourism information centers still face the different matters of inappropriate service quality. Tourism is a very wide field, so the employees of these Centers have to have the abilities to convey the country culture, accommodation and transport possibilities, tourism resources and their uniqueness and plenty of other information. So, the good quality services may help to implement the expectations and needs and contribute to the spread of Lithuania tourism. The goal of this works is to analyze and evaluate the Public Institution „Kelme Tourism and Business Information Centre“ services, define the improvement methods and possibilities of increasing its competitiveness. The tasks of this work are: describe the... [to full text]

Reputation is an important asset for organisations worldwide. Many researchers have attempted to develop a measurement construct to assess an organisation’s reputation, with the RepTrak System being recognised to be the world’s first tool that assess reputation across multiple stakeholders and areas of the organisation. Nevertheless, the characteristics, methods and stakeholders to include within an assessment of this intangible asset continues to be widely debated. Organisations are under intense scrutiny by their stakeholders, with reputation being an organisational asset on which many opinions are formed. Universities in the UK are no different, as they compete for students from around the world, with the institutions thought to have the best reputations, attracting more students. Nevertheless, no agreed measure for assessing a university’s reputation exists, with many organisations relying solely on league table rankings. Thus, this thesis evaluated existing reputation measurement characteristics, to determine their applicability in assessing the reputation of a UK university. The antecedents of reputation are also widely debated. Authors suggest that stakeholders’ prior knowledge and experience, and communication they receive from an organisation contributes to their perceptions of that organisation’s reputation. The Media Richness Theory suggests a hierarchy to this communication, with face-to-face communication recognised to be of increasing importance due to its ‘rich’ nature. Consequently, the use of events as a strategic communication tool for marketing and public relations purposes has become increasingly popular. Nevertheless, the impact of these events on an organisation’s reputation has yet to be assessed. Thus, the aim of x this thesis is to evaluate the impact that these events have on stakeholders’ perceptions of a UK university’s reputation. A case study methodology, using mixed methods, and underpinned by a pragmatic philosophical perspective was adopted. Five semi-structured interviews were held with senior managers during the first phase of data collection and analysis. Results from these interviews were used to determine the strategic purpose of events as a communication tool. In phase two of the research, the study’s main variables (Reputation, Event Influence, Knowledge and Familiarity, Future Intentions) are combined into a model to assess their relationships. These are tested using Structural Equation Modelling, and data collected from 23 university events and 592 event attendees, using a quantitative questonniare. This study contributes to our knowledge and understanding of the benefits of using events as a form of communication, and highlights the necessity of using a variety of communication channels to inform different stakeholder groups. Findings within this research contradict existing knowledge within the UK Higher Education Industry, by suggesting that university league tables were not the most frequently used method of assessing a university’s reputation, and that rather stakeholders base their perceptions on their personal experience with the institution. Consequently, attending events is found to have a positive influence on attendees’ perceptions of the university’s reputation, however a threshold level exists for stakeholders with high levels of familiarity with the university. Therefore, evidence of the impact of using events as a communication tool is found with a positive return on investment in terms of reputation gains. Thus, findings can be used to inform communication strategy within the higher education industry within the UK.

The master´s thesis deals with the marketing strategy proposal of travel agency SunTA. The theoretical part of the thesis provides an overview of the current concept of corporate strategic management, strategic marketing management, marketing strategy and service quality. The analytical part of the thesis focuses on performing the marketing situation analysis of SunTA and the questionnaire survey to evaluate its service quality. The proposal part of the thesis includes the marketing strategy proposal based on the results of the marketing situation analysis and the evaluation of service quality.