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<p>COURSE: Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration, 15ECTS</p><p>AUTHOURS:Peters Silvia Chigozirim. Elham Mazdarani.</p><p>Flugsnappargatan 6, 3tr. Nybohovsbacken 99, 9tr.</p><p>72472, Västerås. 11764, Stockholm</p><p>0737225113. 0709391923</p><p>SUPERVISOR: LEIF SANNER</p><p>TOPIC: The impact of employee empowerment on service quality and customer satisfaction: a case study of Länsförsäkringar AB.</p><p>BACKGROUND: Considering the nature of service delivery and particularly intangible-dominant services, employee empowerment becomes a very important issue to organizations producing services. In that, the customers and the employees are, engaged simultaneously in the production of the service. This inseparability is what is considered by the organization in choosing how best to serve its customers, either by the traditional method or through the empowerment approach.</p><p>The inability of the management to control the service encounter makes the employees responsible for the quality of service delivered to the customers. In order for the management to trust that the employees are successful in dealing with their customers, the management has to give the employees the authority and necessary support to succeed at it, which is referred to as employee empowerment. The practice of which can directly affect the quality of services delivered, and customer satisfaction.</p><p>PURPOSE: The purpose of this research is to ascertain the extent to which Länsförsäkringar Bank AB practices employee empowerment in their organization and how it impacts on service quality and customer satisfaction.</p><p>RESEARCH METHOD: This research is based on a qualitative study. The authors’ have used both primary and secondary data to make a qualitative analysis, since this is a single-case study to enable them to fulfill the purpose of the research.</p><p>CONCLUSION: Based on this research, the authors have found out that employee empowerment practices at LFB enable the employees to influence customers’ perception of service quality positively, due to their control over the service delivery process, which leads to customers’ satisfaction.</p><p>Moreover, LFB extensively practices employee empowerment through the actions and practices of human resource management and top management. The nature of the organizational structure also influence the character of the services delivered through their employees regarding the free flow of information all around the bank.</p>

<p>Problem: Nya företag är viktiga för en kommun. Kommuner arbetar dock väldigt olika när det gäller att hantera nya företagsetableringar. Vissa kommuner arbetar mer aktivt medan andra är mer passiva och ambitionerna skiljer sig starkt åt mellan dem. Företagen har ofta fler alternativa etableringsorter. En kommuns bemötande och service spelar stor roll vid en etablering.</p><p>Syfte Syftet med denna utredning är att ta fram en guide för hur en kommun bör hantera företagsetableringar. Guiden ska kunna användas av näringslivschefer och näringslivsenheter som inspiration och stöd i arbetet mot en förbättrad hantering av företagsetableringar.</p><p>Tillvägagångssätt: Data samlades in genom intervjuer med 15 personer med lika erfarenheter av företagsetableringar. Data sammanställdes och analyserades utifrån en utredningsmodell som tagits fram ur de teoretiska utgångspunkterna.</p><p>Teoretiska utgångspunkter: Utredningen hade sina utgångspunkter i teorier kring företagets etableringsprocess, faktiska faktorer som påverkar valet av etableringsort, teknisk och funktionell servicekvalitet samt extern och intern marknadsföring. Utredningen utgick även ifrån teorier kring vikten och skapandet av en relation.</p><p>Guide: Insamlad data gav information om hur kommuner bör arbeta långsiktigt och övergripande för att förbättra hanteringen av företagsetableringarna men även information om mer kortsiktiga och konkreta handlingar.</p><p>Det mer övergripande och långsiktiga arbetet innebär bland annat att ta fram en vision för näringslivet och värna om de befintliga företagen i kommunen. Gällande det mer kortsiktiga och konkreta arbetet föreslås exempelvis att kommunen bör identifiera det enskilda företagets behov, mål och önskemål samt arbeta utifrån detta. Kommunen bör även bjuda in företaget att besöka kommunen och ge företaget en personlig kontaktperson.</p> / <p>Problem: New companies are important for a municipality. The municipalities in Sweden are however working very differently when it comes to managing business establishments. Some municipalities are very active while others are more passive. Companies do often have several alternatives when they are choosing a place to establish their business. Hence, how the municipalities serve and threat the companies is very important concerning business establishments.</p><p>Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to develop a guide how to manage business establishments in a municipality. The guide should be used by industrial life executives and units as inspiration and support in their work for a better management of business establishments.</p><p>Methodology: Data was collected through 15 interviews with persons with experience of business establishments. The data was organized and analyzed with the aid of a model that was derived from the theoretical framework of this thesis.</p><p>Theoretical Framework: The theoretical framework contended theories about a business establishment process, factors that influence a company’s location choice, technical and functional service-quality and internal and external marketing. The framework also contended theories about the importance of a relationship and relationship-building.</p><p>The Guide: The collected and analyzed data gave information about how the municipalities can work overall and long-term to improve the management of the new establishments, but it also gave information about how they can work more concretely and short-thermed. The overall and long-term work means for example that the municipality should create a vision for the industrial environment and that they should take care of the existing businesses. The concrete and short – term task implies identifying the needs, goals and wishes of the individual company and working with that as a base. The municipality should also invite the company to visit them and give them a personal contact person.</p>

<p><strong>Aim:</strong> Banks in Sweden appear extend through different distribution channels. The role of branch banking has changed to provide advisory services and sell the banks' products and service which is an approach involves the people interactions. Service employees are associated with the organization service quality and customer satisfaction. A comprehensive human resource strategy thus can help the organization develop a more customer-orientation employee, in order to deliver service quality.  With the help of the human resources strategies wheel (Wilson et al., 2008), how a bank develop people to deliver service quality will be showed, which finally lead to the purpose of this paper - revealing the importance of people on delivering service quality.</p><p><strong>Method:</strong> By reading relevant literatures, the theory about service culture and human resource strategy is defined. Svenska Handelsbanken chose to be the research object. Its decentralized organization which focuses on the interplay between strong branches, highly-trained specialists and efficient support functions is useful to this research. Through face-to-face interview with branch managers, a holistic view of the situation in bank will be showed, additionally, detail information can be digging out.</p><p><strong>Result & Conclusions: </strong>The human resources strategies used by Handelsbanken is a process generally including hire the right people, provides effective and sufficient training and needed support systems, retain the best people. As a result, this research indicates with the service culture which establishes deeply inside the organization; Handelsbanken realizes the important of people on delivering service quality. And then by choosing the right people, training them, supporting them, and retaining them as a serious of human resources strategies, the service quality is delivered. In addition, the authors find out the relation among service culture, human resources strategies and people work as a triangle, constraining and assisting each other.</p><p><strong>Suggestions for future research: </strong>One of the limitations of this thesis is lack of employee perception. Another is hard to find a lot of information about the unique reward system in Handelsbanken - Oktogonen Fundation in English. The document is in Swedish so that the authors only can get general information from the annual report 2008 of the bank. The suggestion for future research is to conduct a study which it includes bank perspective and employee perspective.</p><p><strong>Contribution of the thesis: </strong>The contribution of this study is to show how importance of people in service quality delivery by complementing a framework which is integrated service culture and human resource strategies.</p>

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<p>The travel agencies exist on a market that is distinguished by increasing competition. A majority of the travel agencies offer different services that all satisfie the same customer need. However,</p><p>one major difference in the market aspect is the service quality, this making it an important mean of competition. There are several acknowledged methods of measurement when it comes to service quality and it is important to use an instrument that takes into consideration the fact that charter tours is a complex merger of several services. The purpose of this essay is to establish if the SERVQUAL method is a suitable instrument for measuring service quality in the travel</p><p>industry. This study is a thorough analysis and evaluation of what Apollo’s customers think about the service quality of Apollo as well as how they perceive that Apollo fulfils their travelling</p><p>expectations. Moreover, the essay will examine which factors affect travellers’ experiences of the service quality on charter tours. The study has an objective outlook and the authors have applied a deductive approach. The authors have performed a quantitative study on 70 of Apollo’s customers. The aforementioned study was carried out using a questionnaire that was based on the</p><p>SERVQUAL method and the theories that were used in the theoretical part of that study.</p><p>The result show that the SERVQUAL method only considered the aspects that involve the travel agency and did not consider the other aspects that affect the traveller’s overall experience of the</p><p>service quality. In conclusion this study determines that the SERVQUAL method is not a suitable instrument for measuring service quality on charter tours in the travel industry.</p> / <p>Researrangörer verkar på en marknad som kännetecknas av en ökad konkurrens, där ett flertal researrangörer erbjuder olika tjänster som tillfredställer samma behov. Något som särskiljer researrangörerna åt är kvaliteten, vilket medför att den blir ett viktigt konkurrensmedel. Då det finns flera erkända metoder för att mäta upplevd tjänstekvalitet är det viktigt att använda ett mätinstrument som tar hänsyn till att charterresor är en komplex uppsättning av deltjänster.</p><p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att klargöra om SERVQUAL metoden är ett lämpligt mätinstrument inom reseindustrin genom att analysera och utvärdera vad kunderna anser om Apollos</p><p>tjänstekvalitet samt om Apollo uppfyller kundernas förväntningar. Detta med hjälp av att undersöka vilka faktorer som påverkar resenärers upplevda tjänstekvalitet på charterresor. Uppsatsen utgår från ett objektivistiskt synsätt där författarna har tillämpat en deduktiv ansats. En kvantitativ enkätundersökning har utförts på 70 stycken av Apollos kunder där enkätundersökningen är baserad på SERVQUAL samt de teorier som behandlas i studiens teorikapitel. Resultatet visar att SERVQUAL metoden endast tar upp de aspekter som rör researrangören, och inte alla de aspekter som påverkar kundernas upplevda tjänstekvalitet. Med detta som utgångspunkt anser författarna att SERVQUAL metoden är bristande som mätinstrument när det gäller att mäta resenärers uppfattning av tjänstekvalitet på charterresor.</p>

<p>Purpose</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is, firstly, to investigate clients’ perspective toward the Big 4’s financial audit service quality. Secondly, the gaps between clients’ perceptions and expectations of audit service quality provided by the Big 4 audit firms will be studied. Finally, factors influencing clients’ expectations of audit service quality will be categorised.</p><p>Method</p><p>A combination of qualitative and quantitative approach is used in the form of a web-based self-completion questionnaire. A qualitative approach is used in one section of the questionnaire which is an open-ended question asking about the</p><p><em>clients’ perception </em>toward audit service quality. A quantitative approach is used in the rest of the 2 sections of the questionnaire; firstly, asking the respondents to score the <em>level of perception and expectation </em>of audit service quality; secondly, asking for <em>types of clients’ industries. </em>The respondents are 25 clients who have direct experience with the Big 4 audit firms located in Thailand.</p><p>Finding </p><p>Clients <em>strongly expect </em>assurance, reliability, and responsiveness while <em>strongly perceive </em>assurance and reliability of the Big4’s audit service quality. However, it is obvious that clients’ perception of all 5 dimensions is less than those of expectation; <em>assurance, reliability </em>and <em>responsiveness </em>are significantly different at .05 level. Moreover, eight factors from given expectation score are re-categorised in order from the most important issue to the least important as follows; Factor 1: Trust & Confidence, Factor 2: Responsiveness & Accuracy, Factor 3: Knowledge and skills in clients’ industry, Caring and Independence, Factor 4: Understanding of Clients, Factor 5: Timing/Scheduling & Right Service, Factor 6: Physical Facilities, Factor 7: Professional appearance & Professional Procedures, and Factor 8: Information & Communication Channels and Materials.</p><p>Conclusion </p><p>In conclusion, the factors that are not satisfied by the clients; assurance, reliability, responsiveness, should be taken account of by the Big 4. Not only the Big 4 operating in Thailand have to be aware of their service quality, the other audit firms both international brands and local brands should also be aware of their service quality in order to satisfy their clients and to avoid damages of the firms and markets from audit failure. Both the audit firms and the clients together can help in audit quality improvement.</p><p>Recommendation </p><p>To improve audit service quality, it is not only the Big4 audit firms’ responsibility but also the good cooperation from the clients could be the crucial support, and the ongoing policies are needed because it takes some time to see the consequences. When the quality level of audit service becomes a win-win situation, both audit firms and clients receive mutual benefits. Moreover, the Big 4 are the big actors in the audit industry in Thailand with promptly financial and human resource, they should support non-Big 4 to improve audit service quality. Because it means the overall image of audit service in Thailand would be improve somehow.</p>

<p>För ett serviceföretag är det väsentligt att kunna leverera tjänstekvalitet för att tillfredsställa kunden. Tjänsternas immateriella produktkaraktär gör det emellertid svårt för serviceleverantören i allmänhet och professionella tjänsteleverantörer i synnerhet att säkerställa kvalitet. Syftet med detta arbete är att utveckla en kontrollmodell som kan användas av professionella tjänsteleverantörer som ett hjälpmedel i arbetet att säkra servicekvalitet. Modellen bygger på relevant teori och består av tre kvalitetskategorier – image, teknisk kvalitet och funktionell kvalitet – genom vilka 13 kvalitetsdimensioner behandlas. För att pröva modellens användbarhet utvärderas med modellens intervjuguide de arbetsmetoder som används på företaget Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers. Resultatet på utvärderingen visar att kontrollmodellen behandlar de kvalitetsgenererande delarna av en serviceprocess som exempelföretaget arbetar med i praktiken vilket bekräftar att studiens kontrollmodell kan användas som ett hjälpmedel av professionella tjänsteleverantörer vid kvalitetssäkring.</p>

<p>This thesis is discussing and analysing expectations and perceptions about service quality in Destination Gotland. The aim is to analyze and research about the role of service quality for creating customer satisfaction and we want to find out the gap between expectations and perceptions through the customers point of view. The difference between expectations and perceptions can be described as satisfaction or lack of satisfaction. The specific questions that are researched in this thesis are:<strong> </strong></p><ol><li>What expectations does customer have on Destination Gotland’s service quality to become satisfied?</li><li>What perceptions does customer have about the service quality at Destination Gotland?</li><li>What are the differences between expectations and perceptions (gap 5 in the SERVQUAL-model)?</li></ol><p>The survey is constructed as a case-study and is based on the quantitative method. The results from the different dimensions show that there is a gap between expectations and perceptions which means that the customers are not fully satisfied about the service quality at Destination Gotland. On the other hand, the main respondents said yes on the question if they think the service meet their expectations. From the overall result in the statements we can see that there are several gaps between expectations and perceptions which means that the service quality do not fully meet the expectations. The result shows a total gap at -0,39.</p>

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