Title: An empirical study of service quality: web service business transformation

Authors: Li-Tze Lee; Chin-Shan Peng; Chiang Ku Fan

Addresses: Department of Accounting and Information, Overseas Chinese University, No. 100, Chiao Kwang Rd., Xitun District, Taichung, 40721, Taiwan ' Shin Ling Yu International Services, Inc., 7F-9., No.666, Sec. 2, Wuquan W. Rd., Taichung, 40869, Taiwan ' Department of Rsk Management and Insurance, Shih Chien University, 70 Ta-Chih St., Taipei, Taiwan

Abstract: SERVQUAL instrument is a well-known service quality instrument. The purpose of this study is to build an accounting service quality model by revising this existing instrument. In this study, importance-performance analysis (IPA) is adopted to evaluate the variation between the expected and perceived services based on the accounting and taxation service quality in a certified public accounting firm. The result of this study provides that responsiveness and assurance were located in the first quadrant which indicated that the firm should 'keep up the good work'. However, reliability was located in the second quadrant which indicated that the firm had 'possible overkill' in this aspect while tangibility was located in the third quadrant which indicated that clients' expectations, and perceived service quality were equally low. Empathy is in the 'concentrate here' quadrant, representing that clients show high expectations but the firm performs at a low level. Web service application can improve business efficiency and communication through online systems and is an alternative support to tackle needs of customers.

Keywords: service quality; importance-performance analysis; IPA; web services; business transformation; SERVQUAL; certified accountants; public accounting; responsiveness; assurance; reliability; tangibility; client expectations; perceived quality.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCSE.2016.074559

International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering, 2016 Vol.12 No.1, pp.58 - 64

Received: 18 Sep 2012
Accepted: 25 Jan 2013
Published online: 06 Feb 2016 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article