An epistemological critique of gap theory based library assessment: the case of SERVQUAL
| Pages | 511-551 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410810884066 |
| Date | 25 July 2008 |
| Published date | 25 July 2008 |
| Author | Liangzhi Yu,Qiulan Hong,Song Gu,Yazun Wang |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
An epistemological critique of gap
theory based library assessment:
the case of SERVQUAL
Liangzhi Yu and Qiulan Hong
Department of Information Resource Management, The Business School,
Nankai University, Tianjin, China
Song Gu
The Library, Nankai University, Tianjin, China, and
Yazun Wang
China Aerospace Engineering Centre, Beijing, China
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to investigate the epistemological
underpinning of SERVQUAL and its limitations; and second, to propose ways to enhance the
utility of SERVQUAL as a library assessment tool.
Design/methodology/approach – The study first conceptualises quality judgment as a knowing
process and locates the epistemological stance of SERVQUAL within the general framework of
epistemology demarcation; it then examines related SERVQUAL assumptions and their implications
for library assessment in general and for service quality assessment in particular based on two
empirical investigations: a questionnaire survey and an interview survey. The questionnaire survey
applies the SERVQUAL instrument to three Chinese university libraries, with a view to examining the
SERVQUAL score in light of epistemological considerations; the interview survey interviews 50
faculty users in one of the three universities with a view to illuminating the naturalistic process
through which users develop their judgement of the library’s service quality and through which the
SERVQUAL score is formed.
Findings – The study shows that the actual SERVQUAL score is distributed in a very scattered
manner in all three libraries, and that it is formed through a very complex process rooted primarily in
the user’s personal experiences with the library, which are in turn shaped by factors from both the
library world and the user’s life-world. Based on these findings, this research questions a number of
SERVQUAL assumptions and proposes three concepts which may help to contextualise the
SERVQUAL score and enhance its utility in actual library assessment: library planning based
variance of user perception, perception-dependent user expectation and library-sophistication based
user differentiation.
Originality/value – The research presented in the paper questions a number of SERVQUAL
assumptions and proposes three concepts that may help to contextualise the SERVQUAL score and
enhance its utility in actual library assessment.
Keywords Performance management, SERVQUAL, Libraries, Quality assessment, China
Paper type Research paper
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
The research project on which this paper is based is part of the “985 Program” of the Business
School of Nankai University. The authors wish to thank the School for funding the research.
They also wish to thank Mr John Chen and Mr James Adams at the English Department of
Nankai University for English proofreading.
Library
assessment
511
Received 26 April 2006
Revised 19 July 2007
Accepted 7 August 2007
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 64 No. 4, 2008
pp. 511-551
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/00220410810884066
Introduction
Library assessment has been an area of professional concern for decades. Earlier
attempts at assessing libraries focused mainly on comparing a library’s performanc e
with national standards, which were largely input-based. The 1980s saw a marked
shift from this approach to output-based assessment, manifested notably in the
popularity of output centred performance indicators. While output was genera lly
recognized as an improved perspective for library assessment, it showed nevertheless
distinct inadequacies, particularly in view of the two primary purposes of library
evaluation: to measure a library’s accountability for public support, and to diagnose
areas for improvement. For the former, output was criticized as reflecting only partially
the true value of library services; for the latter, it was criticized as making little sense
without taking users’ experiences into account. Owing to the recognition of these
inadequacies of output-based assessment, user- and impact-based evaluation be gan to
gain momentum in the 1990s.
SERVQUAL was introduced into the library world in this context and was seen as
an important addition to the array of library assessment tools; it was in fact often
considered as a superior tool over the preceding ones (Nitecki, 1996; Hernon et al., 1999;
Hernon and Nitecki, 2001). SERVQUAL is a service quality assessment tool originated
in and for the commercial sector (Parasuraman et al., 1988). The original SERVQUAL
instrument is formatted as a questionnaire which consists of 22 pairs of statements,
with the first half of each pair measuring customers’ expectations for the quality of a
service, and the second half measuring their perception of the actual quality of the
service. Both the expectation and perception are measured against an ordinal scale;
the discrepancy between the two ratings is called the service quality score. Together,
the 22 pairs of statements measure five dimensions of service quality: tangibles
(aspects relating to physical facilities, equipment, personnel, communication
materials); reliability (aspects relating to the ability of an organization to perform
the promised service unfailingly and accurately); responsiveness (aspects relating to
the willingness of an organization to provide appropriate service and to help
customers); assurance (aspects relating to the knowledge and courtesy of employees
and their ability to inspire trust and confidence); and empathy (aspects relating to the
caring, individual attention that an organization is able to provide the customer).
Unlike traditional library assessment methods which tended to measure library quality
objectively through, for instance, size of collections, error rate, length of hours open,
etc. (Nitecki, 1996), SERVQUAL lays particular emphasis on users’ subjective
judgement, claiming that “only customers judge quality; all other judgments are
essentially irrelevant” (Zeithaml et al., 1990, p. 16).
The attempt to apply SERVQUAL to library assessment can be traced back to the
early 1990s. In the decade that followed, many more studies examined the validity of
the instrument (i.e. the degree to which the instrument measures what it claims to
measure) as well as its utility (i.e. the degree to which it is useful) in the library context.
While the next section provides a more detailed review of these studies, it suffices here
to note that most related studies took the epistemological assumption of SERVQUA L
– only customers’ judgment is valid for ascertaining service quality – as given and
focused mainly on testing the soundness of its methodological deliberations. The
overwhelming picture that emerged from these studies is that SERVQUAL is largely
applicable to library assessment, subject to some minor changes such as
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re-composition of statements and re-clustering of quality dimensions. By the end of the
last century, these research findings eventually prompted the establishment of the
LIBQUAL
þTM
, a LIS version of SERVQUAL, under the auspice of the US Association
of Research Libraries.
It is the belief of this study that a mere focus on methodological aspec t of
SERVQUAL is not sufficient in ascertaining the utility of SERVQUAL for library
assessment, and that the neglect of the epistemological foundation of SERVQUAL in
existing studies hampers a solid understanding of the worth of SERVQUAL and other
gap theory based assessment techniques. It can be argued that largely due to this
neglect, existing research has left a number of important questions unanswered
concerning the utility of SERVQUAL in particular and that of gap theory based
methods in general. Examples of such questions include: How do users judge service
quality? To what extent do user perceptions reflect the true state of library service
quality? Do users’ perceptions of a library service converge enough to form a
consensus that can be referred to as the library service quality? To what extent do the
blind spots in users’ perceptions, if any, undermine the superiority of SERVQUAL as a
library assessment tool?
This paper attempts to contribute to the on-going research about the utility of
SERVQUAL as a library assessment tool from the epistemological perspective. It does
so first by examining the characteristics of the SERVQUAL score and its reflection of
the user’s “knowing process” during service evaluation; and then by investigating the
naturalistic process through which the SERVQUAL score is arrived at; and finally by
examining the implications of this process for the utility of SERVQUAL.
After this brief introduction, the next section sets the ground for the current study
through a critical review of existing research on SERVQUAL; the third section
provides a theoretical perspective for the current research by locating the
epistemological assumption of SERVQUAL in the general framework of
epistemological demarcation; the fourth section reports the methodology design of
the current research; the fifth to eighth sections examine respectively the quantitative
and qualitative data from the current study in light of epistemological considerations;
the ninth section concludes the research by attending to the implications for
SERVQUAL utility of all the empirical evidence obtained.
Existing research on the validity/utility of SERVQUAL in libraries:
a critical review
Since its first reported application in the library setting (He
´bert, 1993), SERVQUAL has
attracted a fairly large body of research literature. According to the primary objective
of research, this body of literature can be divided into three groups: research that aims
to test the appropriateness of SERVQUAL for assessing library service quality,
research that aims to modify SERVQUAL to better suit library service characteristics,
and research that aims to actually evaluate a library’s service quality using
SERVQUAL.
Research that examines the appropriateness of SERVQUAL for library assessment
He
´bert (1993), who applied SERVQUAL to evaluating the interlibrary loan services in
large urban Canadian public libraries, was credited as the first person to test the
appropriateness of SERVQUAL for library assessment. In the next few years following
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