(LUẬN văn THẠC sĩ) client perceived service and satisfaction in business to business professional tax consultant services

Master thesis Abstract This thesis attempts to empirically confirm the applicability of La et al.' s 2009 conceptual model regarding client perceived value in professional business-to-b

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UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong

Client perceived service and satisfaction

in business-to-business professional tax

consultant services

ID: 22110046

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours) SUPERVISOR: Dr Vo Thi Ngoc Thuy

Ho Chi Minh City- 2014

TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com

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Acknowledgement

I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Vo Thi Ngoc Thuy, for the patient guidance, encouragement and advices she has provided throughout the time preparing this thesis In addition, I would like to thank all the members of committee and professors at International School of Business and my colleagues for their great orientation, instructions and comments for my further improvement of my thesis

Thanks to all participants in the research survey for their kind support and cooperation Finally, I also would like to thank family and friends who always support and encourage me a lot

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong

March 2014

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Master thesis

Abstract

This thesis attempts to empirically confirm the applicability of La et al.' s (2009) conceptual model regarding client perceived value in professional business-to-business service in professional tax services in the context of Vietnam It endeavors to expand the concept of value and satisfaction in business-to-business professional tax services in the context of Vietnam This is the first research representative in the context of Vietnam that is a theoretical contribution to the research on value and client satisfaction from an Asian behavior perspective

The results show that in the context of professional tax consultant services m Vietnam, clients tend to perceived performance and value in the same stage called perceived service There are five factors which are empirically confirmed having positive effects to perceived service i.e technical skills, interpersonal skills, customer orientation, reputation and relationship with tax authorities In addition, perceived service is a key contributing factor to client satisfaction The results also indicate that the impacts of reputation and relationship with tax authorities on perceived service are not different in terms of firm's international experience and nature of engaged services, respectively

In addition, the research aims to provide managerial implications Based on the

finding, discussion and recommendations in the research, professional tax firms can have further actions to address client's need and more improve the level of customer satisfaction

ii

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgement i

Abstract ii

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Research problem 2

1.3 Research objectives 3

1.4 Scope ofthe research 3

1.5 Significance ofthe research 4

1.6 Structure of the thesis 5

Chapter 2: Literature review 6

2.1 Literature review 6

2.2 Qualitative analysis 16

2.3 Hypothesis 22

Chapter 3: Methodology 26

2.1 Methodology 26

2.2 Measurement 27

Chapter 4: Data Analysis 32

3.1 Purifying data 3 2 3.2 Measurement analysis 32

3.3 Hypothesis testing 38

3.4 Moderator testing 45

Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusion 48

4.1 Results Discussion 48

4.2 Managerial implication 52

4.3 Conclusion 53

4.4 Limitation and Further research directions 53

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REFERENCE 55

APPENDIX 57

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Tables Table 1: Summary of qualitative analysis' results 20

Table 2: Summary of indicators of the constructs used in the research model 28

Table 3: The Cronbach alpha coefficients of components 33

Table 4: Exploratory Factor Analysis 34

Table 5: Extracted Factors 37

Table 6: The Cronbach alpha coefficients of new components 38

Table 7: Summary of regression results: Factors having impacts on Perceived Service 41

Table 8: Relationship among independent variables (Technical Skills, Interpersonal Skills, Customer Orientation, Reputation, Relationship with Tax Authorities) and dependent variable (Perceived Service) 42

Table 9: Summary of regression results: Factor having impact on Client Satisfaction 44

Table 10: Relationship between independent variable (perceived service) and dependent variable (client satisfaction) 44

Table 11: Summary of Chow test results 46

Figures Figure 1: Summary of qualitative analysis' results 22

Figure 2: Proposed Conceptual Model of Client Perceived Value and Satisfaction in Business-to-Business Professional Tax Services in Vietnam 25

Figure 3: Conceptual Model of Client Perceived Value and Satisfaction in Business-to-Business Professional Tax Services in Vietnam 39

Figure 4: Regression results: Factors having impacts on Perceived Service 43

Figure 5: Summary ofthesis results 47

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Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Research background

In the intensively competetive landscape of the world's economy in general and Vietnamese' in specific, almost all industries have faced many challenges and difficulties The professional tax consultant service industry is not an exception In order to gain competitive advantage, service firms today are required to deliver superior client value (Flint, Woodruff and Gardial, 2002) Value has been linked to loyalty, increased profits, long term survival and competitive advantage (Khalifa 2004; Woofruff 1997; Hamel and Prahalad 1994; Day and Wensley 1988) However, the definition of value is often vague and the interpretation might be very different between the client and the service provider due to different perspectives This might be the reason why many scholars state that 'how" clients interpret value is more important than 'how' service providers believe what value is supposed

to be (Blois, 2004) This concept is further complicated when studying professional services, which are more complex and intangible than regular services, meaning clients often have difficulty in confidently evaluating performance outcome (La, Patterson and Style, 2009) Understanding clients' view of value which links to the comprehension of clients' perceived performance is a one of critical success factors for almost of the firm especially professional firms La, Patterson and Style (2009) find significant strong positive relationship from performance that completely mediates the relationship to satisfaction through value to satisfaction in professional business-to-business services

Professional tax services are professional services provided by professional tax firms whose staff- tax consultants- are experts in tax law Together with the growth of economy and the complex of many types of business and transactions, tax law become more complicated than ever, especially in emerging countries where there are frequent changes in tax regulations and practices Professional tax services advise or consult clients based on

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(LUAN.van.THAC.si).client.perceived.service.and.satisfaction.in.business.to.business.professional.tax.consultant.services(LUAN.van.THAC.si).client.perceived.service.and.satisfaction.in.business.to.business.professional.tax.consultant.services(LUAN.van.THAC.si).client.perceived.service.and.satisfaction.in.business.to.business.professional.tax.consultant.services(LUAN.van.THAC.si).client.perceived.service.and.satisfaction.in.business.to.business.professional.tax.consultant.services(LUAN.van.THAC.si).client.perceived.service.and.satisfaction.in.business.to.business.professional.tax.consultant.services(LUAN.van.THAC.si).client.perceived.service.and.satisfaction.in.business.to.business.professional.tax.consultant.services(LUAN.van.THAC.si).client.perceived.service.and.satisfaction.in.business.to.business.professional.tax.consultant.services(LUAN.van.THAC.si).client.perceived.service.and.satisfaction.in.business.to.business.professional.tax.consultant.services

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interpretation of the most updated tax law and experience on current practices which many clients do not have inside their organizations Therefore, except the company with extremely simple financial affairs, the others are about to seek to appoint a firm to provide tax services

1.2 Research problem

In line with the difficult economic environment as well as the growth in both quality and quantity of many professional tax service firms in Vietnam, clients have more choices to satisfy their needs The competition in this industry becomes fiercer Thus, almost these firms more focus on how client perceives the firm's service performance and value which is proved having connections to client satisfaction that in turn should be the ultimate goal of all firms (Morgan et al, 2005)

In recent years, substantial research has examined the client perceived performance, client perceived value (and its determinants) in business-to-business professional services Research has also found empirical support for the relationship between client perceived performance and client satisfaction through value (La, Patterson and Style, 2009) In addition, previous research show the evidence indicating that client satisfaction in turn connects to repurchase, loyalty, and willingness to maintain a long-term relationship with the service provider (Iacobucci et al., 1994; Athanassopoulos et al., 2001 ) Consequently, many researchers desire to examine the determinants of client perceived performance and to confirm the relationship between client perceived performance and client satisfaction through value in various professional services in particularly However, most of the research has focused on examine antecedents of value and what value means as well as what impacts on client satisfaction in business-to-consumer professional services using Parasurama (1985 and 1988) and Gronroos (1984)measurement model and its dimensions Little research has been devoted to examine client perceived value and client satisfaction in business-to-business professional services sector Currently, researchers have made some recent attempts to

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Master thesis investigate and develop alternative B2B specific scales in some specific industries such as engineering consultant, software, etc The most significant contribution to this era has been the conceptual model for client-perceived value and satisfaction in an international perspective in developing economies developed by La et al (2009)

1.3 Research objectives

Given the unique characteristics of the professional tax services which are provided

on a basis of tax regulations and current practices, a study focus on examining client perceived value and client satisfaction in professional tax services sector applying La et al.' s (2009) conceptual model would be useful for both practitioners and researchers Since the level of development of tax regulations and practices are different among countries, this study specifically focus on business-to-business professional tax services in Vietnam

Further to the above discussion, this study aims to obtain following objectives:

1) To examine the antecedents of client perceived performance;

2) To test the effect of client perceived performance to client perceived value in professional tax services in Vietnam;

3) To test the effect of client perceived value to client satisfaction with professional tax services in Vietnam; and

4) To explore factors/ situations (moderators) leading to the different influence of these factors to client perceived service in the context of Vietnam

1.4 Scope of the research

Initially, the qualitative analysis will be conducted to confirm whether the factors having significant effect to client perceived performance and client perceived value as well as the factors/ situations leading to the different influence of these factors to client perceived performance and value in La et al.'s (2009) conceptual model are applicable in professional tax services in the context of Vietnam Through this process, the analysis is expected to

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1.5 Significance ofthe research

This thesis attempts to confirm the applicability of La et al.' s (2009) conceptual model are applicable in professional tax services in the context of Vietnam It is expected that this model will be further modified to reflect the reality of the professional tax services in Vietnam through qualitative analysis to confirm/ disconfirm the applicability of the factors/ relationship and/or introduce of new factors/ relationship relative to client perceived performance, value and satisfaction Then quantitative analysis is conducted to provide empirical evidence to strengthen the results of qualitative analysis It endeavors to expand the concept of value and satisfaction in business-to-business professional tax services in the context of Vietnam This is the first research representative is in the context of Vietnam that

is a theoretical contribution to the research on value and client satisfaction from an Asian behavior perspective

In addition, the research aims to provide managerial implications This finding is expected to help professional tax firms understand deeply about the factors having significant effect to client perceived performance and value in a client's perspective such as technical skills, interpersonal skills, customer orientation, relationship with tax authority, and reputation Based on this understanding and finding, professional tax firms can have further actions to address client's need and more improve the level of customer satisfaction In addition, exploring the factor leads to different influence of factors having significant effect

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to client perceived performance and value is extremely important for the firms in this sector

to identify their relative competition in comparison with others Further to that, the firms can set up strategy in order to be more competent and successful

1.6 Structure of the thesis

This thesis comprises 5 chapters Chapter 1 is the introduction which gives an overview of research background, problems, objectives, scope and significant ofthe research The next section is Chapter 2 which provides a review of the literature on client perceived performance and its factors; client perceived value and satisfaction in service, qualitative study and hypotheses Then the thesis continues with Chapter 3 - the discussion about methodology followed by empirical investigation and its results in Chapter 4 The thesis ends with Chapter 5 - discussion about the results, managerial implication and limitation

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Chapter 2: Literature review

2.1 Literature review

2.1.1 Client perceived performance and its antecedents

Client perceived performance

According to Oliver (2006), Performance itself is the perceived amount of product or

service outcomes received, usually reported on an objective scale bounded by good and bad levels of performance (e.g courteous/ discourteous service) While quality is a judgment of performance excellence, these two concepts (i.e performance and quality) are frequently confused with each other (Oliver, 2006)

Researchers argue that service quality is unlike product quality due to its characteristics i.e inherent intangibility, inseparability of service provision and consumption, heterogeneity and perishability (Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry, 1990) This nature combined with the complex technical nature of professional service (engineering, consulting, project management, etc.) make the service quality more difficult to be evaluated (La, Patterson and Style, 2009)

Many researches focus on examine the measurement of service quality and its dimensions However, attitude toward the number of service quality dimensions are not identical There is a consensus in the opinion that service quality should have three basic elements (Pollack, 2008, p.539): the quality of results, the quality of interaction and the quality of service environment The quality results is the real result that client received Through this real result, clients can assess actual benefits that are expected Clients often measure this result in a fairly objective way The quality of interactions refers to the assessment of the overall interaction among client and service team members like the way of converting input into output Clients perceive this element through their own subjective judgments The third element is the quality of service environment that refers to service

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firms' facilities and again, it is subject to clients' review Corresponding to this understanding, Ghobadian, et al., (1994, p 50-51) introduce the dimensions of service quality including technical quality of the service (encountering actual result) and functional quality of interaction between service provider and client; and company's image as a result of the abovementioned dimensions as well as cost of service, communication activities, company allocation, internet site accessibility, skill and behavior of team members This understanding focuses on evaluate service quality through analyzing elements of service quality and its corresponding dimensions which are measured by clients through their perceived performance of service providers In short, this understanding assesses service quality through the client perceived performance of service providers in terms of real results, interaction and service environment

The European school of thought led by the work of Gronroos ( 1984) put forward that clients perceive service quality from two viewpoints: the technical quality and the functional quality of the service Technical quality has to deal with the 'what' element to answer the question whether the service meets clients' expectation while functional quality involves the manner in which the service is delivered Both technical quality and functional quality have

to do with client perceived performance of the service Thus, it can be said that client perceived performance is the initial point to adjust the quality of service and perceive service value

With the same opinion, Lovelock (1999 and 1995) named two components of each service package 'core services' and 'supplementary services' Ferguson, Paulin, Pigeassou and Gauduchon (1999) refer core services as representation of the firm's basic competency in creating value with and for clients (p.59) On the other hand, supplementary services are combination of other service elements such as supporting and facilitating services

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In the present of business-to-business professional services especially current practice

of tax professional firms, the core service refer to the capability of utilizing technical or

•

intellectual know-how/ expertise to provide solutions to a client's issue The core service in

• this context is equivalent to technical quality/ performance in Gronroos' school of thought

(1988 and 1984) Accordingly, supplementary services refer to Gronroos' (1988 and 1984) functional quality/ performance i.e the 'how' (services are delivered) components

Moreover, professional services are purchased in order to get competence and resources they do not have inside the organization (Czemiawska and Smith, 20 I 0) It means that many clients do not have technical knowledge/ 'know-how' to confidently evaluate the quality of the service they purchase As a result, clients often evaluate professional service quality and value through the performance of service firms that they perceived (La, Patterson

• and Style, 2009) Conceptual Model of Client perceived Value and Satisfaction of La,

• Patterson and Style (2009) suggest that there are two main components contributing to client

perceived performance i.e people-related factors (including interpersonal skills, technical skills and customer orientation) and firm-related factors (comprising innovation and reputation) The relationship between a service provider's behavior (in terms of interpersonal skills, technical skills and customer orientation) as well as the firm's innovativeness and reputation and perceived performance have been tested in various studies in both consumer and professional settings (e.g., Day and Barksdale Jr., 1992; Paulin, Ferguson and Payand, 2000; LeBlanc and Nguyen, 1996)

Technical skills

Technical skills is a one of factors that client seek to when evaluating a firm's performance (Ellis and Watterson 2001; Burke 1996) This factor refer to personnel's knowledge and expertise, understanding of clients' business model and needs, and competitor's service (Rentz, Shepherd, Tashchian, Dabholkar and Ladd 2002) as well as

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industry background (Coviello, Ghauri and Martin, 1998) Further to the nature of tax professional services which are provided on the basis of the most updated tax regulations and current practices, technical skills is considered the most important factor having significant effect to to client perceived performance Technical skills can be assessed via real results of the services, in this case it is equivalent to technical quality in Gronroos' (1988 and 1984) school of thought and Lovelock's (1999 and 1995) core services

Interpersonal skills

Due to the intangibility and inseparability of service provision and consumption, every service engagement requires high level of interaction between service firm and client's personnel (Laing, Lewis, Foxall and Hogg, 2002), interpersonal skills is also one of key criteria using to evaluate performance of a professional service firm Interpersonal skills factor is understand that the ability of service team member express him/herself verbally and non-verbally, and to build relationship with clients (Rentz et al., 2002) In the context of professional tax service, interpersonal skills play a vital role in improvement of level of client perceived performance

Customer orientation

Recent empirical investigations indicate that customer orientation is an antecedent of service performance which eventually contributes to clients' overall service quality/ performance evaluation (Brown, Mowen, Donovan and Licata, 2002; Brady and Cronin,

200 I; Harline, Maxham and McKee, 2000) Customer orientation emphasizes the ability of a firm to attain customer information, analyze it to set priorities for improvement, and use these priorities to drive service and process change (Johnson, 1998; Johnson and Gustafsson, 2000) By gaining a better understanding of customer needs and the use of this knowledge to design better services (Nilsson, Johnson and Gustafsson, 2001), a customer should have a direct impact on client perceived value

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Innovation

That innovation leads to superior performance (Agarwal, Erramilli and Dez 2003; Han, Kim and Srivastava 1998; Zahra, de Belardino and Boxx, 1998) is supported by a considerable amount of marketing and management literature It plays both direct and indirect role in contributing to the firm's performance as well as assisting the firm to gain competitive advantage (Agarwal, Erramilli and Dez 2003; Vakola 2000; Bharadwaj, Varadarajan and Fahy, 1993) In a professional tax services perspective, the role of innovation in firm's performance is not clear due to the nature of tax service i.e based on the tax regulation Therefore, the contribution of innovation in performance of professional tax firm need to be further tested

Reputation

The firm's general reputation as well as its reputation in a specific functional area are top of choice criteria in business-to-business professional services (Dawes, Dowling and Patterson, 1992) The concept of firm's reputation is defined as a set of economic and non- economic factors credited by a firm based on its past actions (Weigelt and Camerer, 1998) Professional tax services are mix of business and legal consultant services Based on that nature, together with uncertainty during the selection process, clients rely on a firm's reputation through word-of-mouth or track record (Lin and Wei, 1999) In other words, reputation helps the firm approach client more easily In the circumstances in which clients lack of expertise in evaluating technical quality of professional services (most of the case), the firm's reputation can help enhance the level of reliability of client in services they purchase and therefore have positive influence on client perceived value

In the context of Vietnam, professional tax services are growing in both quality and quantity In addition, outsourcing is the practice which has been recently applied in many Vietnam companies especially in tax services Therefore, many clients do not possess their

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to the difference in the context and the specific characteristics of professional tax service, this model will be further examined and modified to ensure the appropriate applicability

2.1.2 Moderating factors on client perceived performance and its antecedents

Country of origin

The mentioned Conceptual Model, La, Patterson and Style (2009) additionally argue that the link between a firm's resource and perceived performance is contingent upon the Country of origin ("COO") effect Many studies confirm that COO has influenced the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and heuristic evaluation of products in the consumer marketing context Recent reviews and evidence shown by Peterson and Jolibert (1995) and Verlegh and Steenkamp (1999) and La, Patterson and Style (1997) indicate that COO plays an important role in pre-purchase attitude formation, customer perception of performance and quality; and purchase intention

There is also evident state that favorable country perceptions lead to favorable inferences about product attributes and subsequent favorable evaluation (Gurhan-Canli and Maheswam, 2000) In line with previous literature, La, Patterson and Style (2009) believe that the COO effect moderates clients' judgment on a firm's overall perceived performance

To illustrate, La, Patterson and Style (2009) give a example i.e when client perceived COO is unfavorable (negative), then the client will be surprised (i.e expectation exceeded) when the service provider demonstrates high technical skills (for instant) and concomitant high overall performance in the core service Under the opposite condition, i.e favorable

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Master thesis (positive) client perceived COO; it is argued that the client already shapes the expectation at a high level of demonstrated technical skills Therefore, technical skills and overall performance will not strongly influence each other, especially when overall performance is below what is expected In short, under converse conditions i.e unfavorable (negative) COO, clients' perceptions of service provider's technical skills will have a stronger impact on overall performance than the other conditions Similar arguments are applied for other factors i.e interpersonal skills, customer orientation, innovation and reputation

Firm's international experience

Another moderator examined in La, Patterson and Style's (2009) Conceptual Model is firm's international experience which moderates for the relationship between the firm's reputation and perceived performance with the argument that from the client's viewpoint, international experience may increase the perception of reliability, capability and credibility

La, Patterson and Style (2009) authors stated that a firm's overall performance perceived by its international clients is likely to be different compared to its domestic clients For instance,

a domestic client may perceived the performance of a domestic professional service firm through its staff's technical skills as well as his/ her excellent interpretation skills given they (client and service provider staff) are sharing the same beliefs, culture and language In contrast, with the same criteria like that, it is not enough for a foreign professional service firm to win the engagement in a foreign country unless it can offer a differentiated service (performance) and some "bonus" value This value-added differentiation, for example, might

be the firm's international reputation or the service personnel's demonstrated ability to interact with clients from diverse cultures along with his experiences in dealing with a broad base of foreign clients Kotabe, Murray and Javalgi (1998) considered this as one of the supplementary services that international clients seek and a source of competitive advantage

In other words, the presence of the firm's international experience will strengthen a cliet's

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perception of the firm's reputation in relation to its performance Hence, it can be said that international related factor such as firm's international experience (e.g., the number of foreign clients that it has dealt with, the amount of resources that it has allocated in overseas markets) to some extent will play a primary part in international clients' eyes in assessing the value and/ or firm's performance

2.1.3 Client perceived value

Oliver (2006) defines value as a judgment that compares the likely outcomes of purchasing to the input forgone As a result, value is a result of comparison between what to

be received (e.g performance) to the acquisition costs (e.g financial, psychological, effort) This definition is other words of Heskett et al.'s (1994) that client perceived value results when clients compare weighted "get" factor to "give" factor

Client perceived value is a notion that has lately been receiving attention from industrial marketing researchers (Razavi, Safari, Shafie and Khoram, 2012; Boksberger and Melsen, 2011; Eggert and Ulaga, 2006; Fiol and Alcaniz, 2009; Sanchez et al, 2006; Teas and Agarwal, 2000) Roig et al, (2009) define it as a construct formed by two parts, one of benefits received (economic, social and relational) and the other of sacrifices made (price, time, effort, risk and convenience) by the client Razavi, Safari, Shafie and Khoram (2012) note that general definition of value is client's perception of the subjective worth of some activity or subject considering all net benefits and costs of consumption

Trasorras, Weinstein and Abratt (2009, p 617) noted that "[ ] customer value is created when the perceptions of benefits received from the transaction exceed the costs of ownership" He also cites three sources of competitive advantage i.e operational excellence, product leadership and customer intimacy regarding this matter One of these strategic approaches can be a company's main source of value creation

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Client perceived value is also what customers want from the service (Razavi, Safari, Shafie and Khoram, 2012) In many case, quality of services and benefit it offers often become client perceived value drivers (Bolton and Drew, 1991; Zeithaml, 1988) Based on economic value and consumer behavior theories, Jayanti and Ghosh (1996) formulated perceived value as a direct consequence of perceived quality Many studies support this association (e.g Andreassen and Lindestad, 1998, Chang and Wang, 2011; Edward and Sahadev, 2011) where found a positive relationship between perceived performance and value

Lapierre (1997) and Day (2002) suggest taking into account some contextual or situation factors when studying the dynamics of value assessment Patterson's (2000) examines the client's product-norm experience as a moderating factor in the satisfaction paradigm His empirical findings demonstrate that the association of the professional service provider's performance and client satisfaction is dependent on whether clients are highly experienced with consulting services Similarly, Andreassen and Lindestad ( 1998) argued that customer with low degree of service expertise are less capable in evaluating the quality attributes of complex services confidently In other words, the strength of linkage between perceived performance and perceived value is contingent upon the degree of experience possessed by the client (La, Patterson and Style, 2009)

In the context of professional services ( consultancy, engineering projects, legal advice, etc.) which are highly customized, technically complex and intrinsically difficult for clients (especially inexperienced ones) to evaluate the outcomes, La, Patterson and Style (2009) argue that when a client has little or no experience, any performance attributes will directly contribute to perceived value For that, he raises two reasons: one is that clients do not have competent expertise in evaluating both perceived performance and value; another is

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Satisfaction is a positive or negative feeling that results when comparing expectations and performances related to a buying or to a consumption experience (Kotler and Keller, 2012; Lendrevie, Levy and Lindon, 2009) In service market, client satisfaction is often measured as the difference between service expectations and the experiences Oliver (1980) looked at satisfaction via disconfirmation of expectations According to him, client satisfaction can be a function of the expectation (adaptation) level and perceptions of disconfirmation Both expectations and perceptions also have been found to influence customer satisfaction and subjective disconfirmation under various circumstances (Churchill and Surprenant, 1982)

Satisfaction is perceived as "a key determinant of organization success" with a positive influence over repeated sales and/or repurchases intensions and increase customer loyalty (Lewin, 2009) Similarly, Fomel et al (1996) consider that overall satisfaction is a fundamental indicator of the firm's past, current, and future performance However, they found that service firms have significant lower client satisfaction scores than manufacturing firms Their study also revealed that satisfaction is more quality-driven than price-driven in

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by the client Roig et al (2009) confirm that perceived value has an indirect effect on loyalty via satisfaction There also exists empirical evidence demonstrating the positive relationship between perceived value and satisfaction (La, Patterson and Style, 2009; Anderson and Mittal, 2000; Chang and Wang, 2011; Edward and Sahadev, 2011; Cronin et al., 2000; Roig

et al., 2009, Yang and Peterson, 2004)

2.2 Qualitative analysis

As mentioned above, unlike other professional services, professional tax services are provided on the basis of current tax regulations and practices In addition, in the context of Vietnamese economy, professional tax services are not newly introduced services but due to high cost and not complex financial transactions of many Vietnam companies, these services have not been widely used Most clients of this sector are large corporations or foreign own companies whose transactions are complicated, involved overseas parties and they pay much attention on how to have effective tax system In line of the above, to understand deeply Vietnamese professional tax market as well as confirm/ modify the factors having significant effect to client perceived performance and satisfaction in this industry, a qualitative study by means of in-depth interview (face-to-face - 60% and through telephone - 40%) was conducted The interviews were undertaken with three (3) senior managers of professional tax firms (two of Ernst & Young Co., Ltd and one ofNexia ACPA Auditing & Consulting

Co Ltd) and two chief accountants as representative of clients Each interview took place in

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around half an hour The information collected in such interviews was then interpreted using sentence method - analyzing phrases in the answers to get the main points addressing the questioned matters, draw conclusion and confirm with the interviewees

The results of the interviews confirmed four elements of technical skills,

interpersonal skills, customer orientation and reputation as factors having significant effect to

client perceived performance The association between the firm's innovation and perceived

performance was not confirm Again, this is due to the nature of professional tax services are based on tax regulations and practices whose changes are out of control of professional tax firms In addition, the innovation if exists would be the improvement in service process or solutions suggested to clients in a planning service engagement However, in context of Vietnam where the economic transactions are in the development stage, strategies for effective operation or effective tax system or solutions for issues are often followed the ones applied by developed countries previously Therefore, innovation is not considered as a factor having significant effect to client perceived performance This is empirically proved by research of La, Patterson and Style (2009) Their explanation is that clients are lacking technical judgment of a professional service Even if it is not the case, clients still cannot comprehend how innovation contribution to firm's performance Interview's results also confirmed the moderator role of the firm's international experience in the relationship of reputation and perceived performance

In addition to that, the results of the in-depth interview introduced two factors having

significant effect to client perceived performance i.e service fee and relationship with tax

authorities The concept of service fee introduced here is not the same as what clients "give"

concept Service fee concept is understood as a benchmark through that client can estimate the service quality among other competitors of the firm and can form their expectation of what they would receive or their perceived performance This is support by the thought that

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higher service fee often represents higher service quality and thus what client would perceive from the firm's performance would be higher This term was used and tested in consumer services as reference price Expected service quality plays a key role in reference price formation due to the price to quality relationship demonstrated by many authors (Ziethaml, 1988) Due to the intangible nature of services, consumers use price as a cue that signals service quality or perceived performance This is especially important in the case of 'pure' services where there are few physical signals for consumers to evaluate potential service quality (Dickinson, J.B and Dickinson, C D., 2012)

Another added factor having significant effect to is relationship with tax authorities

Although professional tax services are based on both tax regulations and practices, given tax regulations in Vietnam do not develop together with the rapid growth of the economic transactions in quantity and complexness, most ofthe complicated cases, the current practices are applied In the lack of tax regulations in some special cases, sometime tax authorities have their own interpretation of regulations and based on that, they examine the issue of a specific company In addition, majority of clients of professional tax services are companies having difficult tax issue that there is no clear guidance in regulation In that case, a good relationship with tax authorities will contribute outstanding value to the service firm This relationship helps the firm easily interact with the tax authorities or tax officers who are in charge of its client and via that the firm can obtain the treatments/ practice of those people/ authorities Acknowledge this relationship, clients tend to appreciate the work of professional tax firm and thus they perceive performance of the firm at a higher level

However, the association between relationship with the tax authority and perceived performance depends on the nature of engaged services Professional tax services in nature

can be divided into two types: compliance services and advisory services Compliance

services are services provided in order to assist clients in complying with tax regulations

Tiêu đề	Client Perceived Service And Satisfaction In Business-To-Business Professional Tax Consultant Services
Tác giả	Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong
Người hướng dẫn	Dr. Vo Thi Ngoc Thuy
Trường học	University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City
Chuyên ngành	Master of Business
Thể loại	master thesis
Năm xuất bản	2014
Thành phố	Ho Chi Minh City

Định dạng
Số trang	176
Dung lượng	2,57 MB