Developing the dimensions to measure the service quality of construction project management

RESEARCHES & DISCUSSIONSDEVELOPING THE DIMENSIONS TO MEASURE THE SERVICE QUALITY OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECT MANAGEMENT by Dr.. Unlike other service organizations, pro-fessional service prov

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TOPIC VIETNAMESE ACCOUNTING AND INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS

Ba ck-Fl ush Acco unt ing i n Jus t- in -ti me Bus in es s

Deba t es and Rea lit y o f V i e t nam

Adaptat i on on t he Success of Accounting Pac k a ed So ft w are

Implemen t a t ion

Accou nti ng in V i etnam

Consumer Behavior i n the Soft Dr i nk Ma r ke t in HC M C

Dimensions to Measure the Serv i ce Qual i ty of Cons tr uc ti on Pro j ec t

Management

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RESEARCHES & DISCUSSIONS

DEVELOPING THE DIMENSIONS TO MEASURE THE SERVICE QUALITY OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECT MANAGEMENT

by Dr HA NAM KHANH GIAO · & NGUY EN £)OAN TRAN G, M BA

services are in the first two categories As a kind

of credence-based services, professional servic s are also intangible, inseparable, variable and per-ishable Unlike other service organizations, pro-fessional service providers have to deal with high level of uncertainty, limited service differentiabil -ity, and difficulties in quality control; have to face some distinctive problems that have not been faced by other types of service organizations such

as client uncertainty, limited service differentia-bility, quality control difficulties, and several

ob-stacles to mounting a successful marketing effort (Kotler et al, 2002) Named as goods of credence,

the professional services attract the buyer by great faith in consultants who sell the servic be -cause services are usually lack many attributes that a buyer can confidently and competently eva

l-uate before, or even after, making a purchase de -cision (Bloom, 1984)

Although the construction industry produces tangible items and has been categorized as a pro-duction instead of service activity, the industry still has some following features that have been characterized for service sector: they cannot be

stored (perishability); i is impossible to sell the expertise inside the landmark once i is commit

-ted or used; the processes of service producton and service consumption are inseparable (insepa -rability); the fact that construction products ca

n-not be standardized makes the nature of

heterogeneity of the industry; the intangible in the construction process can be shown in the p re-liminary design (intangibility)

There are various definitions of proje t ma n-agement provided by Cleland (1990), Kerzner (1992), Turner (1994), and Pinto & Kharbanda (1995) Emphasized on the client satisfaction,

Walker (2002)conceptualized project management

as the planning, control and coordination of a proj-ect from conception to completion on behalf of a

Abstract

In construction industry today, the consultancy

companies need to improve their service quality

-an import-ant part of consultancy service in order

to enhance the customer's loyalty, boosting the

business for future projects and word of mouth

rep-utation The question arises as to whether or not

the dimensions used for measuring the quality of

the generic services can be applied to the profe

s-sional services such as the construction project

management service If yes, how to do so?This

re-search is based on the literature review, especially

Parasuraman et al (1985, 1988), Hoxley (2004),

Murugavarothayan et al (2000) and Ong (2007);

and the qualitative method to suggest possible set

of dimensions to measure the service quality of the

construction project management

1 Basic concepts

A service has been defined by many scholars:

Kotler et al (2002), Gronroos (1979, 2001),

Gummesson (1993), and Lovelock (1991) In a

brief way, Kotler & Amstrong (2001, p 291)

shaped "services are a form of a product that con

-sist of activities, benefits, or satisfactions offered

for sale that are essentially intangible and do not

result in the ownership of anything." Services

have the following four key distinguishing at

trib-utes: Intangibility, Inseparability, Heterogeneity,

and Perishability (Kotler & Bloom, 2002)

Kotler & Keller (2006) classify products/se

r-vices into three categories in the continuum based

on the difficulty of evaluation of products/services

quality: (1) Credence-based qualities: the buyers

find hard to evaluate even after purchase such as

legal service, medical service, and education

serv-ice; (2)Experience-based q alities: the buyers can

evaluate after purchase such as hairdressing,

travel, accommodation, and hotel service; and (3)

Search-based qualities: the buyers can evaluate b

e-fore purchase such as clothing, in which most of

- • International University - Vietnam Nation University HCMC

Economic Development Review - September 2010

R ESEARCHES & D ISCUSSI O NS

c. Service qual i ty:

(1985),Zeithaml & Bitner (1996), Harvey (1995),

Lewis & Mitchell, 1990;Dotchin & Oakland, 1994;

2 Dimensions of service quality of the

construc-tion proitlCi management

b U nder s tand i n 12e ssential el e m e n ts for

RESE A R C HES & DISCUSSIONS

Table 1:Corespondence between effective elements of project management to original ten dimensio s of

SERVaUAL

III

0

sary in formulating and fa- Q) I - III

cilitating effective project Cl .s III C Q)Q. .: :: I "t : :::I U U C :::I -III

III

Q)

a:

1.Understandingofthe ob

2.Understan ing ofthe pro

tics

3 Management of the project

x risks

4.Selection of a suitable

S.Using of a suitable building

procurement system

6.Use of a suitable

7.Effective organization

structure

8.Having proper and

priate planning

9.Effective monitoringan

controlsystems

1a.Good informatonreco

rd-ing andretrievalsystems x x

11.Abilityto adapt and man

-x age change

12 Good commercial/busi

SERVQUAL model, the framework of service qu

al-ity evaluation proposed by Murugavarothayan et

al (2000) is similar to those ofGronroos's service

quality model (1982, 1990) on the aspect that it

tries to emphasize on what client is left when

service production process has ended

d Mi chael Ho xl e y' s SUR V EYQUAL (2 000 ,

2 00 4):

Hoxley (2000) has discussed the develo ment

of a 26-item scale for assessing servic quality in

a UK construction professional service context

The data collection involves the assessment of244

professionals by their clients The findings of the

research are that construction profes io al servic

q ality can be described as a four-dimensional con-struct (the writer has called the factors "what",

"how", "when" and "who") In 2004, an additional scale item which demonstrates good awareness of

he lth and safety issues was added Thus, it is a

27-item sc le for assessing service quality in the

construction professional service The contents of

criteria are listed on table 2, in which a

SERVQUAL framework is referred and basically

used to construct the SURVEYQUAL measure scale for the construction professional services

e Developing the dimensions to measur e the servi c e quality in construction project management:

RESEARCHES & DISCUSSIONS

;

FACTORS

~

ing

x

ca-x

x

,

x XYZ.

RESEARCHES & DISCUSSIONS

Employees always courteous

to me

XYZ and its employees have experience relevant to the serv

-x ice I require

Firm gives you individual

tention

Operating hours convenient

to customers

-The partners or d i rectors of XYZ stay involved with my pro]

-x ects.

Employees give you personal

Firm has your best interests

at heart

Employees understand your

specific needs

XYZ and I have similar views about things that are important x

The standard of verbal presentation by e m p l oyees of XYZ is

x

E c n mic Developme nt Review - September 2010

RESEARCHES & DISCUSSIONS

Table 3 : Pr , 6posed criteria to measure the service quality of construction project management

1991) (2000)

>

G i

Ul

cu

Ul_

c cu

>-s:

E;

-th e ntic proje ct do c um e nts

=

'0

t

Fo c us o n so l v i n th e p r

ob-cu

If they fa il to do , they do not

0

7 le ' m w i t h n o e x u s e i f f a il

-cu

'0

solve cus t omer

c

>-cu Cooperation and openness Cooperation ad openness

,!!! E

0

'0

>- P r ov i de Serv i ce at Keep promise to do som e- Providing servic e a t

Ul

0

Solutions t o problem C ar ryi ng ou t t as k te c hn i

-t:

Ins i s t on er r or - e Carry out task accu r ate l y ,

0

Ul

Ul

e

Ul=

cu E

t:_

cu •.•

W i ll in gness to re ce i ve

o t:

0

-(1)'0

cu =

a:e

rn

Respond to cus- ' " Always being available

c

Economic Development Review -September 2010

RESEARCHES & DISCUSSIO N S

[2J

in-[3J

.,

2

~

:5

Customer feel safe Anticip te future problem and Customer feel safe in

"0

cu ' "

-e cu

:::I ,.,

Em ployee is

cour-., 0

E

2 Effectively coordinate with project par icipators

The ability to do what they say

.

[6J cu

they will do

t:

" 0 Employee has

'" knowledge to

c

swer your question

0

Relevant experienced and

professional knowledge j

c

ere-ativity and cap bility 24 Innovation in methods and approac Clients are treated importantly Having similar view

with Customer

~

25 clients' needs for a project

0

:::I

"

26 Respect the commitment to the proje t and clients

=~ c-C Keep your best in- Keep commitment to project

!:!

" 0

33 Complete buildings are durable and maintainable a

~ 0

:::I "

36 Compromise between quality and cost is achieved

Achieve higher quality than expected [11 J :::I

expected

a

Eu

Notes : the number i n [1comes from the 12 essential elements of effect i ve pro j ect management p r oposed by O n ,

H T (2007)

Economic Development Review - September 2010

RE SEARC H ES & D ISCUSS IO NS

The dimensions to me sure the quality of the

project management service in this paper will be

(1985), Murugavarothayan et al (2000), Hoxley

(2004) an On (2007) wih some minor adjust

-ments in order to suit the current construction

en-viro ment specifically Dimensions used for

per the proposed scale of Murugavarothayan et al

(2000) and Hoxley (2 0 ) However, the

ef-fective proje t management proposed b Ong

(2007) There will be 41 su -criteria employed in

he scale with the main contents as shown below:

be based on the original 5 dimensions of

Reliability (6sub-criteria); Responsiveness (4

(7sub-criteria);

sub-criteria);

It is found that there is no conflict among de

-fessio al service quality by Hoxley (2004), Mur

u-gavarothayan et al (2000) and Ong (2007) Since

Parasur~man et al.'s SERVQUAL is widely used

u-gavarothayan's project process and outcome crite

-ria are accepted in UK and Australia; and Ong's

-gap re, Hong Kong and Taiwan A consideration

should be made when constructin a preliminary

framework to the construction industry in general,

qualiy are addressed comprehensively (See table 3)

4 Conclusions

The construction industry is vital for the deve

are massive in size, not only in terms of dollar value but also in terms of number of entities

in-volved Thus, to achieve effective control of a

proj-e t is a real challenge to investors, especially for those who do not come from the industry or have

no experience of building process One of manage-ment solutions that have been widely used to

im-prove efficiency of a proje t is the engagement of

a kind of construction consultancy service: Project Management Consultant (PMC)

In practice, due to the fierce compet ion inthe consultancy service market nowadays, i is evident that more and more consulancy service organiza-tions are showing greater concern to the quality

of service The higher the quality of service, the higher customer satisfaction; this is supported by Wilkie's (1990) concern of quality as a fundamen- tal element to achieve customer satisfactio , and

profes-sional service

This paper checked through the literatures, es-pecially Parasuraman et al (1985, 1988), Hoxley

pos-sible set of nine dimensions, including 4 sub-cri-teria, to measure the service quality of the construction project management Obvio sly,

these dimensions needed to be checked in the other quantitative research studies to asses how far they can be applied to the whole constructio project management servic a

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