Title

Perceptual differences in the quality of products and services: Undergraduate students versus business executives

Abstract

Individuals often show considerable disparity between how they rate the overall quality of a product or a service and how they rate several key dimensions of the quality for that same product or service. While they may provide a relatively high rating for several of the dimensions of quality, they still often rate the overall quality considerably lower, or make negative statements regarding future purchases. This paper examines the reactions of two groups of individuals to product and service quality: undergraduate students matriculating in an introductory quality management course, and senior business executives matriculating in an executive MBA quality management course. The results suggest that the executives seem to display a higher correlation between an overall quality rating and individual dimension ratings than do the undergraduate students. Further, the quality assessments of the undergraduate students are more likely to be clouded by unpleasant or negative purchase experiences. The results also suggest that, for both groups, a stronger correlation between overall quality rating and individual dimension rating will be achieved if the dimensions of quality have an importance level attached to them by the consumer.

Publication Date

1-1-1998

Publication Title

Proceedings - Annual Meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute

Volume

3

Number of Pages

1668-

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

Socpus ID

0031640856 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/0031640856

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