Soft and Hard Aspects of Quality Management Practices Influencing Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Manufacturing-oriented Services

Usha Lenka, Damodar Suar and Pratap K.J. Mohapatra
Additional contact information
Usha Lenka: Usha Lenka is Assistant Professor (Management Group), BITS, Pilani. Her research interest is in the area of service quality. E-mail: usha_lenka@yahoo.com, ushalenka@bits-pilani.ac.in
Damodar Suar: Damodar Suar is Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Science, IIT Kharagpur. His current research focuses on leadership, values and brain-behaviour relations. E-mail: ds@hss.iitkgp.ernet.in
Pratap K.J. Mohapatra: Pratap K.J. Mohapatra is Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, IIT Kharagpur. His research areas are system dynamics, software engineering, and strategic management. E-mail: deanpg@iitkgp.ernet.in; pratap@hijli.iitkgp.ernet.in

Global Business Review, 2010, vol. 11, issue 1, 79-101

Abstract: This review rationalizes that quality management practices have been adopted as a marketing strategy in the post-liberalized economy. Evaluating the literature and theories of quality management, differences are found in the implementation of quality management practices in manufacturing and service sectors. A critical assessment of literature and a comparison of various quality management models divulge the variables that are proposed to influence service quality and customer satisfaction in manufacturing-oriented services. These variables are categorized as ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ aspects of quality management. The soft aspects include transformational leadership, workplace spirituality, service climate, human resource management practices, employees’ affective commitment and job satisfaction. The hard aspects incorporate the management information system and physical evidence. It is rationalized that the adoption of soft and hard aspects of quality management is essential to achieve service quality and customer satisfaction.

Keywords: Customer satisfaction; manufacturing-oriented service; quality management models; service quality; soft and hard aspects of quality; workplace spirituality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/097215090901100105 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:globus:v:11:y:2010:i:1:p:79-101

DOI: 10.1177/097215090901100105

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Global Business Review from International Management Institute
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().