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Validation of the ISS-QUAL and the role of gender, age and education on it service quality in the public sector

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Abstract

Public organizations have invested heavily in information technology (IT) and have created internal specialized IT services departments which must be managed from the perspective of the provision of services. The people involved in these organizations can be grouped by demographic characteristics such as gender, age and level of formal education. Thus, the study has two objectives. The first is to test, in the context of the public sector, the validity of the ISS-QUAL, a new scale developed to measure the IT service quality provided by internal IT departments. The second objective is to analyze the role of the variables of gender, age and the level of education of public servants on the perception of IT service quality provided by internal departments. For this purpose, we used structural equation modeling to perform a confirmatory factorial analysis with a sample of 879 IT users, as well as to identify the role of gender, age and level of users’ formal education on perceived service quality. The results confirm the validity and the high explanatory power of the ISS-QUAL within the scope of public organizations, and indicate that the demographic characteristics of public servants differentially affect service quality factors. The study presents the implications of the results for researchers in the field and for managers of internal IT departments in the public sector.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. FUCAPE Business School, Vitória, 29075-505, Brazil

    Danilo M. Marchiori & Ricardo G. Rodrigues

  2. Universidade da Beira Interior – NECE, Covilhã, 6201-001, Portugal

    Danilo M. Marchiori & Emerson W. Mainardes

Authors
  1. Danilo M. Marchiori
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  2. Emerson W. Mainardes
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  3. Ricardo G. Rodrigues
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Danilo M. Marchiori.

Appendix

Appendix

1.1 Psychometric items

SED1:

The credibility/capacity to provide services delivered by the employees of the IT department.

Much lower than I expected ( ) 1 ( ) 2 ( ) 3 ( ) 4 ( ) 5 Much higher than I expected ( ) I do not know or it is non-applicable.

SED2:

The willingness of employees of the IT department to provide services.

SED3:

The courtesy of the IT department employees.

SED4:

The honesty/reliability of employees of the IT department.

SED5:

The personalized service offered by employees of the IT department.

SED6:

The ability of the IT department employees to communicate comprehensibly.

SED7*:

Professional appearance of IT department employees.

SEP1:

The offer of services provided by the IT department.

SEP2:

The variety of services provided by the IT department.

SEP3:

The usefulness of the services provided by the IT department.

SEP4:

The degree of innovation of the services provided by the IT department.

SEE1:

The number of ways to interact with the IT department (phone, email, service center, etc.).

SEE2:

The ease of interaction with the IT department via phone, email, service center, etc.

SEE3:

The convenience of the interaction with the IT department via phone, email, service center, etc.

SEE4:

The efficient use of phone, email, service center, etc., to interact with the IT department.

SEE5:

The variety of ways to interact with the IT department (phone, email, service center, etc.).

OSQ1:

I would rate our IT department as an excellent service provider.

OSQ2:

I am very satisfied with the services provided by our IT department.

OSQ3:

Overall, our IT department offers a service of excellent quality.

* The results of analysis detected a low factor loading for variable SED7 (r = 0.49 and r2 = 0.24). We suggest the removal of the item.

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Marchiori, D.M., Mainardes, E.W. & Rodrigues, R.G. Validation of the ISS-QUAL and the role of gender, age and education on it service quality in the public sector. Inf Technol Manag 19, 217–230 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10799-017-0281-0

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