Influence of Internal Service Quality on Job Performance: A Case ...

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 224 (2016) 28 – 34

6th International Research Symposium in Service Management, IRSSM-6 2015, 11-15 August 2015, UiTM Sarawak, Kuching, Malaysia

Influence of Internal Service Quality on Job Performance: A Case Study of Royal Police Department Kuldip Singh* Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA(UiTM), Malaysia

Abstract This study aimed to examine the influence of internal service quality (ISQ) on job performance in the public sector. Data was collected from 250 police personnels in PDRM in Kuching using survey method with questionnaire as the main tool. The instrument used to measure internal service quality was assessed via Kang et al.’s (2002) 22-item uni-dimensional measure of internal service quality battery (ISQB). Job performance was measured using an instrument developed by Borman & Motowidlo (1993). Results of the instrument’s Cronbach Alpha measurement showed that the score of reliability is above 0.70 which indicates an acceptable level. The results indicate that internal service quality is positively correlated with job performance. This study provides insights on the relationship between internal service quality and job performance in the public sector. The findings of this study may help the public sector to enhance its internal service quality and its effect on job performance. Limitations and recommendations are also discussed. © by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license © 2016 2016Published The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of Universiti Teknologi MARA Sarawak. Peer-review under responsibility of the Universiti Teknologi MARA Sarawak Keywords: internal service quality (ISQ); job performance; public sector; quality

1. Introduction In a dynamic environment, the public sector tries to compete by providing high quality service to its customers or stakeholders. Organizations operating in the public sector have also come to realise that they must ensure their services are soundly based on the needs and expectations of their stakeholders – i.e. communities, citizens and

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +60-082-678-502. E-mail address: [email protected]

1877-0428 © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the Universiti Teknologi MARA Sarawak doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.05.396

Kuldip Singh / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 224 (2016) 28 – 34

customers (Wisniewski, 2001). In Malaysia, the Royal Malaysian Police have embarked on a journey to enhance its public delivery system through empowering its employees in order to meet the expectations of its customers. Nowadays, organizations need to deal with both internal and external customers. Successful organizations need to emphasize the quality of services offered to both internal and external customers. Such organizations are astute enough to predict the changing needs of their customers, to concentrate on their organizational capability to offer high-quality services, and to see the quality of internal service as a tool to gain competitive advantage. Internal service quality in the public sector plays a critical role in fulfilling the expectations of its internal customers namely its employees. The study aims to explore how internal service quality would affect employee job performance in the public sector. 2. Literature review 2.1. Internal service quality The concept of internal service – the idea that the whole organization must serve those who serve – has emerged as one of the most important principles of the service management approach (Farner et al. 2001). Put succinctly, internal service refers to services provided by distinctive organizational units or people working in these departments to other units or to the employees within an organization (Miguel et al. 2006). Azzolini and Shillaber (1998) define Internal Service as meeting the expectations and requirements for success of those people inside the company so they can delight customers in the marketplace. To Strauss (1995), internal service quality is characterized by the attitude that people have towards one another and the way people serve each other inside the organization and it is necessary to superior external service quality. Yet, Mawoli (2012) regards ISQ as meeting or exceeding the quality expectations and requirements of employees to enable them to provide superior services to the delight of external customers. Boshoff and Mels (1995) argued that every employee and unit is both a service provider and utilizer and that internal service quality greatly impacts the service quality to external customers. Internal service quality includes tangibles, reliability, assurance, responsiveness and empathy. Tangibles refer to service tools, for example, facilities. Reliability is the ability to carry out the promised service reliably and correctly. Assurance refers to the fact that the provided service makes colleagues feel confident in being equipped with the required knowledge and courtesy. Responsiveness refers to an employee reacting swiftly to colleagues’ demands and providing sincere and timely service. Empathy refers to understanding demand and providing convenient service to colleagues with communications catered to their needs. The concept of internal service quality was first introduced by Sasser and Arbeit (1976) who considered the employees as internal customers. They contend that providing the external customers with quality services requires the provision of satisfaction and quality services to internal customers. Di Xie (2005) asserts that internal service quality is the degree to which an employee is contented with the services provided by internal providers. Moreover, internal service quality refers to what employees feel about the quality of services they receive from or offer their colleagues. Hallowel et al. (1998) contend that organizations need to improve the quality of their internal service so that they may provide external customers with better quality services.. ZhenYou (2003) asserts that an important aspect of internal service quality is to see how employees of a division provide their colleagues with services. Thus, the quality of internal services affects employee satisfaction. Meng Xia (2003) contends that internal high-quality services increase employee satisfaction, which results in external customers’ satisfaction and increased organizational performance. 2.2. Job performance In general, job performance is defined as actions or behaviours relevant to organizational goals (Campbell, 1990), which includes both productive and counterproductive employee behaviours that contribute to or detract from organizational goals (Hunt, 1996). Viswesvaran and Ones (2000) introduced a more recent definition of job performance as behaviour and outcomes that employees undertake which contribute to organizational goals. This means job performance refers to the effectiveness of individual behaviours that contribute to organisational objectives and should consist of task performance and contextual performance (Motowidlo, 2003). Both constructs are influenced by different factors, for instance job-related experience determines task performance while

29

30


individual’s personality type determines contextual performance (Motowidlo and Van Scotter, 1994). Organ (1998) argues that term “job performance” may need to be redefined to essentially broaden this construct to include nonproductivity or extra-role dimensions such as cooperation, helping co-workers and superiors and generalized tendencies toward compliance. Organ further proposed that job performance should be measured to the extent to which employees engage in organizational citizenship behaviours. Sarmiento and Beale (2007) refer job performance as the result of two elements, which consist of the abilities and skills (natural or acquired) that an employee possesses, and his/her motivation to use them in order to perform a better job. In this study, the meaning of job performance refers to task performance or in-role job performance as defined by Motowidlo (2003) as the organization’s total expected value on task related proficiency of an employee, or fulfilment of tasks that are required by the formal job description. In other words, task performance is the behaviors related specifically to performing job-related matters. Therefore, from the above definitions it is clear that job performance is related to the extent to which an employee is able to accomplish the task assigned to him or her and how the accomplished task contributes to the realization of the organizational goal. (Mawoli and Babandako, 2011). Job performance has been identified as the significant key for organizations to gain competitive advantage and superior productivity. Although competitive advantage is more relevant to private sector, it can be extended to public sector by including ‘serving the public’ because it is the ultimate objective of the public sector. Study by Vermeeren et al., (2009) has proved that work performance could help public organization to improve service delivery. Realizing its importance, public organizations seem to pay attention on work performance in relation to formulating policies and enhance service delivery (Leeuw, 1996). This is because individual public employee’s level of performance acts as a mirror for overall public performance at large. Hence, public employees must possess relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities to execute task-related responsibilities. Public service employees also must be willing to “walk the extra miles” in striving to perform at a level beyond expectations (Caron and Giauque, 2006; Arawati, Barker and Kandampully, 2007) With respect to public service delivery, individual employee’s performance is closely related to customer satisfaction (Fountain, 2001) because the service delivery take place during the contact moments between employee and customer. Therefore, employee’s work performance is crucial to government services and high work performance among employees is a significant management challenge for providing excellent services to the public at all levels. 3. Methodology A survey design was used to reach the research objectives. The specific design was the cross sectional design, where a sample is drawn from a population at a particular point in time (Shaughnessy & Zechmeister, 1997). About 250 questionnaires were distributed to employees in the Royal Police Department. About 212 employees returned back the questionnaire giving a response rate of 84 %. Employee engagement was measured by scale developed by Gallup organization. Results of the instrument’s Cronbach Alpha measurement show that the score of reliability is above .70 which indicates an acceptable level. This is summarized in Table 1. This study intends to test the following hypothesis: H1: H2a: H2b: H2c: H2d: H2e:

There is a significant relationship between internal service quality and job performance. There is a significant relationship between reliability and job performance There is a significant relationship between assurance and job performance There is a significant relationship between tangibles and job performance There is a significant relationship between empathy and job performance There is a significant relationship between responsiveness and job performance

The majority of the respondents were male (53.8 percent) and aged between 31 to 45 years old (51.9 percent) and mostly were married. 64.6 percent were Malays followed by Bidayuh (15.6 percent). About 46.5 percent of the sample had SPM qualification. As for length of service 31 percent had served for 3 to 9 years followed by 19.7 percent for more than 20 years. About 84.3 percent of the respondents were from the Support Group. About 72.5 percent of the respondents earned between RM1000 to RM3000. This is summarized in Table 2.

31


Table 1. Reliability analysis, mean and standard deviation scores ( N=212). Variables

No. of Items

Cronbach’s Alpha

Mean

S. D.

22 10

.938 .727

3.38 3.59

.596 .504

nternal Service Quality Job Performance

Table 2. Respondent’s profile. Profile

No. of Respondents

Percentages

Gender Male Female

114 98

53.8 46.2

Age Below 25 years old 26-30 years old 31-40 years old 37-45 years old 46-50 years old 51-55 years old Over 55 years

23 39 75 35 17 18 5

10.8 18.4 35.4 16.5 8.0 8.5 2.4

Race Malay Bidayuh Iban Chinese Melanau Others

137 33 18 11 9 4

64.6 15.6 8.5 5.2 4.2 1.9

25 117

17.6 82.4

Education’s level SPM STPM Diploma Degree Others

66 24 16 17 19

46.5 16.9 11.3 12.0 13.4

Year of services < 3 years 3-6 years 6-9 years 9-12 years 12-15 years 15-20 years More than 20 years

21 22 22 19 14 16 28

14.8 15.5 15.5 13.4 9.9 11.3 19.7

Job Category Group A Group B

22 120

15.5 84.5

Gross Salary < RM 1000 RM1000-RM2,000 RM2001-RM3000 RM3001-RM4000 More than RM 4000

18 59 44 19 2

12.7 41.5 31.0 13.4 1.4

Marital status Single Married

32


4. Results Table 3 shows the result of descriptive statistic. The mean for internal service quality is 3.38 indicating a moderate level of internal service quality. As for the dimensions of internal service quality the dimension which has the highest mean is responsiveness (mean 3.50) and the lowest mean is tangibles (mean 3.21). And for job performance the mean is 3.59 indicating a high level of job performance. Table 3. Means of main constructs and dimensions (N=212). Constructs

3.38

Standard Deviation .596

Mean

Internal Service Quality (ISQ) x

Reliability

3.36

.682

x

Assurance

3.50

.655

x

Tangibles

3.21

.760

x

Empathy

3.30

.703

x

Responsiveness

3.54

.692

3.59

.504

Job Performance x

Task performance

3.60

.569

x

Contextual performance

3.58

.544

In addition, the study found a strong positive relationship between internal service quality and job performance (r = 0.527; p< 0.01). This indicates that internal service quality had a positive effect on employee job performance. This is shown in Table 4. In addition all the dimensions of internal service quality also has significant positive relationship with job performance. This is summarized in Table 4. Table 4. Correlation between Internal Service Quality Dimensions and Job Performance. Variables

Job Performance ( r value)

Internal Service Quality

.527**

Reliability

.453**

Assurance

.483**

Tangibles

.378**

Empathy

.400**

Responsiveness

.558**

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level

5. Discussion The findings of this study confirm that internal service quality has a positive relationship with job performance in PDRM. The majority of the staff perceive that the level of internal service quality as moderate and job performance as high. In terms of correlation, high level of internal service quality is related to higher levels of job performance amongst the staff. This study supports previous findings by Bellou & Andronikidis (2008) found that ISQ help the employees to improve their customer oriented behavior and hence enhancing the overall performance. Thus public agencies need to focus on critical aspects of service quality such as reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy and responsiveness when interacting with their internal customer namely its employees in order to enhance its employees job performance. A higher job performance level will definitely result in employees serving the


external customers namely the public in a more effective manner. The study presents two major implications: theoretical contribution and practical contribution. In terms of theoretical contribution, the results of this study confirm that internal service quality and job performance are highly correlated and hence contributes to research on internal service quality and job performance in the public sector. In terms of practical contributions, the findings of this study can be used as a guideline by public agencies to enhance internal service quality and to increase its staff’s level of job performance. In addition its contribution to improving the service delivery in the public sector is another important implication of this study whereby a higher job performance will enhance employee commitment to provide excellent service to its customers. 6. Conclusion This study confirmed that internal service quality can influence job performance. The correlation test revealed a positive relationship between internal service quality and job performance. Therefore, current research and practice on internal service quality need to understand internal service quality as related to job performance. This study further suggests that a satisfactory level of internal service quality will strongly enhance and promote higher levels of job performance. This study acknowledges several limitations. First, a cross-sectional research design was used to gather data at one point within the period of study. This may not be able to capture the developmental issues and/or causal connections between variables of interest. Second, the survey questionnaires relied heavily on the respondents’ self-responses that were selected based on random sampling technique. Finally, the samples were taken from PDRM headquarters in Kuching only via survey questionnaires. These limitations may decrease the ability of generalizing the results to other PDRMs in Malaysia. For future research it is suggested researchers explore a mixed methodology namely quantitative and qualitative methods to get a better understanding of the relationship between the variables. In addition, researchers can also examine the influence of moderating variables such as job satisfaction or employee motivation in moderating the relationship between ISQ and job performance. References Arawati, A., Baker, S., & Kandampully, J. (2007). An exploratory study of service quality in the Malaysian public service sector. International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 24(2), 177–190. Azzolini, M. and Shillaber, J. (1998), Internal Service Quality: Winning from Inside-Out. Web-site: http://www.biasca.com.archivos/for.../mgnt_Internal_Service_Quality.pdf (20/11/2011. Boshoff, C and Mels, G. (1995), A Causal Model to Evaluate the Relationships among Supervision, Role Stress, Organizational Commitment and Internal Service Quality, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 23-42. Campbell, J. P., Henry, J. J. & Wise, L. L. (1990). Modelling job performance in a population of jobs. Journal of Personnel Psychology, 43, 313 – 333. Caron, D. & Giauque, D. (2006). Civil servant identity at the crossroads: New challenges for public administration. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 19(6), 543-555. Di Xie, M. (2005). Exploring organizational learning culture, job satisfaction, motivation to learn, organizational commitment and internal service quality in a sport organization. School of the Ohio state university. Farner, S., Luthans, F. and Sommer, S.M. (2001), An Empirical Assessment of Internal Customer Service, Managing Service quality, Vol. 11, No. 5, pp.350-358. Fountain, J. E. (2001). Paradoxes of Public Sector Customer Service. Governance and International Journal of Policy and Administration, 14(1), 55-73. Hallowell, R., Schlesinger, L. A., & Zornitsky, J. (1996). Internal Service Quality, Customer and Job Satisfaction: Linkages and Implications for Management. Human Resource Planning, 19, 20-31. Kang, G.-D., Jame, J., & Alexandris, K. (2002). Measurement of Internal Service Quality: Application of the SERVQUAL Battery to Internal Service Quality. Managing Service Quality, 12(5), 278-291. Leeuw, F. L. (1996). Performance Auditing, New Public Management and Performance Improvement: Question and Answer. Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability, 9(2), 92-102. Mawoli, M.A. (2012), Assessment of Internal Service Quality of University Library: Evidence from a State Government University in Nigeria. In Press. Mawoli, M. A. & Babandako, A. Y. (2011). An evaluation of Staff Motivation, Dissatisfaction and Job performance in an academic setting. Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, 1(9). Meng-Xia, C. (2003). A study of correlations among internal-service quality, employee’s job satisfaction, organizational commitment and customer-oriented behaviours: Taking Bank A for example, MA, Institute of Commerce Automation and Management, National Taipei University of Technology.

33

34


Miguel, P.A.C., Salomi, G.I. and Abackerli, A.J. (2006), Assessing Internal Service Quality By Measuring Quality Dimensions in a Manufacturing Company, Third International Conference on Production Research, Americas’ Region 2006. Motowidlo, S. J. (2003). Job performance , In W. C. Borman, D. R. Ilgen, and R. J. Klimoski (Eds.), Handbook of Psychology: 12. Industrial and Organizational Psychology (pp. 39-53), John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, NJ. Motowidlo, S. J. and Van Scotter, J. R. (1994). Evidence that task performance should be distinguished from contextual performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79(4), 475-480. Organ, D. W. (1988). Organizational citizenship behavior: The good soldier syndrome Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Sarmiento, R., & Beale, J. (2007). Determinants of performance amongst shop-floor employees. Management Research News, 30 (12), 915-927. Strauss, B. (1995), Internal Services: Classification and Quality Management, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 6, N0. 2, pp. 62-78. Viswesvaran, C., & Ones, D. S. (2000) Perspectives on Models of Job Performance. Zhen-You, C. (2003). How leadership styles, motives of achievement and their fitness affect the quality of internal services: Taking the example of marketing & promotional staff at Taiwanese record labels, MA, Graduate Institute of Communication Management, Ming Chuan University. Vermeeren, B., Kuipers, B. & Steijn, B. (2009). A Study of HRM, Employee Attitude and Behavior and Public Service Quality of Ducth Municipalities. Paper presented at EGPA Conference, September 2-5 2009, Saint Julian’s, Malta.