Developing a Scale of E-Service Quality for Blog - ResearchGate

Developing a Scale of E-Service Quality for Blog
Yu-Lung Wu 1 , Yu-Hui Tao 2 , Pei-Chi Yang 3 Ching-Pu Li 1
1 Department of Information Management, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung County, Taiwan
2 Department of Information Management, National University of Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
3 Department of Information Engineering, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung County, Taiwan
d9503006@stmail.isu.edu.tw
Abstract –The blog search engine Technorati made
a survey in November 2008 and the results showed
that the index volume of Blogs was as high as 133
million. In view of the increasing number and
influence of blogs, their quality assessment has become
a topic worth stressing and exploring. In this study,
both quantitative and qualitative methods are used to
construct a multi-stage scale development procedure,
and to check and disclose the factor structure for
assessment of blog website service quality. This scale is
a basis for blog website users to evaluate the website
service and for platform operators to plan for future
operation.
Keywords - Blog, Service quality scale, Design of scale
I. INTRODUCTION
The blog is a new media that has emerged in recent
years. Users only need a document processing capability
to publish, share, and browse articles via blogs. With the
development of technology, many blogs serve multimedia
functions, such as album or video. Blogs are no
longer confined to words. They could express thoughts
better with the use of pictures, videos, and sounds. The
survey data released in November 2008 show that the
index volume of blogs was as high as 133 million,
indicating that blogs have stepped into, and play an
important role in people’s lives[1]. Furthermore, it has
been learned from domestic studies that almost 80% of
Internet users in Taiwan had the experience of using blogs
in 2007[2]. It implies that the platform for individual
integration service has become increasingly important.
Therefore, many well-known websites have been
launched into the market; these include Sina Blog,
Windows Live Space, Xuite Blog Channel of Hinet, video
blog integrated Webs-TV Yam Blog, and some small
websites. All of them have their own unique features.
Nonetheless, increasingly complicated information and
multiple website functions can possibly discourage some
people from sharing articles or expressing their opinions.
Therefore, the service quality of blog websites has
become a key factor for operators and users to survive and
compete. Measuring the quality of blog websites is worth
researching.
So far, no formal studies on service quality of blog
websites have been made in Taiwan. Therefore, this study
intends to construct a robust and systematic service
quality assessment that covers blog website services.
Through this scale, operators could enhance the updating
of their blog platform system and its function, further
facilitate the operation of websites, and study their
competitive strategy; users could also review the content
of their blogs and take the scale as a basis for
improvement. However, the stability of the scale is based
on repeated studies. In particular, the contents and items
of blog website services should often be updated,
increased, or reduced upon users’ request. If the factor
structure of service quality assessment scale could be
determined, it would be beneficial for the further use and
updating of the scale. The issue on the assessment of blog
website service quality has motivated the author to
conduct this very important and timely study.
A. Service Quality Model
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
From the content perspective, the Parasuraman,
Zeithaml, and Berry (PZB) model links product and
service attributes to perceived quality dimensions, and
subsequently to other higher-order assessments, which
originated from the marketing literature. Specifically, the
means-ends model in Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry
[3]causally relates price, quality, and value. Later on, Rust,
Lemon, and Zeithaml [4]also proposed a model relating
service quality improvements in product and process
attributes to perceived service quality, customer
satisfaction, customer retention, revenues and market
share, and profitability. Generally speaking, it is only
recently that quality dimensions specific to e-services, a
large portion of which are e-tailers, have been proposed
[5-13]. For instance, Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and
Malhotra[14]proposed a model for understanding and
improving e-service quality that relates the design and
operation of the website to customer website experiences,
perceived e-service quality, perceived value, and
purchase/repurchase decisions. In summary, although the
exploration of e-service quality (e-SQ) in service
industries is only in its early stages [14] and studies do
not fully concur with the dimensions and statements
explored, the following items are known[15]:
1) Electronic service quality is multifaceted, not
unidimensional.
2) Recovery service involves different dimensions rather
than the core dimension and most of the personal service

issues are part of recovery service rather than core
service.
3) e-SQ affects satisfaction, purchase intention, and
purchase.
4) Technology readiness, a customer-specific construct,
is related to the perceptions of e-SQ.
In this research, the steps of Parasuraman, Zeithaml,
and Malhotra[9]in developing a scale should be followed
to make an empirical analysis of blog websites and to
construct a scale. However, in view of the specialty of
blog websites and their distinction from attributes and
considerations of common commercial websites, the
dimensions and questions proposed by Parasuraman,
Zeithaml, and Malhotra [9] will not be expanded or
revised. Instead, a study will be made on literature
concerning blog websites to find out the questions related
to blog websites and further deduce the dimensions of
blog website service quality.
B. Blogs
Recently, many studies have been made on
application, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, key
to success, and assessment index of blogs from different
perspectives by adopting different theories or models, and
some have explored the influence from different attributes
or types of blogs. Yang [16] uses the factor analysis
method to probe into users’ perceived credibility of blogs
on news. Kim[17] proposes the blog phenomenonoriented
Socio-Technical Systems (STS), and offers the
definitions of blog tool, blog users, blogosphere, and the
structure chart of all blog components. Du and Wagner
[18] proposes the weblog success categories based on the
two dimensions of popularity rating and growth level of
blogs.
Ip and Wagner[19]modified the Task–Technology Fit
(TTF) and constructed a Needs–Technology Fit model
(NTF model) for blog websites, and its dimensions
include social needs, technology, NTF, and usage type.
Hsu and Lin[20] explored the acceptability of blog
availability from the perspective of technology acceptance,
social influence, and knowledge sharing motivation, and
found that social factors and attitudes could influence the
intention to continue using blogs. Yang and Liu applied
the language-action perspective to blogs and set up a new
standard for online customer service.
In the past studies, there was not any scale for blog
service quality or which worked as a standard to measure
the service provided by platform operators and bloggers.
In particular, the contents and items of blog website
service always change, increase, or decrease upon
bloggers’ request. If the factor structure of service quality
assessment scale could be determine, it will be beneficial
for further use and updating of the scale.
III. DESIGN OF SCALE
In this study, variables are set according to e-SQ and
questions in relevant literature about blogs. According to
the findings of other scholars and various questionnaires
on blogs, the author designed some questions for this
study. There were initially 76 questions. To make these
propositions more accurate and accord with reality,
interviews were made with six blog platform managers to
request them to give suggestions on the questionnaire and
how to revise it. As a result, similar questions were
combined into one, the depiction of titles was revised
based on the managers’ suggestions, more important
questions were added, and less important questions were
deleted. Finally, a total of 54 questions were left. The
questionnaires were then given for pre-testing to 37
selected college students who have experience in building
blog websites. The questions whose manner of asking was
not suitable to users, those that seem to be directed at
managers, and ambiguous questions were picked out for
further assessment. Next, the testees were asked to
compare and appraise the importance of these questions;
they were then revised and some questions were deleted.
Finally, 39 questions were left.
The author achieved the preliminary scale for blog
website service, and adopted the online questionnaire as
the tool for people to answer the questions. The
questionnaire, which was offered to users of blog websites,
consisted of two parts. The first part required basic
information. Through this part, the author could have a
good knowledge of users’ age, gender, occupation,
educational background, residence, and so on. The second
part was the rating scale for blog website service quality.
In this part, Cronin and Taylor’s[21] argument was
applied, and the service performance rated by users
(customers) subjectively represented the service quality.
The questionnaire adopted the five-point Likert scale
where 5 = “Strongly Agree”, 4 = “Agree”, 3 = “Ordinary”,
2 = “Disagree”, and 1 = “Strongly Disagree”.
The questionnaire was placed in a fixed website on
25th February 2009 (http://140.127.194.10/questionnair).
The webpage was linked to e-mails, and was designed for
all blog users. By leaving a message or through e-mail, it
asked blog users to assist in completing the questionnaire.
Because there was a great number of sample objects in
this study making it difficult for all of them to be
measured accurately, the Purposive Sample of Non-
Probability Sampling, which was suitable to the
distribution of samples in this study, was adopted. In
addition, a lottery draw was designed to motivate testees
to complete the questionnaire and to reach more blog
users and increase the recovery rate of questionnaires.
IV. DATA ANALYSIS
A. First collection and analysis of data
For the first time, a total of 282 questionnaires were
collected, among which 16 were invalid and 266 were
valid. To reduce the number of questions, the 39 questions
generated on the basis of the nine basic dimensions were
categorized and a credibility analysis was made. Deleting
the individual questions sharing common features with the

overall questions in each dimension would enhance the
overall credibility Cronbach’s α value. After deleting the
questions in each dimension featured by overall
credibility Crobach’sα value less than 0.7, 35 questions
remained. Before making the factor analysis, Bartlett’s
Test of Sphericity of the sample was 5830.96, P was
0.000(

TABLE I CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS OF FACTORS
Factor Efficiency System Functionality
Security /
Responsiveness
Personalization Enjoyment
Efficiency 1.000
System Functionality 0.786 1.000
Security / Responsiveness 0.722 0.796 1.000
Personalization 0.718 0.826 0.759 1.000
Enjoyment 0.662 0.793 0.720 0.813 1.000
TABLE II RESULTS OF SECOND-ORDER EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS
Item
Factor
loading
t Item
Factor
loading
t
Overall SQ(CCR=0.935, AVE=0.744)
Security / Responsiveness (SR)
(CCR=0.889, AVE=0.615)
Efficiency 0.814 19.637 0.663 SR01 0.751 36.501 0.564
System
Functionality
0.929 22.188 0.862 SR02 0.763 N/A* 0.583
Security /
Responsiveness
0.848 N/A* 0.719 SR03 0.794 32.551 0.630
Personalization 0.902 20.685 0.814 SR04 0.792 23.778 0.627
Enjoyment 0.860 20.567 0.663 SR05 0.820 24.623 0.673
Efficiency (EF)(CCR=0.820, AVE=0.603) Personalization (PE)(CCR=0.833, AVE=0.624)
EF01 0.752 25.345 0.566 PE01 0.813 N/A* 0.661
EF02 0.826 N/A* 0.682 PE02 0.747 24.465 0.557
EF03 0.749 24.775 0.561 PE03 0.809 27.209 0.654
System Functionality (SF)(CCR=0.924, AVE=0.669) Enjoyment (EN)(CCR=0.896, AVE=0.683)
SF01 0.794 31.015 0.63 EN01 0.832 N/A* 0.693
SF02 0.815 32.393 0.665 EN02 0.851 31.717 0.724
SF03 0.823 32.521 0.677 EN03 0.809 29.333 0.654
SF04 0.845 N/A* 0.714 EN04 0.812 30.006 0.659
SF05 0.796 36.695 0.634
SF06
Goodness of fit
0.835 32.984 0.697
=435.203 DF=148 GFI=0.962 AGFI=0.941
NFI=0.976 TLI(NNFI)=0.977 CFI=0.984 RMSEA=0.043
TABLE III BLOG SERVICE QUALITY DIMENSIONS AND RESPECTIVE QUESTIONS
Dimension Question
1.Pages of blog websites could be opened quickly.
Efficiency
2.Searching function of blog websites is useful and quick.
3.Blog websites provide lots of professional information I need.
1.Blog websites provide a correct list of functions.
2.Blog websites are systematic and well organized.
3.Current organizations and technical facilities support users to use blog websites.
System Functionality
4.The menu selection mode, contents or search bar of blog websites could enable users to
obtain the information they need.
5.Services of blog websites could be provided to users in a proper and timely way.
6.Blog websites could help or provide necessary guidance to users.
1.Blog websites do not use my personal data or other information for other purposes.
2.Blog websites could ensure the security of my personal privacy and all information.
Security / Responsiveness
3.Blog websites have basic security precautions.
4.Blog website managers would like to respond to users’ demands quickly.
5.Blog websites could help users solve the problem they encounter.
1.Blog websites provide some personalized service.
Personalization
2.Blog websites could provide more information I need according to habits I cultivated when I
searched information in the past.
3.Blog websites could provide lots of customized services.
1.Generally speaking, blog websites are attractive.
Enjoyment
2.Generally speaking, blog websites benefit me a lot.
3.Generally speaking, blog websites could meet my demands.
4.Generally speaking, I can enjoy myself by using blog websites.

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