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

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