(jit) principles and systematic layout planning as tools to improve ...

However, the extremely few existing empirical research on service quality is
almost exclusively confined to organizations in the United States and some
Scandinavian countries. Horovitz (1994) suggested that various components
of quality do not have the same weight from one culture or country to
another. As an example, "being ten minutes late in France is not as serious as
in Germany" (Horovitz, 1994: 23). Furthermore, public sector is different in
many aspects-legal, political, financial, etc.—compared to the private sector
which has been analyzed, albeit limitedly, in the service quality literature.
In that connection, the population of interest in this study is the Road
Transport Department (RTD) which is a relatively big federal government
agency in Malaysia. This department is responsible for providing services,
among others, in matters pertaining to vehicles and driving licences. The
RTD's Vision is "to ensure complete satisfaction is achieved fully especially
through efficient counter services" (RTD HomePage). In concurrent with
that, "Zero Complaints!" has been adopted as the department's quality
slogan, which was postulated as the target the department is trying to
achieve.
Specifically, this study tries to examine the following questions:
1. How do the RTD customers' expectations of service compare to the
providers' perceptions of customers' expectations in terms of desired and
adequate service levels?
2. How do the RTD customers 1 expectations in terms of adequate and
desired service levels compare to their perceptions of service levels?
LITERATURE REVIEW
While quality can be viewed or defined from various perspective (Juran,
1989; Crosby, 1979; Deming, 1986; Garvin, 1988) and theories (Chase and
Bowen, 1991;Klaus, 1985;Parasuraman,et. al., 1993, 1991), it is quite clear
that both the literature in quality or TQM (Horovitz, 1996; McKinney, 1995;
Milakovich, 1995; Hyde, 1992; Juran, 1988; Deming, 1986; Crosby, P.B.,
1979) and service-oriented quality/marketing (e.g., Parasuraman, et.al.,
1991, 1988; Garvin, 1988; Gronroos, 1988, 1982) suggest, that, quality of
goods or services is ultimately determined by users or customers. In fact, it
has even been suggested that the only criteria that count in evaluating service
quality are defined by customers (Carr and Littman, 1993: 3; Zeithaml, et al.,
1990; Gronroos, 1982).
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