Perceive Value as a Moderator on the Relationship between Service Quality Features and Customer Satisfaction

Quality management (QM) literature highlights that service quality is a critical determinant of organizational competitiveness. The ability of an organization implements service quality program will positively motivate customers’ perceive value; this may lead to increased their satisfaction. The nature of this relationship is less emphasized in service quality service models. In this study, a survey research method was used to gather 102 usable questionnaires from academic staffs who have studied in one Malaysian public institution of higher learning in East Malaysia (HIGHINSTITUTION). The outcomes of hierarchical regression analysis showed three important findings: firstly, interaction between perceive value and responsiveness insignificantly correlated with customer satisfaction. Secondly, interaction between perceive value and assurance insignificantly correlated with customer satisfaction and thirdly, interaction between perceive value and emphathy significantly correlated with customer satisfaction. This result demonstrates that perceive value has increased the effect of emphathy customer satisfaction, but perceive value has not increased the effect of responsiveness and assurance on customer satisfaction. Further, this study confirms that perceive value does act as a partial moderating variable in the service quality models of the organizational sample. In addition, implications and limitations of this study, as well as directions for future research are discussed.