Interrelationships of hotel e-service quality, e-satisfaction, customer trust and online repurchase intention : evidence from Chinese hotel customers = 호텔 온라인 서비스 품질, 온라인 만족도, 고객 신뢰성, 재구매 의향의 연관성에 관련 연구 : 중국 호텔 고객을 중심으로

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In past decades, with the rapid global growth in electronic commerce, electronic service quality (e-service quality) has been a concept that aroused considerable interest and debate because of the difficulties in both defining and measuring it with no overall consensus emerging on either. Customer satisfaction and service quality are often treated together and research has shown that high service quality contribute significantly to profitability. Practitioners and academics are eager on measuring e-service quality accurately in order to have better understanding of its indispensable antecedent and consequences, and eventually ascertain methods for improving and measuring service quality in search for competitive advantage.
The purpose of this paper is to develop a multiple-item scale for measuring hotel e-service quality and to analyze the interrelationships of e-service quality, customer e-satisfaction, customer trust, and online repurchase intention with hotel websites.
A structural model was developed and questionnaire survey was designed accordingly. The survey was conducted for about 2 weeks, from March 26th, 2012 to April 11th, 2012. A total of 460 questionnaires were distributed to hotels selected from South China, North China, and the middle of China, and a total of 362 surveys had valid responses with a usable rate of 78.6%. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was undertaken to evaluate applicability of e-service quality in hotel setting by identifying underlying dimensions of e-service quality. Then, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model, and the SEM was employed to test the hypothesized relationships among the constructs in the study.
The results of this study indicate that e-service quality is a multidimensional construct: information quality, customerization, website functionality, security, and responsiveness. Four of five dimensions (information quality, customerization, website functionality, and responsiveness) positively influence e-satisfaction, and dimension security has significant impact on customer online purchasing trust. Moreover, e-satisfaction positively affects customer trust of hotel website and online repurchases intention, and trust also has a positive effect on online repurchase intention.
This study gives theoretical as well as managerial implications. The structural model theoretically examined how e-service quality, e-satisfaction, customer trust, and online repurchasing intention interact with each other in the context of hospitality industry. Five e-service quality dimensions can help hotel manager better design hotel websites. For example, website functionality dimension shows us the need to develop user-friendly websites which ease customer purchasing and searching, thus creating a suitable framework for the generation of higher satisfaction and loyalty level. The customerization dimension suggests that the website manager should enhance customer sensitivity and personalized service to improve perceived e-service quality. In addition, the hotel website should uphold sufficient security levels and data protection procedures in order to make the website more trustworthy.

국문 초록 (Abstract)

지난 10년간, 전자상거래산업이 빠르게 성장하였고, 온라인 서비스가 주목받았다. 고객만족도와 서비스 품질은 연구주제로 자주 다루어지는데 이는 고품질의 서비스가 수익에 중대한 영향을 미친다는 것을 알 수 있다. 창업자와 연구자들은 더 좋은 품질의 서비스를 위해 서비스의 목표와 결과를 반드시 알아야 한다.
이 연구의 목적은 호텔 온라인 서비스를 측정하기 위한 다문항 척도를 개발하고 온라인 서비스 품질과, 고객만족도, 고객 신뢰도, 재구매 의도와의 관계를 연구하기 위함이다. 2012년 3월 26일부터 4월 11일 2주에 걸쳐, 460장의 설문지를 중국 남방, 북방 중앙에 위치한 호텔에 배포하였고, 총 392장(78.6%)의 유효한 설문지를 회수하였다. 탐색적 요인분석을 통하여, 호텔의 온라인 서비스 품질을 결정하는 다양한 차원을 규명하였다. 다음으로, 요인분석을 통하여 모형의 신뢰도와 유효성을 확인했고, 구조방정식모형을 통하여, 연구 가설을 증명하였다.
연구의 결과, 온라인 서비스 품질은 정보의 질, 사이트의 기능, 개인성, 보안성, 응답성 5개의 차원으로 규명되었다. 5개 중 4개 차원 즉 정보의 질, 개인성, 호텔 사이트의 기능, 응답성은 온라인 서비스 만족도에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 보안성은 고객 온라인 구매 신뢰도에 상당한 영향을 미치고 온라인 서비스 만족도는 신뢰도와 재구매 의도에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 또한, 신뢰도는 재구매 의도에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 판명되었다.
이 구조 모형은 호텔 산업에 있어 온라인 서비스의 품질, 고객 만족도, 고객신뢰도, 재구매 의도의 관계를 확인하였으며 또한 이론적이면서 실무적인 시사점을 제시하였다. 5가지 온라인 서비스 차원은 호텔 서비스 사이트를 개선시키는데 중요한 요인이다. 그 예로, 사이트 기능 차원은 고객에게 온라인상의 구매와 조사가 편리하고 친숙하게 개발될 필요가 있다고 본다. 개인성 차원은 개인화 서비스를 강화하여 서비스 품질을 높여야 하는 것을 시사하고 있다. 또한, 호텔사이트의 신뢰도를 높이기 위해서 보안성과 데이터 보호 절차를 강화해야한다고 여겨진다.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Table of Contents
• Abstract ⅰ
• Table of Contents ⅲ
• List of Tables ⅵ
• List of Figures ⅶ
• Chapter 1. Introduction 1
• 1.1 Background of the study 2
• 1.2 Problem statement 5
• 1.3 Study objective 9
• 1.4 Contributions of the study 10
• 1.4.1 Theoretical contribution 10
• 1.4.2 Management contribution 11
• Chapter 2. Literature review 12
• 2.1 E-service quality 12
• 2.1.1 Definition of E-service Quality 12
• 2.1.2 Dimensions of E-service Quality 13
• 2.1.2.1 Information Quality 16
• 2.1.2.2 Security 17
• 2.1.2.3 Website functionality 18
• 2.1.2.4 Customer relationship 19
• 2.1.2.5 Information Quality 20
• 2.2 Customer satisfaction in e-commerce 21
• 2.2.1 Customer satisfaction 21
• 2.2.2 E-satisfaction 22
• 2.3 Trust 23
• 2.4 Repurchase intention 23
• 2.5 Interrelationships of e-service quality, satisfaction, customer trust and online repurchase intention 24
• Chapter 3. Methodology 26
• 3.1 Research model and hypotheses 26
• 3.1.1 Influences of hotel e-service quality on e-satisfaction and customer trust 27
• 3.1.2 Influence of e-satisfaction on customer online trust and repurchase intention 29
• 3.1.3 Influence of customer online purchase trust on repurchase intention 30
• 3.2 Measurement development 32
• 3.3 Data collection 36
• 3.4 Data analysis 39
• Chapter 4. Findings and Results 40
• 4.1 Demographic profiles and hotel website usage of respondents 40
• 4.2 Exploratory factor analysis 43
• 4.3 Confirmatory factor analysis 47
• 4.3.1 CFA for hotel e-service quality 47
• 4.3.2 Overall CFA for hotel e-service quality, e-satisfaction, customer trust and repurchase intention 50
• 4.4 Structural equation modeling 54
• Chapter 5. Discussion and implication 60
• 5.1 Implications for research 62
• 5.2 Implications for practice 65
• 5.3 Limitation and future research 67
• References 69
• Appendix 1-Survey questionnaire(pretest) 78
• Appendix 2-Survey questionnaire(pretest)中文 81
• Appendix 3-Final survey questionnaire 84
• Appendix 4-Final survey questionnaire中文 89
• Abstract 93
• Acknowledgement 95