Service quality in utility industries: the European telecommunications sector
Managing Service Quality: An International Journal
ISSN: 0960-4529
Article publication date: 7 January 2014
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the economic and technological factors that determine the quality of European telecommunications services. The paper test whether the privatisation, the efficiency and the labour factor of telecommunications operators are determinants of service quality and whether competition, technology and infrastructure investment in the telecommunications sector influence that quality.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper use the panel data methodology to analyse the factors that determine the quality of service of telecommunications.
Findings
The results indicate that the more efficient the company is, the more quality it will deliver. However, the paper finds no evidence that the privatisation and the restructuring of the labour force of the main telecommunications operators, or the competition, technology and investments in the sector, lead to greater quality.
Practical implications
In order to foster higher quality, effective market competitiveness has to be established to avoid benefitting the incumbent company and to make the development of competition possible in the long run.
Originality/value
Although previous literature assumes a positive relationship between the performance of privatised companies and quality, this study shows that the privatisation and liberalisation processes do not bring about quality improvements by themselves. The research finds that the efficiency of privatised companies is the primary source of quality.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The study has been carried out with the financial support of the Spanish National R&D Plan through research project ECO2010-17463.
Citation
Pina, V., Torres, L. and Bachiller, P. (2014), "Service quality in utility industries: the European telecommunications sector", Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 2-22. https://doi.org/10.1108/MSQ-03-2013-0034
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited