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Volume 1 Issue 1 November 2002
Towards an Informed
Evaluation of Information Systems Services' Quality: The Development and
Application of the Template Process
Mark NK Saunders, The
Business School, Oxford Brookes University, Wheatley Campus, Wheatley,
Oxford, OX33 1HX,
mnksaunders@brookes.ac.uk
and Christine S Williams, University of Gloucestershire Business School,
University of Gloucestershire, PO Box 220, The Park, Cheltenham, GL50 2QF,
cwilliams@glos.ac.uk |
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Over the past decade the nature of work undertaken
by Information Systems (IS) services has broadened to include not only
systems development and maintenance but also aspects such as user support
services (Pitt et al, 1995). During the same period, the IT industry has
continued to experience considerable skills shortages and high employee
turnover (Kelly, 1998). One response to this and the concomitant
recruitment and retention problems for IS specialists, has been an
increasing use of outsourcing or contract staff to provide IS services
(Harvey and Kanwal, 2000). These factors, combined with economic
pressures, have focused attention in general upon the IS and in particular
its service quality.
Traditional
data collection methods such as focus groups, questionnaire surveys and
management-by-walking-about are used widely alongside secondary data to
evaluate and improve the quality of IS services offered. However, the
focus of such data collection and evaluation, is likely to reflect the
values and norms of those commissioning and undertaking the evaluation.
This paper argues that for real improvements in the service to take place,
these values and norms need to be challenged and, where necessary,
modified. For this to happen both service
deliverers’ and service users’ perspectives need to be established. Thus,
although the incorporation of users’ perspectives into assessments
of IS service quality is well established (for example, Conrath and Mignen,
1990), there is also a need to include service deliverers’
perspectives in evaluation (Pitt et al. 1998). These potentially differing
perspectives need to be understood and interpreted by managers if they are
to go beyond addressing surface concerns relating to IS service quality.
The paper
outlines and evaluates the development of an alternative approach for
establishing service users' and deliverers' perspectives and critically
evaluating quality issues. In so doing, it also responds to Van Dyke et
al.’s (1997) call for improved measures of service quality for information
system services providers. Following an overview of traditional service
quality measures and their shortcomings in relation to IS, Staughton and
Williams’ (1994) Service Template Process is evaluated as an alternative.
Drawing upon this, developments are suggested. It is argued that this
revised Template Process allows the views of IS service deliverers and
users to be captured separately in their own words and enables them to be
explored and understood in relation to the values and norms upon which
each is based. Its application is illustrated using a case study of the
IS department of a large, multi-site, UK manufacturing organisation. The
paper concludes with a discussion of the wider applicability of the
Template Process. In this, the process is contrasted with both
traditional measures of service quality and the original Service Template
Process. Particular attention is paid to the relative efficacy of these
processes in establishing a critical understanding of service quality in
sufficient detail to facilitate useful action.
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