Understanding the Structure of Consumers' Satisfaction Evaluations of Service Delivery

Abstract

This paper examines the current state of the literature con cerning the structure (i. e., conceptualization, taxonomy, and operationalization) of consumers' satisfaction evalua tions of a service delivery. In particular, relevant research in medical sociology, community health and marketing is reviewed. In so doing, advances as well as gaps in our current understanding of satisfaction evaluations are de lineated. Drawing upon the services marketing, social psy chology, and organizational theory literatures, we propose a hypothesis for the multiobject conceptualization of the satisfaction construct. This fills a major gap in previous research. Using data collected from four metropolitan areas, this hypothesis is subjected to empirical verification. Competing hypotheses are explicitly considered. The pro posed conceptualization is also tested for convergent, dis criminant, and nomological validity. Overall, the results support a multidimensional-multiobject model of the satis faction construct. However, the objects are the major source of variation in satisfaction evaluations, accounting for about 61% of the total variance. In addition, object- based evaluations yield evidence of convergent, discrimi nant, and nomological validity. Implications for research into the structure of satisfaction evaluations for health care delivery in particular, and for multidyadic services in gen eral, are discussed.