Customer services

I investigate the link between real earnings management and customer satisfaction. Following the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which requires public companies to ensure the accuracy of their financial reporting, the use of non-accrual based methods to achieve financial earnings targets has become commonplace. Nonaccrual-based methods consist of decisions that curtail firm activities, which increase net income; however, these methods come at the cost of future operations. These opportunistic behaviors in the service, retail, and hospitality industries impact customers and a firm's long-term value. I hypothesize that the outcome will be lower customer satisfaction and service quality.
I use firms’ publicly available financial information to detect real earning management (REM) of selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses to understand how firms operate. Physical changes to a firm’s operating environment through these financial actions are immediately observable, generating negative electronic word of mouth. I use text analysis software to determine if the comment is positive or negative and the strength of the customers' sentiment, allowing me to observe the harmful effects of reducing SG&A expenses through the lens of the customer. In addition, I use American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) scores to provide an overall assessment. I regress my customer satisfaction and service quality measures on the REM measure to test the hypotheses on the impact of REM. Further, I analyze and establish the link between REM's impact on the firm's sales growth rates.

This dissertation investigates the nature of the relationship that exists between job satisfaction among temporary workers and general customer perceptions of service quality, customer-based appraisal of specific service provider performance, and customers' future behavioral intentions concerning doing business with the firm in the future (e.g., to increase business, to recommend the organization to others, etc.). The Job Descriptive Index (JDI) and its related Job-in-General scale were used to measure employee satisfaction. SERVQUAL was used to gauge general customer perceptions of service quality. A 13-item battery derived from marketing literature was used to measure customer future behavioral intentions. The customer appraisal of service provider performance was based on performance appraisal literature. Results indicated significant correlation between worker satisfaction and customer perceptions of service quality (r = .27; p < .01), customer-based appraisal of specific service provider performance (r = .30; p < .01), and customer intentions concerning doing business with the organization in the future (r = .20; p < .05). Customer quality perceptions were significantly associated with their future intentions (r = .71; p < .01) and with specific customer performance appraisal (r = .63; p < .01). However, when combined with general customer service perceptions (SERVQUAL), specific customer appraisal of service provider performance did not contribute unique predictive or explanatory capability. Unexpectedly, temporary workers' satisfaction with co-workers on their job assignment was significantly related to all customer outcome measures. The results are described and discussed in comparison with meta-analyses about job satisfaction, and in terms of other studies concerning contingent workers.