Confirmatory factor analysis of service quality dimensions within mobile telephony industry in Ghana

Abstract

Due to the increasing importance and investment in modern information systems (IS) technologies, the evaluation of service quality (SQ) in information system environments has attracted significant attention and debate in the literature. Much effort has been made by scholars and practitioners to use IS service quality criteria and dimensions in different industry contexts. Not much attention has been devoted to using other SQ model criteria and dimensions to evaluate information systems in the mobile telephony industry (MTI) context. This study fills the gap, and contributes to the body of knowledge in the area SQ in the MTI environment. This paper, which was a part of a larger study, sought to empirically validate SQ dimensions that are relevant to the mobile telephony industry in Ghana. It used Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to detect the underlying latent variables that significantly determine SQ in Ghanas MTI. 1000 customers were sampled from four mobile telecom operators in Ghana in a cross‑sectional survey that used a self‑administered structured questionnaire for data collection. The findings indicate that four emerged SQ dimensions relevant to Ghanas MTI were labelled as: Customer relations, Image, Tangibles and Real network quality. Cronbach alpha reliability for all items indicated a high value of 0.918. Service providers could conveniently use the derived instrument items for measuring service quality in Ghana Mobile Telephony industry. It concludes that aside the popular SERVQUAL, alternative SQ models model, like one conceptualised in this study, could be useful in determining SQ dimensions relevant to MTI. Limitations and directions for research are discussed.