| dc.description.abstract | Service consciousness (SCON) refers to a cognition related to the all relevance of the entire service industry, service work itself, customer-oriented relationships, and the potential for self-engagement in service work. The bottleneck causing customer complaints and customer loss in hotels due to employees failing to provide high-quality service, is not a lack of training but rather the failure to grasp the vital factor in training – SCON, emphasised by many Chinese hotel scholars. The Chinese hotel industry emphasises maximum consensus on the importance of SCON but lacks both theoretical and practical evidence of SCON measurement tools. Thus, the purpose of this study is to develop a valid scale to measure the SCON of hotel employees – the SCON Scale – using China as the focus of the research. The entire research content includes two parts: the conceptualisation of SCON and the development of a SCON scale.
For the SCON concept development, this study adopts three steps: 1) examining the scope, 2) defining characteristics, and 3) defining the concept. It explores the four determinants (service subject, service object, service itself, service relevance) and one characteristic (cognition) of SCON and, on this basis, conceptualizes SCON from the EI perspective. For the SCON scale development, this study adopts a four-stage scale development procedure：1) item generation, 2) scale refinement, 3) scale validation test, and 4) ecological validity test. SCON scale is built upon eight dimensions: self-actualization, emotional awareness, appearance, characteristics, carefulness, adaptability, judgement, and service response, from a new perspective – EI. The scale shows good validation in terms of structural validity and internal consistency. Therefore, this study further explored the 2nd order factors but did not demonstrate a good model fit. Stage 4 – ecological validity test is a new insight. However, due to time and financial limits, it can no longer be continued but can be considered as a further study.
Therefore, this research offers a new conceptualisation and a measurement tool for service research. It is significant in that it contributes to the underdeveloped area of service consciousness research. | en_GB |
