The influence of service quality and marketing ethics on relationship marketing outcome in private hospitals

This paper investigates the impacts of service quality and marketing ethics dimensions on patient satisfaction, ultimately affecting patient loyalty and word-of-mouth in private hospitals in Jordan. The study, based on a survey of 320 participants using Google Forms and social media, employs Amos software for data analysis. The findings reveal that the majority of service quality dimensions, including technical quality, interpersonal quality, and administrative quality, as well as all marketing ethics variables such as trust, privacy, and honesty, significantly influence patient satisfaction, subsequently contributing to both patient loyalty and word-of-mouth. However, an insignificant relationship was found between environmental quality and patient satisfaction. Notably, patient satisfaction acts as a mediator in these relationships. The research contributes to customer relationship marketing theory in healthcare by operationalizing CRM variables and examining the interplay between service quality, marketing ethics, and patient satisfaction in private hospitals, thus filling a gap in the existing literature.