Consumer Expectations and the Measurement of Perceived Service Quality

The purpose of this study is to examine questions concerning the degree to which the consumer expectations component of perceived service quality measurement frameworks (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry, 1988; Brown and Swartz, 1989; Carman, 1990) is characterized by discriminant validity with respect to other expectations concepts used in marketing. The findings provide preliminary evidence that the service quality expectations concept may have serious discriminant validity shortcomings which. in turn, cause the "perceptions-minus-expectations" service quality measurement framework to be a potentially misleading indicator of customer perceptions of service quality. Based upon these findings, potential solutions to the discriminant validity problems are explored.