Citizens, Accountability, and Service Satisfaction

Abstract

Understanding how citizen-consumers form evaluations of public services is critical to understanding account ability in democratic governance. The task of using citizens’ assessments of service quality as an accountability mechanism, however, may be more complex than is commonly understood. In particular, little research has examined how citizens’ expectations about the quality of services may influence their levels of satisfaction with public services. In this article, we examine empirically the relationship between perceived performance, expectations, and satisfaction. We examine these relationships across three service areas: trash, police, and schools, relying on survey data from a statewide survey of Georgia residents. Our results suggest higher subjective assessments of service quality are positively related to satisfaction. They also suggest, however, that an “A” service is not always associated with the same level of satisfaction; holding citizens’ assessments of service quality constant, positive disconfirmation of expectations increases citizen-consumers’ levels of satisfaction with services.

The Importance of Police Performance as a Determinant of Satisfaction with Police

“…A few studies, however, found a negative association between income and favorable opinions of police [36] and others found no significant relationship [6,22] . Individual attitudinal characteristics also have been shown to influence satisfaction with police.…”

Los límites de la lealtad ideológica en la evaluación ciudadana del "performance" administrativo local

“…En la literatura administrativa de las dos últimas décadas, encontramos cada vez más autores que consideran al dato procedente de las encuestas al ciudadano como la única fuente válida para evaluar el desempeño de la acción administrativa 1 (Kelly y Swindell, 2002;Kelly, 2005;Licari et al, 2005;Van Ryzin, 2006Roch y Poister, 2006;James y John, 2007;Van Ryzin et al, 2008;Shingler et al, 2008;James, 2009;Morgeson III y Mithas, 2009;Chen et al, 2010;Bruning, 2010;Mizrahi et al, 2010;Carreras y González, 2011;Carreras y Carreras, 2011).…”

“…La satisfacción del ciudadano sería una consecuencia directa de la calidad que perciben los ciudadanos 3 y no de los indicadores objetivos (Kelly y Swindell, 2002;Roch y Poister, 2006;Van Ryzin, 2006;James, 2009;Morgenson III y Mithas, 2009). Por otro lado, también ha quedado demostrado que la satisfacción y la confianza del ciudadano en las instituciones tienen efectos directos en las preferencias políticas, el clima de opinión y la conducta de voto (Lyons et al, 1992;Kim, 2010;Carreras y González, 2011b).…”

Assessing Users' Perceptions on how to Improve Public Services Quality

“…Some authors argue that satisfaction precedes quality (Bitner, 1990;Bolton and Drew, 1991;Parasuraman et al, 1988), while others support the opposite, in the sense that it is perceived service quality that leads to satisfaction (Brady et al, 2002;Cronin and Taylor, 1994;Fornell et al, 1996;Grönroos, 2000;Oliver, 1993;Parasuraman et al, 1994). In this context, the relation between disconfirmation of expectations and satisfaction with public services is still barely explored (Roch and Poister, 2006), although there has been some research in this area, concluding that disconfirmation is positively related to satisfaction with public services (cf. Beck et al, 1990;DeHoog et al, 1990;Van Ryzin, 2004).…”

“…Some researchers have shown that results from internal objective performance indicators and those obtained directly from citizens, reflecting a marketing orientation, are not always coincident, which may be explained by the differences between the two perspectives (Kelly and Swindell, 2000;Roch and Poister, 2006). In this sense, perceived quality -what citizens think about the quantity and quality of the public services they receive -rather than objective internal measures has been considered the antecedent of satisfaction with public services (Van Ryzin, 2004).…”