O papel da qualidade percebida na lealdade dos clientes de serviços de consultoria e assessoria prestados por empresas contábeis

• Autor(a) principal: Assis, Wesley Abra de
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações do Mackenzie
• Texto Completo: http://dspace.mackenzie.br/handle/10899/26252
• topic: empresas contábeis; assessoria; consultoria; qualidade percebida; lealdade; accounting firms; advisory; consulting services; perceived quality; loyalty; CNPQ::CIENCIAS SOCIAIS APLICADAS::ADMINISTRACAO::CIENCIAS CONTABEIS

Business strategy based on loyalty with objectives of high levels of customer retention is widely believed by giving companies a competitive advantage, enabling high profitability and market expansion. Several studies have been devoted to understanding the antecedents of loyalty in various segments. In the case of services, researchers suggest some factors that act as drivers of loyalty of customers, directly or indirectly, such as the perceived quality, perceived value and customer satisfaction. The proposal of this study was to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between these variables in the context of advisory and consulting services provided by accounting firms in Brazil, from the perspective of the clients of these companies. A questionnaire was sent to a sample of respondents, consisting of key persons of three accounting firms, responsible for assessing the performance of contracted services, which generated 81 valid questionnaires whose data were used to test five hypotheses of relationship among constructs perceived quality, perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty, using the technique of structural equation modeling (SEM) with the estimation method PLS (Partial Least Square). The survey results confirmed the five relationship assumptions previously raised based on the literature review, emphasizing the perceived quality as the main driver of customer loyalty, with direct and indirect positive effects, through the value perception and satisfaction. With regard to the use of the SERVQUAL scale in this context, the perceived quality does not seem to reflect through the dimension of "tangibles", corroborating similar findings in studies with accounting firms (BOJANIC,1991). As practical contributions, this research has provided the companies evaluated a feedback on the service level perceived by customers and their level of satisfaction and loyalty, enabling the adoption of strategies that can reduce the chances of defection of customers. The main limitation of this study is the impossibility of generalization of the results obtained due to the use of non-probability sample.