應用結構方程模式探討國內航空公司之服務利潤鏈

Abstract

隨著陸地運輸設施的持續改善及國道客運市場解除管制，國內航空公司不斷地受到鐵路與國道客運之激烈競爭，而又隨即面臨到高速鐵路通車之威脅，國內航空市場的營運環境可說是備受挑戰。因此，國內航空公司改變其經營策略，從早期的削價競爭策略轉變為服務導向的競爭方式，該現象說明了航空公司致力於服務傳遞過程中創造最大的顧客滿意度，以獲得最佳獲利。Heskett等於1994年提出服務利潤鏈概念越來越受到重視，其主張組織服務的競爭力是由員工滿意、員工忠誠，進而影響顧客滿意與顧客忠誠，最終影響組織獲利。 本研究依「服務利潤鏈」之概念為基礎，並參考相關理論，建構航空公司之服務利潤鏈。為驗證服務利潤鏈應用於國內航空公司之適切性，分別對U航空公司之員工與顧客進行資料蒐集與分析，發展員工與顧客滿意度量表，以確認影響航空公司員工工作滿意度與顧客滿意度之因素。再者，運用結構方程模式驗證航空公司服務利潤鏈之因果關係模式，檢定本研究假說。此外，本研究進一步運用變異數分析探討不同忠誠度、服務型態與人口特性之員工對於員工滿意度感知之差異，以及不同忠誠度、消費型態與人口特性之顧客對於顧客滿意度感知之差異。 本研究之驗證結果為：員工滿意度量表包括「工作本身」、「薪資」、「升遷」、「上司」與「同事」五項潛在變數與所對應之衡量問項。而顧客滿意度量表包括「信賴性」、「反應性」與「保證性」三項潛在變數與所對應之衡量問項。且本研究對國內航空公司之簡化服務利潤鏈模式假說獲得統計分析上之支持。再者，員工忠誠度、工作型態與人口特性對員工滿意度之變項存在著顯著差異。顧客忠誠度與顧客性別對於滿意度之感知有顯著差異，但不同消費型態與其他人鈄特性對滿意度則無顯著差異。

Due to the remarkable improvement of ground transportation infrastructures and the deregulation of freeway bus transportation market, the domestic airlines receive fierce competition from railway and freeway bus companies. Moreover, facing the operation of Taiwan High Speed Rail in near future, undoubtedly, the domestic air transportation market is becoming even more challenging. Consequently, domestic airlines alter their management strategies from price competition to service-oriented competition. It indicates that the airlines are devoted to creating the maximal customer satisfaction in the process of service encounter for earning their profit. Therefore, the concept of Service-Profit Chain proposed by Heskett et al. (1994) has raised ever-increasing attentions, recognizing that the service competition of an organization is rooted from employee satisfaction, employee loyalty and then affects the customer satisfaction loyalty, and ultimately the profitability. Basing on the concept of SPC, this study aims to develop the service-profit chain of an airline by referring to the related literatures. For validating the applicability of SPC to the domestic airline, this study first conducts questionnaire surveys of employee and customers, respectively, and develops satisfaction scales for employee and customers to identify the influencing factors of their satisfactions. Furthermore, the technique of Structural Equation Modeling is employed to test the cause-effect relationship hypotheses in the service-profit chain. This study also utilizes the technique of analysis of variance to analyze the perception difference between employee loyalty, working type, customer loyalty, consumption type and socio-economic characters. The major findings of this study can be identified as follows. First of all, the employee satisfaction scale includes work, salary, promotion, supervisor and coworker. Secondly, the customer satisfaction scale includes reliability, responsiveness and assurance. Thirdly, the proposed hypotheses for the service-profit chain of domestic airlines have been significantly validated. Besides, under the aspects of supervisors and colleagues of employee satisfaction, there are significant difference existed in employee loyalty, working type and demographics. Last but not least, the customer loyalty and customer Sex has significant influence to the perception of satisfaction, in contrast, the consumption type and other demographics don’t.