Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore dimensions of perceived service quality in hospitals and to develop a conceptual framework showing relationship between hospital service quality, patient satisfaction and their behavioural intention. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on extensive review of existing literature on hospital service quality, patient satisfaction and behavioural intention. Critical analysis of these literature studies has resulted in determining and defining the dimensions of perceived service quality and establishing relationship between hospital service quality, patient satisfaction and behavioural intention. Findings This study has identified six major areas through which patients perceive quality of service in hospitals. These six areas are technical quality, procedural quality, infrastructural quality, interactional quality, personnel quality, social support quality. Further 20 dimensions of hospital service quality are identified under these 6 major areas. These are clinical procedure, quality of outcome, admission, discharge, waiting time, patient safety, billing and price, follow-up, ambience, availability of resources, accessibility, food, staff attitude, personalised attention, information availability, staff competency, trustworthiness, staff diversity, hospital image and social responsibility. The conceptual framework proposes direct relationship between service quality, patient satisfaction and behavioural intention. Originality/value Though many studies have been conducted on hospital service quality, none of them has been able to project all the possible dimensions to measure the same. The “6-Q framework” developed by this study explores all the possible dimensions of perceived service quality in hospitals.

Managing service quality has always been one of the most important areas of concern in hospitals. With the advancement of lifestyle, education and awareness among consumers, they are becoming more and more demanding. This is the reason why hospitals are spending huge amount in managing service quality that leads to satisfaction among patients and ultimately contributes in brand building. Thus the first and most important consideration is to determine and understand the various dimensions of service quality in the perspective of hospitals. Many researchers have studied these dimensions of hospital service quality but none of the studies cover all the possible areas of service quality management in a hospital set-up. This study aims to critically review the work of different researchers to determine and define the dimensions that would cover all areas of service quality management in hospitals. This study has developed a conceptual framework of hospital service quality by identifying 15 different dimensions: infrastructure, resource availability, waiting time, food, clinical procedures, administrative procedures, price, trustworthiness, information availability, patient safety, continuity, personalized attention, staff attitude, quality of outcome and religious needs. These 15 dimensions are further clubbed under three broad dimensions such as ‘infrastructural dimension’, ‘procedural dimension’ and ‘interactional dimension’. These dimensions can be used for measuring service quality management practices followed across different categories of hospitals like public and private or multi-specialty and super-specialty.

The main objective of this paper is to identify the factors underlying service quality and the outcomes of service quality management in hospital setting. This is a qualitative work which involves critical analysis of existing literature on hospital service quality. This paper has proposed a conceptual model to show the antecedents and consequences of hospital service quality. According to the model quality of structure, quality of process, and quality of outcome are the three major factors underlying hospital service quality which leads to patient satisfaction which in turn helps a firm achieve competitive advantage through repeat buying, higher prices, loyalty in crisis, word-of-mouth, one-stop shopping, and new product development.

The log-linearized present value model (PVM) has been widely used in corporate finance to understand the long-run relationship between share price and dividends using panel data. However, the application of recently established panel econometric approaches that account for slope heterogeneity and cross-section dependency in the recent literature regarding the long-run link between share price and dividends in an Indian setting is limited. This paper re-examines the log-linearized PVM in an Indian setting using newly developed panel unit root, cointegration, and long-run dynamic estimation approaches. This study employed a panel dataset of 60 Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE)-listed Indian firms paying regular dividends for 28 years (1990–2017). The study found unit root, cointegration, and a long-run relationship between dividend and share price series for Indian firms during a 28-year sample period. By demonstrating the presence of a long-run link between share price and dividends, this paper contributes to the literature on the PVM, which is crucial in comprehending market rationality and share price behavior in India. This paper also discusses issues related to panel data, such as cross-section dependency and slope heterogeneity, as well as panel econometric approaches that can be applied in the appropriate settings.