Examining the relationship between competitive capability and perceived service quality in university libraries

Abstract

As modern Information Technology has created a way to a variety of information service opportunities, many options other than the conventional library service are available for users. A stiff competition has emerged among information service providers and therefore university library professionals too have to think of their competitive advantage. Service quality has gained a high concern as a strategy for developing the competitive position of an organization and many studies in different fields have established a strong relationship between service quality and competitive advantage. Viewing inversely, some practitioners contemplate that the competitive position of resource capabilities can influence the improvement of service quality. In order to examine the relationship between competitive position and the service quality in a university library context, an exploratory survey was employed utilizing a VRIO based questionnaire and LibQUAL+ based instrument with 89 library professionals selected from 15 state university libraries in Sri Lanka. The study reveals that there is a moderate positive correlation between two variables (r = .286, n= 66, p = .020). As the relationship is moderate, further studies seem essential to support the hypothesis. The large percentage of residuals indicates that there are more factors contributing to the service quality in university libraries. This study

Resource-Based View Theory Application on the Educational Service Quality

“…In addition, human resource theory is an aspect of a resource-based view that focuses on the knowledge and skills possessed by individuals, both employers and employees, contributing to competitive advantage in higher education institutions (Collins, 2021;Nguyen et al, 2021;Jayabalan et al, 2021). Thus, RBV looks at two different but interrelated characteristics between individuals and educational quality service factors to achieve a source of competitive advantage (Arachchige et al, 2021). The resource-based theory, which incorporates traditional strategies into unique corporate competencies called heterogeneous abilities.…”