Quality in the marketplace:: A theoretical and empirical investigation

European Management Journal Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 203–211, 2001 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reservedPergamon

Printed in Great Britain0263-2373/01 $20.00PII: S0263-2373(00)00095-5

Quality in theMarketplace:A Theoretical andEmpirical InvestigationTORBEN HANSEN, Copenhagen Business School

Quality is an ambiguous concept. Though a numberof authors have contributed with both classi-fications and definitions of the quality concept thereis still considerable confusion about the applicationof quality. In this article, quality is seen in the con-text of the essential transformation problem whichmay exist between the supplier and the customer.On this basis, a common frame of reference fordealing with the concept of quality is proposed. Itis further underlined that it is vital for a succesfulimplementation of TQM for there to be a correspon-dence between the suppliers’ and their customers’interpretations of quality. The performance of aquantitative study indicates, however, that sup-pliers may use the concept of quality in an incon-sistent way when dealing with the concept in themarketplace. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. Allrights reserved

Keywords: Quality, TQM, Expectations, Value,Excellence, Producer’s Criteria, Consumer’s Criteria

Introduction

It seems to be a well-established fact that leaders,business actors and others to a certain degree act anduse concepts because these concepts and acts are infashion (Abrahamson, 1996). This is recognized in‘institutionalisation theory’, which assumes the pres-ence of an isomorphous pattern of development inbusinesses (Scott and Meyer, 1994), just as the empiri-cally based literature contains many examples of‘fashion’ as a decision variable (see e.g. Rumelt, 1974;Mintzberg, 1979; Kobrin, 1988). ‘Quality’ is certainlyamong the concepts that are in fashion (see e.g. Neer-gaard, 1998) and that is often used by researchers and

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practitioners alike as a basis for analysis in relation tobusiness competitiveness, business image, customerloyalty etc. However, interest in the concept of qual-ity is not incidental. On the contrary, there are count-less examples of quality as a key factor in compe-tition between businesses. After having completed1135 personal interviews with small and medium-sized companies, Bamberger (1989) arrived at theconclusion that out of a total of 26 parameters qualityis viewed as the most important parameter in cre-ating a competitive edge. Porter (1980) emphasisesthat aiming for (superior) quality could be an effec-tive competitive strategy in developing customer loy-alty, lowering price elasticity or barring other poten-tial competitors from entering the market. Theimplementation of quality strategies could create ahigher rate of profit (Johnson and Kleiner, 1993), aswell as greater market share (Jacobson and Aaker,1987; Curry and Riesz, 1988). Kirkpatrick and Locke(1996) point out that ‘quality…reflects the vision ofmodern companies’ (p. 37).

Nevertheless, theorists disagree on the meaning ofthe concept of quality in the literature. Many authors,e.g. Neergaard (1998); Grunert et al. (1996); Reevesand Bednar (1994); Steenkamp (1989); Garvin (1984);Holbrook and Corfman (1985), have attempted toprovide an overview of ‘the quality theory’. How-ever, among these and other authors, there are diver-gent notions of the concept of quality regarding thenumber as well as the description of variousinterpretations of the concept. Unfortunately, theconceptual confusion within the theoretical literatureis a major hindrance for obtaining wider recognition.The damage is even worse when the concept of qual-ity is part of a current fashion within the world ofmanagement, research and consulting as is the case.The number of potential misunderstandings and

QUALITY IN THE MARKETPLACE

lapses in communication is very large. In this article,we will be mapping different theoretical and practi-cal interpretations of quality. We will be uniting theminto a common frame of reference, as well as demon-strating that in practice (which in the present contextwill be restricted to include the relation between pro-ducers and consumers and the relation betweenretailers and consumers) the use of the concept ofquality seems to be somewhat inconsistent, evencoincidental.

The Concept of Quality

A great part of modern literature on quality dealswith the philosophy of Total Quality Management(TQM) (Dale et al., 1994; Neergaard, 1998). TQM doesnot in itself represent a model or a technique, but isbest described as a management philosophy cf. Snelland Deans (Snell and Dean, 1992) definition:‘TQM…is characterised by a few basic principles —doing things right the first time, striving for continu-ous improvement, and fulfilling consumer needs —as well as a number of associated practices’ (p. 470).However, attempts at establishing general guidelinesfor the use of TQM have been made. These includeattempts started in connection with the EuropeanQuality Award (developed by the European Foun-dation for Quality Management, which was foundedin 1989 by a number of European companies) (seee.g. Neergaard, 1998 for an in-depth description).According to Nilsson (1998), the goal for TQM is ‘toachieve competitive advantage within all areas of thecompany, based on a set of fairly general principlesof motivation and learning, and organization theory’(p. 40). These principles have also been described as‘the three TQM principles’: customer focus, continu-ous improvement, and teamwork (Goetsch and Lin-say, 1994; Dean and Bowen, 1994; Parzinger andNath, 2000).

The implementation of a ‘quality management philo-sophy’ in the company is, however, contingent uponthe company clearly conceptualising their notion ofquality. This was done by e.g. Oakland (1993): ‘Qual-ity is simply meeting the customer requirements andthis has been expressed in many ways by otherauthors’ (p. 5). However, quality perceived as the ful-filled requirements of the customer only representsone out of several alternative interpretations of theconcept of quality. The company will thus have toconsider these alternative interpretations when for-mulating their TQM strategy. They should also aimto have an understanding of the different notions ofquality. Regardless of whether the company makesuse of different concepts of quality internally (e.g.,the interpretation of quality can vary depending onwhether the question is human resource manage-ment or quality control), they will, of course, be facedwith having to present their products on the marketat some point in time. In this connection, it is vital

European Management Journal Vol 19 No 2 April 2001204

for the successful implementation of TQM that thecompany has considered the following: (a) how theywould assess the market quality of their productsthemselves (i.e., how the company perceives the con-cept of quality in the marketplace). (b) How their cus-tomers assess the market quality (i.e., how the com-pany’s customers perceive the concept of quality inthe marketplace). And finally, (c) that the companyand their customers’ interpretation of quality corre-spond. An inconsistency between the company andtheir customers’ interpretation of quality could easilylead to the two parties ‘passing each other by’ in themarketplace. For example, it is very difficult for acompany to try to improve the quality of their pro-ducts, if their customers’ interpretation of what qual-ity is differs from their own.

In general, quality can, on the one hand, be viewedfrom the producer’s side (producer’s criteria) and, onthe other hand, from the consumer’s side(consumer’s criteria). Producer’s criteria are ‘criteriawhich describe what the producer put into the pro-duct’ and consumer’s criteria are ‘criteria whichdescribe what the consumer gets from the product’(Brems, 1951, pp. 18–19). At the same time, con-sumer’s criteria describe what the consumer wantsfrom the product. Five general interpretations of theconcept of quality, emerging from an extensiveanalysis of the literature about quality, will be dis-cussed in the following. The five interpretations ofquality may be combined in a common frame of ref-erence as proposed in Figure 11. The Figure will becommented on further in the following.

The Consumer’s Perception of Quality

Perceived quality is a result of the consumer’s (thebuyer’s) subjective assessment of the quality of agiven product. Perceived quality thus differs fromobjective quality. Objective quality may be describedas ‘the measurable and verifiable superiority on somepredetermined ideal standards’ (Zeithaml, 1988, p. 4).Objective quality can be construed as the technicaland functional specifications of a product. Subjectivequality on the other hand is linked to the consumerand her/his perception of the quality of a product.Quality is individually determined and conse-quently, can hardly be generally determined for allconsumers. Thus, you end up with a problem of gen-eralization. Literature about quality has shown thatthe individual perception of quality is influenced bya number of factors (e.g. prior experience, purpose ofuse, quality consciousness etc.) (see e.g. Steenkamp,1989; Peterson and Jolibert, 1995; Dodds, 1995) thateither relate to the consumer her/himself or to exter-nal factors. The dimensions of the product that influ-ence the perception of quality are dependent on thegiven product (Aaker, 1991; Dodds et al., 1991; Baueret al., 1995). The consumer’s perception of qualitymay, in other words, be seen as an expression ofher/his own interpretation of the concept of quality


Figure 1 Alternative Interpretations of Quality

and accordingly, it has been placed to the left of Fig-ure 1 under the heading ‘consumer’s criteria’.

Quality as Adaptation to Expectations

In the literature on quality, the so-called ‘quality gap’is discussed; this gap appears when there is an incon-sistency between the expectation of quality and theperception of quality (Zeithaml et al., 1990; Devlinand Dong, 1994). Bergman and Klefsjo (1994) (p. 282),define the quality of a product as ‘its ability to satisfythe expectations and needs of the customers’. Satis-faction becomes a parameter for measuring whetherand to what degree the customers’ expectations havebeen met. It is difficult, however, to determine whenall the customers’ expectations have been met as itseems possible to exceed their expectations (Rust andOliver, 1994), for example, when companies ‘keepmore than their promise’. Furthermore, sometimesthe customer does not initially know what her/hisspecific expectations are. After having consumed afood product, the consumer may conclude thather/his expectations were not quite met withoutbeing able to specify what her/his expectations were(Reeves and Bednar, 1994). Using this interpretation,one will also typically be faced with a problem ofgeneralization as it is impossible to develop a uniqueproduct for each individual consumer. The problemof generalization can often be solved by developinga product of as high an ‘objective quality’ as possible,thus assuming that such a product will be able tosatisfy the most consumers (Garvin, 1984). Finally, italso constitutes a problem, if the customer’s satisfac-tion is based on low initial expectations of the pro-duct. This does not actually mean that the consumerperceives the product to be of high quality. E.g., ifyou buy a large cheese for $1.00 from a discountstore, you would hardly expect very much in the wayof quality. Even if your assessment turns out to becorrect and your initial low expectations are thus met


(and you are ‘satisfied’), it does not necessarily followthat you will think that it is a high quality product.Quality as ‘adaptation to expectations’ is based onthe consumer’s own assessment of quality, but alsoinclude the producer’s criteria via the expectationsthat they seek to market with their product or service.Therefore, ‘quality as adaptation to expectations’ hasbeen placed slightly to the right of the ‘perceivedquality’ of the consumer.

Quality as Value

The concept of value has a prominent position in theclassic micro-economical tradition. The notion thatthe quality of a product should be determined inrelation to its price and not solely by its own meritsis included in this concept. The relation betweenprice and quality thus determines the value of theproduct. As well as finding use within economictheory, the concept of value is used in literature onbehaviour, psychology and sociology, although itoften refers to a more ‘abstract’ value here, such as‘personal value’ and ‘symbolic value’. According toAbbott (1955) (p. 108), both price and quality shouldbe given due consideration when a company wantsto enter a competitive market.: ‘How good a bargainanything is depends upon both quality and price; thetwo elements compounded together form the basisfor evaluation of winning contestants in the marketplace. Only when differences in quality have beeneliminated by standardisation does “cheapest” neces-sarily coincide with best.’

According to Curry (1985), consumers clearlyacknowledge differences in value of various pro-ducts, which (according to Curry) can be inferredfrom the fact that companies which offer quality pro-ducts at low prices typically dominate the market.The concept of value, therefore, encourages the com-panies to focus on internal economic efficiency (low


cost), as well as external efficiency (the satisfactionof consumers’ wants and needs). By determining thevalue of a product, instead of looking at price orquality separately, it will be possible to immediatelycompare the value of the various products and alsotheir ability to satisfy the consumer. However, thiswould presuppose a common notion among con-sumers of what is good and bad quality as well ashigh and low prices. Thus, some standard of objec-tive quality that all consumers agree on must bereached. Even if it were possible to objectively meas-ure quality or quality characteristics [as for exampleLancaster’s (Lancaster, 1966, 1971) consumer theorypresupposes] different consumers’ preferences forthose objective qualities may still vary. For this rea-son, it is difficult to make any general statementsabout which products satisfy the consumer most,even when using an objective concept of value. Fur-thermore, one may very well question whether con-sumers even perceive quality (and price) and thusvalue alike. If we assume that they do not, it becomesmore interesting to examine perceived value and sub-sequently perceived quality, i.e., what the consumerperceives as quality. Moreover, separating qualityand price involves a risk of misinterpretation sincethe consumer may choose to perceive the quality ofa product as higher as a result of a higher price (seee.g., Leavitt, 1954; Steenkamp, 1989; Dodds, 1995)! Inthis case, the value would remain the same, eventhough it should have plummeted (as a result of anegative change in price and no change in quality).The interpretation of value comprises both producerand consumer perspectives, and has thus been placedclose to the middle of Figure 1. However, the pro-ducer’s view seems to be more predominant in thisparticular interpretation, i.e., there is a tendency toview the world from the perspective of the producer.

Quality as Adaptation to Technical Specifications

In this interpretation, quality is viewed as an objec-tive, measurable variable, which can be described interms of technical specifications. The better the pro-duct meets these specifications, the better the quality.Any deviations would mean a depreciation in qual-ity. This is a well-known phenomenon in ‘qualitycontrol’, see e.g. Bergman and Klefsjo (1994). Qualityas adaptation to technical specifications expresses thebasic criteria of the producer and have thus beenplaced to the right of Figure 1 under the heading‘producer’s criteria’.

Quality as Excellence

On more than one occasion, quality has beendescribed as an expression of excellence (see e.g. Pir-zig, 1974; Garvin, 1984; Tuchman, 1980; Reeves andBednar, 1994). Products of high quality thus becomethe ‘best’ products, i.e., those products that meet thehighest standards. However, it could prove difficult


to determine the precise quality of products that donot quite meet these standards. Conversely, it is easyto determine what products are not quality products,i.e., those products that are ‘inferior’ according to theset standards. The problem is a question of whoshould set the standards; should the standards be setfrom the producer, the consumer or society’s pointsof view? Can a satisfactory scale even be established?The concept of excellence is part of the campaignfoundation for makers of autos such as ‘Mercedes’,‘BMW’ and ‘Cadillac’; makers of spirits such as‘Chivas Regal’ and ‘Crown Royal’; and finally, air-lines such as ‘Singapore Airlines’ and ‘British Air-ways’ (Reeves and Bednar, 1994). Consumers thatbuy these businesses’ products and services are ledto believe that they will be envied by other con-sumers, who have made less sensible choices. Theauto-maker, ‘Chrysler’ seems to follow the conceptof excellence suit with the following advertisementcaption: ‘At Chrysler we have only one ambition. Tobe the best. What else is there?’ (Caption borrowedfrom Assael, 1995, p. 723). The concept of excellencedates back to the Greek philosophers, mainly Soc-rates, Plato and Aristotle who promoted the ideal ofexcellence among the Greeks (Reeves and Bednar,1994). In ancient Greece, excellence referred to ‘thehighest form’, ‘the best’ and ‘the highest idea’. Datingback to Greek philosophy, ‘quality as excellence’ isprobably the most abstract of the five interpretations;it may include the others, albeit without specificallysubscribing to any of them. Reaching excellence maybe set as a general goal for the business, regardlessof their specific interpretation of quality. Thus, qual-ity as excellence is seen as a general interpretation inFigure 1.

To provide a more detailed description of the fiveinterpretations of quality, the relations between pro-ducer’s and consumer’s criteria may be presented asfollows (Rørsted, 1970):

The producer’s criteria are given by:

α1,α2,α3,...αn

The consumer’s criteria are then given by:

β1,β2,β3,...βn

The sale of the produced products may be formu-lated as a function of the consumer’s criteria, so that:

qd = q(p,β1,β2,..βn) (1)

The criteria concern all of the characteristics of theproducts that are in demand by the consumers for aprice or are offered to the consumers for a price, i.e.,quality and price. The demand for quality is thusmade up of a certain combination of consumer cri-teria for a set price. The following functional relationbetween producer and consumer criteria may nowbe formulated:

αi = αi(β1,β2,..βn) (2)


βj = βj(α1,α2,...αn) (3)

Equation (2) shows that the interpretations of qualityplaced under producer’s criteria in Figure 1 areinfluenced by the interpretations of quality placedunder consumer’s criteria. That is, the consumer cri-teria must be transformed into producer criteria. Ifconsumer and producer criteria are in accordance,and consumer and producer also agree on a commoninterpretation of quality, the above-mentionedrelation presents no problems. However, where sig-nificant discordance between the two types of criteriaor between consumer’s and producer’s interpret-ations of quality exists, the transformation from con-sumer to producer criteria may prove more difficult.(3) tells us that the interpretations of quality placedunder consumer’s criteria in Figure 1 are influencedby interpretations placed under producer’s criteria.This can best be explained by the fact that qualityfeatures the producer supplies, e.g., technical fea-tures, must necessarily be transformed to the con-sumer’s criteria in order for them to have an utilityvalue. In (1), price is seen as a separate variable. Asfar as price is concerned, it is due to the fact that anytransformation problems are considered less signifi-cant since price must be viewed as relatively objec-tive from the consumer and producers’ points ofview.

The placing of the individual interpretations inrelation to each other, as suggested in Figure 1,presents a number of problems in itself. Figure 1points towards the very significant transformationproblem, which might occur between producer andconsumer. If quality features which the producersupplies with the product are not in accordance withquality features the consumer ascribes to the product,the transformation could prove very difficult. Theconsumer does not evaluate objective qualities, s/heevaluates attributes (i.e., ‘ascribed qualities’), and thetwo are not necessarily in accordance. In other words,the producer must ‘translate’ consumer criteria toproducer criteria before the drafting of the product,and subsequently, the producer must translate thesecriteria to ‘consumer language’. In this connection, itis evident that any disagreement between producerand consumer regarding how quality should beassessed when products are being marketed, couldmake the transformation process considerably moredifficult, and also inhibit the establishment of aneffective quality management philosophy in the com-pany. This does not prevent the company fromoperating with several interpretations of quality, e.g.,the production process may depend on the fulfilmentof a number of cited technical specifications, whilethe marketing of the finished products on the marketmay take as its point of departure ‘to fulfil the expec-tations of the consumers’, or to create the best ‘value’,or to offer ‘excellent products’, or to offer certain‘technical specifications’. For the transformation pro-cess to be a success, it is, however, necessary that thecompanies and the consumer in the market place


share a common perception of what quality is,regardless of the company’s internal use of the con-cept of quality. This article presents the results of twoempirical analyses which were carried out to exam-ine the practical meaning and extension of this prob-lem as follows:

Method

The fragmented nature of the theoretical concept ofquality, which we have emphasised above, is thepoint of departure for the following studies.

Study 1

The first study was conducted as a mail surveyamong Danish food producers from all parts of thecountry. Managers of the companies were asked torank the five previously outlined interpretations ofquality: first, according to which interpretations ofquality they themselves believe to be the most correctwhen competing on the market; and second, accord-ing to what interpretations of quality they think theconsumers believe to be the most correct when theyinteract with the market. To limit any uncertaintyabout interpretations of quality determined by theproduct, we chose to limit ourselves to the foodindustry. A total of 49 randomly chosen executivemanagers in the foods industry received a question-naire in the mail. Forty-three per cent of the partici-pating managers returned a completed question-naire, among these one manager did not wish toparticipate, while two companies had ceased to exist,which meant that a total of 19 companies participatedin study 1. The respondents were guaranteed confi-dentiality and instructed to return the questionnairesto the university, where the study was being conduc-ted. A self-addressed, stamped envelope wasenclosed with the letter.

Study 2

This study was also conducted as a mail survey. Thestudy consists of 163 specialty food-store managersfrom all parts of Denmark. 960 survey questionnaireswere distributed, resulting in a response rate of 17.0per cent. Managers were asked the same questionsas in Study 1, and were once again guaranteed fullconfidentiality and provided with a self-addressed,stamped envelope.

The Operationalization of the FiveInterpretations of Quality

Firstly, it was very important that the theoretical con-cepts (the interpretations of quality) and their


implementation were in agreement. Secondly, it wasof great importance that these implementations wereperceived by the respondents as deliberate. The fol-lowing procedures were used in order to ensure this(Bagozzi, 1994):

❖ A preliminary first draft based on already existingtheoretical and empirical studies was prepared forthe implementation of the theoretical concepts.

❖ The draft was subsequently assessed by fourresearchers competent in the quality area who hadbeen briefed regarding the design and purpose ofthe study. The draft was also assessed by five non-experts. The purpose of this was to avoid any inac-curacies and ambiguities in the questions and thusget a first impression of the validity of theimplementations. This step resulted in a numberof adjustments.

❖ Following these adjustments, the questions wereshown to two more experts and three non-experts.This step resulted in minor corrections only.

❖ Finally, a pre-test was carried out (n = 10, non-experts). This test did not result in any furtheradjustments of the implementations used.2

Results

In one of the questions, the companies were asked torank the five interpretations of quality based on whatthe companies themselves regarded as most correctfor use in the marketplace:

Table 1 shows that the preferred interpretation ofquality of both food producers and specialty foodstores is ‘quality as adaptation to expectations’. Thereis, however, some disagreement between the twogroups of respondents as food producers rank ‘qual-ity as excellence’ as no. 5, whereas specialty foodstores rank this interpretation as no. 2. This differenceof opinion is probably due to the fact that specialtyfood stores traditionally offer quality and pro-fessional service, whereas foods producers togetherrepresent a mixture of low quality and high qualityproducers.

The ranking of ‘quality as adaptation to expectations’as no. 1 would indicate that, according to the compa-

Table 1 The Companies’ Perception of Quality

Study 1 Study 2Interpretations of quality Totala Rank Totala Rank

Quality as an excellent product 71 5 392 2Quality as value 50 2 560 4Quality as the consumers perceive it 59 4 502 3Quality as adaptation to expectations 35 1 316 1Quality as adaptation to technical specifications 55 3 675 5

aThe lowest value indicates the most preferred interpretation of quality


nies, food products can be good quality products,even if they do not live up to the highest standardsin the market, as long as the consumers perceive theproducts as the same every time: If the productsappear the same every time, consumers with priorknowledge of products will be able to form realisticexpectations of the quality more easily. Conse-quently, consumers will feel that their expectationsare being fulfilled to a larger degree. Table 1 alsoshows that the producers rank ‘quality as adaptationto technical specifications’ as no. 3, while the speci-alty food stores rank this interpretation as the verylowest. There are at least two possible explanationsfor this: Firstly, food producers, of course, have anactual food production, while specialty food stores inmost cases just distribute the food products to thenext link (the consumers). The technical specifi-cations of the products are thus naturally more inter-esting to foods producers. Even so, this hardlyexplains why food producers view ‘quality as adap-tation to technical specifications’ as being more rel-evant in the marketplace than specialty food stores do.Especially, since their products are directed towardsthe same customers: the food consumers. However,another possible explanation is that food producersare one step behind specialty food stores in the trans-formation process. This could be the reason whyfoods producers are more inclined to view realityfrom their own perspective compared to specialtyfood stores, which interact more directly with themarketplace.

As mentioned earlier, the companies were also askedto rank the interpretations of quality that they believetheir customers (the consumers) regard as most cor-rect (Table 2).

Table 2 shows that the companies do not believe thatconsumers are significantly interested in whether theproduct lives up to the technical specifications. Thisdoes not necessarily mean that the consumers are notinterested in the uniformity of products, but couldbe a result of the companies’ tendency to deem thetechnical specifications too complex for consumers tounderstand. Furthermore, it is remarkable that thecompanies seem to think that consumers to a largeextent perceive quality as excellence. This directlyopposes the companies’ own perception of quality,which ranks quality as excellence as the least correct


Table 2 The Consumers’ Supposed Interpretation of Quality

Study 1 Study 2Interpretations of quality Totala Rank Totala Rank

Quality as an excellent product 40 1 336 1Quality as value 51 3 545 4Quality as the consumers perceive it 56 4 433 3Quality as adaptation to expectations 42 2 401 2Quality as adaptation to technical specifications 81 5 727 5

aThe lowest value indicates the most preferred interpretation of quality

interpretation, and it partly opposes the interpret-ation of specialty food stores, which ranks quality asfulfilment of expectation above quality as excellence.This could be an indication of ‘a quality gap’ betweenfood companies and their customers: according to thecompanies, many consumers want excellent foodproducts, but according to themselves the fulfilmentof initial expectations (high as well as low) is quiteenough.

A third question asked the companies to state theimportance of quality as a sales variable in relationto other sales variables.

Table 3 shows the interesting point that almost onehalf of producers believe that price is the mostimportant sales variable, while none of the specialtyfood stores share this opinion. Conversely, specialtyfood stores see quality as the single most importantsales variable, while only one of the producers agreeswith this opinion. As already mentioned, eventhough specialty food stores have traditionally mar-keted themselves as quality food suppliers, theseresults show noticeable differences between pro-ducers and specialty food stores.

Concluding Remarks

The concept of quality appears fragmented andambiguous in the literature as well as in practice.This is unfortunate. The variety of interpretationsmake it difficult for studies that either half-heartedlyor completely fail to define the concept of quality tocontribute to new theoretical and practical obser-

Table 3 The Companies’ Perception of Quality as a Sales Variable

Study 1 Study 2Sales variable Totala Rank Totala Rank

Quality is the most important variable 1 3 113 1Price is the most important variable 8 2 0 4Price and quality are equally important variable 10 1 40 2Other sales variables are more important 0 4 10 3

aThe highest value indicates the most preferred option. Only one option per company


vations. Generalization from results and identifi-cation of any contrasts between studies are madevery difficult. In this way, the results of this studyraise the question of why confusion about conceptsarises and is maintained, and whether this is a desir-able development. Socio-linguists claim that concep-tualisation corresponds to the reality that you arepart of and that ambiguity should be seen as anexpression of multiple actors experiencing multiplerealities. The view seems sensible, but it only explainswhy the same word is used for different realities, thatis, if a common general concept exists.

We do not wish to argue for a standardisation of theconcept of quality; the existence of only one interpret-ation. This would indeed be an unrealistic approach.Thus it is not possible to comment in general aboutwhich of the interpretations in Figure 1 is ‘better thanthe others’ as this depends on the specific context.The results of the present study, however, highlightthe need to define the concept of quality more clearly,so that it becomes consistent with the context inwhich it is used. When a company wishes to com-municate that they produce and deliver quality pro-ducts, it is imperative that the company and theircustomers share the same interpretation of the con-cept of quality. If this is not the case, the customerwill probably not view the communication as mean-ingful. As a common general concept, quality seemsto mean that some people may judge certain thingsto be better than others. Since this view will hardlyadvance our understanding a great deal, a develop-ment of the concept in relation to its reality is calledfor. Thus there is a need for a linguistic definition,rather than an actual integration of the interpret-ations into one concept.


Acknowledgements

We would like to extend our thanks to research secretary TinaJ. Hindsbo for her support.

Notes

1. The composition of the frame of reference owes some inspi-ration to Steenkamp (1989) (p. 96).

2. The above described procedure resulted in the implemen-tation of the following concepts of quality: (1) Quality asExcellence: ‘A quality product is understood as the best ormost excellent product.’ (2) Quality as Value: ‘Qualityforms part of the total value of the product.’ (3) Quality asthe Consumers Perceive it: ‘Quality is to be understood asthe consumer’s own perception of the concept of quality.’(4) Quality as Adaptation to Expectations: ‘Quality is aquestion of whether the product lives up to the consumers’expectations.’ (5) Quality as Adaptation to TechnicalExpectations: ‘Quality is a question of whether the productlives up to certain technical specifications.’

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TORBEN HANSENCopenhagen BusinessSchool, Dept. Marketing,Solbjerg Plads 3, DK–2000, Denmark

Dr Torben Hansen isAssistant Professor atCopenhagen BusinessSchool. His main fields ofresearch are consumerbehavior, marketing

methods, quality and retail studies. He has publisheda number of books and articles within these areas.In 1998 Torben Hansen received the CopenhagenBusiness School Gold Medal.

Documents

Quality in the marketplace:: A theoretical and empirical investigation