Through a review of seven e-banking SQ measurement studies conducted in seven countries during the past decade, this investigation holistically reviewed the methodology, suggestions and limitations associated with the development of e-banking SQ measurement. Furthermore, through an empirical investigation that was robustly and comprehensively conducted in Taiwan to address some shortcomings of a previous study, similarities and differences of e-banking SQ dimensions across cultural context can be obtained. Thus, a holistic view of the dimensions and categories of SQ measurement is also presented in this research. Based on this diverse literature, including diversity in terms of both time and country, two broad conclusions can be obtained as follows:
First, a comprehensive method for developing SQ measurement for e-banking has been consolidated into a six-step process, comprising scale item generation, scale item refinement, field testing and data collection, confirmation of sample representativeness, exploratory factor analysis and reliability testing, and confirmatory factor analysis. Particularly, the combined methods of EFA and CFA and the competing-model approach for the parsimonious model (Noar, 2003) are critical to achieving a robust research outcome. Only three out of seven studies listed in Table 1 applied the combined methods of EFA and CFA, and none used the competing-model approach for the parsimonious model. The managerial implication is that any researcher or practitioner wishing to develop a robust SQ measurement can easily do so by referring to section 3 of this study for a concise description of the necessary methodology and section 4 of this study for a description of its application.
Second, a comprehensive SQ measurement for e-banking is only feasible owing to the work completed in seven different countries in the past literature and this study. The proposed e-banking SQ measurement comprises four categories of dimensions, and is derived differently from past studies. The uniqueness of this comprehensive SQ measurement for e-banking lies in the fact that it automatically encompasses the cultural factors of seven countries, which represents a significant contribution in an empirical study of this kind. Specifically, the core and common categories contain the dimensions, namely privacy/security, responsiveness, efficiency and contact, which are generally applicable to both Asian and Western contexts, while the secondary and auxiliary categories contain the dimensions that may be culturally or regionally different. The managerial implication is that researchers or practitioners can safely adopt the dimensions in the core and common categories, and then can carefully select the dimensions in the secondary and auxiliary categories to meet their objectives and needs. Notably, this dimension selection process can be performed by referring to the other classification schemes in past studies, as listed in Table 5.
Three limitations remain even after reviewing eight studies on e-banking SQ measurement
scale development. As noted in section 2.2, among the suggestions and limitations proposed by the past seven studies, only one suggestion and one limitation remain unaddressed. The first unaddressed limitation was the inclusion of customer compliments and complaints in the key dimension, which may be related to the satisfactory and dissatisfactory experiences of customers identified by Jun and Cai (2001). Second, the unaddressed suggestion, made by Akinci et al.
(2010), was to apply the E-S-QUAL and E-RecS-QUAL scales to a culturally different country and a different industry. Although this study addressed culturally different countries through reviewing the literature comprising studies conducted in seven countries, none of the other six studies has addressed the initial application of E-S-QUAL and E-RecS-UQLA. Finally, all the results were based on data collected from a user population with actual experience of e-banking, creating a potential sample bias through the exclusion of individuals who browsed the site but did not use the e-banking services. Failure to use e-banking services could result from various reasons, ranging from safety concerns to operational failure. A true population of Internet users, including those not currently using e-banking services, is desirable to confirm the generalizability of this study. Although the research on measuring e-banking SQ is extensive, further research addressing these three limitations is highly desirable.
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