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The police service quality in rural Taiwan: A comparative analysis of

perceptions and satisfaction between police staff and citizens

Article  in  Policing An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management · August 2014

DOI: 10.1108/PIJPSM-08-2012-0086

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The police
The police service quality in service quality in
rural Taiwan rural Taiwan
A comparative analysis of perceptions and
satisfaction between police staff and citizens 521
Chien Min Chen Received 30 August 2012
School of Social Science, National Quemoy University, Kinmen, Taiwan Revised 10 December 2012
20 February 2013
Hong Tau Lee Accepted 20 February 2013
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management,
National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taichung City, Taiwan
Sheu Hua Chen
Department of Distribution Management,
National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taichung City, Taiwan, and
Tsung Hsien Tsai
Department of Tourism Management, National Quemoy University,
Kinmen, Taiwan

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions and satisfaction between police
officers and citizens on Kinmen Island (of Taiwan), using an analytical framework that combines five
primary dimensions and 25 corresponding determinants.
Design/methodology/approach – It considers recent developments in the application of performance
measures and management to public and, particularly, police services. It goes on to assess comparative
rural police performance which suggests that the application of targets could ultimately serve to provide
the overall satisfaction with police services.
Findings – The findings of the study suggest that perceptions and satisfaction of both citizens
and police staff may result in the success of the policing management, and that police managers have
to satisfy their citizens with a high level of service quality based on different localities.
Practical implications – From managerial perspectives, police managers should consider both the
service quality and customer satisfaction constructs as determinants of behavioural intentions, based
on the fact that satisfaction can be a strategic key to maintain long term relationship with citizens as it
is found of significant impact on the intentional behaviour.
Originality/value – This research adds empirical support to this vein of literature and has identified
the five main dimensions and the 25 sub-dimensions as important constructs for police service quality.
Keywords Management, Citizen satisfaction, Kinmen Island, Quality of Policing
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Measuring performance of service is an essential part of management concepts and
implies common indicators for business enterprises to measure their achievements.
However, measuring service quality is regarded to be fraught with difficulty (Donnelly Policing: An International Journal of
et al., 2006). Recently, it has been recognised that providing quality service is the prime Police Strategies & Management
Vol. 37 No. 3, 2014
objective of the law enforcing agency of a country (Islam and Ali, 2008). Likewise, pp. 521-542
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
measuring police performance and the outcome of police service is difficult because 1363-951X
police forces use multiple inputs to create multiple outputs. Developing production DOI 10.1108/PIJPSM-08-2012-0086
PIJPSM functions describing their activities is, unfortunately, not possible as it is possible for
37,3 most business enterprises (Ritsert and Pekar, 2009).
Policing is a difficult and complex occupation (Otu, 2006). In light of police reforms,
police professionalism has come to be defined through changes in police organisation,
administration and technology in the past 20 or 30 years such as those to improve the
efficiency of the police service and performance in the deterrence and apprehension of
522 criminals (Douthit, 1975). Nonetheless, the human element of police professionalism
has not always kept pace (Albanese, 1999). The concept of police performance changes
with development stages. In different era, the measures which are used to define
performance vary. Performance evaluation is the most important, but at the same time
the most difficult issue to be solved in the field of public administration. It is because
government pursues public interest and provides public service, but public interest and
public service are difficult to be defined. Being a classic bureaucracy, the police
organisation also faces the same problem (Chang and Wang, 2006).
In order to measure service quality, the primary and sub dimensions of service
quality have been identified for a variety of industries such as the education, health
care, retailing, tourism, telecommunication, technology, transport, and recreational
sports sectors using a hierarchical model as a framework (Angelopoulou et al., 1998;
Brady et al., 2001; Collins, 2005; Jones, 2005; Caro and Roemer, 2006; Fassnacht and
Koese, 2006; Kang, 2006; Clemes et al., 2007; Dagger et al., 2007; Kao, 2007; Caro and
Garcia, 2007; Caro and Garcia, 2008). Yet relatively few analytical frameworks have
been applied to empirical studies of policing. Therefore the paper reports on a survey
of citizens and police representatives serving the area covered by the Kinmen County
Police Bureau (KCPB) in rural Taiwan. The survey captures respondents’ expectations
of excellent police services and compares these with their perceptions of the service
delivered by Kinmen Police, based on a parallel framework developed from
SERVQUAL survey.
Besides, satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the police service is a kind of human
reactions. In line with affirmation that differences in human reactions are subject to
culturally derived and self-goal pursuits factors (Pharr, 2005), the aim of this study is to
measure police service quality perception in the rural area of Taiwan as to disclose
Taiwanese specificities and their implications for policing management. We look to
examine how well the police force understands its customers’ expectations and how
well its clients (citizens who have reported crimes) expect and satisfy the delivery of
top quality policing services.
Overall, the study has three main objectives:
(1) to identify the distinct dimensions and sub-dimensions of service quality as
perceived by the citizens and the police officers of Kinmen in rural Taiwan;
(2) to explore an analytical framework for police service quality based on a
comparative study between the citizens and the police officers in Kinmen; and
(3) to suggest specific implications for policing management.
From managerial perspectives, the results of this research may contribute to the
validity and applicability of the framework as applied to the evaluation of policing
service quality. Most importantly, we are hoping that this study’s findings will
generate an initial mapping of Taiwan policing to identify unique demands, practices,
organising approaches and policing needs, in comparison with policing issues in other
countries.
2. The policing of Kinmen: an overview The police
Kinmen, also known as Quemoy in some western countries, is a small island group of service quality in
c. 150 square kilometers, approximately 300 km off Taiwan and is also located off the
southeastern coast of Fujian Province of the People’s Republic of China. During the rural Taiwan
Cold War Era, troops from both sides of the Taiwan Strait fought fiercely for Kinmen;
military restrictions and martial law were strictly enforced on the Island until 1992.
Since then, the ban on civil autonomy has been lifted. In 1993, Kinmen began to 523
develop tourism as an economic development strategy. Now it receives over 550,000
tourists annually to see its battlefields and enjoy its coasts and mountains. All of these
transitions have resulted in the fact that the Kinmen Police has been evolving from
quasi-military management culture to service-oriented management culture for the
past decade (Figure 1).
The KCPB is a department which belongs to the Kinmen County Government, while
it is still under supervision of the National Police Agency (NPA) of Taiwan. Based
on the present organisational structure, the Bureau has only two police precincts, and
five police stations. The number of police staff has increased from 150 officers a decade
ago to a total of 378 police personnel at present, in order to meet the demand on the
Island after autonomous rule. In Kinmen, one police officer expects to serve for 228
people, lower than the number for the whole country (287 people). As the number of
police rises on this Island, new staff is assigned new jobs that can alleviate some
of the challenges facing by Kinmen Police. These include a number of violent offences
at liquor outlets (Kinmen produces well-known sorghum liquor), smugglings and drug
trafficking, and affluent lifestylers moving into the area. More specifically, tourism is

• •
•
•
• • •
• • Taipei
• •
•
•
• •
•
• KINMEN
•
• Hualien
Taiwan Strait

Penghu

• Tainan
• Taitung
Lyudao
• Kaohsiung

Lanyu
0 50 100 150km
Figure 1.
Location of Kinmen Island
PIJPSM attracting more people to the region which has created a demand for non-rural
37,3 services such as backpacker lodges and cafes. The establishment of the region as a
wine-growing region and the constant flowing-in of visitors have also changed the
dynamics of the area.
Moreover, crime trends in Kinmen include: violent offences per capita (which
occurs almost 35 times per 100,000 citizens) are significantly lower than the national
524 average (which occurs almost 69 times per 100,000 citizens); resolution rates are
about the same with the national rate (75 per cent), but with an upward trend; and
smuggling of drugs increased 59 per cent (in 2009), and with an upward trend. In 2009,
however, the crime rate of Kinmen (almost 650 times per 100,000 citizens) is
significantly lower than the national average (almost 1,426 times per 100,000 citizens)
(KCPB, 2010). The overview of social security on Kinmen Island partly reflects the
truth that crime is less frequent in rural areas (Weisheit et al., 1994), as it has
been speculated that greater informal controls in rural areas protect against high
crime rates (Smith, 1980).
With the introduction of the Administrative Policy by the NPA of Taiwan
in 2008, strengthened governance and accountability arrangements have been
legislated. This new Policy sets out the roles of the successful policing that
requires police to forge strong partnerships with all key stakeholders, from
government to communities (NPA, 2010). In order to cope with the upcoming
challenges and trends, the KCPB has adopted a forward-thinking and innovative
approach to policing, including an approach (attitude, systems, processes and
procedures) re-orientated towards the victim’s perspective; a significant change in
public attitude to drugs and alcohol, with Police and their community partners
taking a more active role in reducing the effects and harm that drugs and alcohol
cause; an acceptance of localised, visible community policing, with community
policing officers accessible to every household. The reality is that, the Kinmen
Police are interacting with the public more widely, more frequently, and often more
personally than usual.

3. Literature review
3.1 Service quality
Service quality is usually expressed as a function of customers’ expectations
of the service to be provided compared with their perceptions of the actual service
experience (Gronroos, 1984; Berry et al., 1985; Johnston and Heineke, 1998). More
fundamentally, service quality is the customer’s overall impression of the relative
inferiority or superiority of the organisation and its services (Bitner and Hubbert,
1994). Although there has been some recent debate about the relationship between
satisfaction and service quality, some of the early service quality literature infers
a simple relationship between performance and perception (Johnston and Heineke,
1998). More specifically, it is suggested that any increase in performance leads to
an increase in perceptions of service quality and, conversely, any reduction in the level
of performance will result in reduced perceptions of service quality (Gronroos, 1984;
Johnston and Lyth, 1988).
Service quality has been related to customer satisfaction according to the literature
in the context of behavioural intentions (Dabholkar and Thorpe, 1994; Kang et al., 2004;
Lin and Hsieh, 2007; Clemes et al., 2008; Pollack, 2009). In highly competitive markets,
customer satisfaction is a key driver of performance, making its measurement and
management crucial (Matzler et al., 2008). Basically, satisfaction can be defined as
“a judgement that a product, or service feature, or the product or service itself, provides The police
a pleasurable level of consumption – related fulfillment, including levels of under service quality in
or over fulfillment” (Oliver, 1997). From the empirical perspectives, for example,
a structural equation modelling analysis reveals that attendee evaluation of rural Taiwan
service quality positively influences satisfaction with the service, and that
satisfaction exerts a positive and direct influence on awareness of quality (Yuan
and Jang, 2008). In the context of travel service, it has been recognised that 525
tourism satisfaction level can be attributed to different destination attributes
including tangible products and prices to intangible service quality (Lounsbury and
Hoopes, 1985; Stevens, 1992; Crompton and Love, 1995; Qu and Li, 1997; Ryan, 1999;
Yu and Goulden, 2006).
However, important the concept of service quality has been, limited research
has addressed the structure and antecedents of the concept (Wilkins et al., 2006).
In the early research, Gronroos (1984) proposed a two-dimensional model to
measure service quality, namely, technical quality and functional quality. More
recently, Ko and Pastore (2005) developed a hierarchical model for the evaluation in
the recreational sports industry by adapting models proposed by Brady and
Cronin (2001) and Dabholkar et al. (1996). The model consisted of four primary
dimensions: interaction quality, environmental quality, program quality, outcome
quality (Ko and Pastore, 2005). In terms of applying a hierarchical modelling
approach to conceptualize service quality in a variety of different areas, a hierarchical
model reflecting service quality perceptions in the health care industry was explored
by Dagger et al. (2007). Their model encompassed four primary dimensions:
interpersonal quality, technical quality, environment quality, administrative quality.
They concluded that satisfaction was typically modelled as mediating the link
between service quality and behavioural intentions, and that customers’ overall
perceptions of service quality continued to play an important role in generating
customer outcomes (Dagger et al., 2007). The study results were highly similar to those
presented by Clemes et al. (2007), whose hierarchical model to reflect service quality
perceptions in the higher education industry was developed. The hierarchical model of
higher education service quality contained three primary dimensions: interaction quality,
physical environment quality, outcome quality (Clemes et al., 2007). The results of the
empirical study have reemphasized the application of a hierarchical factor structure to
conceptualize and measure service quality (Clemes et al., 2007; Brady and Cronin, 2001;
Dabholkar et al., 1996).
As mentioned above, the issue of measuring service quality has received considerable
attention in different areas, yet much of the service quality work has based upon the work
of Parasuraman et al. (1985) which is the most frequently used operationalisation of
quality in the past decade. The discrepancy refers to the gap between respondents’
expectations scores and their perceptions scores. In the first phase of their research,
Parasuraman et al. (1985) provided a list of ten determinants or characteristics of service
quality. Furthermore, they found high degrees of correlation between some of the factors
and so created five consolidated dimensions in the later research. They then used the
five dimensions namely tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy
as the basis for their service quality measurement instrument (Parasuraman et al.,
1988). Their analytical framework has also been used in the public domain such as
governmental organisations.
In the public sector of management, different dimensions have been explored and
used for analysing service quality. For example, the “New Steering Model”, developed
PIJPSM in 1993 and established as a reference model for modernising local governments,
37,3 mainly consists of three components ( Jann, 2005):
(1) leadership, and organisational structures (e.g. through management accounting,
budgeting, performance contracts, management by objectives, etc.);
(2) activities conducted in a goal-oriented fashion, (e.g. through defining and
526 calculating products, quality management, etc.); and
(3) activation of this newly created structures and steering instruments through
competition and customer orientation (e.g. through benchmarking, market
testing, and outsourcing).
In this respect, rather than attempt to develop a comprehensive model, Rothstein
and Teorell (2008) created a framework in which they expand on the discussion of
quality as impartial government. Their theory of impartiality is placed in a larger
context, which they then contrast its scope and meaning with that of a threefold set of
competing concepts of quality of government: democracy, the rule of law, and efficiency/
effectiveness.

3.2 Police service quality

With reference to the policing management, however, police officials measured
progress towards professionalism in terms of expansion of services, development of
scientific methods of criminal investigation and identification, training, communications,
transportation, records, selection, executive tenure, and organisational growth (Douthit,
1975). Moreover, in lieu of using myths to evaluate the quality of police service, the Police
Executive Research Forum has identified three factors which must be considered in
any evaluation of quality police service. These factors are: leadership, organisation, and
policy characteristics (Couper, 1983). These measures (training and assessment) do not
seem to be good predictors of successful job performance, especially in relation to the use
of force. By contrast, Burgess (1994) developed the Service Quality Model in which
determinants of service quality are employed. The determinants include reliability,
responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, and credibility. As a consequence, the
research concluded that breakdowns may occur in any of the following components
of police service delivery: mechanical, human, scheduling, capacity, political, or weather.
In addition, the known measures such as “outcome” or “performance” of police services,
especially by means of preventive safety measure, are hard to define (Lenk, 1998).
Therefore “effects” of applied steering instruments are hardly measurable (Lange and
Schenck, 2004).
In recent years, as the concept of community-based policing had emerged, it
continues to provide the philosophical underpinning for basic functional changes in the
way police agencies operate (Moore and Trojanowicz, 1988; Kelling and Bratton, 1993).
From 2000, failures to democratize the police during the 1990s led to the introduction
of community policing, which, it was promised, could engender “a new culture of
security” of police community partnerships, citizen inclusion and accountable state
policing (Kyed, 2009). In light of the policing development, Rickards and Ritsert (2008)
sketched out their understanding of the quality of police work along three dimensions:
structural quality, process quality, result quality. Given the differences between rural
and urban crime and culture, it should be expected that police in rural and urban areas
would approach police work differently, especially in an epoch towards community
policing. However, it appears that “community policing”, to which many urban
departments now aspire, has been a long-standing practice in rural police agencies. The police
In a study of tasks regularly performed by police in 249 municipal agencies of differing service quality in
sizes, small agencies were found to be more concerned with crime prevention, medium-
sized agencies showed the greatest concern for providing non-crime services, and large rural Taiwan
agencies focused on enforcing criminal laws and controlling crime through arrests
(Meagher, 1985). Similarly, other research examined public opinion data about the
police role and found that the larger the community, the more likely citizens were to 527
believe that police should limit their role to enforcing criminal laws. Conversely, people
from smaller communities were more likely to desire police to perform a wide variety
of functions. In many rural areas, police must provide a wide range of services because
other social services are either nonexistent or are more remote than the police
(Flanagan, 1985; Weisheit et al., 1994).
Although some areas like a metropolitan city with higher population may have
higher police service demand, it should be expected that police in rural and urban areas
should approach work differently. Apparently, rural cultures differ from urban cultures
socially, economically, ethnically and geographically. Rural areas are more governed
than are urban areas by informal social control, which is facilitated by the fact that
many residents of rural communities, including the local police, know each other
socially. In rural areas, shoplifting and employee theft were rarely reported to the
police. Instead, most cases were handled informally. One factor that contributes to this
is the relative stability of the local population. Rural citizens infrequently change
addresses, often staying in the same county or even the same house for several
generations (Auletta, 1982). The low levels of mobility and low population density
mean that rural law enforcement officers, such as sheriffs, are likely to personally
know most offenders and their families. In this sense, the concept of policing in a rural
area is defined not only what rural is, but also what a rural police agency is.
To sum up, the aforementioned literature review reiterates that there are a number
of studies conducted to measure police service quality through combining identifiable
variables and customer satisfaction into a model. Yet, there are few studies, in this
respect, present the relevant conceptualization of service quality for the area marching
towards a community policing, especially in a comparative study between citizens and
police officers. Only by closely combining the related constructs and evaluating these
issues can we provide the foundation for the development of the framework in this
study and get an idea of the true quality of police service in a rural police agency.
Additionally, in the context of police service in Taiwan the essence includes contact
service and non-contact service. The former refers to direct service measures to the
civilians and contains the elements of input, process, and output, while the latter
relates to indirect service measures to the civilians such as patrol, police surveillance
and propaganda in crime prevention (Kao, 2009). Table I elaborates contact service
measures provided by Taiwan’s police.

Input Process Output

Handling a case report Dispatch, labor-division, crime scene Record, report, and submit a criminal
survey and investigation tasks investigation
Document application Classification, censorship Approve, reject Table I.
Additional services Rescue, home visit, protection, etc. Rendering assistance, giving advices, Contact service measures
custody, detention, confiscation, etc. of Taiwan’s police
PIJPSM 4. Research framework and methodology
37,3 Based on the aforementioned theoretical concept, a structured questionnaire method
was developed and used to determine the perception and satisfaction attributes.
The self-administered survey was twofold and each consisted of three sections.
One questionnaire was designed for the police officers of the KCPB, and the other
questionnaire was schemed for the citizens who had reported crimes to the Bureau over
528 the past year. With regard to the contents of the questionnaire, the first section
comprised variables to show the demographics of the respondents, including elements
of age, gender, education, and occupation. It should be noted that the element of
“occupation” was replaced by “service seniority” in the police questionnaire.
In addition, although some research depicted service quality perception as an
outcome of satisfaction, Bitner et al. (1990) and Parasuraman et al. (1988) arguing that
the consumer satisfaction with a given experience would lead to an overall evaluation
or attitude about the quality of the service overtime. Other research considered that
satisfaction is the outcome of a cognitive processing (Oliver, 1980; Shemwell et al.,
1998). Based on these viewpoints, however, many researchers suggest that cognition-
based and affect-based trust are two primary dimensions of trust in both inter-personal
and inter-firm level, indicating that cognitive and affective components are very
similar factors (Cummings and Bromley, 1996; Fryxell et al., 2002; McAllister, 1995;
Smith and Barclay, 1997; Vidotto et al., 2008; Zaheer et al., 1998). In this sense, the
second section of the questionnaire was designed to determine respondents’ cognitive
and affective perceptions of the police service quality. More recently, a number of
studies agree that the service quality is a simpler primarily cognitive construct
while satisfaction is a complex concept of both cognitive and affective components.
They suggest that satisfaction is a more central construct which mediates the effect
of service quality perception on behavioural intention and other outcomes (Bolton and
Drew, 1991; Shemwell et al., 1998; Brady and Robertson, 2001; Bigne et al., 2003; Choi
et al., 2005). However, regarding the police service quality, Donnelly et al. (2006) argued
that it is difficult to measure service quality in public services – especially in public
services where customers are vulnerable citizens whose contact with the service
may be limited. Therefore, we explored the application of the SERVQUAL approach
to assess the quality of service of Kinmen Police in Taiwan. Furthermore, it is
acknowledged that if performance is adequate, customers will be satisfied ( Johnston,
1995), and that any increase/decrease in performance leads to an increase/reduced
perceptions of service quality (Gronroos, 1993; Johnston and Lyth, 1988). Therefore, the
third section was designed to investigate respondents’ satisfaction with the attributes
of service quality of the KCPB.
In understanding the elements of service quality, a conceptual model of police
service quality and performance was developed to measure the determinants of service
quality dimensions of the KCPB. In the meantime, research framework was thus
developed to guide the research (see Figure 1). Then, a set of service quality dimensions
specific to the KCPB was identified based on the literature review, the focus group
interviews, and some attributes developed by Parasuraman et al. (1988) and widely
used in subsequent research (Donnelly et al., 2006; Islam and Ali, 2008). In the process
of focus group interviews, the authors conducted three mini focus groups for this
study. Each group comprised five participants, including police officers, citizens,
professors, and government officials who are familiar with the police affairs in Kinmen.
The group members were encouraged to list all of the factors that might encompass
their perceptions of the police service quality in this locality. Then, the authors
summarised the discussion, drew inferences and categorized their opinions. A final list The police
of 25 attributes was retained on the basis of their similar use in past studies (Burgess, service quality in
1994; Parasuraman et al., 1985, 1994; Zeithaml et al., 1990) and frequency of mention by
participants. Furthermore, the study measured the level of perception on the basis of rural Taiwan
the five dimensions, namely tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and
empathy. The list of 25 attributes was measured for “perception”, which can be defined
as degree of understanding and expectations, based on a five-point Likert scale on 529
“1 ¼ very unimportant (for the police staff) or very poor (for the citizens)” and
“5 ¼ very important (for the police staff) or very good (for the citizens)”. While
measuring satisfaction, which can be defined as degree of praise of “performance”, this
variable was measured on “1 ¼ very dissatisfied” and “5 ¼ very satisfied”, in conformance
to previous performance scales used in similar studies (Beerli and Martin, 2004). Table II
provides a summary of constructs and a synopsis of the items used in each construct
operationalization.
In addition, the authors tried some practical data analysis techniques such as
descriptive statistics analysis, analysis of means, t-test, factor analysis, and Pearson
correlation analysis, etc. for the assessment of attributes within respondents’
perceptions and satisfaction. Being explanatory and descriptive in nature, this study is
mainly based on quantitative methodology to investigate the relationship between
different constructs postulated in Figure 2. Figure 2 draws the relation path from
police service quality to satisfaction and then ultimately yields performance. First,
police service quality is basically evaluated based on tangibility, reliability, responsiveness,
asurance, and empathy. Then since police staff and citizens may have different perceptions

Constructs No. Description of Items

Tangibility 1 Locations of police agencies for citizens to report crimes

2 Equipments of police agencies
3 Facilities of police agencies
4 Availability of contact information
5 Criteria of service performance
Reliability 6 Police staff’s trustworthy attitude
7 Police staff’s law-abiding ability
8 Police staff’s equity in law-enforcement
9 Police staff’s expertise in policing and law enforcement
10 Preparation of policing information
Responsiveness 11 Police staff’s interaction with citizens
12 Police staff’s courtesy
13 Convenience of procedure for reporting a crime
14 Prompt response to citizens’ requests
15 Rapidity of policy propaganda by police agencies
Assurance 16 Evaluation and improvement of performance
17 Police staff’s problem-solving skills
18 Consistency of police services
19 Tasks to ensure citizens’ safety
20 Popularity of reform projects
Empathy 21 Immediate aid for the citizens
22 Police staff’s knowledge of police agencies’ surroundings
23 Police staff’s knowledge of the citizens Table II.
24 Understandability of citizens’ opinions Construct
25 Communication with local citizens operationalization
PIJPSM Police Performance
37,3

Police Staff Citizens

530
Satisfaction Satisfaction

Perceptions Perceptions

Police Service Quality

Figure 2.
Conceptual model of
police service quality
and performance Tangibility Reliability Responsiveness Assurance Empathy

and expectations towards service quality, they may have distinctive satisfaction of the
policing performance. Finally the satisfaction gap between the police staff and citizens
form the overall performance of the system. The feedback loops indicate modifications
of perceptions and expectations for the police staff and citizens, respectively.
Data collection used a census method in the small urban locality due to the advantages,
such as accuracy and detail. After the completion of the questionnaire, a pre-test was
carried out with randomly selected police officers in one of the townships in Kinmen
and some postgraduate students at National Kinmen (Quemoy) University. They were
asked to respond to the questionnaire in order to assess any potentially misleading
items in the instrument. Based on a feedback from a pilot sample of 30 respondents,
the survey instrument was revised and finalized to improve clarity, readability, and
content validity.
The survey was targeted towards a total of 245 officers of the police stations, and a
total of 217 citizens who had reported crimes to those police stations. There was a
consent procedure adopted in this study, either express or implied. For consent to be
valid it must be voluntary and informed. Therefore, the authors gave instructions
on the right to refuse. As a result, all consent was voluntary and not the product of
oppression, coercion, or other external conduct negating freedom to choose not to
consent. The census questionnaires were distributed from September to October in
2009. After dispensing a total of 462 questionnaires over the eight-week period, 439
questionnaires were successfully collected, including 230 from the police officers and
209 from the citizens. The usable and effective questionnaires for this study were 221
(from the police officers) and 205 (from the citizens), representing a response rate of 90
and 94 per cent, respectively. The questionnaire was tested for reliability and generated
good results, since the Cronbach’s coefficient a scores as high as 0.946 (40.60), as
suggested by Churchill (1979).
5. Results and discussion The police
5.1 Census demographic profile service quality in
The demographic profile of the respondents is demonstrated in Table III. With respect
to the citizen respondents, there were 151 (73.7 per cent) males and 54 (26.3 per cent) rural Taiwan
females. The age group 30-39 years formed 26.3 per cent of the respondents, followed
by 40-49 years (24.9 per cent), 50-59 years (19.5 per cent), and 20-99 years old (18.5
per cent). The profile of citizen respondents reporting crimes in Kinmen indicated, 531
therefore, an almost equal number of the middle-aged, namely, 30-39 years and 40-49
years. In terms of respondents’ education level, 43.9 per cent had high school education,
28.8 per cent had college and university education, 19.5 per cent had secondary school
education, and 7.8 per cent had only elementary school education and below.
Apparently, over half of all respondents had a lower education level therefore.
The main occupational group was government officials and teachers, representing 16.1
per cent of the respondents, followed by an equal number of workers (14.6 per cent)
and those who involved in service industry (14.6 per cent), and students (12.7 per cent),
and agriculturalists (10.7 per cent), and businessmen (10.2 per cent).
With reference to the police staff respondents, Table III shows that the census profile
indicated that there was a disproportionate distribution of males (97.7 per cent) and
females (2.3 per cent), totally reflecting the status quo of Kinmen’s police force, which is
a little lower than the percentage (nearly 6 per cent) of female police officers in the
police force of Taiwan. However, the profile had a good representation of age groups.
For example, 48.4 per cent of respondents were aged between 30 and 39 years old and
34.8 per cent were aged between 40 and 49 years old. In terms of education level, the

Citizen n ¼ 205 Percentage Police staff n ¼ 221 Percentage

Gender Gender
Male 151 73.7 Male 216 97.7
Female 54 26.3 Female 5 2.3
Age Age
19 yr and below 7 3.4 19 yr and below 0 0
20-29 yr 38 18.5 20-29 yr 7 3.1
30-39 yr 54 26.3 30-39 yr 107 48.4
40-49 yr 51 24.9 40-49 yr 77 34.8
50-59 yr 40 19.5 50-59 yr 28 12.7
60 yr and above 15 7.3 60 yr and above 2 0
Education level Education level
Elementary and below 16 7.8 Senior high school 31 14.0
Secondary school 40 19.5 University and college 177 80.1
Senior high school 90 43.9 Postgraduate 13 5.9
University and college 59 28.8
Occupation Service seniority
Businessman 21 10.2 5 yr and below 6 2.7
Worker 30 14.6 5-10 yr 9 4.1
Agriculturist 22 10.7 10-15 yr 66 29.9
Government, official, teacher 33 16.1 15-20 yr 75 33.9
Service industry 30 14.6 20-30 yr 54 24.4
Housekeeper 18 8.8 30 yr and above 11 5.0
Student 26 12.7 Table III.
Unemployed 15 7.3 Demographic profile
Other 10 4.9 of respondents
PIJPSM main group was college and university education level, representing 80.1 per cent of
37,3 the respondents. Regarding respondents’ service seniority, most of the respondents had
15-20 years of service experience (33.9 per cent), followed by 10-15 years (29.9 per cent),
and 20-30 years (24.4 per cent).

5.2 Factorial analysis of constructs

532 Factor analysis was used to identify underlying service quality constructs in the
data. Table IV shows that the variances explained of the five factors are 54.874, 57.039,
56.749, 57.929, 60.873 per cent, respectively. Besides that, the Cronbach’s a values for
the factors range from 0.757 for factor “assurance” to 0.847 for factor “responsiveness”.
More specifically, the internal consistency of each sub-scale reaches a Cronbach a value
of 0.794, 0.811, 0.847, 0.757, and 0.838, respectively. Besides, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin
(KMO) measure of sampling adequacy is an index used to examine the appropriateness
of factor analysis. High values (between 0.5 and 1.0) indicate that factor analysis
is appropriate. As the results show that KMO value is between 0.773 and 0.856,
suggesting it was suitable to maintain the arranged items in each factor for the
following analysis.

5.3 Comparison results regarding the citizens

In order to understand the relationship between perception and performance for
the citizens reporting crimes to the KCPB, the authors employed t-test to analyse the

Factor Variance Cronbach’s a Cronbach’s a

Dimensions No. loading Eigenvalue explained (%) (sub-scale) KMO (total scale)

Tangibility 1 0.661 2.744 54.874 0.794 0.776 0.946

2 0.798
3 0.780
4 0.749
5 0.707
Reliability 6 0.731 2.852 57.039 0.811 0.814
7 0.755
8 0.737
9 0.780
10 0.771
Responsiveness 11 0.806 3.405 56.749 0.847 0.856
12 0.742
13 0.734
14 0.739
15 0.750
Assurance 16 0.747 2.317 57.929 0.757 0.773
17 0.704
18 0.781
19 0.782
20 0.775
Empathy 21 0.775 3.044 60.873 0.838 0.845
22 0.807
Table IV. 23 0.806
Factorial analysis 24 0.797
of constructs 25 0.712
differences. A comparison of means and standard deviation of the ratings given by the The police
citizens was conducted. Table V depicts that 23 out of the 25 items had differences or service quality in
significant differences between citizens’ perceptions of police pre-service and their
satisfaction with police performance based on the post-hoc investigation. More specifically, rural Taiwan
the item “Police staff’s interaction with citizens” (discrepancy ¼ 0.35) ranked the top of
the 25 items as having the most difference between perception and performance, followed
by “Police staff’s expertise in policing and law enforcement” (discrepancy ¼ 0.34), 533
“Consistency of police services” (discrepancy ¼ 0.33), and “Police staff’s law-abiding
ability” (discrepancy ¼ 0.32). Apparently, the results demonstrated that citizens who
reported crimes to the Kinmen Police Bureau considered the police performance good or
very good as the mean scores ranged from 3.79 to 4.24. However, their expectations were
measured higher than the satisfaction with police performance as the index of satisfaction
means scored between 3.68 and 3.95. In fact, civilians having higher expectations of
the policing service process are actually plausible since they always think of some issues

Perception Performance
Mean Mean Discrepancy
Description of items (A) SD (B) SD mean (A)(B) t-value

Locations of police agencies for citizens to

report crimes 4.02 0.759 3.81 0.687 0.21 4.170***
Equipments of police agencies 3.79 0.870 3.78 0.758 0.01 0.245
Facilities of police agencies 3.89 0.832 3.76 0.670 0.13 1.949
Availability of contact information 4.14 0.824 3.86 0.772 0.28 4.150***
Criteria of service performance 4.20 0.791 3.95 0.917 0.25 3.810***
Police staff’s trustworthy attitude 3.98 0.783 3.71 0.612 0.27 4.739***
Police staff’s law-abiding ability 4.09 0.740 3.77 0.853 0.32 5.870***
Police staff’s equity in law enforcement 4.09 0.817 3.81 0.72 0.28 3.802***
Police staff’s expertise in policing and law
enforcement 4.13 0.845 3.79 0.854 0.34 5.347***
Preparation of policing information 4.04 0.812 3.84 0.705 0.20 3.199***
Police staff’s interaction with citizens 4.22 0.786 3.87 0.770 0.35 5.123***
Police staff’s courtesy 4.14 0.779 3.86 0.693 0.31 4.919***
Convenience of procedure for reporting a
crime 4.24 0.824 3.96 0.876 0.28 4.176***
Prompt response to citizens’ requests 4.14 0.886 3.86 0.766 0.28 4.433***
Rapidity of policy propaganda by police
agencies 3.92 0.841 3.74 0.828 0.18 2.733**
Evaluation and improvement of
performance 4.01 0.823 3.85 0.850 0.16 2.40*
Police staff’s problem-solving skills 4.17 0.833 3.93 0.819 0.24 3.552***
Consistency of police services 4.02 0.787 3.69 0.752 0.33 5.116***
Tasks to ensure citizens’ safety 3.96 0.819 3.71 0.787 0.25 3.717***
Popularity of reform projects 3.93 0.826 3.68 0.772 0.25 4.153***
Immediate aid for the citizens 4.14 0.831 3.86 0.766 0.28 4.518***
Police staff’s knowledge of police agencies’
surroundings 4.06 0.801 3.87 0.729 0.19 3.290*
Police staff’s knowledge of the citizens 3.98 0.9 3.82 0.763 0.16 2.577*
Understandability of citizens’ opinions 3.98 0.787 3.78 0.883 0.20 3.426** Table V.
Communication with local citizens 3.96 0.748 3.84 0.723 0.12 2.008* Results of comparisons
of means for variables
Notes: *,**,***Represents po0.05; po0.01; po0.001 regarding the citizens
PIJPSM for future improvement. Furthermore, It is worth noting that the survey results showed
37,3 differences or significant differences in 23 attributes except for two items – “Equipments
of police agencies”, and “Facilities of police agencies”.

5.4 Comparison results regarding the police staff

With reference to the relationship between perception and performance for the police
534 staff of the KCPB, the comparison results were explored through using the analyses of
means and standard deviation and t-test. Clearly, Table VI shows the results that, for
all 25 items, significant differences exist between the staff’s perceptions of importance
and their satisfaction with performance concerning the service quality of the police
units they work for. More importantly, the item “Police staff’s expertise in policing
and law enforcement” (discrepancy ¼ 0.68) ranked the top of the 25 items as having
the most difference between perception and performance, followed by “Police staff’s

Perception Performance
Mean Mean Discrepancy Mean
Description of items (A) SD ((B) SD (A)(B) t-value

Locations of police agencies for citizens

to report crimes 4.40 0.638 4.10 0.640 0.3 6.195***
Equipments of police agencies 4.25 0.758 3.66 0.888 0.59 7.581***
Facilities of police agencies 4.17 0.735 3.64 0.808 0.53 7.348***
Availability of contact information 4.27 0.712 3.74 0.831 0.53 7.356***
Criteria of service performance 4.37 0.706 3.81 0.846 0.56 8.870***
Police staff’s trustworthy attitude 4.26 0.634 3.76 0.724 0.50 7.711***
Police staff’s law -abiding ability 4.42 0.658 3.84 0.831 0.58 8.541***
Police staff’s equity in law -
enforcement 4.47 0.610 3.92 0.804 0.55 8.457***
Police staff’s expertise in policing and
law enforcement 4.39 0.718 3.71 0.806 0.68 9.916***
Preparation of policing information 4.27 0.772 3.82 0.795 0.45 6.853***
Police staff’s interaction with citizens 4.38 0.660 3.95 0.785 0.43 7.699***
Police staff’s courtesy 4.23 0.772 3.94 0.774 0.29 5.194***
Convenience of procedure for reporting
a crime 4.34 0.685 3.79 0.900 0.55 7.890***
Prompt response to citizens’ requests 4.41 0.657 3.85 0.833 0.56 8.367***
Rapidity of policy propaganda by
police agencies 4.15 0.747 3.73 0.905 0.42 5.536***
Evaluation and improvement of
performance 4.10 0.747 3.57 0.900 0.53 7.300***
Police staff’s problem -solving skills 4.34 0.767 3.74 0.871 0.60 9.067***
Consistency of police services 4.23 0.742 3.74 0.832 0.49 6.942***
Tasks to ensure citizens’ safety 4.25 0.728 3.81 0.827 0.44 6.334***
Popularity of reform projects 4.08 0.776 3.71 0.813 0.37 5.486***
Immediate aid for the citizens 4.37 0.691 3.98 0.824 0.39 6.542***
Police staff’s knowledge of police
agencies’ surroundings 4.37 0.633 3.96 0.806 0.41 6.641***
Police staff’s knowledge of the citizens 4.28 0.684 3.94 0.868 0.34 5.209***
Table VI. Understandability of citizens’ opinions 4.23 0.680 3.65 0.915 0.58 7.796***
Results of comparisons Communication with local citizens 4.20 0.756 3.75 0.892 0.45 6.111***
of means for variables
regarding the police staff Note: ***Represents po0.001
problem-solving skills” (discrepancy ¼ 0.60), “Equipments of police agencies” The police
(discrepancy ¼ 0.59), and “Police staff’s law-abiding ability” (discrepancy ¼ 0.58). service quality in
The results demonstrated that citizens who reported crimes to the KCPB considered
the police performance good or very good as the mean values scored from 3.79 to 4.24. rural Taiwan
However, their expectations were measured higher than the satisfaction with police
performance as the mean scores were between 3.68 and 3.95. The results indicated
that the police staff regarded all 25 items of service quality to be important and very 535
important; however, they were not satisfied with what they had performed in all of the
attributes listed on Table VI.
The aforementioned outcome shows that police staffs scoring performance
lower than perception is actually a little bit contradictory in the beginning.
However, Spencer-Rodgers et al. (2004) found that, compared to Americans, Chinese
self-evaluations are more ambivalent in the sense of incorporating both positive
and negative self-evaluations. In short, compared to North Americans, East Asians
describe themselves and their feelings in a more dialectical fashion. Hamamura
et al. (2008) also addressed the issue of cultural differences in response styles and
demonstrated the importance of considering dialectical thinking when interpreting
results from cross-cultural surveys which can be regarded as an explanation for
why Kinmen police staff perceived perception important but self-evaluated their
performance lower in this study.

5.5 Correlation analysis results for dimensions

To further examine the correlation between the five dimensions with respect to the
police service quality, the Pearson correlation analysis was employed to provide
invariance to rescaling the whole data vectors by a common multiplication factors and
additive component offsets. Table VII shows the values with reference to the five
constructs, namely tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy which
are responsible for seizing distinctive characteristics of service quality. The Pearson
correlation coefficients were from a low of 0.576 to a high of 0.785 (being close to 1.0).
The results demonstrate a strong and positive correlation between the five dimensions,
indicating that they are significantly associated with each other in relation to the police
service quality.

6. Conclusions and implications

The research adds empirical support to this vein of literature and has identified the five
main dimensions with the 25 sub-dimensions as important constructs for police service
quality. In the study, the survey results illustrated a positive correlation between
citizens’ satisfaction and the five main dimensions of police service quality, i.e.

Construct Tangibility Reliability Responsiveness Assurance Empathy

Tangibility – 0.692** 0.576** 0.580** 0.646**

Reliability – 0.727** 0.732** 0.758**
Responsiveness – 0.736** 0.723**
Assurance – 0.785** Table VII.
Empathy – Pearson correlation
analysis results
Note: **Represents po0.01 for dimensions
PIJPSM Tangibility, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, and Empathy, supporting the
37,3 conceptual framework of the research that service quality positively affects higher
satisfaction.
Furthermore, the findings of this research are described as follows. First,
the assessed expectations for both citizens and police officers were obviously
higher than their satisfaction with police performance. The results suggest that
536 there is a significant shortfall in meeting customer expectations; however, the
police force appears to have a similar understanding of what these expectations
actually are, compared with the survey results of the citizens. According to the
survey results, these dissatisfying factors include, in the main, police officers’
expertise and skills in law enforcement and serving people, insufficiencies of police
equipments, and lack of professionalism.
Second, there also appear to be gaps in the police force’s ability to meet established
standards, and in its ability to deliver the level of service it promises to customers
(citizens). Almost all standards listed for measurement had differences or significant
differences between perceptions and police performance, for citizens and police officers
alike. Therefore, there is a gap between the expectation of service quality and
the quality actually perceived by a client. These can be described as gaps between
consumer expectations and management perception, between management perception
and service quality specifications, and between service quality specifications and
service delivery. Clearly, Taiwanese police authorities should take measures to improve
and ameliorate such incompetence.
Third, although different researchers have included different variables of service
quality in their studies (Engel et al., 1993; Spreng et al., 1996; Chen and Tsai, 2007;
Bosque and Martin, 2008), this study specifically placed citizens’ and police officers’
perceptions of service quality under indicators that affect the satisfaction of police
performance. By conducting the Pearson correlation analysis, the results reemphasize
a strong and positive relationship between the five dimensions, i.e. Tangibility, Reliability,
Responsiveness, Assurance, and Empathy, signifying that they can be exemplified to
identify the service quality factors of the police force. The 25 conceptualized
characteristics of policing in Kinmen were also identified in the elements of police
service quality. Therefore, it can be concluded that measuring factors such as service
quality and satisfaction from different angles is an important task to further establish a
client awareness and image for policing. This concept reconfirms the extant literature that
customer perceptions and satisfaction may result in the success of the policing
management.
Overall, all these findings may result in an interpretation that service quality acts
as an antecedent of customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the study results connote the
notion that high quality services will naturally increase the quality of the performance,
which will lead to high customer satisfaction. From managerial perspectives,
police managers should consider both the service quality and customer satisfaction
constructs as determinants of behavioural intentions, based on the fact that satisfaction
can be a strategic key to maintain long term relationship with citizens as it is found
of significant impact on the intentional behaviour (of customer royalty). In light of the
results, officers of policing have to satisfy their citizens with a high level of service quality
based on different localities, because service quality may have a significant influence
on long-term behavioural intentions through high levels of customer satisfaction.
The study results also suggest that, to satisfy the citizens who may be in difficulties
or need services, the police service providers should emphasise quick and consistent
services (for assurance), show courteous dealing, willingness to help, and interaction The police
of goodwill (for responsiveness), and transmit trust, expertise, and professionalism service quality in
(for reliability).
In conclusion, the research reports few of the original applications of the SERVQUAL rural Taiwan
approach to police services, and will be of interest to strategic and operational police
service managers and to academics investigating the reliability and value of service
quality assessment tools. However, it is argued that the primary dimensions and 537
sub-dimensions should be identified using an appropriate qualitative and quantitative
analysis regarding service quality and satisfaction, because they may also vary across
industries and cultures (Clemes et al., 2007). Besides, the primary SERVQUAL
instrument appears to be internally consistent but lacks discriminatory validity
between the five SERVQUAL dimensions in this service arena. In addition, the
measurement of outcomes, especially interconnections between police activities
and those activities’ effects on accident and crime statistics or citizens’ sense of security
is problematic (Rickards and Ritsert, 2008). To measure whether police activities result
in long-term changes in behaviour (impacts) is also difficult to determine because a
variety of actors are involved in internal security, not just the police (Lange and
Schenck, 2004). In consideration of these limitations, although this study adds a
number of important concepts to the extant literature as well as provides important
contributions for the policing management, it is suggested that future research may
be directed at a qualitative methodology, or a different methodology combining a
qualitative one.

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37,3
About the authors
Chien Min Chen is a Professor in the Department of Tourism Management at the National
Kinmen (Quemoy) University, Taiwan. He also teaches in the Graduate School of Social Sciences
542 at the National Kinmen University. He holds a PhD from the Chinese Culture University of
Taiwan. His interests and areas of research include tourism management, service quality and
Asian studies. He has published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Tourism Management,
International Journal of Tourism Research, Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research and the
International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration, etc.
Professor Hong Tau Lee obtained his PhD from the Industrial and Information Department,
National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. He is now an Editorial Board member of the
International Journal of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management and the International
Journal of Project Organization and Management. His current research interests include human
resources management, performance evaluation and applying OR to forecasting or production/
inventory systems.
Professor Sheu Hua Chen obtained her PhD in Transportation and Communication
Management Science from the National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. She is a Professor of
Distribution Management at the National Chin-Yi University of Technology in Taiwan. Her
research interests include large-scale system optimisation, logistics and supply chain management,
artificial intelligence and fuzzy sets application. She has published papers in International Journal
of Tourism Research, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Quality
& Quantity.
Tsung Hsien Tsai is an Assistant Professor of Tourism Management at the National Kinmen
(Quemoy) University, Taiwan. He studied Transportation Management Science specializing in
demand analysis and completed his PhD dissertation in the field of forecasting. His main
research interests include choice behaviour, forecasting and pricing. He has published papers in
Transportation Research Part C, Quality & Quantity, Expert Systems with Applications, Journal of
the Chinese Institute of Transportation. Tsung Hsien Tsai is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: thtsai@nqu.edu.tw

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