Internationalization of Service Quality.a Case of Kuala Lumpur International

International Journal of Business and Behavioral Sciences
Vol. 2, No.12; December 2012
Internationalization of Service Quality: A Case of Kuala Lumpur International

Airport, Malaysia.
*Norudin Mansor, & Sh. Ainaa Mardhiyah Syed Redhwan
Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Terengganu, Malaysia.
*norudinm@tganu.uitm.edu.my
Abstract
This study intends to measure the stakeholders respond about the internationalization of
KLIA services as one of the best airport in the world. The methodological approach taken for
the investigation used quota sampling, where 456 respondents were selected from three
main subgroups: namely passengers, airport personnel, and airport tenants. The two
independent variables concerning service environment and service personnel demonstrated
that they correlate well each other. Both variables similarly indicated that they are
significant towards developing the relationship with service quality of the airport. Further
testing on the hypotheses revealed that both environment and service personnel are able to
explain 60% on the perceived internationalization of service quality. The findings of the study
is useful as it provide the managerial implications that explained KLIA should maintain what
had been offered while issues concerning the spending behaviour based on income should be
segmented carefully so as to satisfy the need of the user group.
Keyword: service quality, environment, service personnel
1. Introduction
In most service business, discussion on its ability to meet the demand of the customers and meeting
the challenges of the industry is always debatable. In fact the interest in measuring the relevancy of
service quality continuously increased over the years. As mentioned by Wirtz and Lovelock (2011),
services can be defined as an economic activities offered by one party to another. In exchange for
money, time, and effort, servicing customers expect value from access to goods, labor, professional
skills, facilities, network and system; but they do not normally take ownership of the physical
elements involved. Perhaps a key distinction between goods and services lies in the fact that
customers usually derive value from services without obtaining ownership to any of the tangible
elements (Lovelock, 2001). Whereas quality can be define in many ways because the definition is
very subjective and each Guru will have their own perspective towards the words of quality itself.
Parasuraman et al. (1988) informed that service quality is an abstract construct, largely because of
the intangibility, heterogeneity, and inseparability of production and consumption that are unique to
something been offered. People can easily define the quality of a product because by nature it is
tangible where people can see, touch, taste and smell where as it is totally different with the
services. Service quality is hard to be judge just by looking on it. Customers have to experience the
service themselves and also with the aid of physical aspects and advertising, only then they can
make any perception towards the service. Hence, it is not easy for the service provider to perform
the service without any physical elements aid and also customers themselves could not simply
makes any judgement on the service quality that provide by the service provider without having any
dimensions of service quality such as reliability, tangibility, responsiveness, assurance and empathy.
Parasuraman et al. (1985) identified ten determinants, or dimensions that customers use in forming
expectations about, and perceptions of service quality: access, communication, competence,
courtesy, credibility, reliability, responsiveness, security, tangibles, and understanding / knowing the
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customer. These ten were later reduced to five through exploratory factor analysis by Parasuraman,
et al. (1988). The five final dimensions factored are tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance
and empathy.
Previously, services are very hard to enter the global market because one of its features which are
highly intangible that make the process becomes more complex. Intangibility which is define as
something that people could not see, touch, smell or even taste but it only can be feel through
experience the service itself. It is often discovered that through this process it is very difficult for the
customer to visualize the service offered by the service provider. It is different from product where
people can see, touch, smell and taste the texture or material of the product. Moreover, they can
get the picture of a product that the company offers through the advertisement and feel confident
to use the product because they can directly see what are actually they want to buy. Hence, high
intangibility features become constraints to services. At the airport, passengers encounter a bundle
of tangible and intangible services in a physical setting in which Bitner (1992) might characterize it as
an elaborate services cape, similar to a hospital, with many corridors, queues, signs and complex
interactions.
Nowadays, in the new technology era or in a global technology, a lot of thing is possible to happen or
easily can be produce such as advance car, use advance methods to communicate with people
across the border such as an e-mail, video conferences, and Skype. Recent improvements in
technology, coupled with reductions in trade barriers, have allowed services to move into the global
market environment (Atuahene-Gima, 1995; Patterson and Cicik, 1995), and thus provide an
advantage for them to enter the global market as compared to before. There are many services
companies especially in Malaysia have successfully enter the global market such as food industries
like Ani Sup Utara, airport services such as Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), Penang
Airport, Langkawi Airport, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu Airport. Among the industries, airports seem to
have a consistent growth segment in the travel and transportation industry (Danyliew and Cohen,
1997).
According to International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in the Annex 14 (2009) which is the
relevant international standards specified in the Annex of the Chicago Convention, the definition of
airport includes land and buildings comprised in an aerodrome. An international airport refers to an
airport that provides facilities and services to process airlines and air travellers with international
connection. Since the inception of KLIA in June 1998, it is important for Malaysia to have such an
airport in order to support and promote the country towards generating income and indirectly
further promoting and boosting up tourism industry. There are many factors that make an airport to
become an international airport. Among others it include such as an airport must have international
route and they must have an international airlines that use their airport service such as Royal
Jordanian, KUWAIT AIRWAYS, EVA AIR and many more. Even though KLIA is an international airport,
they still could not be at the top ranking airport for category 2540 Maximum Passenger per Annum
(MPPA). At the moment the best airport for this category is Incheon Airport, South Korea. Moreover,
for the World Wide Airport category, statistic for the second quarter which at the end of June 2012,
KLIA was at the nine (9th) positions. Hence, there is a need to enhance the capabilities of KLIA by
observing factors like demand from passenger, airport servicescapes, human resource management,
technology, safety, manpower, facilities, and many more other determinants.
KLIA is one of Malaysia Airport Holdings Berhad (MAHB) subsidiaries as well as Asia's major aviation
hubs and is a destination in itself. It is located at the top of the southern corridor of Peninsular
Malaysia, bordering the states of Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. It is situated in the Sepang district,
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approximately 50 km from the capital city, Kuala Lumpur. KLIA is a unique airport because it has
within its boundaries all that is needed for business, entertainment and relaxation. The airport is
part and parcel of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) where placement of high technology
industries are being actively pursued. KLIA is surrounded by four main cities: Kuala Lumpur, Shah
Alam, Seremban and Malacca. The Main Terminal Building area was designed using the concept of
Airport in the forest, forest in the airport, in which it is surrounded by green space. This was done
with the co-operation of the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia. KLIA in fact is the only airport
that was awarded Green Globe award since 2004 due to its commitment to promote environment
friendly responsibility while catering the need of local and foreign travellers.
1.1
Problem Statement/Research Questions
There is a growing concerned in the service marketing literature that service marketing are different
because due to nature of its services. That is because of their inherent intangibility, perishability,
heterogeneity and inseparability (Shostack, 1977). Hence, because of these features, it is difficult for
services to enter the global market as compared to product.
Continuous attempts had been deployed, from time to time through the use of technology and
innovations and several other strategies to help service industries especially for airport services such
as KLIA, Changi Airport, Heathrow Airport, Lean Airport, and a few others to remain in top ranking.
Based on the survey initiated by Airport Service Quality (ASQ), through Malaysian Airport Consultant
Services (MACS) in June 2012, KLIA was ranked to be at the third (3rd) place among the world best
airport for category 25 40 Maximum Passenger per Annum. Maintaining the current position
remained a challenge to the management and it need continuous effort to maintain at that stage.
Even though KLIA already being an international airport for several years ago but still it is difficult for
them to compete with the other airport within the same categories such as Incheon and New Delhi
airport. While striving to remain competitive, several issues concerning what are actually the main
determinants that derive the airport to be among the reputable international airport remained to be
a major concerned. Moreover, despite of the great effort initiated by the management, KLIA lost its
ranking to New Delhi International Airport (2nd place) which is a developing airport and be at the
third place for category 25 40 Maximum Passenger per Annum. Based on the discussion with
several management personnel and reviewing of past literatures, there seems to be many factors
that might influence internationalization of service quality in KLIA. Hence, this research is expected
to explore elements such as servicescape and service personnel that are believed to influence the
internationalization of service quality in KLIA. The focus more on these determinants is appropriate
because based on the information given by MACS who was responsible to conduct a survey on
Airport Service Quality (ASQ) stated that, There are 33 items measuring cleanliness, ambient, ATM
facilities, courtesy of the staff, accessibility, and few others that formed part of service quality
indicators that needed management attention. In fact the main reason why KLIA is difficult to be at
the first rank in whatever categories is because of the cleanliness because KLIA use a Wet Toilet
Concept. Upon reviewing the instruments that was developed by MACS while at the same time,
based on reviewing of several literatures, (Caldwell and Hibbert 2002; Herrington and Capella 1996;
Holbrook and Anand 1990; Yalch and Spangenberg 2000, Kellaris and Kent 1992, Dube et al. 1995),
the variables concerning, service personnel and servicescapes found to be very relevant to be
further investigated.
1.2
Research Objectives
To examine the relationship of the selected variable (servicescapes, service personnel) with
internationalization of service quality.
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To investigate the differences among the selected variable (age, level of income) with
To examine which of the selected factor that have more significant impact on
internationalization of service quality in KLIA.
1.3
Significance and Scope of the Study
This study is very important to some related parties such as KLIA, MAHB and also to the Malaysian
government itself. Hence, through this investigation it is expected to provide new ideas that may be
useful towards improving the KLIA in order for them to be at the top of airport world class ranking.
As the study aims to examine the internationalization of service quality in KLIA, further attempts
focus on the perceptions of the service quality and what are the determinants that influence the
internationalization of service quality at KLIA are very much related. In terms of the unit of analysis,
the investigation will focus on the customer or passengers who use the KLIA services, the staff who
work at KLIA and also tenant or vendor that operate in KLIA building. The number of 456 samples
taken from those three populations discovered to be reasonably adequate in arriving at the
generalization for the KLIA operation.
2. Literature review
2.1
Service quality in airport
Service has several different determinants from product such as high intangibility, cannot be see,
cannot be touch, smell or even taste but only can be feel by experiencing the service itself. Hence,
services are more challenging to be visualizing by the service provider and customer and it is difficult
for the customer to display their confidence of the service unless they experience the service by
themselves by comparing standard and perceptions of result performance (Saura et.al, 2008).
Moreover, other associated determinant which is services could not be owned like product but only
rent by the customer. Hence, because of this determinant, services also involved tangibility features
such as facilities, service personnel and service ambient that help the service providers to perform
their service. Physical quality relates to the tangible aspects of a service (Lehtinen and Lehtinen,
1982). In a nutshell, service not only involves intangibility aspects but also helping by the tangible
aspects to help the service provider to perform their work. Manufacturing or automobile industry or
even Small and Medium Industries (SMI) for example, may have to produce a good quality product in
order to have a good expectations from customers and same goes to service oriented where they
need to provide a good service quality in term of many aspects such as service provider itself,
facilities, service ambient or environment, technology and many other aspects in order to attract
customer to use the services offered and make them satisfied or maybe more than satisfied with
the service provided (Siddiqi, 2011; Yee et.al., 2010) such as in an airport industry.
Nowadays, airport industry is one of services that have been consistently growing. The operational
activities of MAHB formed part of countrys revenue where all charges at the airport either
aeronautical or non-aeronautical operated under MAHB were imposed and determined by the
government. Hence, airport needs to perform in a quality manner either the employee who works at
the airport or facilities such as restaurant, ATM, hotel, washrooms, and others that use at the airport
to perform the service. Some determinants of service quality in airport are important in order for
them to be an international airport. Service quality is the delivery of excellent or superior service
related to customer expectations. Zeithaml and Bitner, (1996) and Lehtinen and Lehtinen (1982)
defined service quality in terms of physical quality, interactive quality and corporate (image) quality.
Service quality is customers long-term, cognitive evaluations of any institutions service delivery
(Norudin Mansor & Che Hamdan, 2010). Customers will usually compare the service that they expect
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to receive from the service provider during the pre-purchase stage and compare it after they have
experience the service which is during the post purchase stage. Lovelock and Wright (1999) stated
that, after buying and consuming the service, customers compare its expected quality with what
they actually received. A better quality of service will increase the expectation of customer towards
the service. Higher levels of service quality lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction (Gotlieb et
al., 1994; Kang and James, 2004; Oliver, 1997). The zone-of-tolerance (ZOT) theory conceptualized
by Parasuraman et al. (1991) suggests that service quality perceptions are dependent upon
consumers expectations. Customer expectation can be determine by using the Zone of Tolerance
(ZOT) theory where when the service provided exceeding the desired service level, it will delight
customers within the zone of tolerance where they receive a service as what they have expect or
maybe when they are performing too low, it will cause frustration and dissatisfaction. At the airport,
service provider and all the facilities such as washroom, waiting seat, shopping, and escalator, will
help the airport to perform the good quality service in a quality manner. Moreover, service quality is
very important in order to get a good feedback or perception from the customer towards our
service. In order to become an international airport, it is important for the airport to provide an
attractive and a good service quality either from the staff at the airport or even the facilities use at
the airport besides the schedule or service route provided.
2.2
Service Environment at airport
Ambient is one of important determinants that can provide attraction and satisfaction to customer
especially among those using whatever services rendered at the airport. Servicescapes or service
environment can be defined as the style and appearance of the physical surroundings and other
experiential elements encountered by customers at service delivery sites. In services industry,
ambient is one of important factor that could not be seeing, touch, smell or even taste. The physical
environment is particularly relevant in highly intangible services (Berry, 1980) and in services where
the consumer experiences the product or services offered by the firm (Booms and Bitner, 1986).
Servicescapes comprise the physical environments of service organizations where service
transactions occur. Hence, it is hard for the service provider to visualize the service without having
any aid supported by physical elements like chair, rice cooker, table, and other related materials.
Also the perception of ambient itself such as sign, scent, symbol, music, and colour, which are highly
subjective to the customers provide an input for measuring service environment. It is necessary for
service provider to design or provide a good service environment so that the customer can
experience the service happily and have intention to use the service in future or maybe spread it
positively to their relatives or friends about the services. Pleasant music, compared with less
pleasant music, is associated with longer consumption times (Caldwell and Hibbert 2002; Herrington
and Capella 1996; Holbrook and Anand 1990; Yalch and Spangenberg 2000), shorter time
perceptions (Kellaris and Kent 1992), less negative emotional reactions to waiting (Hui, Dube, and
Chebat 1997), more favourable attitudes toward the servicescape (Dube and Morin 2001; North
and Hargreaves 1996), an increased desire to affiliate, more positive attitudes toward the provider
(Dube et al. 1995), and more favourable service outcomes like evaluation, patronage intentions and
behaviours (Caldwell and Hibbert 2002; Herrington and Capella 1996; Hui, Dube, and Chebat 1997;
North and Hargreaves 1996).
Service environment provided by the airport management must include the elements such as sign
and symbol as a direction for the passenger. Empirical studies confirm that these factors influence
service quality perceptions of restaurants (Milliman, 1986) and retail venues (Milliman, 1986; Yalch
and Spangenberg, 1988). As an additional attractiveness to the airport, they also can play with the
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colour, temperature, music, and scents, so that the passenger will feel comfortable whenever they
being in the airport. The first elements in ambient is sign and symbol which is very important for an
airport to have a good, clear and simple sign and symbol at the airport so that it can direct the
passenger to their destiny. For example, a sign and symbol that should be provided in airport such as
domestic and international flight, the counter where they should go, and toilet sign. By having this
sign and symbol, it will help the airport staff to focus on doing the other job. A clear and enough sign
and symbol are needed in services industry especially in airport which can be understood by
everybody especially for international receipents where the people come from all over the world
with different culture and languages. So, the airport management have to think the best way to
manage such situation with the use of second language like english, which is easily understandable.
Hence, through the above efforts the management can reduce the number of complaint from the
passenger.
Referring to the work of Lewins (1951), environment-behavioural theory suggests that individuals
interact with the environment, resulting in certain responses and behaviours. The comfortable
environment for the passengers is important in order to attract the passenger to use the airport
service next time. Bitner (1992) has indicated that each dimension may affect the overall perception
of the environment either directly or through the interaction with others dimensions and that
customers and employees may respond cognitively, emotionally and psychologically to the
environment. Besides that, the sound such as announcement must be very clear and not too loud
until it can annoy the passengers. For example at Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) in Sepang,
Malaysia, most of the passenger who had used the airport services was unsatisfied about the sound
for the announcement as it is not too clear and sometimes it is too slow until could not be heard by
the passenger. Same goes with the temperature in the airport which is hot and uncomfortable to the
passenger. So, ambient is one of the important determinants of service quality especially in service
industry because it will help the passenger to experience the service happily and feel comfortable
whenever they are in the airport. The role of signage in perceived service quality has been
established in research (Callan and Kyndt, 2001). Another example of airport that provides a good
service environment is Changi Airport, Singapore. From the observation done on Changi Airport, not
only the facilities but also the environment there was very calm and comfortable including the
temperature, lighting, sounds for announcement and the surrounding was very good and because of
that too, Changi Airport can be the second place for the Best Airport Worldwide. Passenger not only
focuses on the service route, scheduling, facilities but also the airport environments which can make
them feel calm and comfortable in the airport. Csikszentmihalyis (1997) typology specifically
identifies shopping and eating out as maintenance activities.
2.3
Role of service personnel at airport
Inseparability is one of the services characteristics where services are typically cannot be separated
from the person of the seller or service provider. In other words, without service provider services
cannot be perform and without services, service provider cannot perform their job. Service provider
also is a core part of the product, the service firm and also the brand. It shows that the service
provider is a representative of the service firm and if the service delivered by the service provider is
poor, than the perception of customer towards the service firm will be below expectation. Service
provider is a person who directly or indirectly meets with the customer and delivers the service
through physically, possession or mental stimulus. According to Leidner (1993) and Ritzer (2000), call
centres and fast food outlets commonly script employees verbal interactions with customers.
Hence, it is important to have good service personnel in order to deliver good services to customer.
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The role of airport service employees is very important because the airport user is not just from the
people from the country itself, but people from all over the world. Hence it is important to have a
good airport staff in order to cater the job. Moreover, the passengers not only judge the airport
service quality through the facilities provided by the airport but also the airport staff. Other
influence on service quality perceptions where customers physical presence is required for service
delivery is interactions with service personnel (Bitner, 1990, 1992; Brady and Cronin, 2001; Brown
and Swartz, 1989; Dabholkar et al., 1996; Elliott, 1995; Groonroos, 1982).In airport, the staff can be
classified into three categories which are high contact services which is frontline employees, low
contact services and very low contact services person. All these categories are important even they
are not directly interacting with the passenger. High contact services which are frontline employees
such as ticketing counter and information counter, formed the first impression whether the services
performed able to meet the expectation of customers. If their service is poor then the airport will be
label as poor too or otherwise. There are many components of quality which can be used to evaluate
service personnel in order to achieve good airport service quality such as tangibles, reliability,
responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. For example, the tangibility of airport staff such as their
physical appearance must represent the company and it can be recognise by the passenger. In term
of responsiveness, they must be helpfulness and provide a prompt service to passenger when it is
needed. Besides that, the element of courtesy is very important where the airport staff must use a
proper body language, voice tone whenever they give their service to the passenger. Soft skills has
tended to concentrate on aspects such as social and interpersonal skills which are largely concerned
with ensuring employees are responsive, courteous and understanding with customers or in simple
terms can demonstrate emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983).
3. Methodology
3.1
Research design
This is descriptive research and data were gathered cross-sectionally. Through this design it provides
a guideline to conduct more comprehensive data collection activities with less time consuming. As
the nature of data is quantitative, through extensive reviewing of past literature, the most
appropriate variables were considered to be main components of the theoretical framework which
formed the basis of the study (Sekaran and Bougie, 2010). The next phase of the research activity
involved the processing of data by statistically analyzing them to arrive at the conclusion and
recommendation phase. As the approach taken for conducting this study is descriptive in nature, the
investigation of all data collected will be explored and tested in item of its relationship between the
selected independent variables and the dependent variable. The data will be further tested in term
of identifying which determinants that have more significant impact to internationalization of
service quality in KLIA.
3.2
Theoretical Framework
(refer to Figure 1 at the appendix)
3.3
Sampling technique
In the process of selecting the sufficient number of the right elements from the population, the
study had selected the appropriate sample technique that can reprisal the properties or
characteristics of the population elements through quota sampling. With this sampling design the
research is expected to address the question from which we need to obtain the required
information. The decision of the sample size for the study followed the table generated by Krejcie
and Morgan (1970). The researcher takes 456 samples as the appropriate respondents size to
analyse the data in this study. At the initial phase of the sampling technique, the research use quota
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sampling as a sampling approach in order to get the most efficient representation of the population.
Then following the second phase, the technique adopted the purposive approach for the execution
of samples selected. The researcher decides to divide the sample representations into three
categories which are passenger, tenants and airport staff. Thus the total quota for the sampling for
the sampling is three groups (quotas). The table 1 below (refer to appendix) displayed the
breakdown of the population and sample for the study.
As for the year 2011, the total population estimated to be approximately 106,375. Out of the total
population, the largest population come from passenger which total to be approximately
103,300/day followed by the airport staff which is 2725 and the smallest group represented by
tenants which the total of 350. Based on this population size, the sampling size for each group is
taken on proportionate basis. Thus the sample size from the passenger, airport staff and tenants are
394, 31 and 31 respectively. Since the selected sample size for airport staff and tenants are 10 and 1
which is not efficient for the minimum requirement of efficient statistical analysis, thus the sample
size were inflated to be 30 (refer to Roscoe, 1970).
3.4
Data Collection Method
When distributing a questionnaire, the researcher adopted personally administered questionnaire
approach to obtain the necessary information from respondent within the building of KLIA. The
personally administered questionnaire is the best way to get a respondent as the researcher will be
able to collect all complete response from respondent in a short time compare to another type of
questionnaire such as mail questionnaire and electronic questionnaire which generate the low
respond rate. Besides that, the researchers were able to motivate and get close with respondent for
clarifying any misunderstanding about the questionnaire. Thus, the result of inaccurate data will be
reduced and the chance of obtaining high respond is possible.
3.5
Research Instrument
In this research, the pre-formulated questionnaire was used as the research instrument and were
divided into four sections which are A, B, C, and D. Every each section will be represented by each
variable to answer research objective. Each question will be measured using a Likert scale technique
ranging from strongly agree or strongly disagree with statement on a five point scale, except for
section A where nominal scale been used
In section A, the questions are expected to explore demographic profiles of the respondent. This
part may include the respondents status, age, income and services route. All the information related
to the background of respondent will be identified related to Internationalization of Service Quality
in KLIA and tabulated.
Section B is expected to formulate question related to second factors of independent variable which
is service environment. In general, the question aimed to determine whether the service
environment is one of the expected determinants that influence internationalization of service
quality in KLIA. Question in Section C is related to service personnel. The items measuring in this
section will investigate to what extent service personnel characteristic can be the determinants of
international service quality in KLIA. While in Section D, which is the main focus of the study
measured Internationalization of Service Quality in KLIA.
3.6
Hypothesis Formulation
Following the design of the research framework, five (5) hypotheses that can be show below.
H1A: There is a significant relationship between service personnel and internationalization of
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H1B: There is a significant relationship between service environment and internationalization of

H2A: There is a significant difference between income and internationalization of service quality in
KLIA.
H2B: There is a significant difference between respondent category and internationalization of
H3A: All the selected variable (service personnel, servicescapes) are able to explain the
internationalization of service quality in KLIA.
4. Research findings
4.1
Reliability Analysis
The reliability of a measure is established by testing for both consistency and stability. In ensuring
the observed data measuring a concept hang together, the data collected was subjected to further
reliability of measure. According to Sekaran & Bougie (2010), the reliability that is less than 0.60 is
generally considered to be poor, those in range of 0.70 to be acceptable and those over 0.80 to be
good. The result for the reliability test of this research is shown below.
There were initially nine (9) items been used in order to measure variable concerning service
personnel. The result of the analysis indicated the alpha of 0.940. However, there were two (2) items
found to be negative and far below 0.3 based on corrected item total correlation. Thus only seven
(7) items were used to measure the service personnel. Similarly with service quality determinants
which was initially consists of 12 items to measure variable concerning service quality. The result of
the analysis indicated the alpha of 0.965. However, there were six (6) item found to be negative and
far below 0.3 based on corrected item total correlation. Therefore we decided to use six (6) items to
measure the variable. For service environment determinants, there were 12 items which initially use
in order to measure the variable. The result of the analysis indicated the alpha of 0.904, and all the
items found to be reliable.
4.2
Frequency distributions
Frequency analysis is used to analyze the overall information of the respondent based on profile
information. The distribution of the sample is shown below: (refer to appendix)
The above table showed the profile of the respondent. Out of 456 respondents in this research, 154
are foreign passengers, 240 are local passengers and 31 are airport staffs and tenants involved in the
survey. The greatest representation of respondents are local passengers (52.6%), follow by the
foreign passengers (33.8%) and airport staff and tenants (6.8%).
Reviewing on the age groups, 28.5% of them were 18-25 years old who is respectively to measure
the determinants of internationalization of service quality. Those in the age range of 26-34 years old
were 39.5% which is the highest percentage among the age range. For age 35-43, the percentage
was 13.4%, age 44-53 showed the percentage of 11.2%. However, respondent who are above 54
years old were only represented by 7.5%.
The next analysis is referring to the element of the gender where 47.6% of them were male and
followed by majority group of this study which were female with the percentage of 52.4%. For the
element of income, the highest percentage for income level between RM4001 and above was 33.3%,
followed by RM1501-3000 (25.9%), RM 800-1500 (25.4%) and the smallest percentage for income
level between RM 3001-4000 (15.4%). Last but not least is the analysis for the elements of service
route where the highest percentage was airport user (passenger, airport staff, tenants) that used the
domestic service route (54.6%), follow by airport user that used international service route (43.9%),
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whereas (1.1%) and (0.4%) were for the airport user that never use either domestic and
international service route.
4.3
Correlation of coefficient
The analysis for correlation of coefficient was tested by using the Pearson Correlation Matrix. The
Pearsons scrutiny is appropriate to analyze this type of analysis as suggested by Sekaran & Bougie
(2010). The rules of thumb have been proposed by De Vaus (2002) to characterize the strength of
association between variables, based on the absolute size of the correlation of coefficient.
The results of the coefficient analysis showed that the relationship between the independent
variables involving service environment and service personnel with the internationalization of
service KLIA having a substantial to very strong correlation as be showing according to p value that
are 0.725 and 0.735. it seems that all the factors having a significant relationship toward
internationalization of service quality based on 0.000 as are showed in the table 4 above (see
appendix).
4.4
Multiple Regression analysis
Regression is another method for measuring the linear association between a dependent variable
and independent variables. It also become as a subsequent after the Pearson correlation coefficient
measure. As regression and correlation are closely related, regression assumes the dependent is
predicatively linked to the independent. Moreover, regression analysis is used in order to
substantiate the hypotheses testing.
Table 5 (see appendix) displayed the combination between service environment and service
personnel coefficient regression. Service personnel discovered to be the major determinant as
indicated by beta value of 0.438, followed by service environment at 0.398. The t-value show that
the combination of the determinants facilities, service environment and service personnel have
significant relationship with internationalization of service quality.
Through the comparison of R-square that showed in Model Summary (table 6) are showed that the
result is 61.1% from the two independent variable are able to explain the relationship
internationalization of service quality. The evidence became stronger through the significant that is
at 0.000. 38.9% are unexplained as indicated in the above model summary.
4.5
T-test and Analysis of variance (anova)
A t-test will indicate if the perceived differences are significantly different for two groups
(Sekaran&Bougie, 2010). For this study, T-test was conducted for gender of respondents upon
The result of the t-test shown is in Table 7 (see appendix). As stated there, the difference in the
means of 4.89 and 4.89 with standard deviation of 1.07 and 1.06 for the male and female in thought
toward internationalization of service quality is not significant. Thus gender is not the main issue
that needed special attention in ensuring the expectation of the customer to be met.
A test of difference was performed for observing the possibility of income need to be evaluated by
the management of KLIA. The result from ANOVA revealed that there is asignificant difference at
0.029. It seems that those from higher income bracket are less satisfied with customers in the lower
income bracket.
5. Conclusion
Sustaining appropriate efficient service delivery is always a major concern for most nations in the
world if they are interested to promote all the positive value that the nations carries. As such, by
having an efficient service quality delivery it would have a significant impact not only on the
development of the industry but to the image of the nation as a whole. It is the attempt of this paper
20
to investigate the relationship between only two variables (service environment and service
personnel) that are expected to portray its contribution to the internationalization of service quality
in KLIA as the gatekeeper for those entering Malaysia through the airport.
The management of the airport should be aware that the activities involving maintaining
internationalization of KLIA demand consistent improvement not only with the airport environment,
personnel enhancement, but items like current and advance facilities should be kept abreast.
Changes in the customers need and lifestyle, while at the same maintaining competitive advantage
definitely requires the updating of much better environment as well as improving the personnel
capabilities of the airport staff. In fact there is a need to equipped with the airport staff with the
principles of Customer Relationship Management (Norudin Mansor et.al, 2012)
Other than establishing the relationship between the two selected dimensions (service environment,
service personnel), the study also intended to describe the need to analyse the importance of
understanding differences among the profiles of the unit of analysis towards their perception on the
internationalization of service quality. However the inclusion of profiles does not have much impact
on the relationship or differences. The only interesting analysis to be noted in this study is the need
to further explore the role of income as a factor that can shape the perceived acceptance of the
internationalization of KLIA service quality.
It is important to note that this investigation only considers two independents variables which are
believed to contribute to the perception on the internationalization of service quality. Upon
reviewing of the r-square value as well as other earlier research findings, there could be several
other dimensions which could strengthen the research model. As such for further study we are
proposing that there is a need to include other variables. In order to get a much better
generalization the pool of respondents especially from the airport staff as well as the airport tenants
should be increased so that a much deeper analysis can be performed within the sub group.
Although no attempt has been made to investigate the effect on service quality on the satisfaction,
but the data generated to some extent provide some insight that the concept of internationalization
of service quality is useful in predicting the stakeholders satisfaction (Gloria, 2011).
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Appendix
Independent Variable
Service Environment
Service Personnel
Dependent Variable
Internationalization of
Service Quality
Figure 1: The Research Framework

23
Table 1: Distribution of population and sample size

Status
No. of Population
Passenger
103,300
Airport Staff
2725
Tenants
350
Total
106,375
No. of Sample
394
31
31
456
Table 2: Reliability analysis of the variables

BEFORE ADJUSTED
SECTION
ITEMS CRONBACHS
ALPHA
Internationalization
of
Service
12
0.965
Quality
Service Environment
12
0.904
Service Personnel
9
0.940
AFTER ADJUSTED
ITEMS
CRONBACHS
ALPHA
6
0.915
12
7
0.904
0.917
Table 3: Respondents Profile

STATUS
FREQUENCY
154
240
31
31
217
239
130
180
61
51
34
116
118
70
152
200
5
249
2
Foreign passenger
Local passenger
Airport staff
Tenant
GENDER
Male
Female
AGE
18-25
26-34
35-43
44-53
54 and above
INCOME
800-1500
1501-3000
3001-4000
4001 and above
SERVICE ROUTE
International Yes
International -No
Domestic -Yes
Domestic No
Note: Exchange Rate - 1 USD = RM 3.10
Table 4: Pearson Correlation Coefficient for Variables
SERVICE QUALITY(A)
Service Environment (B)
Pearson Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
Pearson Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
(A)
1
PERCENTAGE
33.8
52.6
6.8
6.8
47.6
52.4
28.5
39.5
13.4
11.2
7.5
25.4
25.9
15.4
33.3
43.9
1.1
54.6
0.4
(B)
0.725(**)
0.000
1
(C)
0.735(**)
0.000
0.747(**)
0.000
24
Service personnel(C)
Pearson Correlation
1
Sig. (2-tailed)
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Table 5: Coefficient (a) table
Model
Unstandardized
Standardized
T
Sig.
coefficients
coefficients
B
Std. Error
Beta
1 (Constant)
0.727 0.161
4.511
0.000
Service Environment 0.440 0.049
0.398
9.018
0.000
Service Personnel
0.424 0.043
0.438
9.919
0.000
Dependent Variable: servqual
Table 6: Model Summary
Model
R
R Square
Adjusted R Std. Error of the Sig.
F
Square
Estimate
Change
1
0.781 (a)
0.610
0.608
0.664
0.000
Predictors: (Constant), facilities, service environment, service personnel.
Table 7: Table T-test for type of gender
Gender
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
Std. Error Mean
Male
213
4.89
1.07
0.07
Female
235
4.89
1.06
0.07
Table 8: Anova analysis between income group and Internationalization of service quality
Income Group
No.
mean Income Group
No.
mean
RM 800-RM 1500
116
4.83
RM 3001-RM4000
70
4.81
RM1501-RM3000
118
5.14
RM 4000 & above
152
4.75
Sig value: 0.029
25

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