Measuring the Quality of Services: The Use of Internal Climate Available to Purchase

Attempts to illustrate how an internal climate survey can be used as a measurement tool to assess the level of quality in the service sector. Internal climate should ideally be determined by examining a cross‐section of an organization. In an empirical study of two public mental health and mental retardation (MHMR) agencies, middle managers were initially believed to be more resistant to the introduction of a quality improvement process than line workers. Two hypotheses regarding internal climate among different levels of employees were tested. Results from this study provided insight for top managers of both public agencies to facilitate their total quality management processes.