Service quality and human resource management: A review and research agenda

Service organisations are striving to increase the quality of the services they offer. They are also using a wide variety of people management techniques. These two activities can sometimes come into conflict. This article examines a variety of management practices, particularly from human resource management (HRM), used by the service sector, and assesses their potential impact on service quality and total quality management (TQM). Many techniques are identified as being potentially supportive of quality improvement but some pose threats, particularly those most closely associated with cost minimisation and the less subtle forms of managerial control. In order to encourage research in this area a number of research propositions and an agenda for further research are developed.