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Enhancing the assessment of tangible service quality through the creation of a cleanliness measurement scale
Nelson Barber
University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA, and

Joseph M. Scarcelli
Niagara University, Lewiston, New York, USA
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is two-fold: to enhance the tangible quality construct by considering cleanliness as a customer service quality dimension; and to assess customers opinions on cleanliness by gender and education. Design/methodology/approach The population under study is the general adult population of a Southwestern US city. The subjects voluntarily participate through a link to an anonymous online survey provided on a universitys daily electronic news medium. Reliability and factor analyses are used to determine if the 32 criteria will in fact become an effective analysis measurement scale for cleanliness and multivariate analysis is used for the segmentation. Findings The results indicate that customers have made decisions to select, stay or return to an establishment based upon cleanliness. The results are meaningful because they suggest a scale that is reliable and valid and can be used to measure customer perceptions of cleanliness in a service organization. The results also conrm that education and gender are signicant factors in assessing perceptions of cleanliness. Research limitations/implications The sampling method is a limitation to this study, as the sample represents a limited cross-section of the US population. Practical implications The results of this paper provide service establishments that consider loyalty and repeat business key to their nancial success, indicators that cleanliness is a critical component of the overall physical environment and inuence customers assessment of the service experience. Originality/value This paper examines the dimension of cleanliness in detail through the creation of a measurement scale and considers customers perceptions and willingness to return. Keywords Customer services quality, Consumer behaviour, Hygiene, Service industries, SERVQUAL, United States of America Paper type Research paper

Managing Service Quality Vol. 20 No. 1, 2010 pp. 70-88 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0960-4529 DOI 10.1108/09604521011011630

Introduction The concept of the physical environment as an important part of the service experience was introduced as early as the 1970s (Kotier, 1973). Kotiers research suggested there may be more to the customers experience than the product or service, citing atmosphere or physical environment as possible inuences in the purchase decision. In support of this, Brady and Cronin (2001) found using a meta-analysis, that service quality has many different constructs, with the tangible physical environment emerging as an important and often neglected construct. This environment is

composed of ambient conditions, design, physical and social factors, all of which are important predictors of service quality. This highly complex physical environment has been recognized in many service organizations such as hospitals, hotels, airlines, banks, and restaurants and consequently addressed by requiring elaborate designs, layouts, and, interior decorations to achieve a variety of marketing and organizational objectives (Bitner, 1992; Lockyer, 2003; Raajpoot, 2002; Ryu and Jang, 2008). The design and layout of a dining room can enhance the pleasure and satisfaction of the dining experience and assist with employee productivity (Ryu and Jang, 2008). At the same time, the cleanliness of a hotel, whether it is the lobby, building exterior or the guest rooms bathroom, can inuence the customers perceptions of service quality (Lockyer, 2003). Despite the fact that organizations must be cautious in the planning of the physical surroundings, the impact to customers of a physical design or design change is not entirely understood (Bitner, 1992). One possible reason, suggested by Raajpoot (2002), is that not all aspects of customer perceptions and expectations about the physical environment are fully understood and no instrument completely measures these perceptions and expectations. In actuality, the relationship of service quality to satisfaction and the methods of evaluating it, have been a major topic of research in the services literature (Bitner, 1992; Knutson et al., 1991; Parasuraman et al., 1988; Ryu and Jang, 2008). Furthermore, providing service quality has been seen as essential to service providers efforts to market themselves (ONeill and Palmer, 2001). Customer satisfaction is often used by managers to predict repeat patronage, which leads to brand loyalty and new customers (Yuksel and Yuksel, 2002; Oh, 2000). According to Stevens et al. (1995), restaurant customers will select restaurants that meet their quality and value standards; and restaurateurs that ignore this will see customer trafc decline as guests support competing restaurants. Even in the banking industry, Johnston (1997) found that cleanliness was a perceived service quality issue for customers, who considered the tidiness and professional appearance of a bank employees desk as a sign of care and attention to detail. Thus, a customers satisfaction and loyalty are realized not only through the delivery of exceptional service (Lockyer, 2003; Raajpoot, 2002) but additionally through the physical environment which plays a key role in the delivery process. Linking service quality and the physical environment Researchers have generally agreed service quality is a multidimensional concept (Santos, 2002), but tangible factors are one of the few dimensions to have been consistently used by service quality researchers (Parasuraman et al., 1988; Perran, 1995; Raajpoot, 2002; Turley and Bolton, 1999). The label physical environmental quality refers to the tangible elements of the service, which includes the appearance of the physical facilities, personnel, communication materials, and other physical features used to provide the service in the service facility. Lehtinen and Lehtinen (1991) divided physical environmental quality into physical product consumed during the service production process and physical support that facilitates the production of the service. Johnston (1995) divided tangibles into cleanliness/tidiness of the tangible components and comfort of the service environment and facilities. Brady and Cronin (2001) and Raajpoot (2002) found in four different service industries that customers listed the service environment as a consideration in their

A cleanliness measurement scale 71

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service quality evaluations. Their studies revealed three factors that inuence perceived quality of the physical environment: ambient conditions, facility design, and social factors. Ambient conditions include the non-visual aspects of temperature, scent, and music. Facility design is classied either functional (i.e. practical) or aesthetic (i.e. clean and visually pleasing). Social conditions involve the number, type of people, and behavior within the service setting (Raajpoot, 2002; Ryu and Jang, 2008). Finally, Lockyer (2003) found the physical environment and, in particular, cleanliness to be an important factor in the selection of a hotel room. Over the past two decades, a number of models of the physical environment have been developed (Bitner, 1992; Lockyer, 2003; Raajpoot, 2002; Ryu and Jang, 2008; Turley and Milliman, 2000). Table I presents a summary of previous research on the dimensions related to the physical environment. SERVQUAL, created by Parasuraman et al. (1988), utilizes the perceptions of customers and the importance of service attributes, allowing an organization to prioritize their service efforts. LODGSERV, a model devised by Knutson et al. (1991), was designed to improve the measuring of service quality specically for the lodging industry. Stevens et al. (1995) developed the DINESERV model developing the concept of service quality perceptions of restaurants patrons. DINESERV utilizes the same ve dimensions as SERVQUAL, but treats the tangibility dimension more richly (ten items) than SERVQUAL, with the focus on the aesthetic and functional dimensions. This model was enhanced by Raajpoot (2002), who developed the TANGSERV model and then by Ryu and Jang (2008) through the DINESCAPE model. Both these models attempted to specically assess the role of tangible evidence in customer decision making. However, with the exception of the Lockyer (2003) study, which rened the LODGSERV model to include more specic items, such as cleanliness of the lobby, guest room, and bathroom, the concept of cleanliness has not been adequately examined. Expanding cleanliness as a tangible service quality dimension An important element in the management of service organizations is to understand the customers needs, allowing management to best utilize their limited resources. There is limited research that suggests, among the many factors inuencing the service encounter, cleanliness is important (Lockyer, 2003; Scarcelli, 2007). However, when customers select a hotel, restaurant, or retail store, the question of what components of cleanliness are specically important to them remains unanswered. Most customers do not see the inner operations of a service establishment. Yet, this unseen area can be a customers major concern if not the primary factor when choosing a particular service establishment, thus creating dissatisfaction (Yamanaka et al., 2003). For example, the cleanliness of a foodservice establishment includes the dining room and tables, the kitchen, and the restroom. The overall cleanliness of the dining room, the appearance of the employees (Ryu and Jang, 2008; Stevens et al., 1995) and the condition of the servers station can suggest similar conditions in the kitchen. Another concern includes the potential for foodborne illnesses which may be caused by improper handling of the food or by the sanitation practices of the establishment, such as poor personal hygiene of food handlers and servers (Scarcelli, 2007). Despite this concern for cleanliness as an important criterion in judging service quality, few research studies were found that adequately measured in detail customers perceptions of cleanliness and service quality. SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1988) and

1. show the movie "bad service great food" 2. Compare pictures clean and fancy restaurant and Dirty restaurant with rats. give audiences a question. "what will you do in this case?" Presentation starts What Service quality is Cleanliness = service quality A cleanliness
Dimensions Aesthetics Aesthetics Social Functional Social Product/service Aesthetics Functional Aesthetics Aesthetics Aesthetics Aesthetics Aesthetics Social Functional Aesthetics Functional Functional/social Functional/social Functional Aesthetics Aesthetics Functional Functional Functional Product/service Product/service Product/service Product/service Ambient Social Ambient Ambient Aesthetics Ambient Ambient Product/service Social Product/service SERVQUAL (1988) 1. Should have up-to-date equipment 2. Physical facility should be visually appealing 3. Employees should be well-dressed and appear neat 4. Appearance of physical facilities should be in keeping with the concept LODGSERV (1991) 1. Neat personnel 2. Quality food/beverage 3. Attractive room 4. Decor reects concept 5. Attractive public areas 6. Up-to-date equipment DINESERV (1995) 1. Has visually attractive parking areas and building exteriors 2. Has a visually attractive dining area 3. Has staff members who are clean, neat, and appropriately dressed 4. Has a decor in keeping with its image and price range 5. Has a menu that is easily readable 6. Has a visually attractive menu that reects restaurants image 7. Has a dining area that is comfortable and easy to move around in 8. Has restrooms that are thoroughly clean 9. Has dining areas that are thoroughly clean 10. Has comfortable seats in dining room TANGSERV (2002) 1. Decorations 2. Building design 3. Dining hall size List all on ppt or paper and Ask 4. Seating arrangement 5. Restaurant location Audiences to choose the Most 6. Food presentation Important 7. Food serving size 8. Menu design 9. Food variety 10. Light 11. Crowding 12. Music 13. Dining hall temperature DINSCAPE (2008) 1. Facility aesthetics 2. Ambiance 3. Lighting 4. Table setting 5. Layout 6. Service staff Source: Raajpoot (2002); Ryu and Jang (2008)

measurement scale 73

Table I. Tangible dimensions used in measurement scales

DINESERV (Stevens et al., 1995) each used two general cleanliness assessment questions, while DINESCAPE (Ryu and Jang, 2008) and TANGSERV (Raajpoot, 2002) had no cleanliness questions. Johnston (1997) assessed the general importance of cleanliness/tidiness in the banking industry. Oh (1999) assessed, with two general statements, the cleanliness perception of hotel guestrooms and lobbies. In the research by

How important the cleanliness of toilet in Restaurant?

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Ivanov (2007), the importance of cleanliness in travel agencies was generally assessed and found it was an important criterion of professionalism and attention to detail. Huang et al. (2006) assessed service quality and general cleanliness for the Taiwan national passenger highway rest stops. Andaleb (2001) assessed service quality in hospitals with only three items measuring cleanliness (i.e. clean toilets, clean rooms, and wards). Bienstock et al. (2003) evaluated food safety and sanitation procedures with customer perceptions of service quality in restaurants, using two general statements on dining room and restroom cleanliness and two for general food safety. They found that unless the food safety and cleanliness were obvious to customers, the link to service quality was not evident. Atalik and Arslan (2009), as part of their study on customer loyalty and airlines, determined that overall cabin cleanliness was important to customers. Cleanliness includes another important criterion hygiene. Hygiene has been determined to be a potential enhancer of service quality. Brown et al. (1991) suggested that hygiene is an important factor that can enhance customer service satisfaction and if it is not evident to the customer, it may cause dissatisfaction. Silvestro and Johnston (1990) suggested that one important dissatiser of service quality experience is the absence of hygiene. In Thailand, the number one factor for customers dining out is hygiene and cleanliness of the restaurant area, restroom, utensils, dishes, and restaurant employees (Threevitaya, 2003). For example, they suggested that the cleanliness of the table and cutlery are hygiene factors. Zeithaml et al. (1990) and Aksoydan (2007) found that of the foodservice establishment which failed to meet the standards of food hygiene and cleanliness expected by customers, customers would assess the establishment as offering poor or low service quality. In these two studies, hygiene was dened to include the general cleanliness of personnel, food, and foodservice establishment. Finally, Dabholkar et al. (1996) developed a service quality measure for retail stores. In this measurement, only one item was assessed: The store has clean, attractive and convenient public areas (restrooms, tting rooms). The only research located which attempted to assess the cleanliness dimension in greater detail was by Lockyer (2003). In that study, hotel cleanliness was assessed from a 31-item survey. Segmentation of customers Research has found that customer purchase behavior is directly associated with customers demographic characteristics such as gender, education, income, and age. Consequently, it is useful to consider how customers might be segmented and evaluated in relation to their attitudes on cleanliness. For organizations positioning themselves as high service quality establishments with attractive, safe, and clean physical environments, a prole of their loyal customers should emerge. Once identied, appropriate communication strategies can be developed to further attract similar patrons (Barber, 2008). Kim et al. (2009) used age, gender, and ethnicity when examining consumer service satisfaction in a foodservice establishment. They found older consumers (over 31 years of age) were more satised than younger (under 25 years of age) consumers. Scarcelli (2007) examined the importance of restaurant restroom cleanliness using gender, age, and education nding that younger respondents are more concerned with food safety than older clientele. Brady and Cronin (2001) examined segmentation using age, gender, and income. Terry and Israel (2004) suggested that age is an important

variable affecting overall consumer satisfaction determining that older clients are inclined to be more satised than younger ones. Chowa et al. (2007) proposed that four demographic variables (gender, age, education level, and income level) are directly related to full-service restaurant consumers revisit behavior in China. They conrmed that age was the most inuential demographic variable, suggesting older consumers tend to show higher repeat patronage possibly due to their involvement in business deals and social activities in restaurants. This current study considered segmentation by education and gender for customers in the USA. Research propositions With the exception of the research by Lockyer (2003), measurement scales have not fully captured the importance of cleanliness as related to the perceptions of service quality. Thus, a reliable and valid scale for measuring the cleanliness dimension of the physical environment is necessary in order to understand the connection with customer perceptions of service quality. The scale, if successful in establishing reliability and validity, could then be tailored to other service industries. Therefore, the purpose of this study was two-fold. First was to test the cleanliness scale put forth by Lockyer (2003), modied for the context of this current study. By testing this modied scale, it can be determined what specic attributes are most important, and thus create a scale to measure this important tangible quality dimension. The second purpose of this research was to assess customers opinions and segment respondents by gender and education. The authors ultimately ought to contribute to service quality research by investigating the usefulness of competitive marketing techniques. Based on the literature review, the following research propositions about the importance of cleanliness are proposed: P1. P2. P3. Customers consider cleanliness to be an important clue of physical environmental quality. Customers consider cleanliness an important factor when selecting and revisiting a service establishment. Customers consider certain criteria important in assessing cleanliness and these criteria can be used as a reliable measurement scale of cleanliness.

A cleanliness measurement scale 75

The results should alert service providers that the customers perceptions of service quality can effect the reputation of the establishment if the visible physical environment is perceived not clean and tidy. Methodology Context of the study Restaurants were used in this study to assess the perception of cleanliness as a service environmental quality dimension. The importance of physical environments in creating an image and in inuencing customer behavior is particularly pertinent to the restaurant industry (Raajpoot, 2002; Ryu and Jang, 2008). As the restaurant industry has grown and customers expect a more upscale and entertaining environment to enhance the dining experience, restaurateurs are making efforts to meet that expectation with innovative and exciting physical surroundings (Oh, 1999; Qiang, 1995; Raajpoot, 2002; Yuksel and Yuksel, 2002).

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With a wide range of choices facing the well-seasoned patron the expectation of service quality has increased (Stevens et al., 1995). This has forced the foodservice industry into a challenging competitive environment for customer retention and increased market share. For restaurateurs, the challenge is to determine what factors of customer satisfaction and loyalty are important in order to stand out from the competition. Customer opinion of an establishment can be formed very quickly, often in a matter of seconds and for the average customer, there are few opportunities to determine the food and service quality of a restaurant. In several research studies, participants considered the cleanliness of a restaurant a good indicator of the service quality and safety of food served in the restaurant (Aksoydan, 2007; Macaskill et al., 2000; Silvestro and Johnston, 1990; Zeithaml et al., 1990). A number of restaurant service quality attributes have been researched, with the principal factors found to be quality of food and drink, the price or value, service, cleanliness of the physical environment, location, and convenience (Johns and Pine, 2002; Raajpoot, 2002). Pettijohn et al. (1997) found quality, cleanliness and value to be the three most important attributes in fast-food restaurants, while atmosphere and menu variety were relatively unimportant. One important criterion in assessing the cleanliness of a foodservice establishment is the restroom. Klara (2004), Blackiston and Evans (2004) and Scarcelli (2007) found that a majority of respondents in their studies considered the functionality of the restroom when assessing service and food quality and had a profoundly positive impact on customer perceptions of the dining experience. Clark and Wood (1998) reported that the ranking of attribute importance varies in different types of restaurants, noting the relative importance of attributes changes with the type of dining occasion. Klara (2004) found that 75 percent of customers would not return to an establishment if the restrooms were not well kept, while Amer (2003) found that 74 percent said they would actually leave a fast-food establishment if it appeared dirty. Oh and Jeong (1996) segmented the fast-food market on the basis of customers expectations of food, service, physical environment, and convenience. Design of study The rst purpose of this study was to modify the scale proposed by Lockyer (2003) to assess cleanliness of restaurants. The scale development procedures advocated by Churchill (1979) and methods described by other literature (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988; Gerbing and Anderson, 1988; Raajpoot, 2002; Ryu and Jang, 2008) were considered. This study utilized four steps as summarized in Table II and discussed in length below. The rst step of the scale development was to specify the domain of the cleanliness construct (Churchill, 1979). Since the literature on cleanliness in the service industry is limited, the work performed by Lockyer (2003) on accommodations was primarily used. Four broad categories of the cleanliness dimension were considered for this study. These four dimensions are the environment external to the establishment, the internal restaurant environment, the restaurants restrooms and the service personnel. The second step, following the research of Lockyer (2003) and Scarcelli (2007), developed the assessment measures by constructing initial items representing the four cleanliness dimensions of external, internal, restrooms and personnel. The items used to develop the assessment measure were based on a combination of qualitative

1. Determine domain constructs 2. Determine initial item pool Assess adequacy of content

3. Administer questionnaire 4. Scale purication

Review the literature Find commonalities for each domain Dene domain(s) Review literature and instruments Discuss items with industry managers Test item consistency Assess content validity Modify items Determine the scale for items Pre-test Collect data from designated sample Perform item analysis Perform exploratory factor analysis Perform conrmatory factor analysis Review unidimensionality and reliability and validities

A cleanliness measurement scale 77

Sources: Churchill (1979); Raajpoot (2002); Ryu and Jang (2008)

Table II. Summary of scale development procedures

interviews with restaurant managers, customers, the assessments modied from Lockyer (2003) to consider restaurants, and the work of Scarcelli (2007) to consider attributes of the restroom. From the Scarcelli (2007) study, only eight of the 12 assessment criteria statements were used, with four new ones added to this study. From the Lockyer (2003) study only ten of the 31 assessment criteria statements were used because they were either relevant or could be easily modied to the context of this study. Items eliminated considered criteria for assessing the beds and an in-room kitchen, if available. A pre-test of 60 residents of the test area, were selected at random, and given the URL link. The questionnaire was administered to these pilot subjects in exactly the same way as it would be administered in the main study. The results of the pre-tested indicated that four difcult or ambiguous questions needed to be modied. However, a second pre-test was deemed not necessary. The third step was questionnaire administration. The population under study was the general adult population of a mid-sized city (population 200,000) in the Southwest. The subjects voluntarily participated through a link to an anonymous online survey provided during the month of June, 2009 on a universitys daily electronic news medium. The daily news letter is e-mailed to all faculty, students, and support personnel (professional, service, administrative, and operations) that have and use the university issued e-mail address. According to the universitys information technology department, only 55 percent of the approximately 35,000 students, faculty and other support personnel on campus use the university issued e-mail address and thus might access the survey URL link. Since this sample represented varying levels of employment, income, and education and based upon other research studies that have used this method of data collection (Barber et al., 2009), it was expected there would be an acceptable number of respondents. Although response rates are generally low using this collection method because not all participants read the daily electronic news medium, the intention was to insure a sample size that was sufcient to perform statistical analysis proposed in this study. The survey consisted of 36 (ve-point style bi-polar) questions, and based upon the pilot test, was expected to take approximately seven minutes to complete. The rst question asked respondents their overall opinion about the cleanliness of restaurants.

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Three questions, using a ve-point Likert scale with 1 strongly disagree and 5 strongly agree, inquired about cleanliness and restaurant selection (I have chosen not to eat in a restaurant based on the cleanliness of the restaurant) and the willingness to return. To assess the four dimensions of external, internal, restrooms, and personnel, each had a question asking the respondents to please rate how important these are to you personally when assessing the cleanliness of a restaurant, using ve-point bi-polar questions anchored with 1 not at all important and 5 extremely important. There were ve exterior assessment criteria statements, such as building exterior. There were 12 interior assessment criteria statements, such as place ware, eating utensils (plates, forks, etc.), and carpet and oors. There were three personnel assessment criteria, such as staff hair and hands. Finally, there were 12 restroom assessment criteria statements, such as dirty, soiled, or wet sink/counter and no hot water. Four questions, representing age, gender, and education and income, were asked of participants to determine their demographics. For the scale development, the rst four questions were excluded leaving 32 statements to assess cleanliness. The fourth and nal step was scale purication. Quantitative analyses were conducted to purify the measurement items (Churchill, 1979; Lockyer, 2003; Ryu and Jang, 2008). First, corrected item-total correlations were examined for each set of items. Items not having a corrected item-total correlation more than 0.50 were removed (Hair et al., 1998). The remaining measurement items were subjected to exploratory factor analyses with Varimax rotation to reduce the items to a smaller set of variables with items exhibiting low-factor loadings less than 0.40 eliminated (Hair et al., 1998). Kline (2005) suggested conrmatory factor analysis should be used for scale development because it affords stricter interpretation of unidimensionality than more traditional approaches, such as coefcient alpha, item-total correlations, and exploratory factor analysis. A conrmatory factor model using the maximum likelihood technique was estimated via Analysis of Moment Structures, release 7.0/SPSS 15.0. After the unidimensionality check, reliabilities were examined using Cronbachs alphas, item reliabilities, composite reliabilities, and average variance extracted (AVE) to assess the internal consistency of multiple indicators for each construct (Gerbing and Anderson, 1988; Green and Salkind, 2005; Hair et al., 1998; Kline, 2005). For the second purpose of this study, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze 36 dependent variables using gender and education by determining the main and interaction effects of the independent categorical variables. If the MANOVA F-statistic was signicant, follow-up tests are performed by conducting multiple analyses of variances (ANOVAs) controlling for Type I error using the Bonferroni inequality approach (Green and Salkind, 2005; Hair et al., 1998). Post hoc pairwise comparison testing was performed if any of the ANOVAs were signicant using the Scheffe method. In general, when many or all contrasts might be of interest, the Scheffe method tends to give narrower condence limits and is therefore the preferred method and the most conservative with respect to Type I errors (Hair et al., 1998). Results Descriptive statistics There were a total of 351 respondents, which represents a response rate of 1.9 percent. Despite the low-response rate, the sample size is in-line with similar research for scale

development included in studies by Barber et al. (2009) (303 participants), Raajpoot (2002) (234 participants) and Ryu and Jang (2008) (319 respondents). Comfrey and Lee (1992) reported as a general rule of thumb, it is acceptable to have at least 300 cases for factor analysis. Of the respondents, 48 percent were male (n 169) and 52 percent were female (n 182). The average age of respondents was 40 years. Respondents of 63 percent had earned a college degree; with 66 percent of males earning a college degree, compared to 60 percent of females. The respondents of 52 percent had annual household income less than $60,000 and the median income was $48,000. About 15 percent had household income over $80,000. There was no difference in income between males and females at the $40,000-80,000 level; however, 19 percent of males earned over $100,000 compared to 15 percent of females. This demographic prole is similar to that of the residents of this Southwest city (US Census, 2008), where 52 percent of the population have a college degree and the median household income was $43,000. When asked about their opinion of restaurant cleanliness, the respondents reported that restaurants were dirty (M 2.3, SD 0.5; where 1 very dirty and 5 very clean). Males considered restrooms to be dirty (M 2.2, SD 0.5) more than females did (M 2.3, SD 0.7). Those with a postgraduate education considered the restrooms dirty (M 2.0, SD 0.3), compared to those with a high-school diploma (M 2.3, SD 0.5). Graduate and undergraduate did not report any real difference in opinion (M 2.3, SD 0.5; M 2.3, SD 0.4, respectively). Restaurant selection Respondents were asked to assess the importance of a clean restroom and their selection of or return to a restaurant. The results (Table III) indicate that respondents have chosen not to return to a restaurant based upon its cleanliness (M 4.1, SD 1.0), with females (M 4.2, SD 1.2) agreeing with this statement more than males (M 4.0, SD 0.9). Those with a trade/tech school education (M 4.8, SD 1.1) and postgraduate education (M 4.7, SD 1.0) had strong agreement about not returning based upon restaurant cleanliness.

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Gender Restaurant selection A clean restaurant is important to me when deciding where to eat I have chosen not to eat in a restaurant based on the cleanliness of the restaurant I have chosen not to return to a restaurant based on the cleanliness of the restaurant Overall 4.4 4.1 4.4 Male 4.3 4.0 4.4 Female 4.4 4.2 4.4 High school diploma 4.5 3.9 4.4

Education Trade/ tech school Ua 3.9 4.5 4.8 4.3 4.1 4.3

Gb 4.6 4.1 4.3

Pc 4.5 3.8 4.7 Table III. Results of clean restrooms and restaurant selection

Notes: n 339; responses on a Likert ve-point scale with 1 strongly disagree and 5 strongly agree; aundergraduate degree; bgraduate degree; cpostgraduate/professional

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Scale reliability assessment As stated earlier, the 32 statements assessing the importance of restaurant cleanliness were divided into four separate categories: the restaurants exterior, interior, personnel, and the restroom. Corrected item-total correlations were examined for each set of items with the results suggesting that six items be deleted because they were less than 0.50. For the factor analysis, Varimax rotation was performed on the remaining 26 items. Following Hair et al. (1998) and Ryu and Jang (2008), eigenvalues and variance explained were used to discover the number of factors to extract. Based upon the rst exploratory factor analysis, three items with low-factor loadings were eliminated. A second exploratory factor analysis was performed with the results shown in Table IV. Eigenvalues were all greater than 1.0. The rst factor was labeled exterior of the restaurant and contained ve items, representing the cleanliness and appearance of the restaurants exterior. These items included the restaurants neighborhood, age of the building, and the parking lot. This factor represented the largest of the ve factors for variance explained (33.9 percent) with

Cleanliness factors (alpha) Exterior of restaurant (a 0.86) Garden and driveway Building exterior Parking lot Age of building Neighborhood of restaurant Restroom appearance (a 0.87) Dirty or soiled sink Dirty oor Dirty, cracked wall, and ceiling tiles Trash in toilet Odor in restroom Interior of restaurant (a 0.87) Seat cushions Carpet and oors Windows Furniture Bar/lounge Windowsills Restroom personal hygiene (a 0.85) No toilet paper No soap No hot water No paper towels/drying device Dining room personal health (a 0.89) Place ware and eating utensils (plates, forks, etc.) Glassware Table cloth and napkins Total variance

Factor loadings 0.81 0.79 0.78 0.74 0.73

Eigen values 7.6

Variance explained 33.9

Item mean 3.7 3.8 3.7 3.8 3.8

3.2 0.84 0.80 0.78 0.77 0.73 2.4 0.82 0.81 0.80 0.78 0.77 0.75 1.4 0.85 0.79 0.78 0.76 1.1 0.93 0.89 0.75 74.7%

14.9 4.5 4.6 4.2 4.3 4.7 12.1 4.2 4.2 3.7 3.9 3.9 3.9 8.3 4.7 4.7 4.4 4.5 5.5 4.8 4.7 4.7

Table IV. Exploratory factor analysis of restaurant cleanliness items

Note: Item mean on a bi-polar scale where 1 not at all important and 5 extremely

results similar to those of Lockyer (2003) where respondents of that survey found the cleanliness of the hotel building exterior, garden and driveway to be extremely important. The second factor was labeled restroom appearance and was the second largest variance explained (14.9 percent). This factor included ve items such as dirty oors, trash in toilet, and odor in restroom. The results found by Scarcelli (2007) showed dirty, soiled, and wet toilet, no toilet paper, and toilet clogged or broken the most important. The third factor was labeled interior of restaurant representing six items, including the cleanliness of seat cushions, carpets and oors, furniture, and the bar/lounge area. This factor had variance explained of 12.1 percent. Similarly, Lockyer (2003) found the cleanliness of the carpets, furniture, and cushions of the hotels guest room to be very important. The fourth factor was labeled restroom personal hygiene and included the four items of no hot water, soap, and paper towels or drying device. This factor represented variance explained of 8.3 percent. The nal factor was labeled dining room personal health and included three items. These items were cleanliness of glassware, place ware and eating utensils, and table cloth and napkins, which captured the customers concern for health and sanitation. Three of the factors, exterior, interior and restroom were similar to those found by Lockyer (2003), with two additional factors determined in this study. The restroom was separated into a new factor that considered the customers concern for personal hygiene, while the other factor considered the customers concern for public health and sanitation in the dining room. The factor loadings ranged from 0.73 to 0.93 for the 23-items indicating good correlation and the Cronbach alpha ranged from 0.85 to 0.89, suggesting good internal consistency of items. Conrmatory factor analysis using the 23 items was performed (Table V) to verify the factor structure in the proposed scale (Kline, 2005; Ryu and Jang, 2008). A number of widely used goodness-of-t statistics consistently indicated that the conrmatory factor model satisfactorily reected a good t to the data (NFI 0.90; TLI 0.92; CFI 0.93; RMSEA 0.076). In addition, measurement equations showed acceptable levels of item squared multiple correlations for each of the 23 items, ranging from 0.56 to 0.94, indicating acceptable levels of reliabilities (Hair et al., 1998). According to the conrmatory factor analysis, the measures indicated unidimensionality as the indicators shared only a single primary construct and were loaded as expected with minimal cross-loadings (Marcoulides and Schumacker, 1997; Ullman, 2001). As illustrated in Table V, Cronbachs alpha estimates, ranging from 0.85 to 0.89, were acceptable (Kline, 2005) and the standardized factor loadings, ranging from 0.75 to 0.97, met the minimum criterion of 0.40 (Kline, 2005). The composite reliabilities of constructs ranged from 0.88 to 0.91. Respondent segmentation The results of the MANOVA testing indicated the F-statistics were signicant, with differences found among gender (Wilkss L 0.808, F0 (32,260) 1.98, p , 0.01) and education (Wilkss L 0.425, F0 (128,1037) 1.94, p , 0.00) on the dependent variables. ANOVA on each dependent variable were conducted as follow-up tests to the MANOVA, using the Bonferroni inequality approach (Table VI). For the ANOVA testing on the gender and education independent variables, several dependent variables were signicant. Post hoc analyses to the univariate ANOVA

A cleanliness measurement scale 81

MSQ 20,1

Factors (alpha) Exterior of restaurant (a 0.86) Building exterior Garden and driveway Parking lot Age of building Neighborhood of restaurant Interior of restaurant (a 0.87) Windowsills Bar/lounge Carpet and oors Seat cushions Windows Furniture Dining room hygiene (a 0.87) Placeware and eating utensils (plates, forks, etc.) Glassware Table cloth and napkins Restroom personal hygiene (a 0.85) No toilet paper No soap No hot water No paper towels/drying device Restroom appearance (a 0.89) Dirty or soiled sink Dirty oor Dirty, cracked wall, and ceiling tiles Trash in toilet Odor in restroom

Standardized factor loadings 0.83 0.81 0.80 0.77 0.75 0.83 0.79 0.78 0.83 0.82 0.80 0.97 0.90 0.78 0.88 0.80 0.79 0.79 0.84 0.81 0.80 0.82 0.77

Item reliabilities 0.69 0.65 0.64 0.59 0.56

Composite reliabilities 0.87

AVE 0.68

82

0.89 0.69 0.62 0.61 0.69 0.67 0.64 0.88 0.94 0.80 0.61 0.88 0.77 0.64 0.62 0.62 0.91 0.71 0.66 0.64 0.67 0.59

0.69

0.80

0.71

0.70

Table V. Measurement factors of restaurant cleanliness

testing for the signicant dependent scores consisted of conducting pairwise comparisons to nd which independent variable, gender or education inuenced the dependent variables. Each pairwise comparison was tested using the Scheffe method (Table VII). In general, when many or all contrasts might be of interest, the Scheffe method tends to give narrower condence limits and is therefore the preferred method and the most conservative with respect to Type I errors (Hair et al., 1998). Gender. There were ve assessment criteria that were signicant between gender. For example, when assessing the cleanliness of a restroom, odor in restroom was considered more signicant for females (M 4.8, SD 0.5), than for males (M 4.5, SD 0.7), with a mean difference 0.232, p , 0.00, while age of building was considered more important to males (M 3.8, SD 0.4), than to females (M 3.6, SD 0.5), with a mean difference of 0.175, p , 0.02. Education. There were six assessment criteria that were signicant involving educational levels. For example, the variable no hot water was considered signicant for those with an undergraduate degree (M 4.5, SD 0.7), than for those with a graduate degree (M 4.2, SD 0.8), with a mean difference 0.311, p , 0.02. For the variable carpets and oors, those with a trade/tech school degree found this more

Independent and dependent variables Gender Furniture Age of building Bar/lounge Seat cushions Table cloth and napkins Carpet and oors Odor in restroom Trash in toilet No toilet paper Dirty oor Education Parking lot Building exterior Neighborhood of restaurant Carpet and oors Seat cushions No hot water No soap No paper towels/drying device Trash in toilet No toilet paper

Degrees of freedom 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

Between groups mean square 4.72 2.67 3.56 2.93 1.56 2.06 4.70 4.09 2.80 2.04 0.749 0.777 1.182 1.52 1.82 1.68 1.09 1.21 1.66 1.31

Within groups mean squares 0.470 0.201 0.430 0.532 0.335 0.470 0.331 0.562 0.347 0.414 0.236 0.286 0.305 0.463 0.524 0.512 381 0.460 0.560 0.343

F-statistic 9.57 13.30 8.29 5.51 4.68 4.37 14.20 7.27 8.06 4.93 3.17 2.71 3.88 3.29 3.47 3.29 2.85 2.63 2.96 3.81

Signicance of F 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.02 0.03 0.03 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.02 0.01 0.03 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.02 0.00

A cleanliness measurement scale 83

Table VI. ANOVA results

important (M 4.5, SD 0.5) than did those with a postgraduate education (M 3.9, SD 0.7), with a mean difference 0.690, p , 0.02. Interaction. Of greater interest are the results of the MANOVA interaction testing of gender and education, which was signicant (Wilkss L 0.656, F(88, 1287) 1.621, p , 0.00). Post hoc analysis of the interaction results, indicated that for the dependent variable no hot water, females with a trade or technical school degree (M 4.9, SD 0.5) considered this criteria more important than males with a graduate degree (M 4.1, SD 0.6). For the dependent variable no toilet paper, females with a trade or technical school education (M 4.9, SD 0.6) considered this criteria more important than males with a graduate degree (M 4.0 SD 0.7). Finally, for the dependent variable table cloth and napkins, females with a graduate degree (M 4.8, SD 0.5) considered this criteria more important than males with an undergraduate degree (M 4.0 SD 0.5). Discussion It is imperative that a service organization understands the quality dimensions that matter most to patrons. This allows management to put their resources to the best use. There is strong evidence from this study and others (Lockyer, 2003), that among the many factors that might inuence the selection of a service establishment, cleanliness is very important. The purpose of this research was rst to explore the dimension of cleanliness, as this is a quality dimension extremely important in service encounters. The second purpose was to develop a scale that measured cleanliness in sufcient

MSQ 20,1

Independent variables Gender No toilet paper Dirty oor

Dependent variable Female Male Female Male Male Female Female Male Female Male Graduate High school diploma Trade or technical school High school diploma Trade or technical school Post graduate/professional Trade or technical school Undergraduate Undergraduate Graduate High school diploma Graduate Trade or technical school Graduate

Mean 4.8 4.6 4.6 4.5 3.8 3.7 4.8 4.5 4.7 4.6 3.8 3.6 3.8 3.5 4.5 3.9 4.6 4.2 4.5 4.2 4.8 4.5 4.9 4.5

SD 0.7 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.7 0.5 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.7 0.7 0.8 0.6 0.8 0.5 0.8 0.3 0.8

Mean difference 0.179 * 0.153 * * 0.175 * 0.232 * 0.134 * 0.260 * * 0.312 * * 0.690 * * 0.440 * * * 0.311 * * 0.290 * 0.435 *

84

Age of building Odor in restroom Table cloth and napkins Education Building exterior Parking lot Carpet and oors Seat cushions No hot water No toilet paper

Table VII. Post hoc results

Note: The mean difference is signicant at: *p , 0.00, * *p , 0.02, * * *p , 0.05 levels, respectively

detail which, with some modications and tailoring could be used in a wide variety of service establishment applications. The results of this study suggest that the dimension of cleanliness should be considered an integral part of any physical assessment instrument that measures the inuence on service quality. Clearly, respondents in this study have strongly stated that the selection and willingness to return to a restaurant were based upon the cleanliness of the restaurant; not only in the dining room, the service ware, and the restroom, but that they were concerned about the effects on their personal health and overall sanitation as well. The results are particularly meaningful because they suggest a scale that is reliable and valid and could be used to measure customer perceptions of cleanliness in a restaurant business or other service establishments. Thus, the availability of this instrument should encourage continued research directed toward cleanliness as a dimension of the physical environment and the impact on perception of overall service quality and selection or willingness to return behaviors. Finally, from a realistic point of view, service providers that choose this instrument can better understand how customers perceive the service quality experience. Through assessing the strengths and weaknesses and ultimately improving the perceived quality of the physical environment using the scale developed in this study, service providers could use cleanliness scores from customers to compare against standardized or expected scores.

Second, the results also indicated demographic differences about the dining public. Both education and gender play an important part in determining the importance of cleanliness when selecting a restaurant. While there were differences in agreement on restaurant selection based upon level of education, there was little difference between genders. However, in nearly all cases, respondents strongly agreed that cleanliness was important in selecting, staying, or returning to a restaurant. It was also clear that certain cleanliness criteria were more important than others depending on gender and education level, but all respondents had certain expectations concerning personal hygiene, health and sanitation of a service provider. The results of this study should alert restaurant owners, as well as other service providers, who consider loyalty and repeat business necessary to their nancial success that cleanliness, both inside and outside, is a critical component of the overall service experience. Future research and limitations The sampling method is a limitation to this study, as the sample represents a limited cross-section of the US population and thus may not represent the entire population of the USA. A future research study would be to test this cleanliness scale in other parts of the USA.
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