The Relationships Among Service Quality, Emotional Satisfaction and Behavioural Intention In Childcare Provider Choice: Evidence From Malaysia

Abstract

Nik Syuhailah Nik Hussin, Safiek Mokhlis, Hayatul Safrah Salleh, Zuraimi Abdul Aziz

This study discusses the factors affecting parents’ behavioral intention with respect to the service quality of childcare settings. Childcare quality is essential for parents nowadays and relies heavily on accessible, affordable, and reasonable quality. Meantime, there are some of the issues arising in the childcare industry when there are many cases of injury, neglect, or death in childcare. Therefore, the study presents the shortfall inputs from the childcare centers’ customers on the service
factors that require further attention. The primary data of 364 questionnaires were collected from respondents of four regions in Peninsular Malaysia. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0 and Partial Least Square Structural Modeling (PLS-SEM) were used for this study’s data analysis. Dimensions of service quality with 21 items were observed in this paper. The behavioral intention was measured using seven items. The results confirmed that service quality was the antecedent for behavioral intention. In addition, emotion satisfaction embarked on the role of mediation factor between service quality and behavioral intention. All
the hypotheses' relationships were supported. The originality of the study gives valuable comprehension with regard to emotional satisfaction in childcare experience since it contributes significantly to the prediction of behavioral intention. The implication of the study is further discussed in this paper.