O Marketing dos Serviços Públicos e suas Implicações na Gestão da Qualidade

Abstract

A major challenge faced by the Public Administration has to do with the creation of value for both citizens and firms, mainly because of the increasing budgetary constraints and challenging demands from society. In this context, public services quality has become a key issue for the governments of the most developed countries such as Portugal. Considering that the provision of a public service involves three main parts the public agency, the citizen/client and society this investigation aims at understanding how public service quality is created. In more detail, it attempts to identify how the interaction process develops, how citizen/client s perceptions are formed and what is the impact of the public service for the society. A multidimensional model has been developed, where citizen/client s expectations and perceptions, emotions and a zone of tolerance are central elements, considering that public service quality results both from the quality perceived by the user and from the value to society. Given the nature of the research problem, investigation followed a case-study methodology. It has been selected the case-study of Citizen Shops within a mainly qualitative approach based on an adaptation of the Critical Incident Technique. In terms of conclusions, this study sheds light on the type of relationship that occurs between the citizen and the public agency in an environment featured by an innovative organizational culture in the context of Public Administration, strongly influenced by the societal circumstances. The research also clarifies the specificities of citizens perceptions formation in relation to public service, exploring the role of expectations and each quality determinant, recognising the existence of a zone of tolerance and analysing the effect of emotions. Additionally, the analysis of the value to society makes clear the importance of the one-stop-shopping approach to public services delivery, as a complement to other distribution channels, putting in evidence its catalytic role in the administrative modernisation, as well as the direct and indirect effects to firms and to the country image of Portugal.