Quality service provision by local government in Bangladesh : a study on the slum dwellers of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC)

Abstract

It is important to know how satisfied the citizens are with the services of local gov-ernment and how officials respond to service enquiries of the citizens. The present research examined the influence of service quality dimensions on the perceived ser-vice quality of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), Bangladesh towards the slum dwell-ers. In so doing, the study investigated the moderating effect of administrative role in the relationship between service quality dimensions and perceived service quality of DCC. It also identified the gap between the expected service and perceived service provided by the DCC for the slum dwellers. Based on the data collected from 222 slum dwellers living in the six big slums, the SERVQUAL analysis of tangibility, re-liability, responsiveness and empathy were found to be positively and significantly correlated with perceived quality service of local government towards the slum dwellers. Furthermore, the logistic support of DCC was found to be a significant con-tributor of perceived quality service of local government towards the slum dwellers. Secondly, the moderating effect test revealed that administrative role moderates the relationship between assurance and perceived quality service of local government to-wards the slum dwellers; responsiveness and perceived quality service of local gov-ernment; and logistic support and perceived quality service of local government. Last-ly, a significant service gap was found in the services of DCC in terms of all dimen-sions of service quality. Findings of this study will allow local governments in gen-eral to take into consideration the importance of the pertinent factors that might ex-hort profound impact on enhancing perceived services quality.