Perceived Quality of an Intermediary and Its Relations with Image and Perceived Value

Abstract

Whilst globalisation has offered a fertile ground for businesses to offer several services from all sides of the compass, it appears that this landscape has attracted new avenues for service provisions and transactions. All these aspects have resulted in dramatic shift in consumers' purchase decision making process. This research presents some insights of customers' perception of quality offered by intermediaries working in networked environments. The principal hypotheses are that, after experiencing services delivered by an intermediary, customers synthesise their perceptions, in terms of the quality perceived. Furthermore, this assessment will determine its image and the perceived value. A quantitative survey was conducted in an airline alliance context, to verify if the hypotheses are acceptable. A structural equation modelling tested using the PLS-SEM method demonstrates the influence of alliance wide perceived quality on airline alliances' image and perceived value.