Comprehensive Report on Customer Loyalty and Service Quality Research

This report presents a detailed analysis of two research articles focusing on customer loyalty and service quality. Part A examines customer loyalty through an empirical study, employing both qualitative and quantitative research methods. It explores research paradigms, methodologies, sampling techniques, data collection, and analysis methods, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. The study utilizes a postal survey and focus group discussions to understand the factors influencing customer loyalty. Part B investigates the role of service quality and customer satisfaction in firm performance within the Pakistan Hotel Industry, employing a quantitative research approach. It outlines the research methodology, sampling methods, and data analysis techniques used to assess the impact of customer satisfaction and service quality on hotel performance. The report provides insights into the research frameworks, data collection, and analysis techniques employed in both studies, offering a comprehensive overview of the research processes and findings.

Running head: RESEARCH METHODS
Research Methods
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Content
Part A: Customer loyalty: Empirical Study...............................................................................3
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Research Methodology and Research Framework.................................................................3
Research Paradigm.................................................................................................................3
Research Methodology...........................................................................................................4
Sampling methods..................................................................................................................5
Data collection methods.........................................................................................................6
Data Analysis methods...........................................................................................................6
Conclusion..............................................................................................................................7
Part -B........................................................................................................................................8
Introduction................................................................................................................................8
Research Methodology and Framework................................................................................8
Research Paradigm.................................................................................................................8
Research Methodology...........................................................................................................9
Sampling methods................................................................................................................10
Data Collection method........................................................................................................10
Data Analysis method..........................................................................................................11
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................13

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Part A: Customer loyalty: Empirical Study
Introduction
This report is a detailed analysis of the qualitative research methods used in the article
–customer loyalty: An empirical study. The article has examined the importance of
customer loyalty in the competitive industry with the help of qualitative research methods.
Two different stages of methods have been applied to identify the extent to which customer
loyalty is important. First stage is about carrying out a postal survey involving a 28 item scale
to particularly measure the degree of customer loyalty while the second stage makes uses of
the scores from the loyalty range to identify what are those things sustaining and developing
loyalty.
Research Methodology and Research Framework
Research Paradigm
Research paradigm is theoretically known as the set of common beliefs that are
usually shared between research scholars and scientists regarding how research issues need to
be understood and analysed. Research paradigm are usually characterised through ontology,
epistemology and methodology. According to Kumar (2019), ontology dig into the reality,
while the epistemology is about how the research is known and methodology is nothing but
the process of finding out it out. Research methodology specifically help to identify the
procedures that can be used to acquire knowledge. More specifically, there are three common
paradigms derived from methodology –positivist, constructivist and Pragmatist.
According to the principle of pragmatism, reality is single and it can be measured, known and
thereby, quantitative method is the best choice, while constructivists believe that there cannot
be single realty, thus, reality needs to be interpreted with qualitative methods (Tarone et al.,
2013). Thus, to identify the level of loyalty as well as the role of mediating effect in customer

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loyalty through two stage study, positivism and constructivism philosophies are apt choices.
Positivism paradigm is require because it allows a survey research. So, this paradigm helps to
conduct survey to interpret that interpret and measure the degree of customer loyalty. On the
other side, pragmatism paradigm mostly revolves around the techniques that solve the
problem. However, the study on customer loyalty is about finding the importance of customer
loyalty in the sector. Nonetheless, positivism paradigm fundamentally allow to believe that
everything can be calculated and interpreted but it is often overlooked that even though
positivism allowing survey method but it actually overlooks human response or behaviour
may come with emotion. On the other hand, constructivism paradigm would be an
appropriate choice because it allows the base for performing a focus group discussion.
Considering the loyalty score derived from the postal survey, focus group discussion among 6
to 8 participants can be applied to the study.
Research Methodology
Research methodology is the procedure that can be used to derive knowledge about
the research issue and context. Methodology particularly determines the research techniques
that can be used to address research questions through the selected research paradigm (Flick,
2015). Therefore, to identify the degree of customer loyalty as well as the role of mediating
effect in customers’ loyalty, both quantitative and qualitative methods are suitable matches to
research needs. With the use of quantitative method, a survey can be applied in the target
population. A focus group method can also be applied to with varied level of loyalty –high,
low and medium which should be determined by the loyalty range score. To perform the
survey first, a questionnaire needs to be prepared which should consists of multiple close-
ended questions, while to prepare focus group discussion, structured method can be applied.
Transcripts should be separated respectively when recording the discussion with the tape-
recorder. Nonetheless, focus group discussion is subject to disagreements and irrelevant

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discussion often distracted from the main context of discussion. Therefore, it seems to be
difficult to control and manage by researcher (Antwi & Hamza, 2015).
Sampling methods
There have been different understanding and meaning of sampling method but in
general it can be added sampling method is applied to investigate the entire population in the
easiest way. For doing a questionnaire survey sampling is kind of a technique that allows
scholars to derive information about the population (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2017). There are
two major sampling methods namely probability sampling method and non-probability
sampling method. Probability sampling method is further divided into several sub-categories
but the mostly used one is random probability sampling in which each member of the
population holds an equal chance of being selected. On the other side, purposive sampling
method is derived from non-probability sampling method which considers the judgment of
the researcher when selecting who to include the process. (Thanh & Thanh, 2015) Under this
sampling method, researcher looks for certain characteristics. Thus, to involve respondents in
the postal survey among the customers in the study, purposive non-probability sampling
method has been selected because the study required to select respondents who have
previously sailed on a particularly route having the experience of being a passenger in the
ferry company, while a random sampling method would allow any individual who lacks
experience about the same. Therefore, probability sampling method has been excluded but
purposive sampling method allows researcher to select members suit the research needs.
However, purposive sampling method is also subject to errors of judgment by scholars. The
study aims to target the population of 60,000 which will be in relation to the database of the
company in United Kingdom.

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Data collection methods
In order to identify the degree of customer loyalty as well as the mediating effect in
customer loyalty, it is always important to collect data from the customers or the people who
are involved in the business. Data can be collected in multiple ways through primary and
secondary data collection techniques but sticking to primary methods only would be way
more effective for the study. Thus, in the study, to learn the level of customer loyalty and the
vulnerabilities mediating its growth, a survey method would be applied to collect the data.
Moreover, to determine the level of loyalty customers have towards passenger ferry
company, a focus group discussion method should be applied because focus group allows
researcher to infer broad view about the context. Focus group method is mostly biased
because the researcher finds it difficult to avoid the demand characteristics of the
respondents.
Data Analysis methods
As discussed above, the level of loyalty of reach respondent involved in the survey
needs to be determined. However, to particularly know about the levels of loyalty from the
loyalty score, a factor analysis should be applied. According to Thanh and Thanh (2015),
factor analysis method is helpful in minimizing greater number of variables into fewer
numbers of factors. Thereby, there are many variables in customers’ loyalty development but
to analyse them specifically, it is effective to perform a factor analysis as it extracts the
common variance from all other variables and eventually generate a common score.
Alshenqeeti (2014) argued that factor analysis entirely depends upon the answers against the
questions. General assumptions cannot be made about the associated factors if the questions
are not asked. Therefore, the analysis has limited scope.

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Conclusion
The research methods discussed above provides an insight how research issue related
to customer loyalty and its mediating effect in customer loyalty development. However, it is
worth mentioning that the research methods selected to be used in the study have limited
scope. The sampling method provides the accuracy about the response because the selected
purposive sampling method allows researcher to select members that are suitable to the
research requirements. Nonetheless, purposive sampling method can be biased too because
the researcher’s selection may not be effective always for the study.

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Part -B
Role of Service Quality and Customer satisfaction in firm’s Performance: Evidence
from Pakistan Hotel Industry
Introduction
This part of the report is a different analysis of research methods are applied to the
study –role of service quality and customer satisfaction in organization’s performance:
Evidence from Pakistan Hotel industry. In order to identify and investigate the impact of
customers’ satisfaction and service quality towards the hotel organizations, a quantitative
study method was applied to the study. Analysis has been performed by collecting the
primary data from the hotel organizations and customers in Pakistan. With the help of
sampling method, 10 different hotels of Pakistan were selected to study how service quality
and customer satisfaction affect organizational performance.
Research Methodology and Framework
Research Paradigm
When a set of common beliefs and agreements of opinions are integrated and they are
used by scholars and scientists in research are often known as research paradigm. Research
Paradigm comprises of three different categories such as ontology, epistemology and
methodology. Kumar (2019) mentioned that ontology and epistemology create a holistic
view of how research context is considered and how researches include themselves with
respect to the knowledge. It is noted that inclusion of philosophical assumption increases the
quality of study and it certainly enhances the creativity of the study (Fletcher, 2017). It is
further noted that paradigms are further explained separating it in respective categories such
as positivist, constructivist and pragmatist. As per the principles of positivism paradigm,
reality is single and it can only be measured and known with measurable techniques –

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quantitative methods. Therefore, to know how and to what extent service quality and
customer satisfaction affect firms’ performance in the hotel industry, a calculative method
like positivism paradigm needs to be applied. Moreover, positivism research paradigm
allows the scope for a survey analysis and survey analysis is required because level of
customer satisfaction and service quality cannot be learnt without knowing the views of
customers. However, positivism paradigm often overlooks the fact that human responses are
not free of emotions and feelings instead of being static.
Research Methodology
To know how customer satisfaction and service quality affects hotels’ performance, a
quantitative study method would be applied because quantitative method allow researcher to
measure the impact of each variable associated with the topic. In order to perform
quantitative analysis, a questionnaire should be developed (Palinkas et al., 2015).
Questionnaire is the most rapid but simple technique of collecting data about the group of
individuals who are scatted in a large and extended field. So, collect response from the
customers of 10 hotels in Pakistan, it is effective to select questionnaire method. The
questionnaire would be used when performing the survey among the customers of hotel
organizations. Nonetheless, quantitative data is much narrower and sometimes the dataset can
be superficial due to biasness of the respondents influenced by the demand characteristics.
McCusker and Gunaydin (2015) mentioned that outcomes only provide the numerical
description instead of detailed and narrative results of the human perceptions. On the other
side, qualitative research should not be an effective choice for the study because gathering of
qualitative data is more time consuming compared to quantitative analysis (Håkansson,
2013). So, with the help of quantitative data, a large set of population can be targeted to
resolve the research issue.

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Sampling methods
As the present study is about to find out how customer satisfaction and service quality
affects organizational performance of hotel organizations of Pakistan, it would be effective to
study a large population. However, it is quite difficult to access and study large population
and to minimize the difficulties, sampling method need to be applied. Therefore, sampling
creates a scope for the researchers to derive information regarding population on the basis of
the outcome without investigating every individual. There are different techniques of
sampling methods available and they can be sub-divided into two major groups such as
probability and non-probability sampling method.
Walliman (2017) mentioned that under a simple random sampling, individual is
selected entirely by chance as well as each member of the population has an equal chance of
probability, which means all members can take part in the data collection techniques.
However, this technique does not match the requirement of data collection in the present
study because in order to learn about customer satisfaction and quality of service of hotels, it
would be effective to select members that are originally the customers of the hotels. The
respondents who are available and willing to take part in the data collection need to be
selected. Thereby, non-probability convenient sampling method would be an appropriate
choice for the study. Anyan (2013) mentioned that results under convenient sampling method
are subject to bias because the chosen respondents intended to contribute might be different
from the people who chose not to participate. So, sample size selected for performing the
survey among the customers of hotels in Pakistan includes 10 hotels of Pakistan and 20
customers from each hotels.
Data Collection method
There are multiple ways of collecting data, but as the study includes a positivism
paradigm, it would be effective to stick to primary data for the analysis (Tarone et al., 2013).

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On the contrary, secondary data has not been used in the study because secondary data would
not provide any new insight about customer satisfaction and service quality; thereby to
generate a new understanding about how customer satisfaction and service quality affects
firm’s performance, it would be wise to select hotels and audiences to collect real-world
facts. Thus, primary data collection method would be applied to investigate the impact of
stated elements on firms’ performance. Considering the involvement of positivism paradigm,
quantitative data collection method would be applied because quantitative provides the scope
for deriving calculative measures like regression and factor analysis. Quantitative data in the
form of number and digits help to understand the link between service quality and customer
satisfaction. Nevertheless, Antwi and Hamza (2015) mentioned that primary data collection
is relatively expensive than secondary data analysis. Moreover, the sampling includes broad
population, it takes a lot of time to finish the analysis. In addition to this, primary data relies
on the statistic mode of the dataset but it overlooks human expression and emotions.
Therefore, the accuracy of the results are sometimes questionable.
Data Analysis method
It is certain that customer satisfaction and service quality are two broad variables. For
example, customer satisfaction is further associated with several other control variable such
as product quality, price, service delivery, etc. Thus, to study the impact and relation of each
variable a regression analysis would be an effective choice, while the variables are influenced
and driven by many other factors. To understand the importance and relation of the factors, it
is effective to apply a factor analysis. However, Thanh and Thanh (2015) mentioned that
regression analysis is mainly limited to linear relationship of the variables. With the help of
regression, it is not effective to analyse the counter variable.