Purchasing's Performance as Seen By Its Internal Customers: A Study in a Service Organization

IN BRIEF In today's Total Quality Management environment, the purchasing function is not only responsible for securing vital production and facilitating resources for its organization, it is also charged with providing quality service to its internal customers. To date, the purchasing profession does not have a widely accepted instrument to measure the dimensions of service quality within a purchasing context. This research attempts to address this void by applying SERVQUAL, an instrument that has traditionally been used to assess retail consumer perceptions of service quality, to purchasing performance within a service organization. Initial results indicate that SERVQUAL does provide the purchasing function with a useful method for obtaining feedback from its internal customers.