The Effect Of Employment Service Encounter On The Word-of-Mouth Of Employment Services

Within the new digital age, the traditional interpersonal encounters for employment services are challenged by big-data, scientific, and technical service encounters in Taiwan. In this context, customer perception of employment service encounters is an innovative research topic analyzing the perceived highest encounter satisfaction level in employment services. In the current employment market, the members of the employment service systems are diversified and face fierce competition due to the emergent boom in job bank businesses. In order to stand out, one must be committed to improve service quality and promptly establish a positive reputation via social networks and customer word of mouth. This study explores the effects of employment service encounters on service reputation by using relationship quality as an indicator. According to Blau’s social exchange theory(1964), the concept of relationship quality is divided into two types: quality of economic exchange-based and quality of social exchange-based relationships. An assessment of service quality was conducted using customer satisfaction, trust, and service commitment as assessment indicators. Based on the above mentioned research strategies, this study analyzes the influence of employment service encounters on service reputation by using relationship quality as an indicator and proposes a theoretical relationship model of employment services encounters, along with relationship quality and positive reputation. In addition, it explores whether the types of service encounters(interpersonal or scientific and technological types) interfere with the performance of the model. Consequently, it focuses on determining whether the current performance of employment services meets the expectations of job seekers. More specifically, this study explores the means for all public and private employment services to use their integrated career matchmaking platforms through scientific and technological tools to establish a satisfactory reputation by improving the quality of both economic exchange-based and social exchange-based services via different types of employment service encounters(interpersonal type or scientific and technological types). The results of this study can improve the competiveness of employment service providers by offering a service encounter model that can give customers a satisfactory perception of service quality. Moreover, it resonates with the existing career matchmaking platforms, resulting in further information sharing to create a better employment services environment.The participants in this study had at least three job-hunting experiences and were divided into two groups for questionnaire distribution, one group seeking jobs through traditional interpersonal interaction and another group through social networks. As a result, 902 valid questionnaires were returned. SPSS 20.0 was first used for exploratory factor analysis and then AMOS 20.0 to verify the credibility and validity of the assessment scale. In addition, linear structural analysis was applied to confirm the proposed theoretic model. The research findings and conclusions can be summarized as follows:1. Employment service encounters can be evaluated using customer satisfaction, trust, and service commitment as indicators for continuous improvement of relationship quality. Employment service providers should pay more attention to the quality of economic exchange-based relationship during the encounters with employers, and focus more on the quality of social exchange-based relationship during the encounters with job seekers. 2. Although job seekers might accept the service quality based on economic exchange-based relationship, employment service providers can promote spreading a positive reputation only by improving quality of social exchange-based relationship through pleasant and trustful consulting encounters. 3. With the development of science and technology, the traditional interpersonal interaction based practice has changed in the employment service industry. Employment service providers should be creative and continuously incorporate new technologies with interpersonal interaction to improve service quality and market competitiveness.