This paper presents a comprehensive examination of the conceptual relationships among service quality, satisfaction, sacrifice, service value, and behavioral intentions.  These constructs have been the focus of considerable research in the services literature; however, the precise manner in which they interact to influence behavioral intentions is not yet well understood.  Thus, no one of the models suggested to date can be viewed as more generalizable than the others.  This is unfortunate because attempts to develop more complex models of the service evaluation process are being undertaken without this knowledge. 

Our aim in this paper is to advance a standard conceptual service evaluation model using a thorough empirical analysis of several currently recognized models.  Because this involves uncovering the most robust of a collection of competing models, all of which have support in the literature, we test and compare these models in two major studies, with a view to maximizing external validity.  The studies assess all the models in terms of their appropriateness and fit across a range of demanding conditions that reflect extremes of national business environment, industry type, and temporal setting. 

The models were first tested across consumer samples from five diverse countries (Australia, China/Hong Kong, Morocco, The Netherlands, and the United States).  This is an important feature of the study because findings from research conducted in a range of national settings tend to have higher reliability and external validity than findings from single-country studies.  Moreover, this is the first multinational and multi-setting study to examine conceptual service relationships in such a broad range of national settings. 

The models were also tested across service industries that vary in terms of tangibility, variability, and customer-employee interaction.  Fast food and retail grocery stores were selected to represent services with prevalent tangible products involved in the exchange, which require little interaction between buyer and seller, and that have relatively little variability.  Airlines and physicians represent services that are less tangible, with more interaction required, and that have more variability in the service delivered.     

The models were also tested across different temporal settings.  It is believed that alternative processes may apply depending on whether a service exchange is viewed at the global level or in reference to a specific service encounter.  The models were therefore comparatively analyzed in both encounter-specific and global temporal settings.  

In all, 36 separate comparative analyses were conducted.  The results reveal that one conceptualization, the “comprehensive” model, best captures the identified relationships.  This model is the best fitting across all countries, industries, and temporal settings, which indicates it has the greatest external validity.  A key implication of the results is that service quality, satisfaction, and service value all appear to play a direct role in influencing service consumers’ behavioral intentions. 

Our findings question the external validity of conceptual models that, a priori, portray service quality, satisfaction, or service value as having a more important role in the development of behavioral intentions than any of the other constructs.  Such models may exaggerate the importance of the central construct to the detriment of the variables that are not featured.  Our findings also reveal that individual constructs and linkages vary across national and temporal settings, which underscores the complexity of the service encounter and calls into question the tendency to assume that customers behave similarly, regardless of the national or temporal context.  In light of our findings, we suggest that service managers and researchers avoid models that are satisfaction, quality, or value-centric in favor of more holistic conceptual models, such as the comprehensive model.