The Role of Corporate Image in the Evaluation of Business-to-Business Professional Services: The Case of Consulting Engineers

ABSTRACT

The objective of this research is to examine the relative impact of quality attributes on the evaluation of consulting engineering services and to investigate how corporate image is influenced by technical and functional quality attributes. Findings provide evidence that the two technical-related dimensions, competence and reliability, have a significant impact on perceived quality, and the evaluation of service quality is also improved when perceived corporate image mediates these relationships. With regard to functional-related dimensions, communication had no significant impact on perceived quality, or on corporate image, and customer participation only had an impact on quality. The strongest relationship was between corporate image and perceived quality. The implication is that one of the consulting engineers' challenge is to better understand why technical-related dimensions are so prominent in the evaluation of their services.