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Unit 8: Leadership

8.1.8 Service Support System Notes

The performance of a customer-oriented library should be evaluated on the basis of quality
and quantity. Quantitative evaluation in terms of output measure is the basic element of a
statistical report, which is mainly prepared for accountability not for improving service. Meanwhile,
customer satisfaction significantly contributes to improving service quality. Based on the evaluation
results, the service support system should allocate resources to those services that customers
deem as having low satisfaction. In practice, the SERVQUAL model, critical incident techniques
and benchmarking can be used to evaluate and improve service quality in library services.
Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1985) developed a multiple-item scale called SERVQUAL
for measuring the five dimensions of service quality (i.e., reliability, responsiveness, assurance,
empathy, and tangibles). A score for the quality of service is calculated by computing the
differences between the ratings that customers assign to paired expectation and perception of
each of twenty-two statements. This instrument has been designed and validated for use in a
variety of service encounters. In addition, many investigators have adapted the SERVQUAL
measures to evaluate the service quality of libraries.

Critical incident techniques can be used to analyse the service encounters between the customer
and librarians. Customers and employees are interviewed separately to describe their experiences
of the service experience. By doing so, the cause of success or failure of the service encounter
can be analysed; the critical factors of service encounters can be identified as well.

Did u know? Correspondingly, staff training and development courses can be designed
to enhance the capacity of librarians and library instruction. Moreover,
information literacy programs can be designed to equip the capacity of
customers.

8.2 Creativity and Innovation

Creativity is the nature of creating something new, a new idea, concept or method. Innovation
is using creativity to enhance performance of a process, person, team or organization.
Businesses, for-profit and nonprofit, are facing change like never before. Numerous driving
forces to this change included a rapidly expanding marketplace (globalization), and increasing
competition, diversity among consumers, and availability to new forms of technology. Creativity
and innovation are often key to the success of a business, particularly when strategizing
during strategic planning, and when designing new products and services. Creative thinking
and innovation are particularly useful during Strategic Planning and in Product and Service
Management.

8.2.1 Leading Innovation
Innovation is a hot topic these days. From what I have seen, organizations have been outsourcing
innovation for the last 10–15 years. It began with a reliance on ad agencies and then shifted
to “design” companies like IDEO and JUMP. Now the business airwaves and media announce
the need for more innovation, faster and more radical than ever before, and the literature of
full of “how to innovate” books and articles.
It seems easy to say we want to innovate, but it feels like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel,
you are leaving all you know behind for a visit to Chaos. Confronted by all the mystery and

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