The relationship of service climate, intrinsic motivation, organizational commitment and service quality of call centre agents in Malaysia

Abstract

The growth rate of the call center industry in Malaysia is tremendously encouraging. In fact, Malaysia has been identified as the new Asia Pacific Call Center Hub. Malaysia’s potential to attract many global organizations to locate their call centers here will create employment among locals as call center agents. However, statistics show that the turnover rates in this industry is high throughout Asia. Labour costs have also been cited at being the bulk of the call center costs. Therefore, human resource management is crucial in the management of successful call centers. Call centre managers need to implement the right policies and human resource intervention strategies that will be able to draw quality service from call center agents. This research was thus, aimed to study how service climate in the Malaysian call centers relates to the call center agent’s behaviour in terms of intrinsic motivation and also commitment. Relationship between these behaviours with the outcome of their services, namely the service quality was examined. In addition, this study also investigated the relationship between service climate in call centers with the call center agent’s service quality through the agent’s intrinsic motivation and commitment. A survey method was used in the research. Reliable measures were used in the research. Two hundred and fifty survey forms were distributed to two call centers in Malaysia. The results of the survey were analysed by using the SPSS programme. The results of the analysis, found that the service climate in call centers is significantly related to the call center agent’s intrinsic motivation and commitment. Both call center agent’s intrinsic motivation and commitment are related service quality. It was also found that the agent’s intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between service climate and service quality in Malaysian call centers. While commitment does not mediate the relationship between service climate and service quality.