The impact of the perceived quality of municipal public services on user satisfaction: an empirical study

Abstract

Since the adoption of the 2011 Constitution, the implementation of advanced regionalisation, and the promulgation of organic laws governing local authorities, moroccan municipalities  have found themselves increasingly responsible for providing local public services that meet quality standards, and aim to satisfy users and live up to their expectations.

While theoretical and empirical literature has confirmed the existence of a causal relationship between perceived quality and service satisfaction in the context of services provided by private sector companies, this study attempts to assess this causal relationship in the context of public services provided by local authorities. To this end, and drawing on theoretical and empirical research on the subject, we carried out an empirical study on a sample of 200 users living in the Sidi Kacem Urban Municipality, to assess the impact of the perceived quality of municipal publics services on user satisfaction.

The results showed that the dimensions « helpfulness » of the municipality's staff, « reliability » and « tangibility » of municipal services, used to measure « perceived quality », had a positive and significant impact on user « satisfaction », while the impact of the « transparency » dimension was not significant.