The Challenge of Business Services’ Quality Evaluation from a Market Functioning Perspective

In the case of services there is no consensus about the way in which quality should be evaluated. The problem appears to be complex, especially for services the market of which is prejudiced by high information asymmetry. This is why business services – especially the knowledge intensive ones – tend to be expensive but of an uncertain value, distorting the market and compromising the competitiveness of their client industries. The authors make a review of existing conceptual models of service quality assessment; discuss the implications of information asymmetry and explore solutions for overcoming the current shortcomings