Role ambiguity, role conflict and customer orientation behaviour : a look at life insurance industry in Malaysia / Nor Azila Mohd Noor and Azli Muhamad

The study examines the role of managers in enhancing the quality of customer services among customer-contact personnel in life insurance industry. In the competitive environment of insurance industry, there is constant pressure to innovate and develop new ways to improve the quality of services to c...

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Main Authors: Mohd Noor, Nor Azila, Muhamad, Azli
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Institute of Quality and Knowledge Advancement (InQKA) and University Publication Centre (UPENA) 2007
Subjects:
Online Access:http://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/16189/
http://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/16189/1/AJ_NOR%20AZILA%20MOHD%20NOR%20MJQ%2007.pdf
id uitm-16189
recordtype eprints
spelling uitm-161892017-03-08T05:54:17Z http://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/16189/ Role ambiguity, role conflict and customer orientation behaviour : a look at life insurance industry in Malaysia / Nor Azila Mohd Noor and Azli Muhamad Mohd Noor, Nor Azila Muhamad, Azli Life insurance business. Management The study examines the role of managers in enhancing the quality of customer services among customer-contact personnel in life insurance industry. In the competitive environment of insurance industry, there is constant pressure to innovate and develop new ways to improve the quality of services to customers. One approach which has been emphasised by the Life Insurance Association of Malaysia is to encourage agents to adopt customer-orientation behaviour in their selling activities. Customer-orientation behavior is defined as the degree to which agents practice the marketing concept in their selling activities by trying to help their customers to make purchase decisions that will satisfy customers' needs. It involves the satisfaction of customer needs through the individual relationship between customer contact personnel (agent) and customers. In order to become customer-oriented, managers play an important role in supervising their agents. This study explores the importance of two role perception factors, which consists of role ambiguity and role conflict in enhancing customer-orientation behaviour of the agents. Data gathered from 445 life insurance agents were used to test the hypothesised relationships. The results supported the hypotheses that both role ambiguity and role conflict negatively affect agents to adopt customer-orientation behaviour in their selling activities. This justify that managers should play role in reducing agents from experiencing role ambiguity and role conflict in their jobs. The theoretical implications and managerial implications, particularly the important role of insurance managers in dealing with insurance agent's customer-orientation behaviour, of these findings are discussed. Institute of Quality and Knowledge Advancement (InQKA) and University Publication Centre (UPENA) 2007 Article PeerReviewed text en http://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/16189/1/AJ_NOR%20AZILA%20MOHD%20NOR%20MJQ%2007.pdf Mohd Noor, Nor Azila and Muhamad, Azli (2007) Role ambiguity, role conflict and customer orientation behaviour : a look at life insurance industry in Malaysia / Nor Azila Mohd Noor and Azli Muhamad. Malaysian Journal of Quality, 2. pp. 75-91. ISSN 1823-7347
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Local University
institution Universiti Teknologi MARA
building UiTM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
language English
topic Life insurance business. Management
spellingShingle Life insurance business. Management
Mohd Noor, Nor Azila
Muhamad, Azli
Role ambiguity, role conflict and customer orientation behaviour : a look at life insurance industry in Malaysia / Nor Azila Mohd Noor and Azli Muhamad
description The study examines the role of managers in enhancing the quality of customer services among customer-contact personnel in life insurance industry. In the competitive environment of insurance industry, there is constant pressure to innovate and develop new ways to improve the quality of services to customers. One approach which has been emphasised by the Life Insurance Association of Malaysia is to encourage agents to adopt customer-orientation behaviour in their selling activities. Customer-orientation behavior is defined as the degree to which agents practice the marketing concept in their selling activities by trying to help their customers to make purchase decisions that will satisfy customers' needs. It involves the satisfaction of customer needs through the individual relationship between customer contact personnel (agent) and customers. In order to become customer-oriented, managers play an important role in supervising their agents. This study explores the importance of two role perception factors, which consists of role ambiguity and role conflict in enhancing customer-orientation behaviour of the agents. Data gathered from 445 life insurance agents were used to test the hypothesised relationships. The results supported the hypotheses that both role ambiguity and role conflict negatively affect agents to adopt customer-orientation behaviour in their selling activities. This justify that managers should play role in reducing agents from experiencing role ambiguity and role conflict in their jobs. The theoretical implications and managerial implications, particularly the important role of insurance managers in dealing with insurance agent's customer-orientation behaviour, of these findings are discussed.
format Article
author Mohd Noor, Nor Azila
Muhamad, Azli
author_facet Mohd Noor, Nor Azila
Muhamad, Azli
author_sort Mohd Noor, Nor Azila
title Role ambiguity, role conflict and customer orientation behaviour : a look at life insurance industry in Malaysia / Nor Azila Mohd Noor and Azli Muhamad
title_short Role ambiguity, role conflict and customer orientation behaviour : a look at life insurance industry in Malaysia / Nor Azila Mohd Noor and Azli Muhamad
title_full Role ambiguity, role conflict and customer orientation behaviour : a look at life insurance industry in Malaysia / Nor Azila Mohd Noor and Azli Muhamad
title_fullStr Role ambiguity, role conflict and customer orientation behaviour : a look at life insurance industry in Malaysia / Nor Azila Mohd Noor and Azli Muhamad
title_full_unstemmed Role ambiguity, role conflict and customer orientation behaviour : a look at life insurance industry in Malaysia / Nor Azila Mohd Noor and Azli Muhamad
title_sort role ambiguity, role conflict and customer orientation behaviour : a look at life insurance industry in malaysia / nor azila mohd noor and azli muhamad
publisher Institute of Quality and Knowledge Advancement (InQKA) and University Publication Centre (UPENA)
publishDate 2007
url http://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/16189/
http://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/16189/1/AJ_NOR%20AZILA%20MOHD%20NOR%20MJQ%2007.pdf
first_indexed 2023-09-18T22:55:30Z
last_indexed 2023-09-18T22:55:30Z
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