Expectations, Disconfirmation, and Citizen Satisfaction with the US Federal Government: Testing and Expanding the Model

Abstract

Recent research on citizen satisfaction with government services has examined the expectancy-disconfirmation model (EDM), a model suggesting that satisfaction judgments are formed through a cognitive process relating prior expectations to perceived performance and the confirmation or disconfirmation of expectations relative to performance. The results of these studies have been promising and largely supportive of the application of this model to the domain of government services, helping to clarify the processes by which citizens form satisfaction judgments about these services. Thus far, however, the model has only been tested in its most basic form and only applying survey data of citizens experiencing urban, local, or state government services. In this article, we expand on the extant research in two ways. First, we test the EDM in relation to US federal government services and compare our results to the findings of earlier studies focused on local government services. Second, we expand the model by including some antecedents we hypothesize will influence citizens’ expectations of their experiences at the federal level of government, including the respondent’s political ideology, party identification, and overall trust in the federal government. Our results suggest that the EDM functions well in regard to federal government services, confirming and building upon the findings of earlier studies of this model vis-à-vis local government services. Furthermore, analysis of the expanded EDM finds a significant relationship between party ID, ideology, trust and expectations, suggesting a new direction for future research using this model. 《预期、预期差异及市民对联邦政府的满意度：理论模型的验证及拓展》 作者：弗雷斯特V. 莫格森 期望失验理论(Expectancy Disconfirmation Model, EDM) 提出客户对服务满意度的形成和判定取决于实际服务绩效与事前期望的比较，以及实际服务绩效是否达到事前的预期。这一理论近来在市民对政府服务满意度的研究领域有所应用。此类关于政府服务满意度的研究为期望失验理论提供了实证基础，也表明期望失验理论有助于理解政府公共服务和市民对政府服务的满意度的形成过程。然而迄今为止，这些实证研究仅仅验证期望失验理论的基本论点，并且局限于运用市民关于市、地方和州政府服务经验的问卷调查数据。本研究从以下两方面拓展了关于期望失验理论的实证研究。第一，我们运用关于联邦政府公共服务的数据来验证期望失验理论，并且比较本研究和早期关于地方和州政府公共服务研究的异同。第二，我们拓展了期望失验理论的基本论点，在理论模型中加入了诸多可能影响市民对联邦政府公共服务预期的关键因素。 这些影响市民预期形成的因素包括：参与问卷调研者的政治意识形态、政党背景、以及他们对于联邦政府的信任度。我们的研究结果表明，期望失验理论能有效的解释市民对于联邦政府服务的满意度。这一结论与早期关于地方政府公共服务的研究结论是一致的。 此外，我们的实证分析还表明，个人的政党背景、政治意识形态以及对政府的信任度均能影响他们对政府公共服务的预期。未来的相关研究需考量这些重要的个人因素。