The Role of Citizens Satisfaction on Positive Citizenship Behaviors in Mashhad

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Professor of Geography Department, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

2 M.A. Geography- Urban Planning, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM)

Abstract

Competition between locations is global. Competition for foreign investment and business, tourism income, skilled labor and attracting creative people to become new citizens who are driving the growth of the economy has intensified. In a global environment of intense competition and continuous change, cities must focus on improving service levels and increasing customer satisfaction to maintain competition and achieve long-term survival. Location marketing has been studied for decades. In the past, location marketing studies focused on foreign audiences or tourists, but now, studies have focused on urban residents. And they are recognized as an important target group of local customers who previously their satisfaction less considered, While they shape the location brand with their characteristics and behaviors. Citizens' satisfaction is an important tool for determining the citizen's perspective of the city in which they live, which is formed by the perceived nature or quality of relevant urban environments and people outside the city are always looking for an awareness of its level. Because they are naturally informal, valid , and credible sources of information about the place. Responding to the needs of citizens creates a sense of enjoyment and social welfare and positive behaviors from them. There has been a significant defect In consideration of the role of citizens in the place marketing process. Urban managers need to be aware of the role of citizens as a powerful tool in the local marketing process. The purpose of this paper is to improve policy through the satisfaction and attraction of residents. Accordingly, in this research, residents' perception of the quality of urban life in Mashhad city is firstly evaluated. Then, the relationship between perceived quality of urban life, satisfaction, attachment and citizenship behaviors such as intention to leave a place of life and positive speech in Mashhad city was investigated.
Materials and methods
Materials and methods
The city studied in this study is Mashhad. Due to the wide extent of the city and in order to generalize the results of the research into the community studied
the 3 regions of Mashhad 1, 6 and 9 were selected to complete the questionnaires. The sample size was 382 people. In order to assess perceived quality in Mashhad, 30 items in four dimensions of urban facilities and infrastructure, basic needs, social environment and environment were considered. Questionnaire with 5-options Likert scale was used from I fully agree with the continuum until I completely disagree. In which I totally agree with the score of 5, indicating the opinion, I agree with the score of 4, I do not have a score of 3, I disagree with the score of 2, and I totally disagree with the score of 1, and the respondents were asked to rate the city in 30 selected items. 3 items were developed to assess the overall citizens' satisfaction. Citizens' attachment was also evaluated with 3 items. Also, 2 items were considered for 5-point Likert scale in order to investigate the variables of intention to leave and 2 items in order to evaluate the positive speech variable.

Results and discussion

The results of descriptive statistics and t-test for dimension of urban facilities and infrastructures showed that overall average for this dimension is 2.61 and has significant differences with mean of 3. T-test results for basic needs dimension also showed that the overall average of this dimension is equal to 1.92 and has a significant difference with an average of 3. The social environment dimension also showed a significant difference with an average of 3 and, of course, less than this. Finally, the average for the environmental dimension was 2.76. Accordingly, the first hypothesis based on the desired level of perceived quality in Mashhad was rejected. The results of this study showed that in all four dimensions are considered perceived quality was lower than average of 3. In the next stage, the results of the model test and research hypotheses were as follows that the second hypothesis based on the positive effect of perceived quality on the overall satisfaction of citizens was confirmed with path coefficient (β = 0.43) . And it can be said that by increasing the level of perceived quality, the overall satisfaction of citizens will increase. The third hypothesis was confirmed that the citizens' satisfaction had a positive effect on the city's attachment (β = 0.68). The negative effects of citizens' satisfaction on the intention to quit (β = 0.31) and the negative impact of attachment on the intention to leave (β = -0.28) were confirmed. Existence of satisfaction and attachment in citizens has reduced the intention of leaving the city by citizens.The results of this section were also confirmed by the results of the research of (Zenker & Rütter, 2014). Finally, the hypothesis of positive effect of citizenship satisfaction on positive speech with path coefficient and significant number (β = 0.20), as well as the attachment effect hypothesis on positive speech with path coefficient (β = 0.33)) were confirmed.
Conclusion
No performance evaluation is possible without assessing citizens' expectations and perceptions. The important thing is that the services provided are efficient and that respond to the needs and requirements of the citizens in a desirable manner. In this regard, measurement is the first step for improvement, and satisfaction surveys should be carried out at regular intervals, the service area must be identified and needs to be estimated and ways of developing and improvement must be investigated. Location attachment is useful. Communities included of many people, try more to maintain their societies. This feeling of emotional attachment should be strengthened by developing meaningful relationships by urban executives. The quality of provided services is a key factor in this regard, since quality leads to satisfaction; something has a positive effect on the attachment and positive behaviors of citizens like positive speech. Therefore, city managers must implement a variety of programs to enrich, increase, maintain, modify, or create a desired level.
Keywords: Perceived Quality, Satisfaction, Attachment, Intention to Leave, Word-of-Mouth.

Keywords

Main Subjects

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Human Geography Research
Volume 52, Issue 1
April 2020
Pages 39-54

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History

  • Receive Date: 10 November 2017
  • Revise Date: 29 May 2018
  • Accept Date: 29 May 2018

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