The study of part time domestic help business in Singapore : examining the effects of service quality, western culture and word-of-mouth on the expatriate market.

• Main Authors: Goh, Yvonne Yuxian., Siau, Janice Hui Fang., Ng, Chong Ming.
• Other Authors: Choo Wee Ee Clive
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business::Industries and labor
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/15295
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

With increasing affluence and a more hectic lifestyle, people are viewing doing housework negatively. For those who are able to afford, they willingly fork out money to employ domestic help for their household. The trend of employing domestic help is even more strongly reflected among the expatriate population in Singapore, who looks to part time domestic help to solve their domestic household chores problem. Therefore our research paper would look to explain how the willingness to employ part time domestic help can be increased by better aspects of service quality, word-of-mouth recommendations and the person’s own cultural upbringing. Interviews were first conducted with the western expatriates to understand their issues pertaining to the hiring of part time domestic help. Following which, surveys are conducted to gather their perceptions of the service quality, their cultural perceptions, as well as how influential the different sources of word-of-mouth are. With these results, we will be able to examine how each factor affects the target segment’s willingness to employ part time domestic help. Through our research, we found that service quality aspects like responsiveness, reliability and assurance plays a role in affecting expatriate’s willingness to employ part time domestic help. We also found that cultural factor such as privacy has a more significant role to play compared to the need for the child to be independent and practicality reasons, when it comes to hiring a part time domestic help. In addition, the interaction effect between cultural factors and service quality affects one’s willingness to employ as well. Finally, our research found out that service quality, cultural upbringing and word of mouth marketing all play a part in helping western expatriates in their decision process on whether or not to hire a part time domestic help.