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Introduction

Service quality and services management in the health-care sector have attracted significant research attention in recent years, but most studies have focused on traditional health care (Arcelay et al., 1999; Ennis and Harrington, 1999; Lagrosen,2000; Wagar and Rondeau, 1998; Yasin and Alavi, 1999). In contrast, the fitness industry has received relatively little research attention. There have been several contributions in the field of sports Marketing, but few with respect to the fitness industry. Nevertheless, the fitness industry is growing quickly (Tawse and Keogh,1998), and more emphasis is being placed on the quality of services in this industry (Papadimitriou and Karteroliotis, 2000).

More research in this area is needed. It has been argued that physical fitness is an effective means of enhancing leadership abilities (McDowell-Larsen et al., 2002; Neck et al., 2000), and parallels have been drawn between business leadership and sporting performance (Westerbeek and Smith, 2005). However, despite the potential importance of the field, there are indications that services management in the fitness industry, especially the management of customer relations, is deficient (Hurley, 2004). Fitness services require physical interaction between the provider and the customers, andfitness-services operations are complex (Chelladurai et al., 1987) and distinctive (Chang and Chelladurai, 2003). It is therefore important that fitness-services providers understand their customers, and qualitative studies are especially useful in this regard(Lagrosen, 2001).

The present study examines the concept of quality in relation to fitness. The purposes of the study are:
. To discover quality dimensions for the health-and-fitness industry.
. To examine quality-management practices in this industry.
The study uses the grounded-theory approach (Glaser, 1992; Glaser and Strauss, 1967;Strauss and Corbin, 1990), and is thus primarily inductive.

Literature review
Methodology
Findings
Discussion
Managerial implications
Conclusions

References

Adelman, M.B., Ahuvia, A. and Goodwin, C. (1994), “Beyond smiling – social support and service quality”, in Rust, R.T. and Oliver, R.L. (Eds), Service Quality – New Directions in Theory and Practice, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.Afthinos, Y., Theodorakis, N.D. and Nassis, P. (2005), “Customers’ expectations of service in Greek fitness centers – gender, age type of sport center, and motivation differences”, Managing Service Quality, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 245-58.
Alexander, C.N., Rainforth, M.V. and Gelderloos, P. (1991), “Transcendental meditation,self-actualization, and psychological health: a conceptual overview and statistical meta-analysis”, Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, Vol. 6 No. 5, pp. 189-247.
Alexandris, K., Tsorbatzoudis, C. and Grouios, G. (2002), “Perceived constraints on recreational sport participation: investigating their relationship with intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation”, Journal of Leisure Research, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 233-52.
Arcelay, A., Sa′nchez, E., Herna′ndez, L., Incla′n, G., Bacigalupe, M., Letona, J., Gonza′lez, R.M. and
Martı′nez-Conde, A.E. (1999), “Self-assessment of all the health centres of a本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。