DOI: 10.36347/sjebm.2015.v02i09.003

Pages: 914-920

The aim of this research was to find out the service quality difference between outsourced and in house cleaning services in public universities in Kenya. The research design was comparative. A 343 population in Kenyatta University, which outsources cleaning services was targeted and for in house functions, a 297 population in Karatina University was targeted. This comprised of faculty, non-teaching staff and students in the school of business. Staff were grouped in terms of grades, from 5 to 19, to form strata. Sample size was 74 respondents from Kenyatta University and 67 respondents from Karatina University. Closed and open ended questionnaires which were designed by use of the five dimensions of SERVQUAL model were used to collect the data. Simple t- test was used for analysis and the results for t and p were: t = 3.901 and p = 0.000. Since p-value was .000, which was less than p < 0.05, this showed that there existed significant difference between service quality of outsourced and in house cleaning services in public universities in Kenya. Further, a satisfaction index ranging from 0 - 1 was calculated to determine the type of service that yielded better service quality. With =0.7111 for outsourced and =0.5951 for in house cleaning services, outsourced cleaning services yielded better service quality. In view of the findings the study recommended that cleaning services should be given priority when making an outsourcing decision in public universities.