Service Quality and Firm Performance: The Moderating Role of Digital Human-AI Collaboration in Chinese Telecommunications Firms

This study investigates the relationship between service quality and firm performance in Chinese telecommunications firms, with a particular focus on how digital Human-AI collaboration moderates this relationship. Drawing on the SERVQUAL framework, we examine five dimensions of service quality (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) and their impact on multiple firm performance indicators. Using a mixed-methods approach combining structural equation modeling (SEM), artificial neural networks (ANN), and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), we analyzed data collected from 287 telecommunications firms in China. Moreover, our results indicate that service quality has a significant positive effect on firm performance, with the reliability and responsiveness dimensions showing the strongest influence. More importantly, our findings reveal that digital Human-AI collaboration positively moderates this relationship, strengthening the impact of service quality on performance outcomes. The fsQCA results further identify multiple configurations of service quality dimensions and digital Human-AI collaboration that lead to superior firm performance. This study contributes to service management literature by providing empirical evidence on the role of emerging digital Human-AI collaboration in enhancing the service quality-performance link in technology-intensive industries.