Proposta de uma escala para avaliação de academias de ginástica

Abstract

The benefits of regular exercise has been widely publicized by the media. A growing demand for services that involve the exercise as a healthy practice sets specific market the sport, “the fitness”. The health-fitness clubs grow throughout the country establishing themselves as a business and begin to compose a competitive market. In this scenario, adopting strategies that aim to improve quality perception by customers of this sector is critical to the survival of these companies. The objective of this study is to propose a scale to assess health-fitness clubs. This research was conducted in two stages where the first literature review were conducted in conjunction with 18 in-depth interviews with clients of health-fitness clubs. The interviews were based and analyzed according to the laddering technique, which was built a hierarchical value map. The found attributes were used as the basis for the dimensions of the proposed scale that had its variables selected from studies in the literature. In a second step was a survey done by applying the initial scale, involving 407 customers of health-fitness clubs. It was conducted exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and reliability testing of the scale after analysis by setting a measurement model to perform the confirmatory factor analysis (AFC). Tests of convergent and discriminant validity were carried out and measures to adjust the final model were considered satisfactory. The Scale for the Assessment of Academies was considered valid and was composed of the dimensions "Cleaning and Maintenance", "Professor", "Receptionist", "Structure and Equipment", "Social Interaction", "Vacancy Reserve" The managerial implications were discussed and finally the limitations of research and questions for further research were presented.