Understanding Customer Role and its Importance in the Formation of Service Quality Expectations

A search of the Service Quality (SQ) and Customer Satisfaction (CS) literature reveals a gap in knowledge relating to the ‘expectation’ formation aspect of the disconfirmation paradigm.

Little consideration has been given to the ‘role’ of the customer in the service encounter, albeit that the above literature mostly customer that one measure of output performance comprises a customer comparison of the various delivery components with a self-established standard, of which ‘expectations’ appears the most common. A need exists to identify not only how customers define the standards and parameters for evaluation, but also, how the customers’ understanding of their role during service interaction affects the expectations they form.

This paper addresses the above need through the development and subsequent exploratory testing of a conceptual model of expectation formation. In addition to the recognised expectation antecedents of ‘experience’ and ‘familiarity,' two ‘role’ construct dimensions ‘role understanding’ and ‘role benefit’ are introduced in a broader expectation antecedent framework. The relationship between ‘experience’ and ‘familiarity’ with respect to expectations is found to be indirect in nature; with ‘role understanding’ and ‘role benefit’ both performing a mediator function. Managerial and research implications are discussed.     

Service Quality in Customer Relationships:

This article presents the results of a study of 205 service-related critical incidents in customer relationships in mechanical engineering companies. Information has been gathered from 15 Swedish companies, including Asea Brown Boveri Robotics, Atlas Copco, Bofors, Carlamo, Zander &; Ingesttorn and Wennmec. The selection has been made so as to obtain a spread as regards both tine of production and size of company.

The overall aim of the inquiry has been to increase the understanding of service-related critical incidents in the perspective of long-term, interactive customer relationships. What lies behind these situations? What effect do they have on the development of the selling process? How are customer relations affected? Critical incidents directly connected with the price or the hardware have not been included in this study.

‘Critical incident’ means a problematic, unpleasant situation which places special demands on the service-producing company's resources, especially on its personnel: for example, a customer meeting that fails to avoid friction. The customer may demand customer adaptation of the hardware, special training, special terms of guarantee, short delivery time or a special financing model. Other examples of critical incidents are agreements that have not been kept and missing or incorrect information.     

Big business in the Russian empire: A European perspective

This paper presents an inventory of the largest private companies in the Russian Empire in 1914, and their comparison to the largest contemporary British, German, and French companies identified by Youssef Cassis as ‘big business’. It focusses on three questions. First, how big was big business in Russia from a European perspective? Second, how did the structure of big business in Russia compare to that of other large European economies? And finally, how did foreign entrepreneurship appear in Russian big business? Drawing on new empirical evidence, it contributes to the discussion on the ‘backward’ and ‘peripheral’ character of the Russian economy before the First World War.     

The Dimensions of Service Quality: The Original European Perspective Revisited

The early pioneers of services marketing in Europe, especially the Nordic School, argued that service quality consists of two or three underlying dimensions. Lehtinen and Lehtinen [1985] referred to physical and interactive quality while Christian Grönroos [1984] identified a technical dimension, a functional dimension and the firm's image as a third dimension. In later years, Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry [1988] published empirical evidence from five service industries which suggested that five dimensions more appropriately capture the perceived service quality construct. This study uses an exploratory factor analysis approach to investigate the empirical factor structure of the SERVQUAL instrument developed by Parasuraman et al. [1988] to measure perceived service quality. Based on the results of five exploratory analyses performed on five SERVQUAL data sets, a model for SERVQUAL is proposed. It suggests that the SERVQUAL difference scores are measures of two factors termed ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ service quality. The model is then fitted to the SERVQUAL data obtained from five samples of clients who evaluated the services of five service industries or companies by means of confirmatory factor analysis. The results of this study provide empirical support for the European authors who, in the early 1980s, argued that service quality perceptions are largely determined by two (rather than five) dimensions.     

The ‘Catch 22’ of communicating CSR: Findings from a Danish study

This research explored the apparent ‘Catch 22’ of communicating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Although companies are regularly encouraged to engage in CSR, they are simultaneously discouraged to communicate about this engagement. We contribute with two models that may help to explain how companies can best communicate about their CSR initiatives. Based on a reputation survey and two case studies of Danish corporate CSR frontrunners, first we develop an ‘inside‐out approach’ to suggest how managers can manage their CSR activities to achieve favourable CSR reputation in a ‘Catch 22’ context. Employees appear as a key component in building trustworthiness as CSR communication is shown to evolve when taking an ‘inside‐out approach’. Second, we develop a CSR communication model with two CSR communication processes targeting different stakeholder groups: ‘the expert CSR communication process’ and ‘the endorsed CSR communication process’. Integrating these models and processes may help companies strategically capture reputational advantage from their CSR initiatives.     

“What’s the Harm in Being Unethical? These Strangers are Rich Anyway!” Exploring Underlying Factors of Double Standards

Previous studies show evidence of double standards in terms of individuals being more tolerant of questionable consumer practices than of similar business practices. However, whether these double standards are necessarily due to the fact that one party is a business company while the other is a consumer was not addressed. The results of our two experimental studies, conducted among 277 (Study 1) and 264 (Study 2) participants from a Western European country by means of an anonymous self-administered online survey, demonstrate that the respondents were not only harsher in their judgments of unethical business (vs. consumer) behavior, but also harsher in their judgments of unethical behavior by prosperous (vs. non-prosperous) consumers and prosperous (vs. non-prosperous) business companies (Study 1). Further, they were also less tolerant of unethical behavior by consumers (vs. one’s best friend) and business companies with which they have a less than good (vs. a good) relationship (Study 2). These results indicate that double standards are due to differences in perceived wealth between subjects and in the individual’s relationship with subjects. These two factors imply that double standards are not strictly reserved to consumer–business relations, but might also be used in business–business and consumer–consumer relations. Further, these results indicate that companies need to be aware of the fact that good financial figures may backfire as they might lead individuals to be more critical of a company’s deceptive practices. Moreover, these findings point to the importance of businesses investing resources—and to keep investing resources—in developing a good relationship with stakeholders as these good relationships lead to stakeholders being less prone to make moral condemnations.     

The Strategy of Customer Service

This article explores the role of Customer Service in an organisation's marketing effort and suggests an approach to the development of appropriate strategies. Customer service here is defined in its broadest sense of providing ‘time and place utility’ which might more simply be expressed as the provision of ‘availability’.     

Corporate Social Reporting in the European Context and Human Resource Disclosures: An Analysis of Finnish Companies

This paper explores by means of content analysis the extent to which the Finnish biggest companies have adapted socially responsible reporting practices. The research focuses on Human Resource (HR) reporting and covers corporate annual reports. The criteria has been set on the basis of the analysis of the documents published at the European level in the context of corporate social responsibility (CSR), paying special attention to the European Council appeal on CSR in March 2000. As CSR is a relatively new concept in Finland, the paper also contributes to the discussion on interface between HR reporting (especially as based on measurements such as Human Resource Accounting and Intellectual Capital schools) and corporate social reporting practices. The results of the content analysis indicate that social reporting practices are still at an early stage of development in Finland. The most reported theme was ‘training and staff development’. A positive sign was that the majority also disclosed themes ‘participation and staff involvement’ and ‘employee health and well-being’. Furthermore, nearly one-third made references to their work atmosphere or job satisfaction survey. However, disclosures lacked overall consistency and comparability with each other and especially quantitative indicators were disclosed by few. Further concern was lack of information related to the theme equal opportunities and going beyond a sheer disclosure of age or gender structure. The other issues rarely disclosed were those related to employee work–life balance and integration of disadvantaged groups in the labour markets.     

商业性小额贷款公司能惠及三农和微小客户吗?

利用42家小额贷款公司的调查数据,剖析小额贷款公司的业务活动特征和影响小额贷款公司贷款覆盖深度的因素。通过描述统计和计量模型分析,研究发现:小额贷款公司倾向于服务微小企业和农村大户,其贷款以短期、非信用贷款为主,利率水平较高;采用的信贷技术、营业费用率、所在地区经济发展水平和金融市场的竞争程度对小额贷款公司的贷款覆盖深度有显著影响,而资产规模和资产回报率对小额贷款公司的贷款覆盖深度影响不显著。     

An approach to prioritize customer-based,cost-effective service enhancements

Service firms routinely enhance their offerings to satisfy and retain current customers and to attract new customers. We show theoretically that service improvements can be prioritized by simultaneously taking into account the likely incremental revenue (through increased customer value) and the incremental cost of making the improvement. The customer values obtained from a sample of respondents, and cost estimates obtained from managers of the service providing organization are combined to prioritize improvements using a ‘bang for the buck’ (i.e. value/cost) rule. Such a prioritization would be helpful to come up with a ‘short list’ of service improvements. The items on the short list can be evaluated in detail for their ‘Return on Quality’. The approach for prioritization is illustrated in the context of improving passenger train service between a pair of cities in India. An adaptive self-explicated approach is used for obtaining customer values and cost estimates. The customer values so elicited display substantial cross-validity.     

服务贸易领域的原产地规则在区域经济一体化进程中的应用

乌拉圭回合谈判后,多边贸易体制的调整范围由货物贸易扩大到服务贸易。WTO规则允许各成员根据最惠国原则对不同成员的服务和服务提供者给予差别待遇。《服务贸易总协定》(简称为GATS)第5条对"经济一体化协定"的规定也允许对隶属于区域成员国的服务或服务提供者给予区域性更优惠待遇。服务贸易领域因此也日益关注起对原产地规则的研究。我国自2004年1月1日实施《内地与香港关于建立更紧密经贸关系的安排》(简称为CEPA)起,"香港公司"可以在内地享受市场准入和政策优惠的待遇。但是很多所谓的"香港公司"是由欧美等其他国家的服务提供者在具体进行业务操作,而优惠的实际获得者是这些"搭便车"的外国公司。本文通过对服务原产地规则国际协调和规范的阐释,对我国CEPA的发展现状进行分析并提出几点完善性建议。     

Physicians' perceptions of consumers' attitudes: satisfaction,quality and selection criteria

A mail survey of physicians from Sacramento, California, elicited information on perceptions of consumer satisfaction, service quality for 10 types of service providers including physicians and the importance ratings of 12 choice criteria for the selection of a physician by consumers. The two most important selection criteria for physicians as perceived for consumers by physicians were ‘consumer's previous experience with provider’ and ‘reputation/recommendation’. The results are compared with an earlier consumer survey.     

中国服务企业对外直接投资活动分析

虽然中国服务企业对外直接投资起步较晚,但从2009年开始呈现加速态势.在进入模式选择上,中国服务企业对外直接投资主要采取新建模式;在区域布局上,中国服务企业以香港为中介和重要跳板走向世界其他国家和地区.同时,中国服务企业进入境外呈现明显的区域化特征,中国服务企业主要进入与我国地理相邻、文化相近的港澳台、东盟、日韩地区以及服务市场较大的北美、西欧地区.     

Internationalization strategy,financial constraints and assets (in)tangibility. A study of euro area countries after the 2008 crisis

This paper studies the determinants of companies’ performance during the crisis based on their short-term (sales changes) and medium-term (exit) reaction, using firms’ data from the European Firms in Global Economy (EFIGE) survey and combining them with balance-sheet statistics. The results, based on the four largest euro area countries show that vulnerability to the crisis depended on a company’s mode of international operation. More sophisticated forms of internationalization increased firms’ resilience in the first and second waves of the crisis. The paper also investigates the mediating role of intangible assets and financial constraints in the relationship between internationalization and companies’ response to the crisis. While intangible assets were very important for preventing a drop in sales for internationalized firms immediately after 2008, they amplified the probability of firms’ exit five years after the crisis in weaker European countries (Spain and Italy). At the same time, financial constraints increased companies’ probability of exit. Innovation prevented a drop in firms’ sales and firms’ exit.     

An Empirical Study of Servqual's Dimensionality

This paper describes a scale, called SERVQUAL, which measures Service Quality. First, the scale's conceptual framework and the steps of its development are described. Second, criticisms arising from several replication studies of SERVQUAL are reviewed. The last part focuses on the dimensionality of the scale. Do the 22 items of the SERVQUAL scale clearly evoke, in the clients’ mind, the five Service Quality dimensions defined by Parasuraman et al. [1988]? An empirical study shows that one dimension, ‘Tangibles’, is clearly perceived followed by ‘Empathy’. The three other dimensions, ‘Reliability’, ‘Insurance’ and ‘Responsiveness ', are confused in the client's mind.     

Friendly flexible working practices within the internal marketing framework: a service perspective

The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of the existence of work flexibility and its relevance to internal marketing. Friendly forms of work flexibility are critical to an improved understanding of the role internal marketing should have to achieve better service quality performance. This exploratory study is based on a sample of 2997 private-sector organisations provided by the CRANET survey. The results show the divergence in industry business patterns in the use of friendly and unfriendly flexible work arrangements. Service companies tend to use friendly flexible working practices in larger proportions. The analysis reveals a small negative relationship between unfriendly practices and service quality. These findings may suggest that service organisations tend to create more supportive environments when offering flexible work arrangements that are friendlier for individual workers and their families.     

Italian consumer awareness of layer hens' welfare standards: a cluster analysis

Animal welfare has assumed in recent years an increasing significance for European consumers, becoming part of the Community Agricultural Policy strategy that encourages farmers to achieve higher standards of animal welfare. Undoubtedly, the superior social sensitivity towards animal welfare has produced over time notable changes within European Union (EU) Policy. However, while EU legislation has progressively focused on granting animals better possibilities to express their behavioural repertoire, recent analysis shows that consumer knowledge of animal welfare compulsory standards is still quite limited. Drawing on the results of a direct survey on 300 Italian food shoppers, our research analyses consumer knowledge of the welfare standards of laying hens. Our findings highlight important market opportunities and policy implications. Our research shows that, although the majority of the sample expressed concern on hen husbandry systems, most of respondents were unaware of the current mandatory labelling system for eggs. Through cluster analysis three segments were found: the inactive consumer cluster, the conflicted consumer cluster and the ethically competent consumer cluster. This segmentation is especially valuable for producers of ‘animal‐friendly’ eggs to identify market opportunities and formulate appropriate marketing strategies.     

The role of relationship on time and monetary compensation

Service failures are inevitable in the service industry. In this study, the author suggests that companies that only provide monetary compensation for service failures are following a risky recovery strategy. Instead, service managers should consider the offered compensation’s fit with customer relationship type. The author proposes and empirically tests several hypotheses about service failures and how customers in communal relationship with service firms prefer time compensation (saving time), while customers in exchange relationships prefer monetary compensation (saving money). The results are evidence that properly matching relationship type (i.e. communal and exchange) with compensation type (i.e. time and monetary) can help recover customers’ overall satisfaction and restore the customer–service company relationship. The author concludes this article with a discussion of the practical implications and suggest future research directions.     

公允价值应用对上市公司股东权益的影响

财政部颁布的新会计准则已于2007年1月1日开始在上市公司中推行。新会计准则的全面实施,对提升经营业绩、提高上市公司股东权益具有重要的意义。分析相关数据,新会计准则公允价值的应用将在投资性房地产、金融工具、非货币性资产交易中对上市公司股东权益产生影响。     

The Services Internationalization Process: An Exploratory Investigation of Australian Service Company Internationalization to China

Service companies possess different characteristics from non-service-based companies, affecting their process of internationalization. This article examines the internationalization of service organizations using case studies of 23 Australian service organizations internationalizing to China. It finds that the internationalization process is influenced by the type of service the organization produces. The Uppsala internationalization model partially explains internationalization for companies producing exportable services but did not explain internationalization for companies, which produce nonexportable services (services that must be located within the market). International experience, government regulations and capital intensity were influential for internationalization. The findings develop a model for service organization internationalization.