Toward an integrative approach to designing service experiences: Lessons learned from the theatre

A critical element in designing a new service and ultimately achieving customer delight and loyalty, particularly for competitive services where the customer–service provider interface is high, deals with the delivery of memorable personal experience. Since many such services rely on attributes of theatre-like performance, this research examines the process by which theatre plays are chosen, designed and developed with the objective of better understanding how performance excellence is realized. Theatre plays were chosen as a basis for study because of their long history of mastering the critical elements of performance staging and the reputation for opening on time at near peak performance levels. Using a case-based, qualitative research approach, the theatre play process is described, implications are extracted and a corresponding management process model is presented. Research and management implications for new service design and service delivery excellence are suggested.     

Rational and intuitive decision-making in sourcing teams: Effects on decision outcomes

According to dual process theory, individual decision-making can be based on rational procedures and experience-based intuition, and the decision-making approach can influence decision outcomes. We investigate how the application of rational procedures and experience-based intuition affects the outcomes of supplier selection decisions taken by cross-functional sourcing teams. Specifically, we examine whether the selected supplier׳s cost and quality/delivery/innovativeness performance is higher when more team members use a highly rational and/or a highly experience-based decision-making approach. From data on 54 teams, we find that the use of rational procedures enhances cost performance. Conversely, when sourcing team members use their experience-based intuition, the decision is more likely to result in satisfactory supplier performance along all tested performance dimensions.     

Shareholder value implications of service failures in triads: The case of customer information security breaches

The rise in front-end service outsourcing in recent years, despite its advantages, has also exposed buyer firms to unique challenges. One of the most salient risks for buyer firms in service triads is service failure due to the service provider. Indeed such service failures may be more costly for firms due to the greater relational and operational costs that may arise from the presence of the third-party provider. Yet, neither the services literature nor extant operations literature on service triads has paid much attention to the financial consequences to the buyer firm – i.e., service risks – of such service failures in triads. To fill this gap, we investigate the financial penalty of service failures due to the service provider using the event study methodology and a sample of 146 customer information security breaches as our empirical context. Analysis of the abnormal returns reveals that service failures due to the front-end service provider lead to greater shareholder losses than such failures due to the buyer firm. This provides important new insight into the financial risks arising from outsourcing front-end services. Further, we investigate the ability of the buyer firm's employee and financial resources to temper these shareholder losses. We find that buyer firm employee productivity can moderate the greater financial penalty associated with such triadic service failures but that buyer firm leverage tends to not have such a mitigating effect. This provides new guidance for theory and practice regarding how buyer firms can position themselves to buffer the financial risks arising from service failures due to front-end service providers.     

Risk allocation in service triads – The case of Dutch and Finnish home care procurement

We compare how Finland and the Netherlands organize home care services, both in legislation and in procurement practices, from a service triad risk perspective. We find Finnish public bodies rely to a great extent on inhouse provision and hybrid outsourcing. Dutch public bodies rely completely on outsourcing, using framework agreements with many care providers in parallel. Incentives used in contracts affect financial and service quality risks assumed by buyers, suppliers, and end-customers in the triad. This research improves our understanding of risk allocation among the actors in the service triad based on buyer decisions on outsourcing and supply market conditions. The risk profiles for all three actors in the home care service triad are affected by the manner in which public bodies outsource home care services: the purchasing practices. The delivery method (whether public and private or all private) and the number of providers impact the information position of the municipality versus the care provider in the triad.     

Organizational sponsorship and service co-development: A contingency view on service co-development directiveness of business incubators

We address the lack of studies focusing on internal organizational sponsorship mechanisms, while considering environmental influencers and focus on a specific type of organizational sponsorship to do so: Business incubators. We argue that to be able to offer a customized incubatee-strengthening service pack, incubator-incubatee interaction is key, requiring clear-cut and directive service co-development instructions, which is our focal construct. To better understand the functioning of this focal construct, we adopt a contingency approach to examine how the incubator's human capital, and the institutional environment impact the incubator's service co-development directiveness. A quantitative empirical study reveals that both human capital and an entrepreneurially-minded regulative and cognitive institutional environment allow an incubator to be directive, thereby laying a foundation for co-development of customized service offerings. Moreover, the incubator's human capital turns out to further stimulate the positive effects of an entrepreneurially-minded regulative environment. All in all, we find that both internal organizational and external institutional elements are pivotal for first-best implementation of the internal sponsorship mechanism ‘service co-development directiveness’.     

The path to outcome delivery: Interplay of service market strategy and open business models

Firms in a variety of manufacturing sectors as well as the software industry have increasingly embraced services alongside their product portfolios in order to improve financial performance. Yet, the key question “How do service market strategy change and the accompanying business model change interact, and how does their interplay affect value creation?” remains open. Relying on twelve case studies of firms that have shifted towards providing highly advanced services (e.g. outcome-based contracts), theoretical propositions concerning the interplay of market strategy and business model on value creation are derived. The firms studied report two interdependent changes: first, they evolve the market strategy from provision of pure products to provision of services and then outcomes, in order to achieve a better fit with customer needs and to grow their service businesses. Second, they rely increasingly on partners and suppliers to provide new activities that are outside their competence base. This 'open business model' allows them to grow their new service businesses effectively and efficiently. At the same time, however, the shift to a service market strategy requires enhanced accountability to customers and increases the threat of penalties in the case of failure, while reliance on partners and suppliers leads to loss of control over the activity system and increases the threat of failure due to third party dependency. Thus, this paper finds that the success of firms that shift to services and outcomes hinges on their ability to balance the trade-off between increased value (i.e. growth, efficiency and effectiveness) and increased uncertainty associated with service market strategy/open business model interplay.     

High reliability Human Resource Management (HRM): A system for high risk workplaces

High Performance Work Systems (HPWS) research is based on the search for the most suitable bundle of complementary practices appropriate for the organisation and its operating environment. We examine the contents of a HPWS in organisations seeking impeccable safety and reliability as their foremost ‘performance’ outcome. We propose a ‘High Reliability HRM’ framework, and examine the degree of implementation in a three case study of Australian state emergency services organisations. The findings highlight HRM practices inconsistent with the framework, and illustrated by rich interview accounts, we detail associated negative implications for employee behaviour and attitudes. We contribute to HPWS research by empirically examining how reliability-seeking organisations conceptualise and implement HRM systems. This study emphasises how inconsistency in HRM practice bundles can pose a threat to reliable service provision, a critical finding for emergency services and reliability-seeking organisations more broadly.     

我国建设监理企业发展现状及战略探析

本文在分析我国建设监理企业存在的主要问题基础上,结合六西格玛管理理念和服务管理方法,提出建设监理公司应该从提高和完善公司业务能力出发,建立并强化服务意识,通过提供高质量的服务,打造优质品牌,同时,加强行业内企业间的学习和沟通,发挥协同效应确立自己在市场中的地位。     

浅谈高尔夫球具工房的重要性

高尔夫工房在大部分人的眼中只是更换球杆握把与修理球杆。其实高球工房具有更深的意义,工房服务是球员与球具领域的桥梁,更是球员与球具商家服务的延伸。高尔夫球具维修与检测已经成为广大高尔夫球员身边必不可少的重要部分,工房服务让球杆和技术更加完美的衔接配合,好比是球杆的特殊医生,可以让你拥有更加适合你特点的球杆、来征服各式各样的球场,所以这种可以为球杆提供这样服务的地方,就是高尔夫工房。     

Learning by customers as co-producers in financial services: An empirical study of the effects of learning channels and customer characteristics

As customers become more involved in executing service tasks, service performance is increasingly reliant on the efficiency and effectiveness of this customer co-production. While organizational and employee learning have been extensively studied, learning by customers in their role as co-producers is largely unexplored. To explore how customers learn to be better co-producers, we examine whether learning channels and customer characteristics impact the customer learning rate. Using longitudinal panel data consisting of 954 customers who adopted and used a bank??s online banking product over a 12-month period, we find that service delivery channels can have dual effects on customer learning, acting as learning channels to accelerate customer learning and/or impeding learning through channel substitution. In addition, customers?? experiences working on related technology-mediated tasks and absorptive capacity increase their learning rate. Overall, our results suggest that customer learning can be designed into the service delivery system by encouraging the use of channels with complementary learning effects and discouraging channel substitution.     

A quality-oriented framework with QoS management using Bluetooth as a case

In a modern society that is inundated with cell phones, laptops, PDAs and other IT facilities, it is little wonder that digital handheld tools and facilities have followed suit in the wireless trend. Services in Bluetooth promise to allow industries and businesses to adapt rapidly to changes in the business environment and to the needs of IT users. Nevertheless, the dramatic changes of services in Bluetooth also result in undesirable interactions that negatively influence quality of service and customer satisfaction regarding Bluetooth. Consequently, it is important to discuss the service quality, service feature interaction and service recovery about Bluetooth and their influence on user satisfaction and trust. Due to particular properties of wireless communication services, there exist software testing models and methodologies in the domain of wireless communication services. Based on the previous literature that defines the overall quality of wireless communication services, this study proposes a quality-oriented framework that may be effectively applied to the area of wireless communication.     

Services cultural alignment in offshoring: The impact of cultural dimensions on offshoring location choices

Empirical research on the growing wave of services offshoring has examined the impact of several key factors such as wages and personnel quality on firm choices of offshore locations. However, examinations of culture in services offshoring to date have largely been confined to the relatively coarse concept of aggregate cultural differences between the home and host countries. We propose that specific cultural attributes are more closely aligned with successful service provision. We empirically examine our theoretical development of service cultural alignment and investigate the impact of cultural dimensions on the location of service offshoring projects. In addition, we examine whether Western and Asian firms have different cultural preferences in terms of the location of services offshoring projects. We find that host countries with lower levels of Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance as well as higher levels of individualism and power distance are able to attract greater numbers of service offshoring projects, even after controlling for macroeconomic, linguistic, and risk-related factors. We did not find that Western and Asian firms have different cultural preferences in this regard. We discuss implications of the findings with respect to theory, managerial practice, and governmental policy.     

The effects of retail channel integration through the use of information technologies on firm performance

The ability of information technologies (ITs) to integrate activities and offerings across multiple channels offers a promising opportunity for retail firms to enhance their relationship with their customers and firm performance. Consumers value the flexibility to learn about the available offerings, complete their orders and obtain customer service across different channels in a convenient and integrated manner. Therefore, the retail industry has begun to use IT extensively to automate and integrate business processes across their traditional and online channels. This study examines the impacts of the use of IT by retail firms in integrating channel activities for selling to customers. Our research model argues that retail channel integration through IT should enhance the efficiency and innovation of a retail firm. In turn, these improvements should enhance their overall performance. We also propose that the environmental dynamism would moderate the effects of improvements in efficiency and innovation on firm performance. We draw upon recent theories in organizational resource integration and organizational learning to develop our research model and hypotheses. Based on survey data from 125 multichannel retailers in Singapore, we find that retail channel integration through the use of IT allows firms to not only be efficient in delivering the current offerings, but also be innovative in creating future offerings. Further, we find that environmental dynamism does positively moderate the effects of innovation ability on performance. Our results provide managerial insights for firms involved in digital integration not only in the retail sector but also in other service industries. These findings could also serve as a foundation for further research on service operations management for firms with both physical and online operations.     

The impact of service design and process management on clinical quality: An exploration of synergetic effects

While service design and process management have received research attention in the past, there is limited empirical work examining both factors in the hospital setting. Through operationalizing focus as a service design approach and quality improvement (QI) initiatives as process management efforts, we hypothesize that focus and QI initiatives affect clinical quality both individually and collectively. Utilizing heart attack procedures as the study context, we examine a set of hypotheses based on a panel dataset consisted of 201 hospitals from 2005 to 2011 in the state of Florida. After accounting for potential lag effects and endogeneity biases, we find empirical support to the proposed hypotheses.     

Operationalizing Co-Production in Public Services Delivery: The contribution of service blueprinting

Abstract

We have argued for public services to move away from product-dominant logic towards a service approach. By taking a services orientation, the experience, inter-organizational, and systemic nature of public services delivery can be considered along with the role of the service user as a co-producer. In this article, we unpack how co-production can be operationalized through the application of service blueprinting. This article presents an example within higher education where the creation of a blueprint brought together staff and students to focus on the design of student enrolment, resulting in improved student experience and supporting co-production.     

A framework for strategic service management

A service framework is needed to foster strategic thinking in services. This paper introduces the service process/service package matrix to meet that need. The important feature of the service process is the degree of customer influence on the service process. The unique characteristic of the service package is that it consists of both tangible and intangible aspects. The service package is described by the degree of customization found in those tangible and intangible elements. Strategic competencies are identified and discussed along the service process dimension, the service package dimension, and the main diagonal of the matrix. Some existing strategic frameworks are embedded and incorporated in the matrix. Additionally, we formulate research propositions based on the matrix. Service firms can use this matrix to gain strategic insights by aligning the type of service package offered with the type of process used to create the service and to have a better understanding of their service operations strategy.     

Learning capabilities,human resource management innovation and competitive advantage

The growing literature on innovation pays limited attention to the role of human resource management (HRM) innovation in creating competitive advantage. This paper adopts a knowledge-based approach to examine how firms design and implement HRM innovations (HRMIs) and how such innovations support competitive advantage. Drawing from multiple streams of literature and qualitative evidence from Australian manufacturing and service firms, our findings reveal that human resource (HR) functional-level learning capabilities, through which HR professionals build and nurture new knowledge configurations, facilitate the design and implementation of HRMIs. The findings also reveal that HRMIs, when coupled with top management support, can play a vital role in firm competitive advantage. Addressing the limitations of the term radical innovations to fully capture HRMIs and based on our findings and extant literature we propose a new classification that will capture the unique nature of HRMIs. In addition to contributing to theory, our paper provides valuable insights to practitioners for building and nurturing learning capabilities for HRMI-related competitive advantage.     

Play at work,learning and innovation

ABSTRACT

Suggesting a virtuous triangle constituting public service innovation of new governances, innovation and learning, the paper examines how and why a particular mode of learning occurs: that of play. Having identified an absence of research literature on play as a catalyst for new ideas in public services, the paper argues that the diversified nature of public services and disciplinary intermixing offers fertile ground for playing with new service ideas. Our conception of play avoids functional interpretations, such as Amabile or individualizing the results of play and instead draws upon Vygotsky’s social learning theory to conceptualize play as a group activity from which new ideas emerge and suggest a new framework for understanding purposive play at work and the contribution it can make to public service innovation.     

Implementing the third way

This article examines the transfer of NPM strategies by comparing Service Charter initiatives in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia. These three countries, together with Canada and New Zealand,are partofwhathas beendescribedas the ‘core’ new public management (NPM) policy community (Common 1998). Service Charters are an NPM strategy intended to change the culture of public service delivery to focus on the needs of the users, identified as ‘clients’ or ‘customers’. The objectives are to make service providers more responsive to users by guaranteeing specific standards for service delivery, providing a substitute for competition and a benchmark for measuring service quality. The first section examines the historical and political context of the development of the Citizen's Charter and Service First programmes in the UK, customer service plans in the USA and Government Service Charters in Australia. The second section explores the similarities and differences between these charter initiatives based on analysis of public documents. There is evidence of convergence at the ideological level as managerial values underpin the service charter frameworks in all three jurisdictions (Walsh 1994; Pollitt 1995; Kettl 1997). Despite drawing from a similar toolkit influenced by private sector techniques, significant differences between the country contextshaveresultedindivergent strategies. Timing in the three countries examined suggests that national politics rather than global policy convergence is more significant in explaining the development of service charters. This case study provides evidence of policy transfer rather than policy convergence (Common 1998). The final section considers the limitations of the customer service model. Monitoring quality iscentral to theprogrammes in all three countries. Performance monitoring is essentially a quantitative methodology that requires criteria and indicators for measuring the quality of service delivery and programme outcomes. Two problems are considered. The first is the difficulty of specifying and measuring service quality. The second is that quality indicators derived from services marketing and management research do not take into account the characteristics of public services.     

Procurement of logistics services and sustainable development in Europe: Fields of activity and empirical results

This paper strives to answer the general question; how far purchasers of logistics services take into account aspects of sustainable development. Modeled on the German Sustainable Development Strategy, which is based on the EU Sustainable Development plan, five fields of activity are defined: the reduction of transport intensity and emission, the reduction of land use, the choice of carrier under consideration of sustainable aspects, the permanent improvement of working conditions, and the enhancement of qualified employment. Then, propositions for purchasing companies of logistics services are developed, which contribute to safeguard ecological as well as social sustainability. In order to conduct an explorative study, a questionnaire was sent to 750 purchase and logistics managers. It was found that purchasing companies place high value on ecological and social aspects. But the perceived importance is not associated with purchasing companies' own contributions to logistics service providers' sustainable activities. Additionally, it was seen that purchasing companies exert only a minor influence on logistics service providers regarding ecologically and socially sustainable actions. A fundamental precondition for a sustainably oriented procurement of logistics services can be seen in the purchasing companies' awareness of the need for integrating sustainable aspects in economic decisions.