Service Guarantee Strength: The key to service quality

While most authors describe a service guarantee as a “zero-one variable” indicating the presence or absence of an explicit written service guarantee, this paper develops a construct called “Service Guarantee Strength” (SGS) that is a continuous variable. This construct measures the degree to which a firm sets clear service quality standards for itself on dimensions that customers care about, and has an formal policy for quickly giving meaningful compensation to customers when these standards are not met.The paper builds upon established micro-level behavioral theory to develop the “Service Guarantee Strength Framework”. This framework posits that high Service Guarantee Strength leads to improved service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty through three intervening variables—marketing communications impact, employee motivation and vision, and learning through service failure.An empirical investigation was conducted to test the SGS Framework using both employee and customer data from three pairs of firms, with each pair in a different industry. None of these firms had an explicit service guarantee. Unlike many behavioral research studies, this study measured both employee and customer perceptual data and compared the two. The research finds that Service Guarantee Strength is positively related to customer perceptions of service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.     

电子商务企业品质构面 顾客满意度和忠诚度间关系的实证研究

文中根据现有的关于影响电子商务企业顾客满意度和忠诚度的理论基础,采用国际管理学界广泛使用的实证研究方法——结构方程模型,以某一实际电子商务企业作为切入点进行观察,通过问卷调查,获取一手资料,分析电子商务企业品质构面中相关因素之间,以及这些因素对顾客满意度和忠诚度的相互影响,具体探究该影响系统的内部逻辑和结构。并根据所得模型,对电子商务企业的管理和发展提出建议。     

顾客视角的服务品牌权益的形成机理

在品牌竞争时代,服务企业的竞争更多表现为品牌竞争,培育服务品牌权益成为服务企业获取竞争优势的重要来源。文中分析了服务企业品牌权益形成的主要因素,并从顾客体验等方面提出了培育服务品牌权益的营销启示。     

上市公司独立董事与公司业绩相关性的实证研究

本文采用面板数据模型,从独立董事的比例、时间精力、职业背景、激励等多个角度考察独立董事与公司业绩的相关性,并测试了独立董事比例的大小对公司业绩的影响。研究发现:独立董事具有代理人的性质,在目前独立董事的胜任力和实现力得不到保证的情况下,独立董事无助于改善公司业绩,当独立董事逐渐成为董事会中的多数甚至绝对多数时,独立董事比例与公司业绩负相关,凸显出独立董事的代理人特征;而且独立董事的薪酬与公司业绩正相关,说明独立董事需要报酬的激励。     

服务补救属性对顾客满意的影响效应研究

服务失败不可避免,重新赢得顾客的有效途径就是通过成功的服务补救。关于服务补救属性的有效性,服务补救的相关研究得到了的研究结果不尽一致。本文考察服务补救属性对各种顾客满意所具有的影响效应。本文运用预期失验理论建立概念模型并提出假设,考察的服务补救属性为补偿和道歉。研究发现,补偿正向地影响服务补救预期失验水平、服务补救顾客满意、以及总体服务满意。道歉也能提高顾客的服务补救预期失验水平、服务补救顾客满意、以及总体服务满意。研究还发现,超额补偿与足额补偿所导致的总体服务满意没有显著差异。     

The antecedents of employee commitment to customer service: evidence from a UK

This paper provides a first attempt at conceptualizing and operationalizing the notion of commitment to customer service (CCS) as part of a broader concern to explore the determinants of key aspects of service quality and of individual-level performance in service organizations. Based on an explicitly behavioral definition of commitment to customer service, we first set out a model of the antecedents of CCS. We then test it using data from a representative sample of 717 employees of a major food-retailing organization in the UK. The results suggest that commitment to customer service is primarily a non-calculative phenomenon driven above all by affective. normative altruistic concerns, rather than by overtly instrumental considerations. Additional significant determinants of CCS were job pressure, job routinization. job competence and employees' understanding of customer service requirements. Research and policy implications of the study are discussed.     

Customer satisfaction of bicycle sharing: studying perceived service quality with SEM model

ABSTRACT

Bicycle sharing is an emerging business in many cities worldwide and has attracted a large number of users, due to its convenience, environmental friendliness, low cost, and flexibility for short-distance travels. This study evaluates main factors affecting the perceived service quality, satisfaction, and loyalty of bicycle sharing customers. We design measurement variables, conduct a satisfactory survey on customers using OFO bicycle sharing service in Ningbo, China, develop a Service-Satisfaction-Loyalty model using structure equation modeling (SEM), and conduct statistical analysis. The perceived service quality was simplified to three dimensions including: perceived service quality of platform, perceived quality of bicycle entity, and perceived quality of value. The results show that SEM model can account for commonly unobserved variables within satisfaction and loyalty of bicycle-sharing. Perceived services quality of bicycle entity and platform are found to affect customer satisfaction significantly, while perceived quality of value is not a significant factor. This study confirms that satisfaction decisively leads to loyalty of bicycle sharing.     

Linking human resource management practices and customer satisfaction on product quality

Although research has addressed relationships between human resource management (HRM) practices and several firm performances, it remains rare for studies to assess the processes that may underlie such relationships. This study aims to investigate the relationships between HRM practices and product quality by hypothesizing a mediating role of organizational commitment. We design a conceptual model and construct hypotheses that are tested using structural equation modeling on data collected from an international sample. The study contributes to the theoretical and empirical development of a model to explain and open the black box between skill-developing HR practices and quality performance.     

Quality management and organizational context in selected service industries of China

By developing an empirical taxonomy of quality management systems (QMS) in selected service industries in China, we compare the taxonomy of QMS developed in the service industries to that found in previous studies in manufacturing industries. We further investigate contingency relationships between the development of a QMS and its organizational contexts. Based on cluster analyses of quality management practices measured by the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) criteria, we found four patterns of service quality management practices: undeveloped, accommodating, strategic, and soft quality systems. Our research indicates that the type of quality system adopted by an organization is highly associated with organizational contextual factors. Our results indicate that environmental uncertainty shapes the development of a QMS in the early stage, while the perceived importance of quality induces the further development of a QMS to a strategic quality system. The results also show that small service firms that compete locally can achieve very good performance results using a soft quality system, a QMS with no formal process management systems. This research provides empirical evidence on contingent relationships among quality management practices, organizational context, and business performance, thus contributing to contingency theory in quality management.     

间断性服务业顾客忠诚维度及其影响因素

本文以餐饮业为实证对象,对间断性服务业的顾客忠诚问题进行研究与讨论。结果表明,间断性服务业的顾客忠诚可用认知忠诚、情感忠诚和行为忠诚三个维度来刻画,且三个维度之间存在因果关系;影响间断性服务业顾客忠诚的主要因素以及影响程度从大到小依次是顾客满意、服务质量和感知价值;各影响因素对顾客忠诚各维度的影响机理与程度各不相同。并由此得出提升顾客忠诚的若干管理启示,最后指出了进一步研究的方向。     

服务员工品牌内化及影响因素的探索性研究

随着服务经济和体验经济的发展,服务企业面临的市场竞争日趋激烈,服务品牌的建设已经成为品牌管理的一个新兴主题。对于服务企业而言,构建强势品牌不仅仅在于品牌的外部传播,必须从平衡的视角,致力于品牌的内部建设,通过与顾客接触的员工的品牌态度和行为,塑造良好的品牌形象。本研究基于扎根理论对服务员工品牌内化及其影响因素进行了探索性研究,通过文献分析和质性研究相结合的方法,构建了服务员工品牌内化的概念模型。研究认为服务员工品牌内化体现在服务员工品牌态度和品牌行为两个层面,驱动服务员工品牌内化的要素包括品牌形象、品牌定位和工作特征三个方面,研究为服务员工品牌内化的定量研究打下了坚实的基础,对品牌管理具有重要的实践意义。     

Quality_Marriage Deployment in determining priority needs for initiating marriage loyalty

Marriage life is an abstract and complex matter that even for husband and wife themselves find not as easy as they expect in achieving a long term marriage. The differences between spouses may lead to disabilities to see clearly their spouse needs. The disabilities may implicate to a bigger issue which is loyalty. In this study, the analysis have been carried out to determine priority needs in marriage for initiating loyalty. In using Quality Function (QFD) adaptations, we created “Quality_Marriage Deployment” by deploy the marriage in quality perspectives. As result, we succeed to identify 7 of 15 variables with the lowest performance value that make them as the priority needs. Based on the needs, we proposed some actions both in perspective of marriage and quality knowledge. Furthermore, the result shows Quality_Marriage Deployment matrix may generally easier for any user to read and know directly what variables need to be improved. Each solutions were presented to allow the users to act in a more efficient and effective in time and energy.     

The impact of supply-side electronic integration on customer service performance

Although information technologies have been expected to directly enhance firm performance in specific value chain activities (e.g., supplier performance or customer service performance), their advanced capabilities offer the promise of organizational integration and spill-over benefits. Enterprise systems provide firms with platforms for electronically integrating their supplier and demand chain activities. Spill-over benefits refer to the impacts that occur when IT investments in one organizational domain benefit performance in a different value chain side of the firm. Supply-side electronic integration (SEI) refers to the use of electronic means to integrate the exchange of information and transactions with suppliers through enterprise systems. In our research, we examine whether SEI generates spill-over effects on customer service performance, over and beyond firms’ direct investments in customer-side digitization. We also examine whether structural attributes of the firm (e.g., vertical integration, diversification, and centralization) moderate the effects of supply-side electronic integration on customer service performance. Our analysis of a secondary dataset of InformationWeek 500 firms shows that SEI helps firms realize cost-savings in their customer service performance, especially if they are less vertically integrated. In addition, SEI investments help diversified and centralized firms achieve cross-selling with their customers. We also find that SEI is more likely to help decentralized and diversified firms achieve customization in their customer service activities. These results suggest that SEI helps firms achieve twin goals in customer service: cost reduction and revenue expansion. Overall, our research reveals how supply-side electronic integration could generate benefits in customer service performance in firms.     

The significance of employee skill in flexible work organizations

Pressures for flexibility among enterprise employees have been explained in previous studies to be largely the result of exogenous factors driven by market pressures for improved product variety, quality and service. This paper derives new insights into the concept of flexibility based on the premise that manufacturing systems based on traditional hierarchical control have significantly given way to enterprise practices that stress a direct connection between employee skill enhancement, market outcomes and rewards. Through an analysis of the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WER98) the study provides a more substantive explanation of the variables associated with flexibility, which have become significant in the transition process towards modern enterprise practices. Flexibility is demonstrated to be not only market driven but also dependent on endogenous factors directly promoted by management that stress workforce participation, collaborative working and multifaceted skills development. We provide empirical support for these arguments from an analysis of WERS98.     

浅谈提高农村电力服务满意度的策略

新时期我国社会主义经济实现了飞跃性的发展,全国各地人民生活水平得到了显著的改善。自十一五计划以来,国家对农村经济建设给予了更多的优惠政策,这为新农村建设的改革创造了更多有利的条件。但在农村变革历程中也存在许多潜在的问题,若不及时解决将制约农村未来的发展。农村"用电难"是当前新农村建设困境之一,电力供应不足直接影响了农民的日常生活。基于此,文章主要分析了提高农村电力服务满意度的相关策略。     

现代服务业与城市转型关系的审视与思考

现代服务业发展与城市转型升级的对应关系,是后工业社会以来学界研究的重点问题。在综合考察国内外相关学者研究成果的基础上,对现代服务业发展与城市转型对应关系、互动关系进行了梳理,并探讨了现代服务业发展对城市化进程、城市转型的作用机制,提出了当前我国城市围绕转变发展方式的主线、以现代服务业的大发展来加速城市转型升级、构建服务经济体系的实践性对策。     

Building manufacturing flexibility with strategic suppliers and contingent effect of product dynamism on customer satisfaction

A critical capability sought by an increasing number of firms is manufacturing flexibility, because it allows to effectively respond to dynamic markets. Grounded upon a supply chain perspective, this paper aims to assess antecedents of manufacturing flexibility that stem from the upstream relationships with strategic suppliers. Additionally, it is one of the first to analyze the contingent effect of product dynamism on the impact of manufacturing flexibility on downstream customer satisfaction. We apply structural equation modeling to a sample of 155 companies in order to analyze our hypotheses. Results strongly indicate that buyer-supplier collaboration facilitates inter-organizational learning that in turn allows organizations to develop manufacturing flexibility and increase customer satisfaction. Approaching manufacturing flexibility from a broader supply chain view thus pays off. Moreover, we apply multi-group confirmatory factor analysis to explore the contingent effect of product dynamism on the relationship between manufacturing flexibility and customer satisfaction. Results suggest a stronger impact of manufacturing flexibility on performance in the context of higher product dynamism in companies’ customer markets, confirming the importance of a contingency view to flexibility.     

The use of biodata for employee selection: Past research and future directions

Although biodata has been shown to be one of the best predictors of employee performance and turnover, a number of important issues remain unresolved (e.g., how broadly or narrowly should biodata be defined?). This paper has three main objectives. The first objective is to provide a selective but representative review of the research that has been conducted on the use of biodata for employee selection. The second objective is to constructively critique this research. This critique is intended to highlight deficiencies of this research that may limit the conclusions that should be drawn. The paper's third objective is to stimulate important future research on biodata that avoids the limitations of past research.     

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.