Value network analysis for complex service systems: a case study on Taiwan’s mobile application services

Service Business - This paper aims to develop a service value network analysis approach based on system dynamics (SD) for analyzing the feedback structures that causes dynamic behavior of service...     

Measuring innovation in a ‘low-tech’ service industry: the case of the Dutch hospitality industry

This article presents the findings of a survey among 613 firms in the Dutch hospitality industry adopting a demarcation perspective. The paper illustrates that innovation in this service industry is much higher and more varied than regularly reported. It further indicates that innovation activities in ‘low-tech industries’ can be in place with less formalized forms of (service) innovation management. Finally, it is shown that a higher innovation intensity is associated with better firm performance. Based on this, some implications for managing innovation in the hospitality industry are discussed. Finally, some fundamental issues in the measurement of service innovation are raised.     

Disruptive innovation and the creation of social capital in Indonesia’s urban communities

Abstract

Existing research on social capital has primarily focused on examining the outcomes of social capital, whether these are about individual, organizational or even societal outcomes. However, much research is still needed in terms of examining how social capital is created. We contribute to filling this gap by examining the ways in which social capital is created in urban communities in an emerging economy. Social capital, in this study, is viewed as being created as a consequence of an organization’s disruptive innovation. We analyse the context of Go-Jek, a rather newly established service firm in Indonesia, and examine how the disruptive innovation of Go-Jek’s service provision influences the creation of social capital in terms of social connectedness, trust, and shared understanding, in Indonesia’s urban communities.     

Weber’s Protestant Work Ethic: a case study of Scottish entrepreneurs,the Coats Family of Paisley

This study examines the potential of Weber’s Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) to illustrate the growth, development and business philosophy of J & P Coats, a thread manufacturer from Paisley. The company grew from humble beginnings in 1826 to dominate the world thread market in a comparatively short period of time. The article will begin with a synopsis of the key arguments from the PWE, before moving to a summary of many of the debates, both past and recent, which have been put forward both for and against Weber’s work. The review of this body of work will highlight the continued relevance of Weber’s thesis. The brief history of the J & P Coats firm, and the main family members involved in its rise and progress will be provided, which will then provide a background against which Weber’s theories can be examined. Finally, the article will conclude that Weber’s thesis provides a rationale for understanding the development of the company, and the behaviour of its owners, which will in turn offer more contemporary validation of Weber’s theories.     

A transformative service research agenda: a study of workers’ well-being

Interest in workers’ well-being is mounting – a key driver being the growing recognition that well-being is linked to performance. Utilizing a transformative service research (TSR) agenda, this study examines how people management practices impact the well-being of hospitality and retail workers. Comparing the experiences of permanent and precarious workers, we find it is not employment practices per se that promulgate feelings of insecurity and inferiority; rather, it is the attributions ascribed to them. This has practical implications. Most notably, some of the deleterious effects of precarious employment might be mitigated where careful attention is paid to the motives underlying an organization’s people management practices. Theoretically, TSR offers a more expansive lens for understanding the social exchange occurring in both employment relationships and service encounters, thus contributing significantly to knowledge on mutual gains theories. These findings and their implications are discussed in detail in the paper.     

Dimensions of service quality and satisfaction in healthcare: a patient’s satisfaction index

The assessment of patients’ satisfaction levels, and the knowledge of what factors influence satisfaction are very important for healthcare managers as it influences healthcare results and healthcare institutions financial results. The objective of this research is to analyse patients’ satisfaction levels in a set of four Portuguese primary Healthcare Centres, through the estimation of a satisfaction index, which simultaneously explains which dimensions of healthcare quality influence that satisfaction the most. For that, a conceptual model of patients’ satisfaction in primary healthcare was tested using data from a sample of 414 patients. Partial Least Squares path modelling (PLS) was the technique chosen to evaluate the proposed model. The results show that patients’ satisfaction is 60.887 in a scale from 1 to 100, revealing only a medium level of satisfaction. It is also possible to conclude that the most important positive effects on satisfaction are the ones linked to the patient/doctor relationship, the quality of facilities and the interaction with administrative staff, by this order.     

An examination of women’s sport sponsorship: a case study of female Australian Rules football

ABSTRACT

In recent years we have seen an increase in corporate and media interest in women’s sport leagues and events. Despite the increase in commercialism and professionalism of women’s sport, there is a lack of research focusing on the marketing of and through women’s sport. This current study addresses this gap, examining the motivations of sponsors involved in the women’s Australian Rules football national league. Exploratory in outlook, this paper presents insights from key sponsorship decision-makers. It was found that sponsorship was motivated by a desire to promote gender equality at a firm, industry and broader societal level. Sponsorship of women’s football provides convergence of corporate social responsibility and commercial benefits. The paper provides insights for sport marketing and initiates the conversation of women’s sport sponsorship.     

A specialty store’s perspective on retail internationalization: a case study

Retail internationalization is an important trend for today’s retailers. However, the appropriateness of the strategy for all retailers has not been fully addressed. Most of the literature is based on experiences encountered after businesses have entered their new marketplaces. Very little information exists about strategic considerations occurring prior to international expansion. This study contributes to retail internationalization theory by partially validating a conceptual model of decision antecedents (Simpson and Thorpe, 1995). Data collected from an idiographic case study using a qualitative methodology support the conceptualization presented in the model, indicating that certain pre-conditions should exist in the retailer’s domestic environment, act as motives for considering a global expansion strategy, and drive the internationalization decision-making process forward.     

Persistence of innovation and firm’s growth: evidence from a panel of SME and large Spanish manufacturing firms

This paper estimates the effect of persistence of innovation on employment in Spanish manufacturing firms during the period 1990–2008. Using GMM-system estimations, we study the importance of persistence of product and process innovation on employment growth according to the size of the firms. The results support that process innovation shows a positive effect on employment, especially for SMEs, while the effect of product innovation is not significant. The study also distinguishes that this effect appears in the contemporaneous year but it increases with the number of lags. This result confirms that compensation effects of process innovation may appear with a certain delay justifying the importance for SMEs of being persistent in innovation strategies to make them compatible with employment growth.     

Assessment of work compatibility across employees’ demographics: a case study

‘Work compatibility’ (WC) is a multi-dimensional diagnostic tool for measuring human performance that affects safety performance of work force. There are a dearth of literature on the use of WC in industrial applications. In this study, the status of WC and its components across employees' demographics such as age, experience, designation and location of work were examined in a steel plant in India. Data on 119 employees collected using Demand-Energizer Instrument was analysed. The results revealed that supervisors perceive higher energizers, higher demands and low WC as compared to workers. Older and high experience employees perceive higher energizers, lower demands and high WC as compared to younger and less experienced employees. All employee groups perceive higher demand for physical environment and physical task content. The problematic work groups identified are less experienced employees and workers in ‘allied sections’. The outcomes of the study help the management in three ways to improve human performance at work places: (i) it provides useful information about the work factors to be considered for intervention design, (ii) it identifies the work groups to be targeted while preparing intervention strategies and (iii) it can be used as a leading indicator of human performance.     

Disparate satisfaction scores? Consider your customer’s country-of-origin: a case study

Although post-transaction surveys (i.e. trailer calls) allow service organizations to better understand their customers, these surveys inherently assume that all customers have the same service expectations of the organization’s service quality. This research reveals that telecommunications customers from different countries of origin have different service expectations; thus, post-transaction surveys based on this assumption can be flawed. We conduct in-depth interviews with recent immigrants in Israel, as well as local customers, to evaluate their expectations of their remote (i.e. telephone) service recovery encounters. Interviews included customers from each of the three primary regions from which they originated: Israel (home), former Soviet Union, and Ethiopia. The data show that the organization’s customers have vastly different expectations of how the firm should handle a called-in service failure, which influenced their post-transaction survey scores. Organizations must realize that their customers have varying service expectations due to cultural influences, which in turn affect their post-transaction survey scores.     

The entrepreneur’s mode of entry: the effect of social and financial capital

This article uses a French database of firms set up in 1998 to investigate the determinants of takeovers versus startups as a mode of entry. It focuses on two determinants that previous research has not fully analyzed: social capital and financial capital. Our findings suggest social capital affects the mode of entry. They show that entrepreneurs with social capital are more likely to create new firms from scratch than to take over existing firms. We confirm the effect of financial capital on the mode of entry. Bank loans are more often associated with takeovers than with startups and low initial wealth is more often associated with startups than with takeovers. These results show that finance affects the mode of entry.     

Web 2.0, social capital and work performance in service companies: the employees’ view

Web 2.0 networks have provoked a revolution in the last years due to their capacity to modify human relationships, particularly in business contexts. Social capital, as a crucial intangible asset embedded in Web 2.0 networks, can be extremely helpful to build and optimize personal and organizational power or resources. This exploratory study empirically analyzes the use of Web 2.0 networks for work-related purposes under a new perspective: the perception of Spanish service companies’ employees. Results show a reasonable employee use of Web 2.0 applications with work-related purposes, and identify the main benefits from them and relevant differences in their use.     

Approach to service design based on customer behavior data: a case study on eco-driving service design using bus drivers’ behavior data

Various types and massive amounts of customer behavior data are collected in various industries, such as transportation, healthcare, hospitality, and logistics. The use of customer behavior data can improve the design activities of service firms. Despite the applicability of customer behavior data to service design, only a few studies have examined an approach to utilize customer behavior data in service design. This study proposes an approach for designing services with customer behavior data. The approach is based on a case study on eco-driving service design with the behavior data of bus drivers. This study extends the research on service design by demonstrating how customer behavior data are utilized for service design and assisting service designers in designing services with customer behavior data.     

The relationships between types of network organization and adoption of management mechanisms: an empirical study of knowledge transactions of MNC’s subsidiaries in Taiwan

This paper examines the relationships of various types of network organizations and the adoption of management mechanisms through the application of network theory. We found that strong relationships exist as described within the four hypotheses by empirically evaluating case studies of MNC subsidiaries in Taiwan. Based on “the knowledge transaction density” observed between an MNC’s enterprise group and local firms, the subsidiaries can be classified into three categories of network organization, namely: (1) Self-sufficient, (2) Production- based, and (3) Operation-centered subsidiaries. The literature review suggests that there are four types of mechanisms that MNC headquarters use to control their foreign subsidiaries. These mechanisms are bureaucratic, personnel, performance and cultural controls. This research reports three major findings. Firstly, for Operation-centered subsidiaries, headquarters prefer to adopt two or more management mechanisms simultaneously. Secondly, for Production-based subsidiaries, headquarters prefer to adopt bureaucratic management mechanisms. Finally, for Self-sufficient subsidiaries, headquarters prefer to adopt performance and cultural management mechanisms.     

Marketing’s roles in innovation in business-to-business firms: Status, issues, and research agenda

A project funded by the Institute for the Study of Business Markets to develop an understanding of the current state of business-to-business marketing and a research agenda for the field identified a lack of understanding of how the marketing function can or should best contribute to firms’ innovation efforts as the top priority. A workshop of senior academics and research-oriented practitioners explored this topic further, identifying four specific themes: (1) improving customer needs understanding and customer involvement in developing new products, (2) innovating beyond the lab, (3) disseminating and implementing research findings in firms, and (4) marketing’s overall role in innovation. This article defines these themes, sketches the current status of knowledge about each theme, frames practitioners’ issues with them, and proposes research agendas for each theme to move the field forward. The goal is to encourage rigorously executed academic research that can also help firms innovate more successfully.     

On tap: Foodservice operators’ perceptions of a wine innovation

An online survey explored foodservice operators’ (N = 57) perceptions of wine-on-tap, a recent trend in the United States. Adopters (39.1%) considered themselves more innovative, willing to take risks, and influential on others’ opinions than nonadopters (60.9%). Foodservice operators who currently offer wine-on-tap utilized interpersonal information sources (e.g., distributors) more frequently than nonadopters. Additionally, adopters perceived wine-on-tap’s characteristics more positively than nonadopters, indicating wine-on-tap was significantly easier to use than bottled wine. Among other implications, networking stood out as an important driver of innovative behavior in the foodservice industry.     

Customers’ emotions in service failure and recovery: a meta-analysis

Marketing Letters - Customers’ emotions have emerged as a dominant dimension in the complaint-handling domain. This research provides a quantitative synthesis of the role of emotions...     

Business process innovation in the supply chain – a case study of implementing vendor managed inventory

A growing number of international companies operate in a standard business systems environment. This suggests that standard business system solutions, e.g. from SAP R/3, might be adopted rather than introducing new problem specific systems solutions for new business requirements. This could be a cost efficient alternative in a situation when supply chain sophistication and integration demands from customers are increasing. In the Nordic countries vendor managed inventory (VMI) is an example of a new way of doing business that can give pioneers a competitive edge. The vendor in this case is the first supplier to go into a full-scale VMI relationship with the wholesaler – and has, through this, substantially reduced delivery costs to the retail trade. The case VMI implementation demonstrates that it is possible to arrive at a simple but efficient solution in a standard systems environment. The case shows how VMI can be implemented in a SAP R/3 environment based on the EDIFACT inventory report.