Employee involvement in ideation and healthcare service innovation quality

ABSTRACT

This study hypothesizes and empirically tests the influence of involvement of (1) frontline employees and (2) top managers in ideation process on healthcare service innovation quality. Based on data from 168 service innovation projects in Dutch healthcare organizations, the empirical results indicate that frontline employee involvement and top management involvement in, respectively, idea generation and idea application both improve the quality of healthcare service innovation. We find that the positive effect of frontline employee involvement is stronger under the condition of higher service innovativeness. In the direct relationship of top management involvement and healthcare service innovation quality, our data do not show such a moderating effect. The key and general managerial implication of the findings is that healthcare organizations are inspired to involve frontline employees in the idea generation processes and involve top managers in the idea application processes of service innovation projects, in order to improve innovation quality.     

Effect of newcomer socialisation on organisational commitment,job satisfaction,and turnover intention in the hotel industry

The academic literature features organisational socialisation as playing a crucial role in the early stages of newcomer employment. During this assimilation stage, newcomers adapt to a new workplace more effectively if socialisation is encouraged. It has been found that socialisation minimises the negative effects of unmet expectations on overall organisational effectiveness, including employee turnover – an issue that has become a considerable problem for many hotels. Extending this logic, this study aims to understand socialisation by specifically assessing whether turnover is determined by employees' beliefs about job satisfaction and individual commitment to an organisation and the hotel profession in general. The study of 428 respondents from 61 international tourist hotels in Taiwan implies that social interaction enables organisations to gain, from an increase in commitment to the organisation, job satisfaction and a decrease in newcomers' intent to leave the hotel profession. Two major contributions to the existing literature result (a) commitment to the organisation plays a dominant role in employee turnover intent and (b) job satisfaction is a powerful method of reinforcing individual commitment to the organisation.     

A cross-country study of service productivity

This study empirically examines service productivity and complements prior studies by framing service productivity as consisting of a number of key constituents. Adopting a bottom-up approach we present an integrative model proposing that resource commitment is the core from which employee readiness and customer readiness flow. These inform service productivity, which, in turn, informs job security. Our empirical examination reveals that service productivity has an impact on perceptions of job security, while resource commitment has the greatest impact on both employee readiness and customer readiness. In developing our integrative model we provide a framework that other researchers can apply, particularly where the service is highly intangible or in the public sector where service providers are being increasingly challenged to demonstrate value for money.     

Internal labour markets as a strategic tool: A comparative study of UK and Chinese hotels

This paper reports how internal labour markets (ILMs), operated by a multinational hotel chain in the UK and China, impact on a range of organisational outcomes. The study examines the effects of three main dimensions of ILMs: job security, training, and opportunities for advancement on the key organisational outcomes of job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and intention to leave, together with employee attitudes to work environment, co-workers, supervisor, service to guests, leadership, communication, and organisational goal achievement. The paper concludes that the operation of an ILM, underpinned by effective human resource management policies and actions, is associated with high levels of work commitment and job satisfaction together with reduced intention to leave. However, the importance of individual ILM variables differs between hotels in the UK and China.     

Understanding organization-customer links in a service setting in Russia

This study examines the effect of management commitment to service quality on customer satisfaction through the mediating links of service climate and core and relational service performance in a high-power distance culture. Data were collected using a survey distributed to the FLEs and customers of branches of a Russian retail bank. Study findings demonstrate that branch service climate mediates the management commitment to service quality – service performance relationship and that this indirect effect is stronger on core service performance relative to relational service performance. Contrary to expectations, our findings demonstrate the importance of relational service performance relative to core service performance as a mediator of the branch service climate – branch customer satisfaction relationship. Implications of these novel findings and future research directions are discussed.     

Antecedents of organizational citizenship behaviours among part-time employees of service organizations in Korea

This study investigates the antecedents of organizational citizenship behaviours by using data consisting of 196 part-time instructors drawn from six sport centres in the Republic of Korea. The results of a structural equation analysis suggest that job satisfaction has a positive effect on organizational and occupational commitment, occupational satisfaction has a positive effect on organizational and occupational commitment, organizational commitment has a positive effect on organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) and a negative effect on turnover intentions, and turnover intentions has a negative effect on OCBs. The effect of occupational commitment on both turnover intentions and OCBs was not significant. This research addresses a number of important issues in the management of human resources (i.e. part-time workers) in service organizations; that is, this study examines how part-time employees' satisfaction and commitment with respect to their jobs, occupations or organizations are related to their OCBs; this relationship is arguably one the most important issues facing service organizations today.     

Advanced information technology: transforming service innovation and design

This research explores the role of advanced information technologies at the ‘fuzzy’ front-end of service innovation and design. Service researchers have been exploring the application of technology to services for a while, however there has been little attention paid to the use of technology at the front-end of service innovation and design. Research suggests that advanced information technologies should be useful in research and development for services; but how this may occur has not been explored. Bringing together design thinking and the technology–organization–environment framework for technology adoption this research develops propositions for research to expose how technology can advance and transform service innovation and design. Theoretical and practical research questions are offered to guide inquiry in this emerging research space.     

The multiple effects of service innovation and quality on transitional and electronic word-of-mouth in predicting customer behaviour

In the service industry, word of mouth (WOM) has become an important indicator for influencing customer behaviour and developing marketing strategies. The current study develops a new theoretical model to analyse the moderating mechanism of electronic WOM, and further considers a multiple mediation analysis of how service innovation may influence in-person word of mouth (WOM) through service quality and brand loyalty. The results show that managers need to focus on WOM to improve customer service quality perception and encourage revisits. A study of 939 customers of a famous hotpot restaurant provides supporting evidence for this moderated mediation analysis. This study also discusses how this intriguing design of moderated mediation could be clarified using regulatory focus theory and further literature.     

工作满意度、情感承诺和工作投入对工作技能评价结果的影响

In this study, we surveyed 272 post-holders from four different occupations, namely, public servants in charge of HR administration, software engineers, web editors, and newspaper advertisement salesperson. We found that the three job attitude variables of job satisfaction, affective commitment and job involvement all have significant effects upon job skill importance ratings and skill level ratings after controlling for occupational and demographic variables. Further comparison revealed that job satisfaction has a greater influence upon the above two ratings than affective commitment and job involvement. Also, we studied several occupations comprehensively in the present article, which is beneficial to a deeper understanding of factors influencing job analysis ratings and is thus of great importance to future job analysis research and practice. __________ Translated from Xinli xuebao 心理学报 (Acta Psychological Sinica), 2007, 39(1): 146–154     

Inter-firm relational resources in cloud service adoption and their effect on service innovation

This study examines (1) inter-firm relational resources for cloud service adoption and (2) their effects on service innovation. A research model and the related hypotheses are developed based on resource-advantage (R-A) theory that combines inter-firm relational resources identified in theoretical and empirical research as important antecedents of cloud service adoption and its effect on service innovation. This study collects data from 165 managers from service firms in Taiwan. The results show that resources, including reliability, cost, and compatibility significantly affect a firm’s cloud service adoption. Furthermore, the adoption of cloud service significantly contributes to service innovation. The findings add to the current understanding of service innovation in two important ways. First, drawing on R-A theory, this study is among the first attempts to identify inter-firm relational resources (reliability, cost, compatibility, and customer orientation) for cloud service adoption and their effect on innovation performance. Second, this study introduces cloud services as effective technological platforms for a firm and its business partners to share, integrate, and reciprocate information, knowledge, and experience for service innovation.     

Examining Employee—Service Personality Congruence

Abstract

Recent research indicates that service personality, conceptualized as the set of human characteristics associated with the service firm, plays an important role in services marketing. Research further indicates that the congruence between customer personality and service personality influences important outcome variables. Specifically, customer-service personality congruence has been shown to influence service quality perceptions, subjective disconfirmation, and word of mouth intentions. The current study extends this line of research by considering how employee-service personality congruence (ESPC) influences job outcome variables including service delivery, job satisfaction, intentions to leave, and organizational commitment. Empirical data, gathered from a sample of financial services employees, support hypothesized relationships between ESPC and these outcome variables. Furthermore, personality traits from the Five-Factor Model of personality (Costa & McCrae, 1992) are shown to play an important role in ESPC perceptions. Managerial implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Knowledge management,relational learning,and the effectiveness of innovation outcomes

This paper proposes a conceptual model to test the moderating effect of relational learning on the link between knowledge strategies and innovation. To accomplish this, this study is carried out on healthcare organizations. It has been generally accepted that both explicit and tacit knowledge play a basic role in organizational innovation. However, although there are plenty of research works that study the existing relationship between knowledge management (KM) and the effectiveness of the innovation process, there are certain peculiarities with regard to this link, which have yielded some inconclusive results. This paper revisits this research topic with data on KM, relational learning and innovation outcomes from a sample of Spanish hospitals. The results show that a deep and broad knowledge base leads to better innovation outcomes. In addition, this study found that hospitals and/or units that invest and involve themselves in relational learning mechanisms are more likely to foster innovations.     

Leader-member exchange and employee work outcomes in Chinese firms: the mediating role of job satisfaction

This study investigates the mediating role of job satisfaction in the relationships between leader-member exchange (LMX) and employee work outcomes in Chinese firms, namely, organizational commitment and intention to leave. Based on the data collected from the four manufacturing firms based in China, the hierarchical regression analyses strongly support our theoretical predication that job satisfaction fully mediates the relationships between LMX and employees’ organizational commitment and intention to leave. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Procedural justice in promotion decisions of managerial staff in Malaysia

Previous research indicates that procedural justice in promotion decisions has affected employees' organizational commitment, intent to leave and career satisfaction. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of procedural justice in promotion decisions on managers' commitment, specifically organizational commitment, intent to leave, career satisfaction and job performance in multinational companies in Malaysia. Data were obtained from a sample of managers with more than 10 years of service in the organization through in-depth interviews. The findings show that perceived procedural injustice in promotion decisions have an unfavourable impact on employee commitment, job performance and career satisfaction. The intent to leave is also higher, especially among young managerial staff.     

Does Sleep Really Matter? Examining Sleep among Salespeople as Boundary Role Personnel for Key Job Factors

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Sleep deprivation among employees has become commonplace in the workforce. In the United States, the number of hours individuals sleep per night has declined by an hour and a half per night since the 1960s. As of 2005, seventy-four percent of individuals were getting less than eight hours of sleep per night on weekdays. There are negative ramifications to the organization when employees are sleep deprived such as lost productivity, increased accident rate, and increased absenteeism.

Originality/Value/Contribution of the paper: Although prior research has investigated the impact that sleep deprivation has on unique job positions (e.g., shift workers, transportation), no research has investigated how sleep impacts business-to-business sales employees. Due to the responsibilities of business-to-business sales employees, this type of position should not just be lumped in with other organizational employees. For example, business-to-business sales employees are boundary spanning employees that are responsible for generating revenue for the organization. These sales employees are also more likely to be physically, socially, and psychologically separated from the organization since they frequently work outside of the office. Because of these distinctive roles, this study examines if differences based on sleep duration exist for business-to-business sales employees for two individual and five organizational factors. The two individual factors consisted of grit and happiness while the five organizational factors consisted of perceived organizational support, perceived supervisory support, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions.

Methodology/Approach: Data was collected from 320 business-to-business sales employees using a cross industry survey. The survey was conducted using a Qualtrics panel. Sleep duration was broken into two groups with one group consisting of business-to-business sales employees who sleep, on average, seven or more hours per night and the other group consisting of business-to-business sales employees who sleep, on average, six or less hours per night. The sleep duration groups were determined based on prior research that found adults should regularly sleep seven or more hours per night in order to support optimal health. There were one hundred thirty-four respondents who slept six hours or less and one hundred eighty-six respondents who slept seven or more hours, on average, per night.

Findings: The research question developed was answered by examining the differences between means for the two individual constructs and the five key organizational constructs. Differences in sleep duration for six of the seven sales constructs. There were significant differences between those that slept seven or more hours per night from those that slept six or less for grit, perceived organizational support, perceived supervisory support, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions. Results found that business-to-business sales employees that slept seven or more hours per night exhibited more grit than those that slept six or less hours per night. In addition, business-to-business sales employees that slept six or less hours per night had higher perceptions of both organizational and supervisory support than those that slept seven or more hours per night. Furthermore, business-to-business sales employees that slept six or less hours per night displayed higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment than sales employees that slept seven or more hours per night. Finally, business-to-business sales employees that slept seven or more hours per night indicated higher levels of turnover intentions than sales employees that slept six or less hours per night. There were no significant differences between the two sleep groups for sales employee happiness. Although some of these results may appear to be counterintuitive, conservation of resources theory can be used to explain these findings.

Research Implications: This exploratory study showcases the importance of good sleep among business-to-business sales employees. This study draws on the conservation of resources theory literature to explain the counterintuitive findings. This theory posits that individuals will retain and guard against resource depletion. Additionally, as resources become depleted, other resources are valued to a greater extent. In this study, the resource being depleted is the condition of sleep. When business-to-business sales employees experience a lower average amount of sleep per night (i.e., six hours or less), they perceive higher levels of support, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment than business-to-business sales employees who experience a higher average amount of sleep per night (i.e., seven hours or more). Although this study provides a good initial examination of how sleep impacts sales organizations, this study also highlights the need for additional business-to-business sales employee sleep research. This is the first study that has examined how sleep duration impacts business-to-business sales employees.

Practical Implications: This study is important to sales research because it highlights the impact that poor sleep of business-to-business sales employees has on the organization. For sales organizations, we provide guidance on ways a sales organization can help promote healthy sleep for their business-to-business sales employees. Some examples of guidance provided can be categorized into four primary categories. These categories include (1) proper sleep education, (2) sales management training, (3) creating a sleep friendly workplace environment, and (4) creating specific workplace policies to minimize sleep disturbances such as setting reasonable work hours and sleep accommodating travel schedules.     

Operationalisation of service innovation: a systems thinking approach

This paper initialises an effort to explore the impact of an innovative systems thinking approach for service operations design on creating innovation. A qualitative exploratory case study approach in two of the UK’s service sector departments was conducted, using face-to-face semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and extractions from both observations and documents. The results identify that operationalising service innovation is positively linked with applying the Vanguard Method for service operations design. Twelve micro-determinants for service innovation operationalisation have been identified that reside at three different levels in the service organisation, namely employees level (i.e. Micro), the functional level (i.e. Meso), and corporate level (i.e. Macro). The value of this paper is the introduction of a step-by-step guidance on how to build service operations design to operationalise service innovation, the paper also theorises service innovation with systems thinking methodology that emphasises holistic, multi-disciplinary, and integrative characteristics of the service system.     

Governance mechanisms for mobile service innovation in value networks

Service innovation often requires multiple organizations to work together in complex, dynamic networks. Existing literature shows that mechanisms like trust, power and contracts govern activities in organizational networks. Scholars rarely study how such a mix of mechanisms evolves over time, especially not in relation to different stages of service innovation. This paper connects a phasing model on service innovation to concepts of inter-organizational governance in value networks, by examining what governance mechanisms are in use during service development, implementation and commercialization. This study analyzes an international survey among operators, content providers and application developers in the Mobile Internet services domain, which is noted for its complex inter-organizational networks. The findings suggest that power-based governance is in use in the early stages of developing service concepts and technologies, while trust-based governance is in use during implementation, roll-out and commercialization. Contract-based governance is most common during implementation and roll-out.     

Inter-organizational information systems adoption for service innovation in building sector

The building sector has experienced a significant decline in recent years in Spain and Europe as a result of the financial crisis that began in 2007. This drop accompanies a low penetration of information and communication technologies in inter-organizational oriented business processes. The market decrease is causing a slowdown in the building sector, where only flexible small and medium enterprises (SMEs) survive thanks to specialization and innovation in services, which allow them to face new market demands. Inter-organizational information systems (IOISs) support innovation in services, and are thus a strategic tool for SMEs to obtain competitive advantage. Because of the inherent complexity of IOIS adoption, this research extends Kurnia and Johnston's (2000) theoretical model of IOIS adoption with an empirical model of IOIS characterization. The resultant model identifies the factors influencing IOIS adoption in SMEs in the building sector, to promote further service innovation for competitive and collaborative advantages. An empirical longitudinal study over six consecutive years using data from Spanish SMEs in the building sector validates the model, using the partial least squares technique and analyzing temporal stability. The main findings of this research are the four ways an IOIS might contribute to service innovation in the building sector. Namely: a) improving client interfaces and the link between service providers and end users; b) defining a specific market where SMEs can develop new service concepts; c) enhancing the service delivery system in traditional customer–supplier relationships; and d) introducing information and communication technologies and tools to improve information management.     

The golden mean: Research on the mechanism of customer participation in employee service innovation

Service innovation is of importance in achieving business success. This study aims to understand how customer participation affects employees' service innovation through zhongyong thinking and verify the moderating role of leadership empowerment in the service section. Data were collected through a paired questionnaire survey with 352 valid frontline employees and their superiors in the starred hotel industry. Multiple linear regressions and bootstrap analysis were performed to examine the hypotheses. The results indicate that customer participation is positively related to zhongyong thinking and service innovation, and zhongyong thinking partially mediates the main effect. In addition, service innovation is more substantial when leadership empowerment is high, and customer participation has a weaker impact on zhongyong thinking when leadership empowerment is low. This study contributes to the employee service innovation literature by confirming that customer participation and employees' zhongyong thinking play vital roles in the Chinese service context. This study also helps service managers understand that empowering their subordinates can facilitate employees' service innovation.     

Impact of fit,involvement, and tenure on job satisfaction and turnover intention

This study examined the interactive effects of need–supplies fit, job involvement, and job tenure on service sector employees' job satisfaction and turnover intention in Turkey. Survey data collected from 252 employees who worked in three different banks and one logistics company operating in Istanbul, Turkey, confirm the three-way interaction in predicting employees' turnover intention. In particular, the effect of needs–supplies fit on turnover intention was found to be more strongly positive for longer tenured, highly involved employees. Results also reveal that while the three-way interaction does not predict job satisfaction, the two-way interaction between needs–supplies fit and job involvement is significant. Specifically, needs–supplies fit had a stronger effect on the job satisfaction of highly job-involved employees than those with lower levels of involvement. Certain implications of these results, as well as avenues for future research, are discussed.