Outsourcing customer support: The role of provider customer focus

An increasing number of firms are outsourcing customer support to external service providers. This creates a triadic setting in which an outsourcing provider serves end customers on behalf of its clients. While outsourcing presents an opportunity to serve customers, service providers differ in their motivation and ability to fulfill customer needs. Prior research suggests that firms with a strong customer focus have an intrinsic motivation to address customer needs. We suggest that in an outsourcing context, this intrinsic motivation does not suffice. Using a Motivation–Opportunity–Ability framework, we posit that the effect of a provider's customer focus will be moderated by a set of relational, firm, and customer characteristics that affect its ability to serve end customers. We test our conceptualization among 171 outsourcing clients from the Netherlands and then validate these results among 135 Indian outsourcing providers. The findings reveal that customer-focused providers achieve higher levels of customer need fulfillment but this effect is contingent on their ability to serve end customers. In particular, customer-focused providers more effectively fulfill customer needs when clients and providers share close relational ties, when clients also have a high level of customer focus, and when end customer needs exhibit a low degree of turbulence. In addition, we find that, in turbulent markets, equipment-related services offer greater opportunity for effective customer need fulfillment than other outsourced services.     

Customer‐oriented employees: Blessing or curse for firms?

I investigate whether the presence of customer‐oriented employees benefits firms in a competitive environment. Employees are defined as customer‐oriented if they are interested not only in their wage but also in the well‐being of their customers. I find that firms may obtain higher profits by hiring self‐interested rather than customer‐oriented employees. This is because the employees' customer orientation has opposing effects on the profits obtained by the firms. On the one hand, customer‐oriented employees provide a given level of quality for a lower wage. On the other hand, the employees' customer orientation increases competition reducing prices. If the second effect dominates, firms find themselves trapped in a prisoners' dilemma as the strategy of hiring self‐interested employees is strictly dominated by that of hiring customer‐oriented employees. Hence, the very presence of customer‐oriented employees may hurt firms. If motivated employees are merely interested in the quality of the good provided, the effect on the price outlined before disappears.     

基于拍卖的垄断型产品供应链的博弈分析

论文研究了基于拍卖交易的垄断型产品供应链中卖方和买方的博弈问题,成交价格同时取决于卖方向拍卖市场的供货数量和买方向拍卖市场的竞拍数量。博弈结果显示,在垄断供应的情况下,博弈的纳什均衡将会是买卖双方都不通过拍卖渠道来进行交易,只有在非常极端的条件下可以达成供货和竞拍等量的均衡。最后,论文引入一个新卖方作为买方参与拍卖后的补货来源,得到的新均衡解能使原买卖双方的收益提高,从而说明单纯的拍卖并不总是最好的交易方式,多渠道的销售方式有时更能保障买卖双方的利益。     

基于客户价值评价的客户细分

随着以客户为中心的商业模式的出现,客户成为企业最重要的资源。然而,在整个客户生命周期上有不同的客户价值。其中,客户当前价值决定了企业当前的盈利水平,客户长期潜在价值关系到企业的长远利润,因此,对客户价值进行正确评价并以此进行客户细分对提高企业效益具有重要的研究意义。从客户的当前价值和潜在价值两个方面,建立了一个客户价值评价指标体系,给出了客户价值评价流程,并应用该评价指标体系通过算例对客户价值进行计算,由此对客户进行了细分。     

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.     

The impact of bullwhip on supply chains: Performance pathways,control mechanisms,and managerial levers

Even though few empirical studies have tried to actually explicate the relationship between the bullwhip effect and performance of the supplier firm, there exists a common perception for over 30 years among both practitioners and academics that the bullwhip effect naturally results in decreased firm profitability. Anecdotal evidence further suggests that this decline in profitability arises from a decline in operational performance. However, the results of our study, which empirically examines the bullwhip effect across supply chain partners through an analysis of 383 actual customer base-supplier dyads, challenge this commonly held position by suggesting that while traditional bullwhip often yields reduced ROA, it ultimately has no relationship with the firm's operating margin. Additionally, our results also call into question whether or not production coordination between customers and suppliers can minimize the need for inventory and capacity buffers, which are the two commonly utilized methods for battling the bullwhip effect. Thus the relationship between bullwhip and firm performance is far more nuanced and complicated than previously believed. We also show how the managerial bullwhip levers of coordinating production across supply chain partners, or deploying inventory and capacity buffer control mechanisms, can help maximize a firm's performance along different dimensions.     

Customer Satisfaction,Competition, and Firm Performance: An Empirical Investigation

We conduct two empirical studies to test two hypotheses: (1) rivals' customer satisfaction increases a firm's own customer satisfaction; and (2) rivals' customer satisfaction reduces a firm's sales. Study One uses a panel dataset of annual store‐level customer satisfaction data from a supermarket chain for the periods 1998–2001. Study Two considers a range of industries by using a panel dataset of brand‐level customer satisfaction ratings from the American Customer Satisfaction Index spanning the periods 1994–2003. Results from both studies provide support for our hypotheses. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Green supply chain integration and financial performance: A social contagion and information sharing perspective

Although green supply chain integration (GSCI) has received wide attention, how it diffuses among supply chain members to affect the manufacturer's performance is still unclear. This study examines the relationships among GSCI, information sharing, and financial performance from a social contagion lens. By conceptualizing GSCI into three forms, two types of contagion mechanisms (i.e., cohesion and structural equivalence) were identified to investigate the underlying contagion effects between different forms of GSCI and the effects of various GSCI on information sharing and financial performance. Survey data were collected from 206 Chinese manufacturers and analyzed using structural equation modeling to test hypotheses. The results indicate that green supplier integration directly promotes green internal integration, green customer integration, and information sharing with suppliers. Green internal integration positively influences green customer integration and financial performance. Green customer integration enhances information sharing with customers. Both information sharing with suppliers and customers improve financial performance. This study contributes to the GSCI literature and provides novel managerial implications for manufacturers.     

CEO Succession Mechanisms,Organizational Context,and Performance: A Socio‐Emotional Wealth Perspective on Family‐Controlled Firms

This article extends the literature on CEO succession and financial performance by addressing corporate owners' mixed motives and desires to protect their interest in being in business. We draw on a Socio‐Emotional Wealth (SEW) perspective to investigate how the choice of one of three succession mechanisms – relay succession, ‘horse races’ among internal CEO candidates, and hiring from outside – may effectively balance trade‐offs between corporate owners' non‐financial SEW motives and the firm's financial performance. We find that implementing one of these succession mechanisms reduces the negative impact that typically characterizes CEO transitions in family firms. We also show that family presence on the board of directors offsets the benefits of having selected these balancing succession mechanisms, in either placing too much emphasis on SEW, or creating negative dynamics that make the chosen succession mechanisms less effective.     

THE DISTANCE PUZZLE AND LOW‐INCOME COUNTRIES: AN UPDATE

The ‘distance effect' measuring the elasticity of trade flows to distance has been found to be rising since the early 1970s in a host of studies based on the gravity model, leading observers to call it the ‘distance puzzle'. However, this puzzle is regularly challenged by new developments in the specification of the gravity equation or in its estimations. We propose an original survey on the existing methods used to quantify the distance puzzle – basically the computation of an average distance of trade, a meta‐analysis on existing gravity papers and the implementation of recent econometric developments, all on a well‐specified gravity equation both in cross‐section and panel data. We apply all these methods to a unique large database (124 countries from 1970 to 2006). It appears that if all these new developments can change the amplitude of the increase in the trade elasticity to distance, none solve the distance puzzle. We confirm the existence of this puzzle and identify that it only applies to low‐income countries which exhibit a significant rising distance effect on their trade of around 18% between 1970 and 2006 while the distance ‘puzzle' for trade within richer countries disappears.     

On the Role of Receivables in Managing Salesforce Incentives

ABSTRACT

Despite the obvious problems associated with collections, firms routinely sell on credit. Conventional wisdom suggests offering credit is a necessary evil when dealing with insistent cash-constrained customers. This paper provides a more positive view of trade credit. We find that offering credit can enhance the efficiency of incentive contracts with sales personnel. In effect, with a credit sale, a client gets a second chance to generate enough cash. The client's second chance gives the sales agent another opportunity to demonstrate his past diligence to the firm. Moreover, to limit the risk associated with the fact that even a high-quality client may fail to eventually come up with funds, the firm relies on the accrual system. In particular, the agent's (discretionary and early) choice of the bad debt allowance conveys his private information regarding client quality; the payments associated with subsequent collections/default keep such reporting in check.     

The effects of bargaining power on trade credit in a supply network

We develop a multi-tier supply network model, rooted in social network theory, to evaluate the effect of bargaining power on trade credit and to track the effect of buyers' trade credit on suppliers' trade credit. We apply social network analysis to measure companies' bargaining power in the supply network of Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M, the Swedish clothing retailer). The results show that the buyer's bargaining power significantly affects the choice of trade credit, and that the supplier's “upstreamness” is significantly associated with its trade credit. We find limited evidence to support the notion of a financial bullwhip effect, a result that merits further research, since this study is limited to the network of one company up to its fourth tier of suppliers in one financial year. Our results can be applied by companies seeking to control their cash flow and, therefore, the financial pressure within their supply network. This study contributes to the literature by bringing social network measures into the buyer–supplier financial flow, as well as offering one of the first empirical examinations of the propagation of financial pressure in a multi-tier supply network.     

大客户兼供应商与企业融资约束

基于2009—2021年我国沪深A股上市公司前五大客户与供应商的信息数据，探究大客户兼是主要供应商这一特殊情形对企业融资约束的影响及其作用机制。研究发现，大客户兼供应商的存在会加剧企业融资约束，且这一效应对于非国有控股和非制造业企业以及当该类客户销售占比低于采购占比和与企业位于同一行业时更为显著。机制检验结果表明，关联交易是大客户兼供应商加剧企业融资约束的作用渠道，而非财务造假行为和真实经营模式带来的弱势市场地位和高经营效率，表明大客户兼主要供应商在我国情境下是一种供应链风险信号，其背后往往隐藏着关联交易，这不仅拓展了学术界和实务界对企业大客户与供应商的认知，也从供应链视角为我国企业“融资难、融资贵”提供了新的解释。     

面向组织客户的客户价值评价体系设计

客户根据其是否具有组织特性而分为个人客户和组织客户,组织客户对于一个企业的重要性和战略意义越来越不容忽视。而目前关于客户价值评价方法的研究没有明确其对象,由于个人客户与组织客户在许多方面存在较大差异,因此本文将针对组织客户提出客户价值评价方法,将在前人研究的基础上从直接价值和间接价值两个角度给出组织客户价值评价体系,并通过专家访谈修正该体系,主要从组织自身和其所在网络两个角度进行分析,丰富和完善组织客户间接价值评价维度。     

Age as double‐edged sword among victims of customer mistreatment: A self‐esteem threat perspective

Service workers are expected to maintain high‐quality service delivery despite customer mistreatment—the poor‐quality treatment of service workers by customers—which can be demeaning and threatening to self‐esteem. Although service work is increasingly delivered by middle‐aged and older workers, very little is known about how employees across the age range navigate abuse from customers on the job. Does advancing age help or hinder service performance in reaction to customer mistreatment? Drawing on strength and vulnerability integration theory, we proposed that age paradoxically both helps and hinders performance after customer mistreatment, albeit at different stages. We tested our proposed model in a two‐sample field investigation of service workers and their supervisors using a time‐lagged, dyadic design. Results showed that age heightens the experience of self‐esteem threat but, nevertheless, dampens reactions to self‐esteem threat, leading to divergent effects on performance at different stages. Implications for age and service work, as well as aging and the sense of self, are discussed.     

Financial benefits and risks of dependency in triadic supply chain relationships

The economic consequences of interdependent relationships with suppliers and customers have long been of interest to supply chain managers and academics alike. Whereas previous studies have focused on the benefits or risks of embedded relationships that accrue to buying firms, this study simultaneously investigates the effects of a supplier's and a customer's embeddedness, arising from resource dependency, on a focal firm's financial performance in triadic supply chain relationships. Using 1,144 unique focal firm-years for U.S. firms from Compustat, we find that a supplier's and a customer's dependency both increase the focal firm's performance in terms of return on assets (ROA) and return on sales (ROS) by increasing asset turnover (ATO). As levels of supplier and customer dependency on the focal firm increase, however, the economic benefits of customer dependency diminish beyond a certain point, while those of supplier dependency continue to increase above that threshold. Thus, our findings show the paradoxically differing risks of the supplier's versus the customer's dependency, while establishing the unequivocal economic benefits of supplier and customer relations for focal firms in the middle of concentrated triadic relationships.     

Selling shares to retail investors: auction vs. fixed price

We analyze the problem of selling shares of a divisible good to a large number of buyers when demand is uncertain. We characterize equilibria of two popular mechanisms, a fixed price mechanism and a uniform price auction, and compare the revenues. While in the auction truthful bidding is a dominant strategy, we find that bidders have an incentive to overstate their demand in the fixed price mechanism. For some parameter values we find that the fixed price mechanism outperforms the auction.     

国际贸易便利化对顾客满意度的影响研究

国际贸易发展是世界经济进步的重要表现。全球化背景下,经济和科技不断发展,人们对于生活的要求也发生了各种各样的变化,其中顾客对于产品的满意度直接影响了企业的利润增长,所以如何提高顾客满意度是经济发展的重要因素。国际贸易便利化是全球化背景下出现的新型经济特点,国际贸易便利化使各国对外贸易的政策发生了改变,实现了对国际贸易链条的全部环节的覆盖,顺应时代背景的发展。贸易便利化的发展趋势必不可挡,在国际贸易便利化发展过程中对于顾客满意度有着很大的影响。     

Who is fit to serve? Person–job/organization fit,emotional labor,and customer service performance

This study investigates person–job (P–J) fit and person–organization (P–O) fit perceptions and relates these perceptions to employees' emotional labor and customer service performance. Data from a two‐point, time‐lagged study of 263 employees and 690 customers reveal that both P–J and P–O fit relate positively to deep acting and negatively to surface acting, in accordance with an emotional labor perspective. In addition, P–J and P–O fit are jointly associated with emotional labor, such that the positive link between P–J fit and deep acting is stronger, and the negative link between P–J fit and surface acting is weaker when P–O fit is high. Emotional labor partially mediates the interactive effects of P–J and P–O fit on service interaction quality and customer satisfaction; service interaction quality relates positively to customer satisfaction. These findings have multiple theoretical and practical implications.     

Customers cocreating value with the firm: implications for IHRM

The purpose of this article is to develop a theoretical framework for governing an organization's relationships with customers engaged as contributors to the organization's business processes (i.e. customers as quasi-employees). Based on our suggested framework, we explain how appropriate customer-centric HRM practices can support more cost-effective and accommodating adaptations in the organization's governance of its relationships with customers. We complement these propositions with practical examples illustrating how customers who take different cooperative roles will increasingly become valuable organizational assets. The collaborating customers not only provide the information necessary for the successful performance of the service exchange, but also contribute human and social capital in performing tasks that are a complement to or a substitute for employee tasks. In conclusion, we outline implications for international human resource management (IHRM), as well as future research directions for examining the relationships among customer governance, role configurations, and IHRM practices.