Linkages Between Switching Barriers and Service Recovery Evaluation: An Indian Exploration

ABSTRACT

This study attempts to investigate the relationship between switching barriers and service recovery evaluation of consumers in Indian context. Empirical findings of the present study provided useful insights. The primary statistical techniques used in the study were correlation analysis and exploratory factor analysis. A total of 347 respondents completed the field survey, and the survey was conducted in Dehradun, Uttrakhand. It was found from the results of correlation analysis that compensation and promptness constructs had comparatively high correlation coefficients with overall service recovery evaluation in comparison to employee behavior construct. Another insightful finding of the study provided evidence for a significant relationship between service recovery evaluation and positive switching barriers, but at the same time there was no evidence for a relationship between service recovery evaluation and negative switching barriers.     

Strategic learning and entry-equilibrium

This paper describes the nature of equilibrium for a dynamic game between a monopolist and an entrant who adopts a learning strategy for cost reduction. The learning process is characterized as a continuous-time Poisson process where each success reduces a part of the entrant's cost difference with the incumbent. The entrant chooses a stream of expenditure after every success to control the instant probability of the next success. The techniques of semi-Markov decision processes are used to characterize equilibrium learning decisions at every stage, distribution of entry times, and the effects of subsidies, technical progress, etc. on pre-entry and post-entry learning strategies.     

Value versus Glamour

The fragility of the CAPM has led to a resurgence of research that frequently uses trading strategies based on sorting procedures to uncover relations between firm characteristics (such as “value” or “glamour”) and equity returns. We examine the propensity of these strategies to generate statistically and economically significant profits due to our familiarity with the data. Under plausible assumptions, data snooping can account for up to 50 percent of the in‐sample relations between firm characteristics and returns uncovered using single (one‐way) sorts. The biases can be much larger if we simultaneously condition returns on two (or more) characteristics.     

Technological acquisitions and the innovation performance of acquiring firms: a longitudinal study

This paper examines the impact of acquisitions on the subsequent innovation performance of acquiring firms in the chemicals industry. We distinguish between technological acquisitions, acquisitions in which technology is a component of the acquired firm's assets, and nontechnological acquisitions: acquisitions that do not involve a technological component. We develop a framework relating acquisitions to firm innovation performance and develop a set of measures for quantifying the technological inputs a firm obtains through acquisitions. We find that within technological acquisitions absolute size of the acquired knowledge base enhances innovation performance, while relative size of the acquired knowledge base reduces innovation output. The relatedness of acquired and acquiring knowledge bases has a nonlinear impact on innovation output. Nontechnological acquisitions do not have a significant effect on subsequent innovation output. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quantifying equilibrium network externalities in the ACH banking industry

We seek to determine the causes and magnitudes of network externalities for the automated clearing house (ACH) electronic payments system. We construct an equilibrium model of customer and bank adoption of ACH. We structurally estimate the parameters of the model using an indirect inference procedure and panel data. The parameters are identified from exogenous variation in the adoption decisions of banks based outside the network and other factors. We find that most of the impediment to ACH adoption is from large customer fixed costs of adoption. Policies to provide moderate subsidies to customers and larger subsidies to banks for ACH adoption could increase welfare significantly.     

Why Disability Mainstreaming is Good for Business: A New Narrative

Journal of Business Ethics - In developed economies, powerful legislative and regulatory frameworks, for people with disability (PWD) over the last five decades, have provided major motivation for...     

Keeping up with the Vaishyas? Caste and relative standing in India

People care about relative, and not only absolute, income. Thispaper investigates the importance of relative income withinand between castes in the Indian caste system, using a choiceexperimental approach. The results indicate that slightly morethan half of the marginal utility of income comes from somekind of relative income effects, on average. This is comparableto the results from previous studies in other countries. Belongingto a low caste and having a low family income are associatedwith higher concern for relative income. Moreover, an increasein the mean income of the caste to which the individual belongs,everything else held constant, reduces utility for the individual.Thus, the negative welfare effect of having a reduced relativeincome compared to the own caste average income dominates thepositive welfare effect due to increased relative income ofthe own caste compared to the income of other castes.     

Technology transfer, licensing and the speed of endogenous technological change

As licensing contracts usually require the licensee firm to purchase tied inputs from the seller of the technology, the licensee firm has an incentive to embark on an R&D program for development of substitutes for the tied inputs. This paper characterizes the licensee firm's optimal speed of R&D and the optimal expected date of switch-over to the substitute inputs in an infinite-horizon model under uncertainty about the timing of success of the R&D program. The effects of different government subsidies or taxes, changes in input prices and other parameters on the optimal speed of R&D and on the expected date of switchover to the substitute are also investigated. It is also shown that strategic behavior by the seller of the technology may delay the development of the substitute by the licensee firm.     

A capabilities‐based perspective on target selection in acquisitions

We develop a capabilities‐based theory of acquirer target selection, arguing that acquirers will pursue both low capability targets in existing contexts to deploy existing capabilities, and high capability targets in new contexts to acquire new capabilities. These arguments are formalized in an analytical model that jointly considers the benefits and costs of acquisition as a function of target capability level and context. The predictions from this model are tested in the Chinese brewing industry (1998–2007), with results showing that acquirers strongly prefer inferior targets in existing geographic markets, but are relatively more likely to choose superior targets in new markets, especially if they have strong acquisition capabilities. Our study provides insight into the factors driving target selection, and contributes to a capabilities‐based understanding of acquisitions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.