Service relationships and the customer disengagement – engagement conundrum

Abstract

Emergent research on customer engagement has focused on enhancing engagement within service relationships. Less attention has been given to how and why customers disengage from their relationships, and the potential interplay between engagement and disengagement has not yet been explored within the marketing literature. This study presents the findings from a qualitative exploration of the concept of customer disengagement, its initiating triggers, nature and the process by which it unfolds within functional/utilitarian (F/U) and participative/co-creative services (P/C). Rather than being mutually exclusive, it finds that engagement and disengagement are highly connected and that prior levels of engagement significantly influenced customers’ subsequent propensities to disengage. Specifically, customers’ propensity towards disengagement was higher within services considered F/U in nature and lower within services of a more P/C nature. In addition, the extent to which customers disengaged from their relationship was strongly determined by their prior levels of engagement with weak engagement for F/U services and strong engagement for P/C services. Relationships in the F/U category were subsequently transactional and volatile when compared to relationships within the P/C category that were comparatively emotionally bonded and enduring.     

New initiative,old problem: classroom assistants and the under‐valuation of women's work

Centred on classroom assistants in Scotland, this article examines the process by which an occupation dominated by female workers becomes under‐valued. The qualitative data reveals the cognitive errors made by the key actors—government, employers and unions in this process.     

A foreign exchange transaction reporting system (FXTRS) for central banks

This paper builds on our 1996 work, “Introducing Competition to Global Currency Markets” [1], with respect to recent developments of the international capital and foreign exchange markets. Recent proposals are reviewed relevant to the desirability of a new architecture or structure to improve the operation of these markets. We propose in greater specificity than in our earlier paper a Foreign Exchange Transaction Reporting System, (FXTRS^sm), whose specific technological features will supplement the beneficial affects of non-technological methods proposed by ourselves and others to stabilize and improve these markets, while reducing their social and environmental costs. Patents are pending on the FXTRS^sm and royalties earned will be donated to the United Nations by the authors.     

The Rapid Increase in Generic Prices in the UK: A Failure of Competition or Regulation?

There have been steep rises in the price of some generic drugs since September 1998. These rises have been the subject of an inquiry by the House of Commons Select Committee on Health. This article comments on the pricing of generic drugs and suggests possible solutions to the recent price rises. A fall in the price ofgenerics in the five years prior to September 1998 was a result of regulatory action, rather than strong price competition. However, this regulatory system has now been shown not to have the incentives to encourage suppliers to meet the Government's objective of cheaper generic drugs. This raises the question of whether cost control strategies for primary care prescribing based on the greater use of generics are reasonable.     

Using a mathematical programming model to examine the marginal price of capacitated resources

Accurate information on dual prices of capacitated resources is of interest in a number of applications, such as cost allocation and pricing. To gain insight we focus on the dual prices of capacity and demand in a single-stage single-product production-inventory system, and discuss their interpretation. In particular, we examine the behavior of two different production planning models: a conventional linear programming model and a nonlinear model that captures queuing behavior at resources in an aggregate manner using nonlinear clearing functions. The classical linear programming formulation consistently underestimates the dual price of capacity due to its failure to capture the effects of queuing. The clearing function formulation, in contrast, produces positive dual prices even when utilization is below one and exhibits more realistic behavior, such as holding finished inventory at utilization levels below one.     

The Evolution of Co‐operation,Pairings and Networks

In this paper we develop an approach that may be helpful in analysing a variety of issues related to the evolution of corporate activity. We analyse the firm as an integrated system concerned with the management and organisation of internal and external linkages between businesses, with the emergence of co‐operative behaviour as an endogenous feature of growing systems. It is argued that such a perspective can help illuminate a number of topics relating to the theory of the firm, including its boundaries and the mode of co‐ordination of economic activity, particularly the choice between integration and co‐operative modes of operation.     

A microbiological survey of communal kitchens used by undergraduate students

The majority of food poisoning cases occur in the domestic environment as a result of inadequate hygiene practices. The possibility of food safety errors may be increased in domestic kitchens that are shared. However, there is very little information concerning the hygiene of these kitchens. This study investigates the microbial load of key sites in six student communal kitchens. In addition, hygiene was evaluated visually and questionnaires were used to assess the hygiene practices of the kitchen users. Results show that visual hygiene assessments are not a good indicator of microbial contamination, which, in this study, reveal poor levels of hygiene. Food safety errors were commonly made by users of the kitchens and their food hygiene practices suggest limited food safety knowledge and/or an absence of feelings of responsibility for the hygiene standard of the kitchen.