Communicative skills that support value creation: A study of B2B interactions between customers and customer service representatives

Although interaction has been acknowledged as central in value creation there is still a lack of empirical studies on how value creation is accomplished in practice, and in particular how communicative skills support customers' value creation. The purpose of this paper is therefore to generate a deeper understanding of how customer service representatives' communicative skills in conversations with customers support customers' value creation. We argue that value creating processes correspond to customers' roles as “feelers”, “thinkers” and “doers”. Accordingly, value creation involves three interdependent elements, an emotional, a cognitive and a behavioral. Based on a qualitative research design, drawing on an empirical study of 80 telephone conversations between customers and customer service representatives in a business-to-business context, the paper demonstrates three communicative skills that are essential in supporting customers' value creation: attentiveness, perceptiveness and responsiveness. The findings show how employees, by means of these communicative skills support customers' value creation. Attentiveness supports cognitive elements of the customers' value creating processes, whereas perceptiveness supports value creation in terms of cognitive, behavioral and emotional aspects. Finally, responsiveness supports the customer's cognitive as well as behavioral value creation.     

The effect of uncertainty on pollution abatement investments: Measuring hurdle rates for Swedish industry

We estimate hurdle rates for firms’ investments in pollution abatement technology, using ex post data. The method is based on a structural option value model where the future price of polluting fuel is the major source of uncertainty facing the firm. The empirical procedure is illustrated using a panel of firms from the Swedish pulp and paper industry, and the energy and heating sector, and their sulfur dioxide emissions over the period 2000–2003. The results indicate that hurdle rates of investment vary from 2.7 to 3.1 in the pulp and paper industry and from 3.4 to 3.6 in the energy and heating sector depending on econometric specification.     

Swedish CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> Emissions 1993–2006: An Application of Decomposition Analysis and Some Methodological Insights

This study undertakes a decomposition analysis to identify the drivers of carbon dioxide emissions change in the Swedish business and industry sectors 1993–2006. On aggregate, energy intensity decreased, but this does not seem to have been very important for reducing emissions. Rather, fuel substitution seems to have been more important, which is in line with findings from the decomposition literature on Sweden. However, at the sectoral level, we find no clear pattern of the effect of fuel substitution and energy intensity on emissions. We also draw some methodological conclusions: decomposition analysis should be undertaken at the most disaggregate level possible; assessing decomposition results by summing results over several time periods leads to biased results; and decomposition analysis should not be based only on some initial and final years of a long time period. Furthermore, we address the problem of double counting energy flows in decomposition analysis of aggregate effects when the energy sector is included, and point out potential problems related to output measured in monetary terms.     

Critical events in time and space when cooperation turns into competition in business relationships

This study aims to improve our understanding of the processes of critical events in time and space that lead from cooperation to competition in dyadic business relationships. Within the business network approach there has recently been a call for research into both time and competition, and research combining both is novel. The study identifies and analyzes critical events in time, their connections with each other and the inner and outer space related to each event. The empirical study is based on four qualitative cases. The findings contribute to existing research by presenting several new perspectives on events and spaces, which improves our understanding of time and process in business networks. Business relationships may evolve from cooperation to competition through chronological events involving information sharing, sales-related and opportunistic activities. In space, these events mostly relate to the focal business relationships, the individual companies and third parties, such as customers.     

Coping with risk: analysis on the importance of integrating social perceptions on flood risk into management mechanisms – the case of the municipality of Águeda,Portugal

The paper reflects on how populations prone to flood risk perceive such hazards and the way this perception has or has not been incorporated into the measures and mechanisms of flood risk management. The frequent occurrence of flooding, as well as the population's vulnerability and exposure to this risk, shows that the municipality of Águeda is a paradigmatic case for analysis of these issues. Similar to the rest of the country, the municipality of Águeda has been neglecting the multidimensional nature of flood risk. The data collected present some disparity between the proposals and technical perspectives regarding the management and mitigation of flood risk and the perception of local populations. In addition, neither knowledge of social perception of flood risk nor of the local communities is being integrated in a substantial and pro‐active way, whether in the processes of policy‐making or in the implementation of these policies. Empirical evidence equally shows that there is a clear tendency towards acceptance and coping with flood risk by the population in the municipality of Águeda. This seems to be connected to the local populations' recognition that though it is impossible to eliminate risk, there are at the same time advantages to occupying the floodplains.     

Innovation in services – how different from manufacturing?

Using standardised firm data a comparative analysis of the determinants of product and process innovation in manufacturing and services is performed. Results show that in services there are significant differences in innovation behaviour, in terms of intramural and extramural R&D. It is also found that size matters less in services than in manufacturing. Although youth has a positive effect in both cases, young service firms are more likely than young manufacturing of being pioneer innovators. The results reveal the importance of learning by doing in service process innovations, as young service firms are less likely to introduce process innovations.     

Caring for her: the influence of presumed influence on female consumers’ attitudes towards advertising featuring gender-stereotyped portrayals

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how presumed influence on others affects women's evaluations of advertising featuring gender stereotypes. Previous research has largely overlooked the social context of the reactions to gender stereotypes. Addressing that gap, this study draws on the influence of presumed influence model to proposed that female consumers believe that other women are negatively affected by advertising that contains gender-stereotyped portrayals. This perception is hypothesized to influence ad and brand attitudes as consumers ‘punish’ the brand for hurting others. The results of two experimental studies featuring stereotyped and non-stereotyped advertising portrayals indicate that the hypothesis holds for two types of stereotype components (physical characteristics and role behaviour). This new theoretical perspective to the literature on gender stereotypes in advertising, one that helps to explain why many women dislike gender stereotypes in advertising even though those stereotypes often have limited impact on them personally.     

Profitable Advice: the Value of Information Provided by Canada's Inventor's Assistance Program

Inventors who are considering whether and how to commercialize their inventions. can often avail themselves to evaluations and advice provided by government supported programs initiated to encourage innovation. In Canada. such a service is provided by the Canadian Innovation Centre. through its Inventor's Assistance Program. In its twenty years of operations the IAP has evaluated 11,000 inventions. The fee charged for an invention evaluation was Cdn. $262 in 1995, and these fees covered about half the program's expenses. We compute the expected value of the information the IAP's evaluation provides under different assumptions and scenarios. Under plausible conditions, the value of the information to the inventor is found to be higher than both the fee and the social cost of the program. The implications of some inventors not following the advice given to them by the IAP are briefly explored.     

FDI,taxes and agglomeration economies in the EU15

This article provides an empirical analysis of the impact of tax differentials and agglomeration economies on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The article departs from most previous work on FDI and tax competition in a number of ways. First, it incorporates several measures of agglomeration in order to investigate whether agglomeration economies mitigate the downward spiral in tax rates. As the strength of agglomeration economies may vary with the degree of integration, we use a panel of bilateral FDI flows for a highly integrated region including countries with similar economic structure – the EU15 – from 1986 to 2004. Second, the empirical analysis explicitly deals with the problem of selection bias by using the Heckman sample selection approach. Also, by focusing on the EU15, we are able to provide additional information on the determinants of FDI between similar, higher-income countries. The empirical analysis provides some evidence of corporate marginal effective tax rates having an impact on FDI. This result, however, is sensitive to the inclusion of agglomeration economies. In particular, we find both Marshall types of technological externalities and overall concentration of economic activity to have an influence on FDI flows and, moreover, mitigating the negative impact of taxes.