Customer satisfaction evaluation by common component and specific weight analysis using a mixed coding system

Quality & Quantity - The Servqual model (Parasuraman et al. in J Mark 49(4):41–50, 1985; J Retail 64:12–40, 1988) involves a set of five dimensions ranked as the most important for...     

Rates of return to public and private capital: new estimates using nonlinear Euler equations

Results obtained by Otto and Voss show that public investment undertaken in Australia over recent decades satisfies conditions for intertemporal efficiency. This paper confirms this result, although lower output elasticities and rates of return to private and public capital are obtained. The reason for these results is that the earlier work is extended by estimating the parameter related to the elasticity of intertemporal substitution that was earlier restricted to a specific value. In fact, it is shown here that it is possible to obtain an economically reasonable (and statistically significant) estimate of this parameter by assuming that the stochastic discount factor for the representative firm is the same as for the representative consumer and equal to a gross real interest rate.     

Corruption,intrinsic motivation,and the love of praise

Do higher wages prevent corruption (bribe taking)? We investigate a setting where individuals who apply for public sector jobs are motivated not just by monetary incentives but also by intrinsic motivation and concern for the collective reputation of their profession. We show that an increase in monetary compensation may cause reputation‐concerned individuals to be more prone to participate in corruption due to an “overjustification” effect. The overall effect of monetary incentives on fighting corruption crucially depends on the composition of the pool of public sector workers for two reasons: first, different types of workers react differently to the same policy; second, the composition of the pool of workers affects individual behavior through its effect on collective reputation. These results imply in particular that policies to fight corruption should focus more on increasing the collective reputation of the public sector rather than using monetary incentives, which have perverse effects on some agents.     

Self-enforced collusion through comparative cheap talk in simultaneous auctions with entry

Campbell (J Econ Theory 82:425–450, 1998) develops a self-enforced collusion mechanism in simultaneous auctions based on complete comparative cheap talk and endogenous entry, with two bidders. His result is difficult to generalize to an arbitrary number of bidders, since the entry-decision stage of the game is characterized by strategic substitutes. This paper analyzes more-than-two-bidder, symmetric-prior cases. Two results are proved: (1) as the number of objects grows large, a full comparative cheap talk equilibrium exists and it yields asymptotically fully efficient collusion; and (2) there is always a partial comparative cheap talk equilibrium. All these results are supported by intuitive equilibria at the entry-decision stage (J Econ Theory 130:205–219, 2006; Math Soc Sci 2008, forthcoming). Numerical examples suggest that full comparative cheap talk equilibria are not uncommon even with few objects.     

An efficient hybrid genetic algorithm for scheduling projects with resource constraints and multiple execution modes

Multi-mode Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (MRCPSP) aims at finding the start times and execution modes for the activities of a project that optimize a given objective function while verifying a set of precedence and resource constraints. In this paper, we focus on this problem and develop a hybrid Genetic Algorithm (MM-HGA) to solve it. Its main contributions are the mode assignment procedure, the fitness function and the use of a very efficient improving method. Its performance is demonstrated by extensive computational results obtained on a set of standard instances and against the best currently available algorithms.     

Enhancing Singapore travel agencies' customer loyalty: an empirical investigation of customers' behavioural intentions and zones of tolerance

The services marketing literature focuses on the measurement of service quality and its impact and consequences on businesses. Set in the context of the travel retail agency in Singapore, this study focuses on the relationship between service quality and favourable behavioural intentions. The findings revealed that improving service quality can increase favourable behavioural intentions. However, service improvements that exceed customers' minimum‐service threshold and those that exceed customers' desired‐service level were found to have mixed effect on behavioural intentions. Hence travel agencies must carefully determine the behavioural intentions they wish to foster amongst their various customers and develop service quality strategies in line with the findings of this study. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.