Investigating the Effect of Employee Empathy on Service Loyalty: The Mediating Role of Trust in and Satisfaction with a Service Employee

Abstract

This study examines the indirect effect of employee empathy on service loyalty through the intervening effect of trust in and satisfaction with service employees during service interactions. Data were obtained through a self-administered questionnaire from university students. A total of 410 useable responses were used to perform data analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping for indirect effects were conducted to test the hypotheses. The results show a significant effect of employee empathy on trust in service employee and satisfaction with service employee during customer–employee interactions. Also, satisfaction with a service employee showed a significant effect on service loyalty during service interactions. The study enhances the understanding of empathy within banking services during interactions between service employees and customers. It also provides insights for service managers and frontline service employees on how empathy develops customer’s trust and satisfaction with service employee.     

Dynamics of economic efficiency in tariff and trade

When the efficiency losses or gains as a result of an ad valorem import tariff are accounted for, the exisiting literature compares the equilibrium states before and after the tariff. However, after the imposition of an ad valorem tariff, the cost of the foreign producer to sell in the domestic market jumps upwards by the extent of the ad valorem tariff. This affects the quantity of imports, and the market is no longer in the initial equilibrium. The market then adjusts and after some efficiency loss, a new equilibrium state is arrived at. The mechanism of price adjustment has a basis of lack of coordination among buyers and sellers at the exisiting prices. The economic efficiency loss when the market is out of equilibrium is not taken into consideration in the literature, while deriving an optimal ad valorem tariff rate. In this article, an optimal ad valorem tariff schedule has been derived. From optimality, it should be construed that the economic efficiency losses get minimised when the market is adjusting and also during the equilibrium. A revenue constraint has to be met in addition.     

Extrinsic psychosocial stressors and workers’ productivity: impact of employee age and industry experience

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to explore the impact of employee age and industrial experience on extrinsic psychosocial stressors that may influence the productivity of workers. Using an integrated theoretical approach, this study examines four extrinsic psychosocial stressors, i.e. work environment, infrastructure, economy and country environment. The data were collected from Pakistani construction industry through a questionnaire survey approach. The study’s findings show that workers having diverse ages did not agree over several work environments and economy-related psychosocial stressors, whereas workers having diverse industrial experiences were in disagreement over numerous country environment and economy-related psychosocial stressors. The study concludes that firms need to mitigate the work environment related psychosocial stressors in young workers, such as, over congestion and inaccessibility to different tools, high temperature and workspace atmosphere. Moreover, organizational and governmental support are direly needed to overcome the country environment-related psychosocial stressors of less experienced workers who are more susceptible to these stressors due to the complex organizational culture, occurrence of natural disasters and unfavourable economic and political state of the country.     

Models for innovation diffusion: Vijay Mahajan and Robert A. Peterson; A Sage University Series on “Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences,” No. 07-048, Sage, Beverly Hills, 1985.

Developing countries wish to achieve in a few decades what the developed countries accomplished in many centuries under conditions of relatively lesser resource constraints. Therefore, the developing countries cannot emulate the evolutionary experiences of the developed countries; they need a revolutionary approach in their development strategies. One plausible option for this revolutionary orientation could be the utilization of a technology-based strategy for national development planning. This article proposes undertaking certain measurement activities with respect to the technological system of a country, which would enable national decision makers to use technology as a strategic variable for socioeconomic development. The article briefly describes the role of technology as the master key for sustainable development, discusses the current activities related to the measurement of technology, presents a few conceptual schemes, and a framework for the assessment of national technological capabilities and needs.     

Technology change management: Imperatives for developing economies

This paper begins with the well-accepted premise that technological progress provides the foundation for economic prosperity. And, because most developing countries are lagging behind due to technological underdevelopment, a judicious management of the technological advancement process deserves serious attention. Keeping these in mind and also taking stock of the current global perspective for developing economies, what problems and issues will have to be dealt with, and what bottlenecks will have to be removed are presented first. The middle portion of the paper then deals with a brief dissection of the vital dimensions of the required technological change management system for practitioners and policymakers in these countries. The third and the last part presents some observations/comments regarding the attitudinal, organizational, and institutional changes that could help in achieving the aspired technology-led economic miracle.     

The Weibull distribution as a general model for forecasting technological change

This paper presents a simple and widely applicable model for technological forecasting using the Weibull distribution function. It shows the generality of the Weibull function, which can accommodate different patterns of technological change. A method for estimating parameters and some applications are presented to illustrate the usefulness of the model.