Customer relationship dynamics: Service quality and customer loyalty in the context of varying levels of customer expertise and switching costs

As customer-organization relationships deepen, consumers increase their expertise in the firm’s product line and industry and develop increased switching costs. This study investigates the effects of customer investment expertise and perceived switching costs on the relationships between technical and functional service quality and customer loyalty. Technical service quality is hypothesized to be a more important determinant of customer loyalty than functional service quality as expertise increases. Both technical and functional service quality are hypothesized to have a reduced relationship with customer loyalty as perceived switching costs increase. Three-way interactions between the main effects of service quality, customer expertise, and perceived switching costs yield additional insight into the change in relative importance of technical and functional service quality in customers’ decision to be loyal. Six of eight hypotheses receive support. Implications are discussed for customer relationship management over the relationship life cycle. Simon J. Bell (s.bell@jims.cam.ac.uk; Ph.D., University of Melbourne) is a university lecturer in marketing at the Judge Institute of Management, the business school of the University of Cambridge. His research has appeared in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Retailing, theJournal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, andMarketing Theory, among others. His.areas of research interest include organizational learning, sales force management and internal marketing, services and relationship marketing, and corporate social responsibility. Seigyoung Auh (sauh@brocku.ca; Ph.D., University of Michigan) is an assistant professor of marketing at Brock University, Ontario, Canada. His research has been published in theJournal of Economic Psychology, theJournal of Business to Business Marketing, theJournal of Services Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Management, Industrial Marketing Management, and others. His research interests are in application of a resource-based view to marketing strategy, top management team diversity and marketing strategy, customer orientation (customer satisfaction) and loyalty, interface between marketing and entrepreneurship, and services and relationship marketing. Karen Smalley (B.Comm. Hons, University of Melbourne) is an honors graduate in marketing at the University of Melbourne.     

问询函监管会导致审计师变更吗？——基于沪深交易所年报问询函的研究

利用我国A股上市公司2015—2019年数据,从第三方服务提供者——审计师的角度探讨问询函监管机制的经济后果。研究发现：公司收到交易所年报问询函后更易发生审计师变更。进一步从审计供给方与审计需求方两个角度对审计师变更进行深层次分析,发现年报问询函监管机制更易导致公司辞退不具备行业专长的审计师,风险较大的公司收函后更可能发生审计师变更。最后对年报问询函进行异质性分析发现,年报问询函包含的问题数量多以及年报问询函会需要会计师事务所发表核查意见,审计师变更的可能性更高。结论丰富了问询函的经济后果分析,也为审计师和客户关系重构的研究提供新的思路。     

企业成长性、CEO财务专长与企业价值

中国有一个成语叫"南橘北枳",意思是同一个物种在不同的生长环境下会表现出不同的性状.举一反三,企业管理者的才能是否也会因为组织环境的差异而发挥不同的作用?本文结合企业的成长性水平,从投资行为和成本管控的视角,系统分析与检验了CEO财务专长对企业价值的影响.研究结果显示,对于高成长性企业,财务出身的CEO会抑制企业的投资水平,易错失投资机会,有损企业价值;而对于低成长性企业,CEO的财务专长则有助于企业实现成本领先,提升企业价值.路径检验发现,对于高成长性企业,CEO的财务专长对企业价值的影响存在部分的投资水平路径;对于低成长性企业,CEO的财务专长对企业价值的影响存在部分的成本管控路径.进一步研究发现,CEO财务专长对企业投资水平、企业价值的抑制作用,只存在于具备高成长性的国有企业之中;成长性水平降低后,无论是国有企业还是民营企业,具有财务专长的CEO均能够显著提高企业成本管控水平,促进企业价值上升.     

Outside CEOs and innovation

Research Summary: Innovation is the principle driver of firm and economic growth. Thus, one disturbing trend that may explain stagnant growth is a 65% decline in firms’ R&D productivity. We propose that the rise of outside Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) may be partially responsible for the decline because those CEOs are more likely to lack technological domain expertise necessary to manage R&D effectively. While this proposition was motivated by interviews with Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), we test it at large scale. We find that firm R&D productivity decays during the tenure of outside CEOs relative to that of inside CEOs. We further find this effect is more pronounced for firms with high R&D intensity and for firms employing outside CEOs with more remote experience, lending circumstantial support for the underlying assumption regarding lack of expertise. Note that this is not a call for boards to avoid outside CEOs, rather it is recommendation to consider the implications for innovation. Managerial Summary: While outside CEOs offer advantages over internal candidates, we argue one unintended consequence is weaker innovation. This argument was prompted by two coincident trends: a 65% decline in companies’ R&D productivity and a doubling of outside Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). The argument was reinforced by interviews with Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), who recounted shifts in orientation from R&D as an investment to R&D as an expense that occurred shortly in response to a new CEO. We felt this shift was more likely with outside CEOs because they may lack technological domain expertise necessary to effectively manage R&D. Our results are consistent with the argument—company R&D productivity decreases under outside CEOs. Note, however, that we don’t advocate avoiding outside CEOs, rather we recommend R&D firms consider technological domain expertise during CEO hiring.     

分析师行业专长、分析师盈余预测与盈余公告的信息溢出效应

盈余公告是资本市场的重要信息来源。通过研究A股市场年报发布先后顺序所产生的信息溢出现象发现,分析师会根据先公告公司的盈余消息,修正对同行业后公告公司的盈余预测。这种现象在同时跟踪两家公司的分析师中更加显著。进一步的研究表明,分析师行业专长可以增进这一机制。行业经验更丰富的分析师预测调整幅度更大,预测准确度的提升也更明显。分析师的决策过程受规模经济的影响。分析师在同一行业内,跟踪的企业越多,搜集和处理的行业信息越多,对行业内溢出信息的利用越充分。研究结果为分析师提高预测准确性以及投资者改进决策质量提供了依据,也为监管者完善信息披露制度提供了参考。     

Determinants of board members' financial expertise — Empirical evidence from France

Very few countries require directors to be financially literate. This article investigates the determinants of boards' financial expertise using a sample of 95 nonfinancial French listed firms. We construct a measure of financial expertise based on educational and career background data for 943 individuals occupying 1140 posts in our sample and explore the determinants of average per-firm financial expertise using a Tobit analysis. We find that average financial expertise is negatively associated with board type (two-tier versus one-tier) and growth opportunities and positively associated with board independence, ownership concentration, and institutional ownership. These findings are robust to sensitivity analyses.     

Requisite expertise,firm reputation,and status in venture capital investment allocation decisions

Drawing together research in the upper echelon perspective, strategy, and organizational sociology, this paper examines (1) the relationship between the finance expertise of a venture capital (VC) firm's management team and investment selection, and (2) the moderation of this relationship by the VC firm's social position. We find that while finance expertise is associated with a lower proportion of early-stage investments, this relationship is weaker for firms with high reputation and stronger for firms with high status. We conclude with a discussion of the importance and nuances of external image considerations on investment decisions as well as insights into the importance of the requisite nature of expertise.     

Brand expertise and perceived consistency reversals on vertical line extensions: The moderating role of extension direction

Vertical line extensions are a valuable growth strategy for many retail service sectors. Correctly positioning a new vertical line extension in the price/quality spectrum is an important decision that has considerable implications for bottom line profits. This paper examines the moderating role of extension direction on the effect of perceived consistency on vertical extension evaluations. In two studies, we show that a lack of perceived consistency acts as a reminder to consumers that the brand may be stretching beyond its expertise, increasing perceived performance and financial risks for upscale extensions but not for downscale extensions. As a consequence, higher consistency results in higher upscale extension favourability whereas evaluations of downscale extensions are similar regardless of their perceived consistency with the parent brand.     

Making the Most of Virtual Expertise in Telemedicine and Telehealth Environment

Virtual expertise is a critical component of telehealth projects and it needs to be effectively managed if telehealth is to deliver on its potential. There are many issues within telehealth that relate to the management of knowledge, and we identify and classify these using a range of papers on the topic. We introduce a virtual expertise platform that provides basic building blocks for effect-leveraging of expertise in this domain. The platform includes management directives and goals, a collaborative culture, an appropriate information and communication technology platform, a knowledge management layer, and a tools or application layer that interact to facilitate knowledge sharing, and ultimately improve patient care. We also emphasize how social media tools can be used as part of the tools layer to improve virtual knowledge sharing before and after telehealth events.