What do customers expect of travel agent–customer interactions? Measuring and improving customer experience in interactions with travel agents

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to explore what customers expect of travel agent–customer interactions by developing a scale of customer service experience; further, a framework to demonstrate how to improve customer service experience derived from interactions with travel agents is proposed. The results indicate that the indirect effect of travel agent interpersonal competencies on word-of-mouth is not through cognitive customer service experience but rather through affective customer service experience. Also, the indirect effect of travel agent professional competencies on word-of-mouth is not through affective customer service experience but rather through cognitive customer service experience.     

Toward a Definition of Entry-Level Job Competencies

ABSTRACT

This article reports the findings of a study conducted in the central Florida metropolitan statistical area (MSA) to determine practising managers' perceptions of expected entry-level hospitality worker competencies. Preliminary phases of the study yielded the construction of an instrument used to determine the importance of certain knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes of newly hired workers. The information provided by the respondents is used to draw conclusions and provide implications for a more comprehensive understanding of hospitality worker competencies. Finally, the article considers future investigations in the areas of composite employee profiles, motivational preferences, and benchmarking.     

Cultural Complementarity: Reshaping professional and organizational logics in developing frontline medical leadership

With the rise of clinical management, new skills of medical doctors stand out, including leadership skills. Medical doctors organize medical work and improve patient care. The training of frontline leadership skills, however, is weakly developed in residency programmes. Medical professional cultures tend to resist organizational techniques and values. This paper analyses cultural interventions in health-care organizations, aimed at overcoming ‘clashes’ between professional and organizational logics in frontline domains. These interventions do not work against, but ‘use’ professional traditions, styles and customs as cultural resources. We use one particular project to illustrate this, a project in which internal medicine residents are invited to join quality improvement sessions, during which they identify critical (organizational) experiences with care provision and realize change. We show how residents feel enabled to establish results and cooperate with other professionals. We also show how this project links organizational responsibilities and medical professionalism – how complementarity (instead of conflict) is established. This is done in practical ways, which commit instead of alienate medical professionals.     

Employing Grounded Theory to Uncover Behavioral Competencies of Information Technology Project Managers

This study employs a unique combination of the grounded theory methodology (GTM) and Behavioral Event Interviews to explore the competencies of IT project managers. The findings largely support other studies using more traditional data collection approaches but also provide some new insights that warrant attention from practitioners and researchers alike. These insights include the importance of multiple modes of communication both internal to the project and also with external stakeholders. Some significant differences between the competencies of experienced and inexperienced project managers were also uncovered. Finally, the use of higher authorities to influence project stakeholders was observed.     

领导者核心能力与组织绩效的关系研究

领导者在组织发展中起着越来越重要的地位,逐渐成为组织构建核心竞争力的关键要素,领导者核心能力也对组织绩效产生重要影响。文章在对既有研究成果的回顾和总结的基础上,界定了领导者核心能力的概念及其构成,以实证方式探索了领导者核心能力与组织绩效之间的关系。研究表明,领导者核心能力与组织绩效之间存在着显著的正相关关系。     

The Optimal Decentralisation of Government Activity: Normative Recommendations for the European Constitution

This article surveys the research on the efficient assignment of policy tasks to different levels of government and applies the results on the delimitation of competencies within the EU. A precise derivation of an optimal degree of decentralisation is not possible on purely theoretical grounds, it has to be determined case-by-case. Systematic evidence on direct relationships between economic performance and fiscal decentralisation is both scarce and ambiguous. Comparing the actual and prospective delimitation of EU-competencies with the normative recommendations, remarkable discrepancies arise in the fields of agriculture and defence. The establishment of a flexible assignment scheme is an undeniable necessity in order to guarantee reversibility and to cope efficiently with changing conditions. In this respect, the European Convention has delivered insufficient results in its final draft Treaty as of July 2003.     

服务创新与制造业厂商可塑的核心能力

企业资源与能力理论提出了企业竞争优势的资源与能力基础模型,认为具有价值性、稀缺性、难于模仿性和不可替代性的资源或能力,构成企业的核心能力,是企业持续竞争优势的源泉。本文认为,制造业厂商的服务创新能力,可以成为企业的核心能力。制造业厂商有必要在动态中塑造自身的独特服务能力。     

论高职院校职业核心能力培养

高职院校在我国教育体系中肩负着培养"高等技术应用性专门人才"的根本任务,高素质、高技能、应用性是对高职人才的基本要求。现代经济社会的发展对高职教育提出了职业核心能力培养的要求,开展职业核心能力训练是高职院校实施素质教育的新途径,对于学生职业综合能力培养及高职教育内涵建设具有重要意义。     

中国饭店业价格竞争的对策研究

我国饭店业连年亏损的原因除了供应增长超过需求的增长外,饭店过度依赖价格竞争是重要原因．价值创新与培植核心竞争力是走出价格竞争实现健康成长的必由之路。