支付工具的产生和发展浅析

从历史的发展来看,支付工具的产生要考虑流通成本、使用和保存成本、标准化的要求,并且必须是公允价值工具。同时,还要受到经济发展状况、社会文化、金融技术及法律等环境的影响。有时,战争等突发事件也会对支付工具的产生和发展产生重大影响。     

Platform thinking for services: the case of human resources

This paper tests the utility of platform thinking, a design principle that has so far been applied to product development yet under-researched in service settings, for improving the value of services. A key principle of platform thinking is to balance the reuse of service components with the heterogeneity in user needs. Tuning services to specific user needs is valuable, but differentiating services when user needs are homogeneous may decrease service quality and increase cost. Using data from 676 human resource management services, this study finds that the service value is highest when the service provision is matched with the commonality potential of the services. The results indicate that using the wrong delivery channel decreases the service value which eventually could decrease the service value for an organization's external customers. These empirical findings demonstrate the relevance of platform thinking for service design and challenges conventional design criteria used for optimizing service delivery.     

Services specialization (a possible index) and its connection with competitiveness: the case of Romania

In the authors' opinion, specialization stands for both an expression of competitiveness, and a continuity and attention paid to some activities, thus reflecting the positive evolution of a national economy. By increasing the specialization of service functions, qualitative changes occur in the evolution of an economy. In this study, the authors emphasize the importance of specialization implications by reference to services development in Romania, since the Romanian economy requires an increase in services activities. Finally, a formula is proposed to determine the specialization degree, which is exemplified by calculating a specialization index in tourism.     

Work force ageing and expanding service sector: a double burden on productivity?

Expansion of the service sector has often been considered as a threat to aggregate productivity. We examine whether work force ageing is a cause of further concern in the service sector, using matched employer–employee data from Finland. The results show hump-shaped relationships between average age of the work force and establishment productivity. The results vary somewhat across different service industries (hotels and restaurants, trade, transportation, and business services). The conclusion is that there is some worry about a double burden from ageing of the work force and expansion of the low-productivity service sector, especially in the labour-intensive, low-skill fields.     

Climate perceptions and the customer orientation of frontline service employees

Satisfaction of customers' needs is particularly dependent upon the customer orientation of frontline employees. Understanding the drivers of such orientation is, therefore, a key issue in current research. Research relating perceptions of organisational values with the customer orientation of employees is rather sparse. This topic is approached by investigating the role of selected dimensions of psychological climate in promoting the customer orientation of frontline service employees. A structural equations model is developed and empirically tested, indicating that perceptions of customer, ethical, and innovation climates exert an indirect effect on the adoption of customer-oriented behaviours by frontline employees.     

Perceived power imbalance and customer dissatisfaction

This study explores the causes of customer dissatisfaction in service interactions in which customers perceive a status of lower power than the service providers. Characterizing such service encounters as encounters between powerful service providers and subordinate customers, the study attempts to identify the service providers' specific actions that caused customers to experience memorable dissatisfaction. For contexts of the study, professional, judgemental, and governmental services are used. The customers' dissatisfying experiences with these services were studied by using the critical incident technique to uncover and classify the causes of dissatisfaction as well as their post-encounter behaviours. During the data analysis, 10 causes of dissatisfaction emerged. In addition, customers' reactions to their dissatisfaction were noted and classified. Implications for practitioners and academicians are provided.     

Role of customer orientation in an integrative model of brand loyalty in services

This study attempts to model the development of brand loyalty by examining the simultaneous effects of customer orientation, perceived quality, brand associations, and satisfaction on brand loyalty. Data are used from retail banking and discount store retailing services to examine the direct and indirect effects of customer perceptions of customer orientation and quality on brand loyalty. It was found that customer orientation has a direct effect on brand loyalty and indirect effects through customer satisfaction, perceived quality, and brand associations as mediators. Further, perceived quality has a direct effect on brand loyalty as well as an indirect effect with satisfaction as a mediator. The results suggest that effective management of brand loyalty would require tracking of customer perceptions of a firm's customer orientation, quality and brand, in addition to measuring customer satisfaction.     

The impact of the tertiarization process in Spanish economic growth from a regional perspective

The article focuses on the impact that the growth of the service sector has had on the economic growth of the Spanish regions. Thus, the study tries to define regional groupings in order to identify different modalities of regional growth. As a result of the cluster analysis, we propose the groupings and analyse the beta-convergence in per capita GDP and in terms of the degree of tertiarization in the Spanish regions. Taking these groups as our starting point, a data panel model with fixed effects is applied and the study concludes that mainly capital stock and capital productivity in market services explain to a great extent the growth in per capita GDP in the Spanish regions.     

Understanding the causes of defection among satisfied B2B service customers

Abstract

Many research studies conclude that satisfaction is strongly and positively related to repurchase intentions and loyalty behaviour. However, companies are often faced with the perplexing question of why some customers, who are satisfied, still switch suppliers given the right circumstances. To answer this question, an exploratory research study was conducted in the facilities-management industry with business-to-business service customers. The study was conducted in two stages: an exploratory stage that focused on the industry as a whole, and a confirmatory stage that focused on lost customers from one specific company. It was found that switching motives and actual reasons for switching are quite different. Customers, despite being satisfied, are more likely to switch suppliers for price reasons than they originally stated.     

Farmland conversion to non-agricultural uses in the US and Canada: current impacts and concerns for the future

Conversion of farmland to non-agricultural uses presents a challenge to future food production and ecosystem services in US and Canada. Expansions of housing, transportation, industry, retail sales, schools and other developments are driving land out of farming. In the US there is annual conversion of 500,000 ha away from food and fibre production systems. Coupled with 1% annual population increase, this will reduce today's 0.6 ha per person to 0.3 ha by 2050. Canada has more land and smaller population, but farmland losses are occurring in fertile areas near coasts and in level valleys where highest quality land is located. Current rates of increase in agricultural productivity will not compensate for this land loss. Compared to US, there are more specific tools and legislation at the provincial level in Canada that provide opportunities for controlling sprawl. Important in both countries is general lack of awareness and concern about loss of productive farmland, a situation that could be improved through education. Stimulating collective understanding of this growing problem and providing viable solutions could provide the basis for national policy strategies to promote and assure sustainable food systems for the future and enhance the capacity to maintain vital ecosystem services.