The impact of an aircraft's service environment on perceptions of in-flight food quality

Airlines are currently striving to improve the quality and quantity of in-flight food, because research has shown that catering is a key attribute for a customer's satisfaction with airline service quality. But the role of an airline's service environment in forming customer perceptions about food quality has not yet been properly investigated. Using electronic word-of-mouth data from N = 3996 airline passengers, this study deploys a linear regression model at multiple levels to relate perceived in-flight food quality with both the overall service environment and its formative components. The results clearly unveil the importance of an aircraft's service environment on perceived in-flight catering quality; perceptions of food quality are primarily influenced by the quality of cabin staff service, followed by entertainment and seat quality. Instead of continuing with the current practice of signing up top chefs to improve menus, airlines may instead consider putting their management focus on service improvements.     

Sales force technology usage—reasons, barriers, and support: An exploratory investigation

Increasingly, salespeople are being asked to adopt and use a variety of technologies to increase their selling productivity and efficiency, including sales force automation and customer relationship management technologies. However, little research has investigated what happens once sales force automation (SFA) technology is adopted. This paper explores the reasons why salespeople use SFA technologies, the perceived barriers to SFA usage and how management can increase the usage of SFA technology. First, a qualitative study was performed to gain insight about salespeople's automation technology usage and the reasons why some salespeople fully use or do not utilize technology. After the initial study, 130 salespeople were surveyed. More productivity/efficiency was the main reason why salespeople use technology, the lack of management and technical support proved to be the main barrier to usage, and training proved most effective in increasing usage of SFA technology. Sales managers are provided with implications of the findings.     

上海松江出口加工区发展战略及海关监管研究

出口加工区这种模式为我国的改革开放与经济发展做出了不可替代的、具有重要战略意义的积极贡献。本文以上海松江出口加工区为例,对出口加工区的运行机制进行了分析,并指出在这样的运行机制下,无论对于企业,还是地方经济都是非常有益的。希望本文的分析和探索能够给国内正在快速发展中的出口加工区提供一些有益的参考。     

Modelling bank customer behaviour using feature engineering and classification techniques

This study investigates customer behaviour and activity in the banking sector and uses various feature transformation techniques to convert the behavioural data into different data structures. Feature selection is then performed to generate feature subsets from the transformed datasets. Several classification methods used in the literature are applied to the original and transformed feature subsets. The proposed combined knowledge mining model enable us to conduct a benchmark study on the prediction of bank customer behaviour. A real bank customer dataset, drawn from 24,000 active and inactive customers, is used for an experimental analysis, which sheds new light on the role of feature engineering in bank customer classification. This paper’s detailed systematic analysis of the modelling of bank customer behaviour can help banking institutions take the right steps to increase their customers’ activity.     

Development and implementation of customer solutions: A study of process dynamics and market shaping

A broad, dynamic network perspective on solution processes remains scarce. This article presents the process of developing and implementing customer solutions and its effects on the wider business environment by investigating customers and suppliers in the global mining industry (Australia, Chile, and Sweden), analyzing the deployment of a new customer solution, and assessing the changes to the competitive environment and focal firms' relationships with other customers and suppliers. It shows that the forces that drive customer and supplier interests and motivation to co-develop customer solutions may change over time, thus redefining the aim and scope of solutions and creating failure risks. Customers present problems; suppliers respond, on the basis of not only the feasibility of the customer-specific solution but also of their evaluation of future solutions in a broader market; then suppliers aim to standardize successful solutions across markets. Customers want close supplier relationships and unique solutions but also like standardized and repeatable solutions, so they can share development costs with competitors and expose the supplier to competition to avoid lock-in effects. From a network perspective, a novel solution can have a market-shaping effect and evoke reactions from other actors who want to enhance their market position. However, these changes are not necessarily deliberate, and the dynamics that market introductions of solutions trigger may be difficult to predict.     

Deane–Draper stores: employee empowerment in a retail environment

This case focuses on the application of employee empowerment principles to a large retail group. It provides the opportunity to analyse the manner of the strategy implementation and the consequent impact on both individuals and the organization. The case establishes significant financial underperformance in one part of a retail group and investigates the use of ‘employee empowerment’ techniques - following Carlzon (1987) - to provide a solution. The case illustrates the dysfunctional activity associated with implementing empowerment without either appropriate management control or staff training, together with the dire financial implications. The Teaching Resource Note discusses alternative approaches that might have been adopted.     

Regulating prices for shifting between service providers

The price that a regulated access provider charges for shifting customers between service providers has significant welfare implications. Typical regulatory approaches to pricing, such as pricing based on fully allocated cost or incremental cost, ignore the characteristics of consumer demand. A theoretical alternative, Ramsey pricing, considers only the elasticity of demand for given products. This paper directs attention to the competitive process. Using US long-distance telephone services as an example, this paper shows how empirical evidence concerning customer acquisition costs, customer switching costs, and churn among service providers can help to inform price regulation.     

认识与处理顾客异议的辨证法

顾客在购买商品的过程中会提出各种各样的购买异议，这是销售活动中的一种正常现象。它是销售成功的机遇，也是必须跨越的障碍，是对推销员驾驭推销态势的考验。推销员要正视顾客异议，以冷静、豁达的态度和辩证的方法分析、处理顾客异议，这是推销员必须具备的基本素质。     

客户化供应链下顾客生命周期价值计量研究

在客户化供应链中,顾客资产对企业的生存和发展发挥着至关重要的作用,而目前缺乏对顾客生命周期价值计量的有效探讨。为此,基于客户化供应链的研究背景,在综合现有研究顾客生命周期价值不同成果的基础上获得了顾客生命周期价值计量模型,并针对该模型的不足提出了修正方案,从而获得最终的顾客生命周期价值计量模型,为提高供应链企业顾客资产管理水平,促进供应链企业顾客资产的增值提供计量依据。     

Longitudinal measurement in organisational transformation: a case of a Dutch Flex Company

This paper will present the analysis of data over 3 years (1998, 1999, and 2000) on the satisfaction of flex workers in the context of a flex company’s service excellence programme, as an example of the use of measurements in relation to the change process. The important issues related to the specific data of the flex workers’ satisfaction surveys are: (a) the relationships between perceived satisfaction of flex workers and possible behavioural consequences, like making complaints and making use of other flex companies; (b) the stability of factor constructs over time that identify the major dimensions of satisfaction of flex workers; and (c) the satisfaction dynamics over time.