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ABSTRACT: This paper looks at how process orientation can be measured using data from one large European University hospital. After a restructuring in divisions and the implementation of the care programs and clinical pathways, hospital management came to the conclusion that they had no tools to evaluate if these changes were resulting in a process orientation on the work-floor. In agreement with hospital management, an existing tool of business process orientation measurement was adopted and adapted to the specific context of healthcare. This paper reports on how the measurement tool was changed and validated in order to come up with a useful instrument to measure the process orientation of the employees in the hospital. The Hospital Process Orientation (HPO) tool can be useful to measure the effects of changes which are assumed to lead to more process-orientation or even patient focus. In this way the pay-off of these investments can be made more tangible. The HPO tool offers hospitals a way to evaluate how they are evolving towards more process orientation.
12/2007;
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ABSTRACT: Business companies are increasingly dealing with external sourcing agents in today’s marketplace. However, few research studies have investigated how purchased business services should be governed after the sourcing decision, during the interaction between buyer and seller. In this study, we investigate business service exchange governance, both contractual and relational, after the purchase decision and taking into account the impact of asset specificity and uncertainty. The results reveal that contracts should not just be used to establish business relationships as these formal agreements do impact business services exchanges after the sourcing decision. The two components of contractual governance, specificity and flexibility, each have a distinct impact on business services exchanges, indicating that both need to be developed carefully when drafting a contract. Though formal agreements influence business service exchange governance in the life after the purchase, informal mechanisms such as relational governance should not be overlooked. The relational norms developed during the buyer-seller interaction complement the contractual arrangements made. In business services settings, governance mechanisms are more strongly determined by uncertainty related to behavioral than to environmental aspects. Specific investments of the buyer are reflected in the informal governance aspects of the relationship, while specific investments made by the supplier are also safeguarded by contractual arrangements. Based on the results, an integrated governance scheme for business services transactions is developed.
02/2007;
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ABSTRACT: With firms concentrating on core competencies, more emphasis has been placed on outsourcing and the dealing with external sourcing agents. This has lead to a stronger academic focus on buyer-seller exchanges and the corresponding mechanisms for governing these exchanges. This paper gives an overview of previous research investigating the exchange governance phenomenon based on transaction cost theory or cooperative interorganizational relationships. The results reveal that few research studies have investigated the overall picture of exchange governance, including both contractual and relational governance and taking into account antecedents as well as performance outcomes of the governance mechanisms involved. Moreover, despite the service-dominant logic shift, limited attention is given to specific service characteristics and their impact on exchange governance. In this paper, we attempt to meld economic and social related antecedents into a model with regard to exchange governance in business services settings. Contractual and relational governance issues and their impact on performance outcomes are also considered. The resulting model indicates that to efficiently govern business services exchanges, more emphasis should be placed on behavioral uncertainty, human and process asset specificity and contractual governance. We conclude the paper by discussing several directions for future research.
Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium. 01/2007;
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ABSTRACT: Despite the growing body of literature on different employee behaviors such as organizational citizenship behavior or boundary spanning behavior, few research studies have investigated the impact of both in-role and extra-role behavior on performance outcomes, especially in business services settings. In this study we investigate how in-role behavior, extra-role behavior, and their interrelation influences employee performed productivity and quality in business security services. Data from 1,174 frontline service employees is analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that performance quality is directly influenced by in-role employee behavior oriented towards customers, while performance productivity is influenced by both in-role and extra-role employee behavior oriented towards employees and customers. Opportunities for future research and managerial implications of the results are discussed.
Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium. 01/2006;
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ABSTRACT: This paper provides a survey on studies that analyze the macroeconomic effects of intellectual property rights (IPR). The first part of this paper introduces different patent policy instruments and reviews their effects on R&D and economic growth. This part also discusses the distortionary effects and distributional consequences of IPR protection as well as empirical evidence on the effects of patent rights. Then, the second part considers the international aspects of IPR protection. In summary, this paper draws the following conclusions from the literature. Firstly, different patent policy instruments have different effects on R&D and growth. Secondly, there is empirical evidence supporting a positive relationship between IPR protection and innovation, but the evidence is stronger for developed countries than for developing countries. Thirdly, the optimal level of IPR protection should tradeoff the social benefits of enhanced innovation against the social costs of multiple distortions and income inequality. Finally, in an open economy, achieving the globally optimal level of protection requires an international coordination (rather than the harmonization) of IPR protection.
Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium. 01/2005;
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ABSTRACT: The prominence of business services in the global economy has become self-evident. The amount of money involved in sales of products and services to business buyers are ever-increasing and much higher than those to individual consumers (Kotler, 2003, Jackson and Cooper, 1988). As organizations have increasingly invested in the business services sector with the hope of gaining sustained competitive advantage, the delivery of quality service has taken on an important role in the strategic planning of service organizations (Westbrook and Peterson, 1998). Since service quality has become the overriding concern of purchasers of business services, service providers focused on not only surviving but also thriving in turbulent national and international markets by delivering a certain level of service quality (Jackson and Cooper, 1988). However, the management of service quality in a business-to-business (B2B) environment is not as widely discussed in literature as it is in the businessto- consumer (B2C) context (Parasuraman, 1998, White and Galbraith, 2000). The most widely spread instrument to measure service quality in a B2C environment is the SERVQUAL scale developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988). Researchers who applied this scale in B2B environment were not always successful (Brensinger and Lambert, 1990) indicating that the SERVQUAL scale might not be directly transferable to the business sector (Durvasula, Lysonski and Mehta, 1999). This could be due to the contrast between business markets and consumer markets (Kotler, 2003) wherein business services and their marketing are regarded as being more complex (Jackson and Cooper, 1988). Even the dimensions of perceived service quality (the basis for service quality measurement) are considered to be different across the two service settings (Kong and Mayo, 1993). Thus, the development of a measurement scale for perceived service quality adjusted to the needs of the business context appears imperative.
In this study we develop a scale to measure the perceived service quality in business settings. The study is based on the exploratory research of Westbrook and Peterson (1998). Consistent with the B2B service quality dimensions they defined, we draw up a scale to actually measure the perceived service quality in a business environment. This newly developed scale will be called the B2B SERVQUAL scale. The SERVQUAL scale developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988) will occasionally be called the B2C SERVQUAL scale to avoid confusion. Thus, the research focus of this study can be formulated as follows: To develop and test a reliable, valid instrument for measuring perceived service quality in a B2B setting and determine its dimensions.
This research focus evokes other questions like which service quality dimensions need to be added to the B2C service quality dimensions to more completely encompass the perceived service quality in a business setting and accordingly are there specific B2C service quality dimensions that are unimportant in a B2B environment. Additionally, we are interested in identifying service quality dimensions that have the most influence on perceived service quality in a business context. The newly developed B2B SERVQUAL scale will help us to gain new insights into not only measuring perceived service quality in a B2B setting, but also in managing the service quality in such an environment thereby improving the service relationship between companies. In this research study the emphasis will be on how service quality is perceived in the facility services sector, like cleaning, catering and security.
In the following section we give a short overview of the research on B2C SERVQUAL scale (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1988) and its applicability in a business environment. This section also gives a short overview of the current research done on perceived service quality in a B2B environment and addresses the issue of the dimensions needed to capture perceived service quality in a B2B context. These dimensions are defined and compared with those in a B2C context. Subsequently we discuss the methodology used to assess the B2B SERVQUAL scale. The analyses and results are then described in another section. In the last section the limitations of our study are mentioned. This section also covers the discussion of the results and gives possibilities for future research.
10/2004;
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ABSTRACT: This is the first field study examining the link between waiting and various dimensions of service quality in outpatient clinics. We investigated pre-process waiting in 9 outpatient clinics in a single hospital to test the effect of selected waiting experience variables on the evaluation of service quality, with objective and subjective waiting times as covariates in the relationship between the variables of the waiting experience and participants’ perceptions of service quality, measured using the Servqual tool. Our results show that the waiting-related variables that we studied have more impact on tangibles (the physical attributes) and reliability than on the other service quality dimensions of Servqual. Providing information about the reasons for delay had a significant main effect on the perception of reliability and significant interaction effects with the outpatient clinic itself and with the extent to which consumers’ time was filled while waiting on the perception of the tangibles. The study contains several findings that should assist service managers to formulate more effective waiting perception strategies.
03/2004;
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ABSTRACT: Service level agreements (SLAs) enclose the conventions between a service provider and a customer about the minimal acceptable service delivered. Despite the managerial importance of these agreements there are little writings outside the IT on this topic. This article gives an overview of the literature about service level agreements, stressing the applicability of the theoretical aspects for all services. The issues discussed are a standardized definition for SLAs, the different kinds of agreements, the desired objectives and a general procedure to establish such an agreement. The important contributions of this article are a review of the literature on SLAs, the added critical notes and the attention given to possible further research about SLAs. Service level agreements (SLAs) zijn overeenkomsten tussen een dienstverlener en een klant over het minimaal aanvaardbare serviceniveau. Ondanks het managerial belang van deze overeenkomsten bestaat er weinig literatuur over dit onderwerp buiten de IT-omgeving. Dit artikel geeft een overzicht van de literatuur over service level agreements, waarbij de nadruk gelegd wordt op de toepasbaarheid van de theoretische aspecten in de verschillende dienstensectoren. De behandelde aspecten zijn een gestandaardiseerde definitie van SLAs, de verschillende soorten overeenkomsten, de gewenste objectieven en een algemene opstellingsprocedure voor een dergelijke overeenkomst. De belangrijkste bijdragen van dit artikel zijn, naast het samenvattende karakter van de tekst, de kritische opmerkingen en de aandacht voor verder wetenschappelijk onderzoek rond SLAs.
Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium. 01/2003;
