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Examining the relationships between innovation, quality, productivity, and customer satisfaction in pure service companies
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the relationships between innovation, quality, productivity and customer satisfaction in pure service companies. Previous studies have shown a negative relationship between quality and productivity in services. However, we argue the two can be positively related when innovation is present.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper develops and tests hypotheses using secondary data from COMPUSTAT, KLD STAT and the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). We test these hypotheses using ordinary least squares regression and conduct additional testing using path analysis.
Findings
The findings show that quality and productivity are positively related when innovation is present in pure service companies. The findings also reveal find that innovation is antecedent to both service quality and productivity which in turn positively affect customer satisfaction.
Practical implications
Both companies and customers can increase their outcomes including higher levels of service quality, productivity and customer satisfaction. Managers should therefore design innovative systems that enable customers to participate in service production. Other innovative systems may help to increase capacity utilization by smoothing high and low demand times, thus increasing both service quality and productivity.
Originality/value
This study contributes to service research by identifying innovation as the key to simultaneously increasing service quality and productivity. The authors find empirical support for a model in which service quality and productivity have a complementary relationship leading to customer satisfaction with innovation as an antecedent, and we do so using a sample of pure service firms.
... New quality productivity refers to the form of productivity development with digitalization, intelligence, networking and sustainability as the main characteristics. It is formed and developed with the support of a new generation of information technology such as e-commerce, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and so on globally [1][2][3][4], with the characteristics of informatization, innovation, platform and sharing. The development of new quality productivity is of great significance in promoting industrial upgrading, improving production efficiency, improving environmental quality, increasing employment opportunities, and promoting economic growth [5][6][7][8]. ...
This paper selects key indicators between party building system inputs and new quality productivity output elements of universities and adopts the correlation method to study the relationship between such elements. From the perspective of mathematical analysis, we can show the interactive relationship between intelligent party building inputs and scientific and technological output elements of universities. The questionnaire method is used to conduct an in-depth investigation and research on the actual situation of postgraduate students’ innovation ability and cultivation. The results of the study show that the elements of funding for the construction of the intelligent party building system show a rising trend from 2020 to 2024. The input of funding for smart party building is proportional to the output, i.e., the greater the input, the more output of new quality productivity in colleges and universities. When investigating the importance of party building in the cultivation of postgraduate students’ innovation abilities, 48.2% of the students believe it is very important. About 58% of the students think that the party building system of their students plays a certain role in cultivating innovation ability.
... Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4814316 P r e p r i n t n o t p e e r r e v i e w e d satisfaction (Chen et al., 2018;Lichtenthaler, 2009;Xie et al., 2021;Rew et al., 2020). Thus, unraveling the intricacies of the innovation-productivity relationship, particularly between firms within the service sector, is essential. ...
... Many studies have investigated the relationship between operational efficiency and quality (Talluri et al., 2013;Chang et al., 2017;Parast and Safari, 2022). While an increasing amount of literature is available on the relationship between innovation and quality (Gök and Peker, 2017;Kafetzopoulos et al., 2019;Rew et al., 2020), to the best of our knowledge, no empirical study has been conducted to investigate the combined relationships amongst operational efficiency, process innovation, and subjective quality in the domain of PayTV operations. ...
Introduction
Video service providers are moving from focusing on Quality of Service (QoS) to Quality of Experience (QoE) in their video networks since the users’ demand for high-quality video content is continually growing. By focusing on QoE, video service providers can provide their subscribers with a more personalized and engaging experience, which can help increase viewer satisfaction and retention. This focus shift requires not only a more sophisticated approach to network management and new tools and technologies to measure and optimize QoE in their networks but also a novel approach to video delivery operations.
Methods
This paper describes the components, interactions, and relationships of an algorithm factory for video delivery operation that assures high QoE for video streaming services. The paper also showcases the results of gradually implementing an algorithm factory in the video industry. Using a dataset from 2016 to 2022, we present the case of a European PayTV service provider that achieved improved performance measured by both objective and subjective metrics.
Results
The use of an algorithm factory significantly improved the PayTV service provider’s performance. The study found a fivefold increase in the speed of critical incident resolution and a 59% reduction in the number of critical incidents, all while expanding the customer base and maintaining the same level of labor resources. The case also demonstrates a strong positive relation between the productivity measures of the PayTV operator and their survey-based quality ratings. These results underscore the importance of flawless QoS and operational excellence in delivering QoE to meet the evolving demands of viewers.
Discussion
The paper adds to the existing literature on relationships between operational efficiency, innovation, and subjective quality. The paper further offers empirical evidence from the PayTV industry. The insights provided are expected to benefit both traditional and over-the-top (OTT) video service providers in their quest to stay ahead in the rapidly evolving video industry. It may also translate to other service providers in similar industries committed to supporting high-quality service delivery.
... The main objective of any process innovation or change within a firm is to improve performance, for example, become more cost-effective or improve differentiation from the competitors, which is the basis for competitive advantage (Dess and Davis, 1984;Valdez-de la Rosa et al., 2021). The literature states that innovation in processes and services is a driver of hotel performance (Meira et al., 2019;Rew et al., 2021;Sahoo, 2019). ...
Purpose
Achieving better performance and a sustainable competitive advantage is essential for survival in the hotel industry. However, literature is scarce on which factors local hotel businesses in developing countries should rely on to compete successfully. With an emerging economy and significant potential for growth in the travel and hospitality sectors, Colombia is seeking to improve the performance of its hotel industry. To achieve this goal, exploring and analyzing the effects of the strategies and practices implemented is essential. Accordingly, this study investigates the dynamics of the interactions between strategies, process innovations, outsourcing practices and operational quality in the hotel industry in Colombia.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology used in this research is quantitative, using structural equation modeling based on data collected from 150 valid questionnaires.
Findings
The strategies of the hotel sector have an impact on hotel performance. Although process innovation demonstrably affects quality and outsourcing, there is a low impact on the performance of the studied hotels. The hotel sector lacks strategy autonomy as strategies are not directed to the organization's overall improvement but only to satisfy stakeholders' requirements.
Research limitations/implications
This paper offers valuable insights for organizations when implementing strategic innovation initiatives. It provides information relevant to Colombian government entities on the creation of processes, economic policy plans and business assistance programs for boosting the financial and commercial sustainability of Colombian service sector businesses. The studied organizations need to redefine the role of their strategies, process innovation, outsourcing projects and quality standards to achieve adequate performance, as all four dimensions together are required to foster competitiveness.
Practical implications
This paper offers valuable insights for organizations when implementing strategic innovation initiatives. Additionally, it provides information relevant to Colombian government entities on the creation of processes, economic policy plans and business assistance programs for boosting the financial and commercial sustainability of Colombian service sector businesses. The studied organizations need to redefine the role of their strategies, process innovation, outsourcing projects and quality standards to achieve adequate performance, as all four dimensions together are required to foster competitiveness.
Originality/value
Developing successful strategies is vital to generating performance. Quality and safety are critical strategies to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. But literature is scarce on which factors local hotel businesses should rely on to compete successfully in developing countries. In particular, the concept of outsourcing in a highly distrusting developing country has not been addressed adequately. This research contributes to literature by evaluating quality as a competitive strategy in the hotel sector in a developing country to achieve a superior performance.
... TQM refers to strategies and management systems that improve customer satisfaction, reduce operational costs and improve production quality, prioritizing the involvement of all managers and employees and data-based decision-making (Flynn et al., 1995). Because TQM is largely considered as a mechanism to perform quality-based problem-solving through employees, it can help organizations achieve performance improvement (Jung and Hong, 2008;Rew et al., 2020). Moreover, TQM focuses on continuous improvement and emphasizes that organizations consume the least number of resources in their operations to follow environmentally friendly practices. ...
Purpose
This study investigates the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), total quality management (TQM), and corporate sustainability (CS). Specifically, the authors propose that TQM mediates the relationship between OCB and CS. The authors intend to demonstrate that TQM practice may be able to balance the interests of all stakeholders and hence improve the performance of all three CS elements, namely economic, social and environmental.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors designed a survey questionnaire. The authors then collected data from managers that were in charge of quality control in 216 companies. Hypotheses were developed and regression and path analyses were used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
OCB has a positive effect on both TQM and CS. TQM also is positively related to CS. Further, TQM mediates the relationship between OCB and CS. Further analyses show that the full mediation only applies to economic aspects of CS but not social and environmental.
Practical implications
Companies that aim to achieve overall CS performance should not only encourage OCB in an organization, but also pay attention to TQM. Moreover, when deciding on hard and soft TQM, the priority should be given to hard TQM.
Originality/value
The authors investigate the relationship between OCB, TQM and CS in detail. The authors treat TQM in two elements of soft TQM and hard TQM while treating CS performance in three elements of economic, social and environmental performances. The authors further examine how both hard and soft TQM impacts CS performance differently.
... Oleh karena itu, diperlukan adanya peningkatan inovasi untuk mempertahankan pelanggan dan memperluas hubungan pelanggan. Rew & Lovett (2020) mengemukakan bahwa kepuasaan pelanggan dapat dihasilkan dari pengalaman pelanggan menggunakan layanan, selain itu sebuah sistem yang melibatkan peran konsumen dalam merancang dan menjalankan layanan dapat meningkatkan kepuasaan konsumen. Sehingga adanya inovasi layanan dapat mendorong pelanggan untuk berperan aktif dalam proses layanan. ...
Penelitian ini merupakan jenis penelitian deskriptif kualitatif dengan menggunakan analisis Customer Relationship dengan hasil data berupa wawancara mendalam secara terstruktur. Penelitian dilakukan di kantor PT. PLN (Persero) Unit Induk Wilayah Kalimantan Barat dengan objek penelitian adalah PT. PLN (Persero) UIW Kalbar dan subjek penelitian adalah manajer dan pelanggan PT. PLN (Persero) UIW Kalbar. Teknik pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan observasi, wawancara dan dokumentasi. Teknik pengolahan dan analisis data mengunakan pengumpulan data, redukasi data, penyajian data dan verifikasi data. Uji kredibilitas data menggunakan triangulasi. Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa penerapan Digital Customer Relationship Marketing PT. PLN UIW Kalbar berupa PLN Mobile dan Call Center 123. PT. PLN (Persero) UIW menyediakan forum diskusi melalui Whatsapp Group dan Stakeholder Gathering sebagai media komunikasi dalam menjalin hubungan dan memperkuat kepuasan pelanggan.
... The development of mobile Internet expands the audience of online marketing, and disperses consumer attention [12][13][14][15][16]. Through strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat (SWOT) analysis, Nam and Seong [17] expounded on the correlation between participatory marketing and customer satisfaction, reconstructed a people-oriented path towards participatory marketing, and pointed out the direction of innovative development for this marketing mode. ...
The boom of online shopping has intensified the competition between e-commerce platforms. To enhance its service quality, every e-commerce website is taking measures to improve shopping experience and consumer satisfaction. However, the existing studies on consumer satisfaction with e-commerce platform fail to fully consider consumer feedbacks, such as sharing, forwarding, and reviewing. Thus, this paper explores the evaluation model and influencing factors of consumer satisfaction with e-commerce platform. Firstly, the behavior features of similar consumers were clustered, and evaluation indices were referred to divide the factors affecting the consumer satisfaction with e-commerce platform into different layers. In addition, a consumer satisfaction evaluation model was constructed based on attention mechanism, and proved effective through experiments.
... In service firms, innovative activities involve constructing systems that methodically include customers in the service generation process and the prompt discovery of customer evaluations of the service (Rew et al., 2021). Relevantly, Tsai et al. (2020) found a positive effect of operational innovation on marketing performance. ...
Economic sustainability allows hotel customers and other stakeholders to profit from hospitality services. Hotels can improve their marketing success by leveraging technologies and innovation strategy initiatives to suit guests' ever-changing needs. Thus, this paper investigated the effect of service quality on marketing performance among hotels in Jordan. In addition, it analyzed the moderating role of operational innovation and external environment on the relationship between service quality and marketing performance among Jordanian hotels. This study was quantitative and used the pretested questionnaire by interviewing general managers. The valid questionnaires were distributed stratified randomly to general hotel managers. The analyzed data were from 162 completed questionnaires, employing partial least squares analysis software. The results demonstrate a positive relationship between service quality and marketing performance. Moreover, this relationship was moderated by operational innovation and external environment. Clearly, the managers in Jordanian hotels might find and draw business strategies by linking the marketing performance with the service quality specifically (SERVQUAL) and employing management and technologies strategies through its operational innovation and external environment.
... Furthermore, the importance of customer satisfaction had been underlined by Fornell et al., (1996), Truong et al., (2020) and Demir et al., (2021) who stated that customer satisfaction could act as a measurement tool for the company to assess its financial performance, profitability, performance, and market share. Therefore, it is obligatory for companies to always giving their best in order to satisfy customers, which ultimately could instill loyalty on customers' minds (Fornell et al., 1996;Dube and Maute, 1998;Gligor et al., 2020;Smith, 2020;Rew et al., 2021;Samman & Mohammed, 2021). ...
This research was conducted in order to thoroughly examine the impact of price satisfaction (comprised of price fairness, relative price, price reliability, and price confidence) and product quality toward customer loyalty on green product through customer satisfaction. In regard with the methodology implemented in this study, survey method was utilized, in which questionnaires were electronically distributed to the respondents originated or living in Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Bali and Medan using google forms. All of these data then were analyzed using PLS-SEM method. A non-probability sampling method in the form of convenience sampling was implemented in order that all respondents had complied with the criteria set in this study, in which, respondents are those who’ve bought any kind of green (eco-friendly) products between 2019 to 2021. A total of 476 usable data were used and assessed in this research. Based on the findings obtained in this study, author concluded that price fairness, price confidence, and product quality positively affect customer loyalty through customer satisfaction, while the impact of the other variables toward customer loyalty had been proven to be insignificant. In the other hand, customer satisfaction positively mediates the effect of price fairness, price confidence, and product quality toward customer loyalty. Furthermore, based on these results, authors would like to also conclude that product quality plays a slightly more important role in affecting consumers’ loyalty toward green products as opposed to price satisfaction, since there are several variables which didn’t significantly affect customer’s level of loyalty toward green products.
Bahasa Indonesia Abstrak: Penelitian ini dilakukan guna mengetahui secara mendalam bagaimana pengaruh yang diberikan oleh price fairness, relative price, price reliability, and price confidence (sebagai bagian dari price satisfaction) dan product quality di dalam meningkatkan loyalitas konsumen terhadap produk-produk ramah lingkungan (green products), baik secara langsung ataupun tidak langsung melalui customer satisfaction. Adapun metode survei dengan menggunakan kuesioner diimplementasikan pada penelitian ini, yang dimana, seluruh kuesioner disebarkan secara daring kepada seluruh responden. Responden pada penelitian ini sendiri berasal dari berbagai kota besar di Indonesia, diantaranya adalah Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Bali serta Medan. Selanjutnya, terkait dengan teknik sampling yang digunakan, teknik non-probability sampling dalam bentuk convenience sampling diimplementasikan pada penelitian ini guna memastikan bahwa memang seluruh responden yang berpartisipasi pada penelitian ini telah memenuhi seluruh persyaratan responden yang telah ditentukan, yang dimana, responden haruslah konsumen yang pernah membeli produk ramah lingkungan dalam kurun waktu 2 tahun terakhir antara 2019 hingga 2021. Terkait dengan jumlah sampel pada studi ini, sebanyak 476 data dikumpulkan dari para responden, yang dimana, berdasarkan hasil pengolahan data dengan menggunakan metode PLS-SEM, dapat disimpulkan bahwa price fairness, price confidence, and product quality berpengaruh signifikan terhadap customer loyalty melalui customer satisfaction. Selain itu juga, customer satisfaction mampu secara signifikan me-mediasi pengaruh dari price fairness, price confidence, dan product quality terhadap customer loyalty. Selain itu, ditemukan juga bahwa product quality memegang peranan yang lebih signifikan di dalam mempengaruhi loyalitas konsumen terhadap produk- produk ramah lingkungan, mengingat bahwa ada beberapa variabel yang merupakan bagian dari price satisfaction yang tidak berpengaruh signifikan terhadap loyalitas.
... The value generation capability of public libraries depends on their ability to attract people and to involve them in a co-creation effort (Rew et al., 2021) by boosting social exchanges (SE) and catalyzing interactions (Sørensen, 2021). For this to happen, publicly owned libraries must reframe their services (McGrath, 2018), exploiting digital technologies and social innovations to increase their responsiveness to the evolving needs of the community in a Total Quality Management (TQM) perspective (Heseltine, 2020). ...
Purpose. Publicly owned libraries deliver a fundamental public service, fostering the citizens’ access to knowledge. However, little is known about the factors underpinning the public libraries’ organizational attractiveness. The article sheds light on this issue, investigating how the public libraries’ service offering contributes to increasing their attractiveness.
Methodology. Secondary data were collected from the national census study of libraries carried out in 2019 by the Italian Institute of Statistics. More than 4,500 publicly owned libraries established in Italy were involved in the analysis. A linear regression model was designed to examine the implications of public libraries’ service offering on the number of people who visited them in 2019. The units of analysis were grouped in 3 clusters based on their organizational size.
Findings. Small-sized libraries’ attractiveness relied on loan services and catalogues’ integration, as well as on the availability of spaces for promoting social exchanges and interactions. The same was true for medium-sized libraries, whose attractiveness was also fostered by digitization. Large-sized libraries’ ability to attract users was primarily affected by loan services and by the provision of people-centered cultural services.
Practical implications. Publicly owned libraries should arrange tailored strategies to increase their attractiveness. Small-sized and medium-sized libraries should exploit community-oriented initiatives to establish a co-creating dialogue with users. Conversely, large-sized entities should advance the users’ access to conventional services and implement people-centered cultural activities, recontextualizing their exchange with users in the digital domain to enhance service quality.
Originality/value. The article originally investigates the factors affecting the attractiveness of publicly owned libraries, providing intriguing insights to managers and practitioners.
... The level of customer satisfaction plays a significant role in the success of a service business (Tseng, 2019;Aslam and Farhat, 2020;Rew et al., 2020). Previous studies in the banking industry have used service quality model (SERVQUAL) as a basic research instrument in determining customer satisfaction (Raza et al., 2015;Moghavvemi et al., 2018;Ali and Raza, 2015;Fatima and Razzaque;2014;Amin, 2016;Pakurár et al., 2019;Devesh, 2019;Yilmaz et al., 2018;Kamarudin and Kassim, 2020). ...
What matters most in achieving customer satisfaction in banking? A study from the perspective of employee characteristics
Abstract Purpose-This study aims to identify the factors that influence customer satisfaction in the banking sector from the perspective of employee characteristics. More specifically, this study identifies the impact of employee etiquettes, employee performance, technical selling skills, and customer-oriented behavior on customer satisfaction in the banking industry. The study also seeks to investigate the mediating effect of employee etiquettes, employee performance, and technical selling skills on the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer-oriented behavior. Design/methodology/approach-The data were collected with the help of a Likert scale questionnaire from the active banking customers in Karachi, Pakistan who visit bank branches once a month minimum. For 268 responses, the partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was employed for hypotheses testing.
Findings-The results showed a positive and significant relationship between customer-oriented behavior and employee etiquettes, technical selling skills, and performance. The employee customer-oriented behavior, etiquettes, technical selling skills, and performance were also found to be significantly related to customer satisfaction. Finally, the results revealed that technical selling skills, employee performance, and employee etiquettes partially mediate the relationship between customer-oriented behavior and customer satisfaction.
Practical implications-It is recommended that banking employees should adopt customer-oriented behavior in order to achieve and maintain customer satisfaction. The bank managers should also work on improving the etiquettes and performance of the employees and provide them detailed technical knowledge of the services and products offered by the bank.
Originality/value-Arguably, it is one of the first studies to examine the mediating effects of employees' technical selling skills and employees' performance on the relationship between customer orientation and customer satisfaction, specifically in the banking industry.
A liderança é reconhecida como um fator chave para o comportamento inovador dos funcionários, essencial para a sobrevivência das organizações em um mundo em constante mudança. A inovação, vista como um processo de desenvolvimento dinâmico, visa melhorar processos e atender às necessidades dos consumidores. Os líderes desempenham um papel crucial em todos os níveis desse processo, incentivando a busca de novas oportunidades e criando um ambiente propício à inovação. Assim, a liderança influencia diretamente os resultados organizacionais, motivando colaboradores e melhorando o desempenho. Este estudo busca entender como a liderança catalisa a inovação nas organizações, analisando as competências necessárias dos líderes para criar um ambiente favorável à inovação. A pesquisa é uma revisão sistemática da literatura, utilizando uma metodologia rigorosa para identificar e avaliar os estudos relevantes, com o objetivo de fornecer clareza sobre a importância da liderança na promoção da inovação.
This study mainly aimed to analyse the role of Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) in driving organisational competitiveness of Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs) through improved human resource management (HRM). Specifically, it determined the influence of HRIS use on administrative costs, HR service delivery and HR innovation using data collected from HR managers and heads of academic and administrative departments or sections responsible for handling HR activities in the HLIs under review. Employing a quantitative survey, the study gathered data from purposively selected human resource and administrative officers in both public and private HLIs. The analysis of the data collected entailed the use of Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The results show that using HRIS reduces administrative costs, improves the quality of HR service delivery, and promotes innovation in HR service delivery. These results demonstrate that the investment and extensive use of HRIS can further enhance organisational competitiveness. This paper contributes innovatively to HRM literature by empirically demonstrating the potential benefits of HRIS in HLIs, particularly against the backdrop of scarce empirical studies that have specifically examined the direct impact of HRIS on organisational competitiveness in HLIs in the context of low-technology countries such as Tanzania.
This study aimed to investigate the mediating effect of service innovation on the link between entrepreneurial leadership and quality performance of micro and small-scale enterprises in the service sector in the North Shoa Zone of the Amhara Region, Ethiopia. The primary data were collected using a stratified random sampling technique. A total of 369 questionnaires were distributed to managers/owners of sampled enterprises, with 348 (94.3%) respondents returning correctly filled questionnaires. Structural equation model was used to test the research hypotheses. The results revealed that entrepreneurial leadership and service innovation have direct positive effect on quality performance. Similarly, entrepreneurial leadership has a direct positive effect on service innovation. Moreover, service innovation has a significant partial mediation role in the link between entrepreneurial leadership and enterprise quality performance. The theoretical implications of this study suggest that entrepreneurial leaders play a crucial role in driving service innovation, which, in turn, positively affects the quality performance of micro and small-scale enterprises in the service sector. From a practical perspective, the findings suggest that organizations should focus on cultivating entrepreneurial leadership behaviors and encouraging service innovation to enhance the overall quality performance of their enterprises in the study area.
O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar as relações existentes entre a qualidade percebida, as expetativas, a satisfação e a lealdade dos membros de clubes de rugby da região de Lisboa, com base numa adaptação do American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). A recolha de dados aos membros dos clubes foi feita com base no questionário Customer Service Quality (CSQ). A amostra é constituída por 261 membros de quatro clubes de rugby da região de Lisboa. A análise de dados foi feita com recurso a modelos de equações estruturais, apoiado pelo software R. Os resultados corroboraram a relação direta e positiva entre: as expetativas e a qualidade percebida; a qualidade percebida e a satisfação dos consumidores; a satisfação e a lealdade dos consumidores. Os resultados acrescentaram a validação da relação, direta e positiva, entre as expetativas e a lealdade dos membros dos clubes de rugby, revelando-se um contributo teórico para o modelo ACSI. Os achados deste estudo são determinantes para um maior conhecimento dos fatores implicados aos clubes de rugby relativamente à satisfação e retenção dos seus membros.
With the intensification of national and global competition, the focus of companies is now on how to achieve competitive advantage. With globalisation, Cameroon's industry is facing specific difficulties such as unchecked competition from imports, internal weaknesses in output, low technology acquisition as well as poor links between industry and the institutional sector, making competition a problem for them. This led to the foundation of studies on innovation and competitiveness, but at this point, there are still inconclusive results. This paper focuses on examining the effect of innovation on competitiveness in the food processing industry of Cameroon, with a specific emphasis on the mediating effect of quality management. This study adopted the cross-sectional research design for its investigation.
Business Intelligence is the solution to the need of companies to obtain
real and immediate information, this is due to the rise of globalization and
implementation of new technologies to improve their competitiveness and
productivity, making them more efficient companies. The objective of this article
was to analyze the main scientific research on Business Intelligence and
productivity in service companies in the last 5 years. Literature review research
was carried out with a systematic review methodology. Boolean codes were used
as a search strategy, where limiting filters were applied to exclude results that did
not meet the inclusion criteria and were synthesized in a Prisma flow chart. A total
of 40 scientific articles were selected, extracted from Google Scholar, Dialnet, Scielo,
Redalyc, Scopus, Science Direct, EBSCO, Proquest and MDPI. The countries where
the most results were found were Colombia and Ecuador. In addition, the year with
the largest amount of literature was 2019. It was concluded that BI and
productivity are related in the business environment, because they allow
streamlining processes and generating greater efficiency.
Sürekliliği sağlamanın önemli bir amaç olduğu havayolu sektöründe, yolcuların aynı havayolu firmasını tercih etmeleri kar elde edebilmek adına önemli bir husustur. Yolcuların yeniden satın alma kararlarına etki eden faktörlerin bilinmesi, işletmeler için kritik önem taşıdığından, bu çalışmada bu faktörlerin ortaya çıkarılması amaçlanmıştır. Güven ve hizmet kalitesinin yeniden satın alma niyeti üzerindeki dolaylı etkisi incelenirken müşteri tatmini ve marka imajının bu etki üzerindeki aracılık etkisi de mercek altına alınmıştır. Hizmet kalitesinin yeniden satın alma niyeti üzerinde doğrudan ve pozitif bir etkisi olduğu ancak güvenin yeniden satın alma niyeti üzerinde doğrudan etkisinin olmadığı tespit edilmiştir. Hizmet kalitesinin yeniden satın alma niyeti üzerinde müşteri tatmini ve marka imajının kısmi aracılık etkisi olduğu ortaya çıkmıştır. Ayrıca, güvenin yeniden satın alma niyeti üzerindeki etkisinde müşteri tatmini ve marka imajının tam aracı etkisi olduğu, çalışmada ulaşılan diğer sonuçlardan biridir. Müşteri tatmini ve marka imajının yeniden satın alma niyetini doğrudan ve pozitif bir şekilde etkilediği tespit edilmiştir.
The authors respond to concerns raised by Cronin and Taylor (1992) and Teas (1993) about the SERVQUAL instrument and the perceptions-minus-expectations specification invoked by it to operationalize service quality. After demonstrating that the validity and alleged severity of many of those concerns are questionable, they offer a set of research directions for addressing unresolved issues and adding to the understanding of service quality assessment.
The attainment of quality in products and services has become a pivotal concern of the 1980s. While quality in tangible goods has been described and measured by marketers, quality in services is largely undefined and unresearched. The authors attempt to rectify this situation by reporting the insights obtained in an extensive exploratory investigation of quality in four service businesses and by developing a model of service quality. Propositions and recommendations to stimulate future research about service quality are offered.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide novel theoretical insight into service delivery system (SDS) design. To do so, this paper adopts a customer journey perspective, using it as a frame to explore dimensions of experience quality that inform design requirements.
Design/methodology/approach
This study utilises UK Patient Opinion data to analyse the stories of 200 cancer patients. Using a critical incident technique, 1,207 attributes of experience quality are generated and classified into 17 quality dimensions across five stages of the customer (patient) journey
Findings
Analysis reveals both similarity and difference in dimensions of experience quality across the patient journey: seven dimensions are common to all five journey stages, from receiving diagnosis to end of life care; ten dimensions were found to vary, present in one or several of the stages but not in all.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations include a lack of representativity of the story sample and the impossibility to verify the factual occurrence of the stories.
Practical implications
Adopting a patient journey perspective can improve practitioner understanding of the design requirements of SDS in healthcare. The results of the study can be applied by managers to configure SDS that achieve higher quality of patient care throughout the patient journey.
Originality/value
This paper extends existing literature on SDS design by adopting a customer journey perspective, revealing heterogeneity in experience quality across the customer journey currently unaccounted for in SDS design frameworks. Specifically, the findings challenge homogeneity in extant SDS design frameworks, evidencing the need for multiple, stage-specific SDS design requirements.
Purpose
While research on customer engagement and service innovation is rapidly emerging, limited insight exists into the interface of these topic areas. However, given the shared notion of (e.g. customer/firm) interactivity across these concepts, the purpose of this paper is to explore their theoretical interface that remains nebulous to date.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on a literature synthesis, the authors develop an S-D logic-informed “hamburger” model of service innovation that depicts the service innovation process, and its ensuing outcomes for particular actor groups, including the firm, its customers, etc. They conclude by proposing frontiers for future research that arise from the model.
Findings
The authors explore the theoretical foundations of customer engagement and service innovation, and integrate these in their S-D logic-informed “hamburger” model of service innovation. In the model, they acknowledge the key role of organizational resources in enabling service innovation, which will interact with specific service innovation actors (e.g. customers, employees) to create successful service innovations. The model next proposes service innovation development and implementation, from which focal service innovation actors will seek, and derive, particular types of value (e.g. profit for the actor of the firm), as shown at the top of the model. They conclude by offering a set of future research directions that arise from the model.
Research limitations/implications
The S-D logic-informed “hamburger” model of service innovation can be used to guide future research into service innovation, including studies investigating service innovation’s role in driving customer engagement and value.
Practical implications
The attained insight will be useful to managers seeking to enhance their service innovation-based returns (e.g. by suggesting ways in which service innovation can enhance customer engagement).
Originality/value
The authors propose a novel, S-D logic-informed “hamburger” model of service innovation and its key antecedents (e.g. firm-based resources) and consequences (e.g. customer engagement and value).
Research on service innovation appears in several research disciplines, with important contributions in marketing, management, and operations research. Although the concept is widely used, few research papers have explicitly defined service innovation. This dearth of research is the motivation for the present study. Through a systematic review of 1301 articles on service innovation appearing in academic journals between 1979 and 2014, this article examines research defining service innovation. The study identifies the key characteristics within 84 definitions of service innovation in different perspectives (assimilation, demarcation and synthesis) and shows how the meaning of the concept is changing. The review suggests that the large variety in definitions limits and hinders knowledge development of service innovation.
Since the introductory article for what has become known as the “service-dominant (S-D) logic of marketing,” “Evolving to
a New Dominant Logic for Marketing,” was published in the Journal of Marketing (Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2004a)), there
has been considerable discussion and elaboration of its specifics. This article highlights and clarifies the salient issues
associated with S-D logic and updates the original foundational premises (FPs) and adds an FP. Directions for future work
are also discussed.
KeywordsService-dominant logic-New-dominant logic-Service
The airline industry faces economic challenges making it paramount that they provide satisfactory service to customers relative to their expectations. This study uses a service quality-adjusted data envelopment analysis (SQ-adjusted DEA) to study US-based airline carrier operational efficiency. We found that airlines can overcome the traditional tradeoff between quality and productivity. Using SQ-adjusted DEA, we were able to find how airlines could set service levels in accordance with their strategic purpose or operational characteristics. Low-cost airlines were found to benefit by marginal improvements in service, often unexpected by their clientele. Network carriers, however, tended to have a harder time meeting service expectations. While there were short-term tradeoffs between service quality and productivity, in the long term a focus on service quality may help increase customer satisfaction, thus improving service productivity and overall organizational performance. SQ-adjusted DEA was found to be better suited to explore service productivity than the standard DEA.
Purpose: We present partial least squares (PLS) as an evolving approach to structural equation modeling (SEM), highlight its advantages and limitations and provide an overview of recent research on the method across various fields.
Design/methodology/approach: In this review article we merge literatures from the marketing, management, and management information systems fields to present the state-of-the art of PLS-SEM research. Furthermore, we meta-analyze recent review studies to shed light on popular reasons for PLS-SEM usage.
Findings: PLS-SEM has experienced increasing dissemination in a variety of fields in recent years with non-normal data, small sample sizes and the use of formative indicators being the most prominent reasons for its application. Recent methodological research has extended PLS-SEM’s methodological toolbox to accommodate more complex model structures or handle data inadequacies such as heterogeneity.
Research limitations/implications: While research on the PLS-SEM method has gained momentum during the last decade, there are ample research opportunities on subjects such as mediation or multigroup analysis, which warrant further attention.
Originality/value: This article provides an introduction to PLS-SEM for researchers that have not yet been exposed to the method. The article is the first to meta-analyze reasons for PLS-SEM usage across the marketing, management, and management information systems fields. Our cross-disciplinary review of recent research on the PLS-SEM method also makes this article useful for researchers interested in advanced concepts.
Purpose
– Service quality and relative performance of public universities in East Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
– Exploratory survey of three public universities in East African countries namely Moi, Makerere and Dar es salaam universities from three East African countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, respectively. Student perceptions are elicited on service quality and relative performance. Comparative analysis is done. A sample size of 450 respondents from a target population of > 50,000 is derived using a multistage sampling technique. Structured questionnaire is used to extract both nominal and ordinal data, the latter utilizing items anchored on a five-point Likert scale. Modified SERVQUAL and performance were standardized. Descriptive, one-way ANOVA, factor analysis, Pearson product moment correlation and multiple regression was used to analyze the data.
Findings
– Modified SERVQUAL dimensions were confirmed, centrality of tangibility and reliability established, while importance of responsiveness was disapproved. Relative variation in service quality and relative performance across three countries universities was found to be significant. Finally significant effect of service quality on performance of universities was also established.
Research limitations/implications
– Service quality and relative performance in higher education could be subjected to international verification and evaluation at the risk of cultural and contextual bias.
Practical implications
– The paper provides insights on the relative importance of service quality dimensions and their effects on relative performance. This guides practitioners on prioritization of the service quality dimension that are central to relative performance.
Social implications
– Knowledge of the key dimensions of service quality that are central to relative performance and their variation across institutional contexts guides institutions of higher education in fulfilling their social responsibility to customers by meeting their expectations in service quality.
Originality/value
– The value of this paper lies in the application of SERVQUAL model to higher education in an international context. Evaluation of link between service quality and relative performance, and also examining variation across universities under unique cultural and contextual situations.
In this article, we propose to analyse the impact of investments in information technologies (ITs) on the productivity of Spanish firms. Using a representative panel of 341 medium-sized and large firms, we used a Cobb–Douglas function to measure the contribution of IT capital to labour productivity. The results obtained reveal that the sensitivity of labour productivity to changes in technological capital intensity is positive and significant when firm-specific effects are corrected. However, this relationship is not significant when not only firm-specific, but also period-specific effects, are corrected. The conclusion obtained from these results shows that, although the firms in the samples experienced some improvement in labour productivity in the considered period, this improvement was not significantly derived from IT investment.
Factor analysis, path analysis, structural equation modeling, and related multivariate statistical methods are based on maximum likelihood or generalized least squares estimation developed for covariance structure models (CSMs). Large-sample theory provides a chi-square goodness-of-fit test for comparing a model (M) against a general alternative M based on correlated variables. It is suggested that this comparison is insufficient for M evaluation. A general null M based on modified independence among variables is proposed as an additional reference point for the statistical and scientific evaluation of CSMs. Use of the null M in the context of a procedure that sequentially evaluates the statistical necessity of various sets of parameters places statistical methods in covariance structure analysis into a more complete framework. The concepts of ideal Ms and pseudo chi-square tests are introduced, and their roles in hypothesis testing are developed. The importance of supplementing statistical evaluation with incremental fit indices associated with the comparison of hierarchical Ms is also emphasized. Normed and nonnormed fit indices are developed and illustrated. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Since 2000, customer management (CM) research has evolved and has had a significant impact on the marketing discipline. In an increasingly networked society where customers can interact easily with other customers and firms through social networks and other new media, the authors propose that customer engagement is an important new development in CM. Customer engagement is considered as a behavioral manifestation toward the brand or firm that goes beyond transactions. The authors propose a conceptual model of the antecedents, impediments, and firm consequences of customer engagement and relate this model to seven articles appearing in the special issue on customer engagement.
“Service-dominant logic” appears to have found resonance in the marketing community since its introduction as the evolving,
“new dominant logic” in the Journal of Marketing (Vargo and Lusch 2004a, Journal of Marketing, 68, 1–17 (January)). But, on
occasion, so has the question of whether the concept “service” captures the essence of the new logic. This article addresses
the role of “service” as the heart of value-creation, exchange, markets, and marketing, as well as its considerable implications
for research, practice, societal well-being, and public policy. The purposes are both to clarify the issues and to foster
the continuing dialog around the service-dominant logic for marketing, as well as for other disciplines.
KeywordsService-dominant logic-S-D logic-New dominant logic-Service marketing
Retailers, such as Starbucks and Victoria's Secret, aim to provide customers a great experience across channels. In this paper we provide an overview of the existing literature on customer experience and expand on it to examine the creation of a customer experience from a holistic perspective. We propose a conceptual model, in which we discuss the determinants of customer experience. We explicitly take a dynamic view, in which we argue that prior customer experiences will influence future customer experiences. We discuss the importance of the social environment, self-service technologies and the store brand. Customer experience management is also approached from a strategic perspective by focusing on issues such as how and to what extent an experience-based business can create growth. In each of these areas, we identify and discuss important issues worthy of further research.
The creation of value is the core purpose and central process of economic exchange. Traditional models of value creation focus on the firm’s output and price. We present an alternative perspective, one representing the intersection of two growing streams of thought, service science and service-dominant (S-D) logic. We take the view that (1) service, the application of competences (such as knowledge and skills) by one party for the benefit of another, is the underlying basis of exchange; (2) the proper unit of analysis for service-for-service exchange is the service system, which is a configuration of resources (including people, information, and technology) connected to other systems by value propositions; and (3) service science is the study of service systems and of the co-creation of value within complex configurations of resources. We argue that value is fundamentally derived and determined in use – the integration and application of resources in a specific context – rather than in exchange – embedded in firm output and captured by price. Service systems interact through mutual service exchange relationships, improving the adaptability and survivability of all service systems engaged in exchange, by allowing integration of resources that are mutually beneficial. This argument has implications for advancing service science by identifying research questions regarding configurations and processes of value co-creation and measurements of value-in-use, and by developing its ties with economics and other service-oriented disciplines.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the gap in the literature by extending the service profit chain (SPC) model and testing the validity of the proposed model in high-contact service contexts rather than by testing the key elements of the SPC in regard to a single business.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses the exploratory factor analysis to identify a set of observables to use in representing the relationships included in the proposed extended model and employs the structural equation modeling to test the eight proposed hypothesis.
Findings
The study shows that the best-fit structural model supports the notion that employee internal service quality drives employee satisfaction that drives employee loyalty and employee productivity. In addition, employee productivity is shown as partially mediating the relationship between employee satisfaction and employee loyalty.
Practical implications
The results presented in this study have managerial implications and shed light on the importance of operational factors in the service industry, in particular high-contact services.
Originality/value
The integration of operations management and SPC still remain limited in the literature. Therefore, the study extends the SPC by integrating other operational factors, namely, employee productivity and internal service quality, and tests its validity in high contact services where the prolonged contact between the customer and the service system creates more opportunities to influence a customer’s perception of service quality.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the mediating effect of customer engagement on the relationships between selected relationship quality and value antecedents (commitment, customer satisfaction, trust and customer value), and the consequence (loyalty intentions) within the short-term insurance industry.
Design/methodology/approach
A descriptive research design that is quantitative in nature was followed and 491 responses from insurance customers were analysed.
Findings
Short-term insurers should facilitate customer engagement by implementing strategies that foster customer commitment, ensure customer satisfaction, build trust and create customer value. Facilitating customer engagement may lead to stronger loyalty intentions amongst customers towards the short-term insurer.
Research limitations/implications
The investigation offers a greater understanding of the relevance and importance of the customer engagement theory and the impact it may have in strengthening the relationships between factors of the relationship marketing domain and customer loyalty.
Practical implications
From a managerial perspective, it is evident that short-term insurers should facilitate customer engagement carrying out strategies that foster customer commitment, ensure customer satisfaction, build trust and create customer value.
Originality/value
Building on the work of earlier relationship and quality management scholars, the study provides new insight into the role and relevance of relationship quality and value factors and customer engagement, while simultaneously being assessed for their contribution to customer loyalty.
The authors investigate whether it is necessary to include disconfirmation as an intervening variable affecting satisfaction as is commonly argued, or whether the effect of disconfirmation is adequately captured by expectation and perceived performance. Further, they model the process for two types of products, a durable and a nondurable good, using experimental procedures in which three levels of expectations and three levels of performance are manipulated for each product in a factorial design. Each subject's perceived expectations, performance evaluations, disconfirmation, and satisfaction are subsequently measured by using multiple measures for each construct. The results suggest the effects are different for the two products. For the nondurable good, the relationships are as typically hypothesized. The results for the durable good are different in important respects. First, neither the disconfirmation experience nor subjects’ initial expectations affected subjects’ satisfaction with it. Rather, their satisfaction was determined solely by the performance of the durable good. Expectations did combine with performance to affect disconfirmation, though the magnitude of the disconfirmation experience did not translate into an impact on satisfaction. Finally, the direct performance-satisfaction link accounts for most of the variation in satisfaction.
On the basis of Hirschman's exit-voice theory, an economic model of defensive marketing strategy is developed for complaint management. Though many firms strive to reduce the number of customer complaints about their products, this objective is found to be questionable. Instead, analysis suggests complaints from dissatisfied customers should be maximized subject to certain cost restrictions. The authors also show that defensive marketing (e.g., complaint management) can lower the total marketing expenditure by substantially reducing the cost of offensive marketing (e.g., advertising). The savings in offensive marketing are often high enough to offset the additional costs associated with compensating complaining customers, even if compensation exceeds the product's profit margin.
The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is a new type of market-based performance measure for firms, industries, economic sectors, and national economies. The authors discuss the nature and purpose of ACSI and explain the theory underlying the ACSI model, the nation-wide survey methodology used to collect the data, and the econometric approach employed to estimate the indices. They also illustrate the use of ACSI in conducting benchmarking studies, both cross-sectionally and over time. The authors find customer satisfaction to be greater for goods than for services and, in turn, greater for services than for government agencies, as well as find cause for concern in the observation that customer satisfaction in the United States is declining, primarily because of decreasing satisfaction with services. The authors estimate the model for the seven major economic sectors for which data are collected. Highlights of the findings include that (1) customization is more important than reliability in determining customer satisfaction, (2) customer expectations play a greater role in sectors in which variance in production and consumption is relatively low, and (3) customer satisfaction is more quality-driven than value- or price-driven. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of ACSI for public policymakers, managers, consumers, and marketing in general.
The literature reflects remarkably little effort to develop a framework for understanding the implementation of the marketing concept. The authors synthesize extant knowledge on the subject and provide a foundation for future research by clarifying the construct's domain, developing research propositions, and constructing an integrating framework that includes antecedents and consequences of a market orientation. They draw on the occasional writings on the subject over the last 35 years in the marketing literature, work in related disciplines, and 62 field interviews with managers in diverse functions and organizations. Managerial implications of this research are discussed.
A model is proposed which expresses consumer satisfaction as a function of expectation and expectancy disconfirmation. Satisfaction, in turn, is believed to influence attitude change and purchase intention. Results from a two-stage field study support the scheme for consumers and nonconsumers of a flu inoculation.
Research on market orientation and organizational learning addresses how organizations adapt to their environments and develop competitive advantage. A significant void exists in current models of market orientation because none of the frameworks incorporates constructs related to innovation. The authors present a conceptual framework for incorporating constructs that pertain to innovation in market orientation research. Some of the critical relationships in this conceptual framework are tested among a sample of 9648 employees from 56 organizations in a large agency of the U.S. federal government. The results indicate that higher levels of innovativeness in the firms’ culture are associated with a greater capacity for adaptation and innovation (number of innovations successfully implemented). In addition, higher levels of innovativeness are associated with cultures that emphasize learning, development, and participative decision making. The authors make recommendations for incorporating constructs related to innovation into research on market orientation and organizational learning.
Purpose
This paper studies the impact of successfully assessing basic resources of an organization, such as technology and human resources, needed to enhance performance of service businesses through the use of quality management ideals. Effective coordination of these two types of organizational assets is shown to impact both the design and the implementation of quality management practices, which than leads to enhanced organizational performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Retail banking firms were surveyed for this study to analyze empirical data related to technology and people based assets. Results were corroborated on the basis of in-depth interviews with several banking managers to provide real-world verification of our findings.
Findings
This study identifies the significance of key assets in a banking service environment that can help the implementation of quality management philosophy. Paper discusses how managers can focus on the development of key assets as well as the use of these assets in the design of quality management processes to enhance business performance.
Research limitations/implications
This research focused on a specific sector of the service industry, the banking sector. Relatively small size of the study sample may have impacted the outcome of research applicability on a wide spectrum of businesses. Also, constantly changing financial regulations could not be incorporated in the study. On the positive side, strong managerial feedback provides guidance towards adopting the study results, and lays the foundation for future research suggesting an additional focus on corporate responsibility and sustainability issues while managing quality.
Originality/value
As today’s rapidly evolving society pushes people out of service encounters, replacing them with efficient and cost-saving technology, roles of both the people and the technology in an organization must be fully understood. This paper shows that, despite the exponential growth of technological innovation, both people and technology are critical to enhancing organizational performance through successful adoption of quality management practices.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can bring many benefits to the hotel business, though there are some associated challenges. Such challenges often bring a significant risk of failure, and these risks become more significant in budget hotels. This study considers the changes that have emerged in the last decade as regards customer expectations when staying in budget hotels. We use qualitative approaches to investigate the overlaps between customer expectations and managers’ perceptions of CRM applications. The findings reveal that regardless of all changes, value for money and core products continue to play a critical role in customers’ overall satisfaction with budget hotels.
Is superiority in quality compatible with superiority in productivity, or do the two conflict? One stream of research argues that they are compatible, another argues that there are inherent trade-offs, while still another finds little or no relationship. This study seeks to reconcile the apparent contradictions. Building on Juran's (1989) recognition that perceived quality is a function of two distinct dimensions of quality, a model that estimates and compares the relationship for different industry sectors is developed. From this analysis, it is hypothesized that a positive relationship is more likely for goods manufacturers, while a negative relationship is more likely for services. General support for the hypotheses is found using data from the Swedish Customer Satisfaction Barometer.
The growing number of academic studies on customer satisfaction and the mixed findings they report complicate efforts among managers and academics to identify the antecedents to, and outcomes of, businesses having more-versus less-satisfied customers. These mixed findings and the growing emphasis by managers on having satisfied customers point to the value of empirically synthesizing the evidence on customer satisfaction to assess current knowledge. To this end, the authors conduct a meta-analysis of the reported findings on customer satisfaction. They document that equity and disconfirmation are most strongly related to customer satisfaction on average. They also find that measurement and method factors that characterize the research often moderate relationship strength between satisfaction and its antecedents and outcomes. The authors discuss the implications surrounding these effects and offer several directions for future research.
As today's firms increasingly outsource their noncore activities, they not only have to manage their own resources and capabilities, but they are ever more dependent on the resources and capabilities of supplying firms to respond to customer needs. This paper explicitly examines whether and how firms and suppliers, who are both oriented to the same customer market, enable innovativeness in their supply chains and deliver value to their joint customer. We will call this customer of the focal firm the “end user.” The authors take a resource-dependence perspective to hypothesize how suppliers' end-user orientation and innovativeness influence downstream activities at the focal firm and end-user satisfaction. The resource dependence theory looks typically beyond the boundaries of an individual firm for explaining firm success: firms need to satisfy customer demands to survive and depend on other parties such as their suppliers to achieve customer satisfaction. Accordingly, the research design focuses on three parties along a supply chain: the focal firm, a supplier, and a customer of the focal firm (end user). The results drawn from a survey of 88 matched chains suggest the following. First, customer satisfaction is driven by focal firms' innovativeness. A focal firm's innovativeness depends, on the one hand, on a focal firm's market orientation and, on the other hand, on its suppliers’ innovativeness. Second, no relationship could be established between a focal firm's market orientation and a supplier's end-user orientation. Market orientation typically has within-firm effects, while innovativeness has impact beyond the boundaries of the firm. These results suggest that firms create value for their customer through internal market orientation efforts and external suppliers' innovativeness.
This paper presents an eight-firm study, conducted from the service-dominant logic perspective, which makes a contribution regarding knowledge of the anatomy of value propositions and service innovation. The paper suggests that value propositions are configurations of several different practices and resources. The paper finds that ten common practices, organized in three main aggregates, constitute and fulfill value propositions: i.e. provision practices, representational practices, and management and organizational practices. Moreover, the paper suggests that service innovation can be equated with the creation of new value propositions by means of developing existing or creating new practices and/or resources, or by means of integrating practices and resources in new ways. It identifies four types of service innovation (adaptation, resource-based innovation, practice-based innovation, and combinative innovation) and three types of service innovation processes (practice-based, resource-based, and combinative). The key managerial insight provided by the paper is that service innovation must be conducted and value propositions must be evaluated from the perspective of the customers’ value creation, the service that the customer experiences. Successful service innovation is not only contingent on having the right resources, established methods and practices for integrating these resources into attractive value propositions are also needed.
Research to date on service innovation is rooted primarily in traditional new product development focusing on tangible goods. In this article, the authors invoke insights from the emerging service-dominant logic (SDL) perspective and propose a conceptual framework for investigating the antecedents and consequences of service innovation. They then develop a set of hypotheses pertaining to potential predictors of two distinct facets of service innovation (volume and radicalness) and the impact of the latter on two measures of firm performance (revenue growth and profit growth). They test their proposed model using data from a sample of luxury hotels and find that (a) collaborating with customers fosters innovation volume but not radicalness (and vice versa for collaborating with business partners); (b) a firm’s customer orientation—both directly and in interaction with innovative orientation—contributes to innovation radicalness; (c) collaborating with contact employees enhances both innovation volume and radicalness; (d) the use of knowledge integration mechanisms contributes to innovation radicalness (but not volume); and (e) both innovation outcomes have significant but somewhat different effects on the two performance measures. They discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of their findings and conclude with the study’s limitations and directions for further research.
This study proposes a higher-order multidimensional construct of service innovation readiness (SIR) based on the organizational change literature and the awareness–motivation–capability perspective. Service innovation is gaining more attention due to its potential value for creating competitive advantage and improving organizational performance. This research conceptualizes SIR to consist of two adopting contexts (i.e., “strategic orientation toward service innovation” and “enabling mechanism of service innovation”) that, together, determine a firm's preparation to adopt organizational changes involved in service innovation. Six dimensions are also identified from a literature review and verified by industry expert interviews to define the two multidimensional adopting contexts. Data collected from 312 Taiwanese firms provide evidence to support the proposed factor structure of SIR and show that SIR positively correlates with SI performance. The findings contribute to the literature by theorizing SIR with a parsimonious structure that captures the complex conditions necessary for adopting service innovation. This study also yields some insight into the management of service innovation by providing managers an assessment that can be used to gauge a firm's status and direct its efforts in continuous improvement.
While most academics generally agree that innovation plays the mediating role between market orientation and new product/service performance, relatively little research has examined how each component of market orientation contributes to new service performance through various types of service innovation. Based on a survey of 235 managers and taking a component-wise approach, this study finds that customer orientation spurs incremental service innovation while inter-functional coordination spurs radical service innovation, both of which, in turn, enhance new service performance. A surprise finding shows that the impact of competitor orientation on new service performance is fully mediated by radical service innovation. The results of this study should help market oriented managers create and evaluate service innovation.
This paper is about service productivity and perceived service quality. Both a high service productivity and a high customer perceived quality are two main drivers of good performances in service companies and they simultaneously occur as a consequence of a synergy of several drivers such as employees' competences and motivation, organizational efficiency, technical devices availability, information technologies employment, etc. In scientific literature a trade-off between productivity and perceived service quality is asserted and several cases derived both by market observations and academic research could bear such trade-off out. But, is it possible to state that, under some circumstances, such a trade-off between productivity and perceived service quality could be avoided? And if yes, why such certified substitution should not work?In this paper, in order to trace some theoretical answer to the above questions, a managerial model based both on service science and production economics will be proposed. The model aims to find out some key causes that allow to explain the foundations of the mentioned trade-off and the potential conditions for its overcoming; moreover, such model will be employed in order to integrate services' productivity function with new variables and to provide some managerial guidelines for improving service management.
Presents the findings of a study performed on data from a large bank’s retail-banking operations. Illustrates the relationship of customer satisfaction to customer loyalty, and customer loyalty to profitability, using multiple measures of satisfaction, loyalty, and profitability. An estimate of the effects of increased customer satisfaction on profitability (assuming hypothesized causality) suggests that attainable increases in satisfaction could dramatically improve profitability.
There is wide acceptance of the precept that market orientation is associated with superior firm performance. However, empirical support for the proposition in prior literature is weak. This study examines the relationship between market orientation and performance with data from 201 international hotels and finds that market orientation is positively associated with both judgmental measures of performance – service quality, customer satisfaction, and employee satisfaction, and objective measures of performance – occupancy rate, gross operating profit, and market share. Specifically, the study finds that the immediate impact of market orientation is to spur innovation, which, in turn, enhances judgmental performance, which, in turn, enhances objective performance.
The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is a new type of market-based performance measure for firms, industries, economic sectors, and national economies. The authors discuss the nature and purpose of ACSI and explain the theory underlying the ACSI model, the nation-wide survey methodology used to collect the data, and the econometric approach employed to estimate the indices. They also illustrate the use of ACSI in conducting benchmarking studies, both cross-sectionally and over time. The authors find customer satisfaction to be greater for goods than for services and, in turn, greater for services than for government agencies, as well as find cause for concern in the observation that customer satisfaction in the United States is declining, primarily because of decreasing satisfaction with services. The authors estimate the model for the seven major economic sectors for which data are collected. Highlights of the findings include that (1) customization is more important than reliability in determining customer satisfaction, (2) customer expectations play a greater role in sectors in which variance in production and consumption is relatively low, and (3) customer satisfaction is more quality-driven than value-or price-driven. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of ACSI for public policymakers, managers, consumers, and marketing in general.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to discuss the intertwining of productivity, quality and innovation in the service domain and, based on that discussion, propose and examine the implications of a service productivity framework that incorporates not only the company's perspective (as is done traditionally) but also the customer's perspective and a typology for classifying service innovations on the basis of their potential impact on productivity from the company's and the customer's perspectives.
Design/methodology/approach
– The service productivity framework and service innovation typology are developed by synthesizing – and extending – concepts and insights from the relevant literature pertaining to productivity, quality and innovation.
Findings
– Analysis and discussion of the proposed frameworks lead to the overarching conclusion that strategies to improve service productivity, enhance service quality or implement service innovations, are likely to be suboptimal if pursued in isolation. As such, it is important for companies to consider the inter‐linkages among service productivity, quality and innovation when formulating and implementing strategies pertaining to any of them.
Originality/value
– The integration of conventional productivity concepts with key insights from the rich literature on service quality is novel. The resulting expanded service productivity framework and service innovation typology have important managerial implications and also offer several potentially fruitful avenues for further research.
Purpose
The present study aims to develop a measure of the market‐creating service innovation (MCSI) proposed by Berry et al. , verify the typology, identify the relationship between MCSI and each new service development (NSD) stage, and assess the degree to which the role of customers involved in each NSD stage contributes to each type of MCSI.
Design/methodology/approach
A mail survey was sent to service companies in Taiwan, the target respondents being senior managers with experience in developing successful new services in the past three years. A total of 179 usable questionnaires were collected, resulting in a respondent rate of 21.2 per cent. The responses covered a wide range of service industries.
Findings
The present study confirms that the four MCSIs proposed by Berry et al. do indeed exist in practice. The degree of association between each NSD stage and each type of MCSI varies according to MCSI type. The statistical weights for customers involved in each type of MCSI are also different.
Research limitations/implications
This study extends a theoretical mechanism of NSD that customers indeed contribute to service innovation, but their involvement varies depending on the characteristics of the service innovation.
Practical implications
Utilizing a new scale of MCSI, service providers can evaluate what types of MCSI are a better fit for their business.
Originality/value
This study provides a better understanding of MCSI, which helps service providers to properly allocate their limited resources. In addition, this study clarifies the degree to which the values of customer involvement in NSD contribute to MCSI.
Customer satisfaction with a company's products or services is often seen as the key to a company's success and long-term competitiveness. In the context of relationship marketing, customer satisfaction is often viewed as a central determinant of customer retention. However, the few empirical investigations in this area indicate that a direct relationship between these constructs is weak or even nonexistent. The overall purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual foundation for investigating the customer retention process, with the use of the concepts of customer satisfaction and relationship quality. The article involves a critical examination of the satisfaction–retention relationship, and the development of a more comprehensive view of the customer's quality perception. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
This research investigates the antecedents and consequences of customer satisfaction. We develop a model to link explicitly the antecedents and consequences of satisfaction in a utility-oriented framework. We estimate and test the model against alternative hypotheses from the satisfaction literature. In the process, a unique database is analyzed: a nationally representative survey of 22,300 customers of a variety of major products and services in Sweden in 1989–1990. Several well-known experimental findings of satisfaction research are tested in a field setting of national scope. For example, we find that satisfaction is best specified as a function of perceived quality and “disconfirmation”—the extent to which perceived quality fails to match prepurchase expectations. Surprisingly, expectations do not directly affect satisfaction, as is often suggested in the satisfaction literature. In addition, we find quality which falls short of expectations has a greater impact on satisfaction and repurchase intentions than quality which exceeds expectations. Moreover, we find that disconfirmation is more likely to occur when quality is easy to evaluate. Finally, in terms of systematic variation across firms, we find the elasticity of repurchase intentions with respect to satisfaction to be lower for firms that provide high satisfaction. This implies a long-run reputation effect insulating firms which consistently provide high satisfaction.
A parsimonious framework linking advertising expenditures and research and development expenditures to brand value, and brand
value in turn to firm-level financial performance, was proposed and empirically investigated under four data conditions: data
form, brand type, financial performance metric, and lag structure. Using pooled data from 125 firms (848 firm-year observations)
over the period 1991–2007, 108 path analyses were conducted to compute five path model output metrics. Data on these metrics
were then compared for each of the data conditions by means of analysis of variance. Although significant relationships were
generally observed among framework variables, study results differed considerably across three of the four data conditions.
The principal take-away from the study is that the impact of marketing activities on firm-level financial performance is likely
to be in large part a function of the specific research purpose and methodology employed. As such, the take-away has implications
when interpreting value-relevance findings, when constructing theories involving market-based assets, and when designing studies
to investigate relationships between marketing and financial performance.
KeywordsAdvertising expenditures-R&D expenditures-Brand value-Firm-level financial performance
This paper examines the impact of innovation on the performance of US business service firms. We distinguish between different levels of innovation (new-to-market and new-to-firm) in our analysis, and allow explicitly for sample selection issues. Reflecting the literature, which highlights the importance of external interaction in service innovation, we pay particular attention to the role of external innovation linkages and their effect on business performance. We find that the presence of service innovation and its extent has a consistently positive effect on growth, but no effect on productivity. There is evidence that the growth effect of innovation can be attributed, at least in part, to the external linkages maintained by innovators in the process of innovation. External linkages have an overwhelmingly positive effect on (innovator) firm performance, regardless of whether innovation is measured as a discrete or continuous variable, and regardless of the level of innovation considered.
In their well-known conceptual framework of the Service-Profit Chain (S–PC), Heskett et al. (1994) suggest that there are strong relationships among employee satisfaction and loyalty, service quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty, and firm profitability. However, there is little empirical evidence on this proposition. In this research, we empirically examine the relationships among employee attributes, operational performance, and business outcomes. We collected data from 210 high-contact service shops in Hong Kong. Using structural equation modeling, we find that most of the postulated relationships in S–PC are highly significant, supporting the S–PC concept. Our findings parallel anecdotal evidence in many service organizations that an increase in employee satisfaction and loyalty triggers a corresponding change in customer satisfaction and loyalty, resulting in significant increase in sales revenues. We provide strong empirical evidence that employee satisfaction and loyalty play a significant role in enhancing the operational performance of organizations in the high-contact service sectors.
The purpose of this study is to understand critical roles of contact employees' organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) in customers' evaluation of service quality. This paper examines the relationships of employees' OCBs with job satisfaction, trust in manager, and customer's perceived service quality in travel agencies. The empirical results show that contact employees' job satisfaction and trust in manager are significantly related to OCB and that their active engagement in OCB has a positive relationship with the perception of service quality. Although there exists a significant common method factor possibly influencing the strength of the relationship, this factor did not affect the overall pattern of significant relationships. Another notable finding indicates that, unlike a global OCB measure, path estimates in the relationships of job satisfaction and trust to OCB variables are not similar and suggests that the multiple facets of OCBs provide more detailed information than a global OCB.
Service quality and customer satisfaction are widely recognized as key influences in the formation of consumers' purchase intentions in service environments. However, a review of the existing literature suggests that the specific nature of the relationship between these important constructs in the determination of consumers' purchase intentions continues to elude marketing scholars (c.f. Bitner and Hubbert 1994; Bolton and Drew 1994; Gronroos 1993; Rust and Oliver 1994). The study reported here was designed to aid in the understanding of these relationships by empirically assessing the nature of the relationship between service quality and consumer satisfaction in the formation of consumers' purchase intentions across four unique service industries. The results of the current research, coupled with the weight of the evidence in the emerging services literature, suggest that consumer satisfaction is best described as moderating the service quality/purchase intention relationship. The managerial and research implications of the reported study are also discussed.
While the Internet provides an ideal marketplace for customized services, its strategic potential has yet to be fully realized. In particular, multi-seller (or “cross retail”) partnerships are the key to a largely unexploited Internet strategy for mass customizing bundles of goods or services as value-added solutions to individual customer needs. This article uses mass customization successes to advance cross retailing as a comprehensive strategy that frames current Web initiatives specifically in terms of customer value. Exploiting the strategy will necessitate an understanding of the enablers and dimensions of mass customized “e-consumer services” (i.e., e-tail services, as well as service-related consumer products, that are defined and sold via the Internet). The overall success of the broader Internet marketplace will be determined not just by industry-wide cooperation, but also by the development of rich standards that allow for the highly customized bundling of products. More importantly, service providers will be differentiated by their ability to employ powerful Web interfaces within a strategy that comprehensively supports and extends a customer-controlled customization process.
The productivity of a process is related to how effectively input resources are transformed into value for customers. For the needs of manufacturers of physical products, there are widely used productivity concepts and measurements instruments. However, in service processes, the underlying assumptions of these concepts and models do not hold. For example, manufacturing-based productivity models assume that an altered configuration of input resources in the production process does not lead to quality changes in outputs (the constant quality assumption). However, in a service context, changes in the production resources and productions systems do affect the perceived quality of services. Therefore, using manufacturing-oriented productivity models in service contexts are likely to give managers wrong directions for action. Research into the productivity of services is still scarce because of the lack of viable models. The purpose of the present article is to analyse the requirements for the development of a productivity concept for service operations. Based on the analysis, a service productivity model is developed. According to this model, service productivity is a function of (1) how effectively input resources into the service (production) process are transformed to outputs in the form of services (internal efficiency), (2) how well the quality of the service process and its outcome is perceived (external efficiency or effectiveness) and (3) how effectively the capacity of the service process is utilized (capacity efficiency). In addition, service productivity as a learning experience and directions for developing measurement models for service productivity are discussed.