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1 – 10 of 562Hasan Uvet, John Dickens, Jason Anderson, Aaron Glassburner and Christopher A. Boone
This research paper aims to examine two hybrid models of logistics service quality (LSQ) and its influence on satisfaction, loyalty and future purchase intention in a…
Abstract
Purpose
This research paper aims to examine two hybrid models of logistics service quality (LSQ) and its influence on satisfaction, loyalty and future purchase intention in a business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce context. This study extends the literature for LSQ by incorporating the second-order assurance quality construct, which comprises personnel contact quality, order discrepancy handling and order returns, into one of the hybrid models.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey-based approach is used to collect data. Participant responses to questions concerning multiple LSQ dimensions and behavioral perceptions from their most recent online shopping experience are measured using structural equation modeling.
Findings
Findings highlight the importance of including a second-order construct assurance quality as a more explanatory model. Results illustrate that online ordering procedures and assurance quality impact customer satisfaction more than other prominent LSQ dimensions. Furthermore, the findings revealed a customer loyalty is a partial mediator between customer satisfaction and future purchase intention. This underscores the significance of improved logistics services as a competitive edge for e-commerce retailers.
Research limitations/implications
Implications are limited to the e-commerce B2C domain.
Practical implications
The findings of this study underscore critical LSQ dimensions that garner greater satisfaction and retention in the online shopping experience. The results indicate that the effective and efficient handling of the initial order and any order problem significantly influences customer satisfaction and reaps the long-term benefits of customer retention.
Originality/value
The authors present and empirically test a hybrid model of LSQ in a B2C e-commerce domain that captures many of the important elements of the customer experience as espoused in the literature.
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Nabila Khan, Lata Dyaram, Kantha Dayaram and John Burgess
Integrating individual and relational centric voice literature, the authors draw on self-presentation theory to analyse the role of status pursuit in employee voice. Status…
Abstract
Purpose
Integrating individual and relational centric voice literature, the authors draw on self-presentation theory to analyse the role of status pursuit in employee voice. Status pursuit is believed to be ubiquitous as it is linked to access to scarce resources and social order pecking.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors present a cross-level conceptual model outlining relational nuances of employee status pursuit that drive upward voice.
Findings
The model integrates status pursuit with peer- and leader-related facets, focusing on three targets of voice: immediate leader (supervisor), diagonal leader (supervisor of another team/unit) and co-workers. The model highlights how employee voice can be directed to diverse targets, and depending on interpersonal attributes, how it serves as underlying links for upward voice.
Originality/value
While employee voice can help to address important workplace concerns, it can also be used to advance employees' self-interest. Though there is a wealth of research on the importance of employee voice to organisational performance and individual wellbeing, especially through collective representation such as trade unions, there is a lack of literature on how employees navigate the social-relational work setting to promote their interests and develop status.
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Anderson Betti Frare, Vagner Horz and Ana Paula Capuano da Cruz
This study aims to analyze the effects of socialization mechanisms (belief system and peer mentoring) on managers’ job engagement and their desire to have a significant impact…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the effects of socialization mechanisms (belief system and peer mentoring) on managers’ job engagement and their desire to have a significant impact through work, that is, the desire to substantially improve or facilitate the lives of others by performing their work. The study also examines the moderating role of organizational identification.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was conducted with middle and lower-level managers at one of the largest banks in Brazil, the BankCo. The authors obtained a sample of 201 respondents and tested the research hypotheses with structural equation modeling. The authors also performed a complementary data analysis with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis.
Findings
The results suggest that belief systems and peer mentoring directly promote job engagement and indirectly promote desire to have a significant impact to a better world through work (through full mediation of job engagement). The effects of job engagement on desire to have a significant impact through work are even greater when managers have high organizational identification. Finally, several causal combinations are sufficient for high levels of desire to have a significant impact through work.
Social implications
Beyond studies that examine how organizational mechanisms influence employee outcomes (e.g. performance), this study explores how socialization mechanisms can promote desire to have a significant impact through work. Thus, the authors demonstrate how organizational core values, mission statement and peer mentoring collaborate for managers to develop altruistic behavior, that is, directly related to other human values, such as empathy and ethics, being able to contribute to a world better.
Originality/value
This study developed and empirically tested a model that connects socialization mechanisms, job engagement, organizational identification and managers’ desire to have a significant impact through their work. Therefore, the paper provides insights into the relevance of socialization mechanisms for orchestrating managers’ proactive and altruistic behaviors.
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Consumer well-being in health-care settings is often undermined by information asymmetries, uncertainty and complex choices. Men are generally less motivated to adopt support…
Abstract
Purpose
Consumer well-being in health-care settings is often undermined by information asymmetries, uncertainty and complex choices. Men are generally less motivated to adopt support tools designed to facilitate shared decision-making (SDM) and increase involvement in health service delivery. This study aims to examine the effects of sports team metaphors in a male-centered decision aid on empowerment and preparedness within a sleep apnea treatment context, a common disease among men. Individual-level factors that influence the decision aid experience are also considered.
Design/methodology/approach
An online panel sample of 296 US men was randomly assigned to a generic or gender targeted decision aid. The scenario-based method was used to simulate the decision aid experience. A one-way MANOVA tested the effects of gender targeting on SDM-related outcomes. Structural equation modeling was then undertaken to analyze relationships between self-construal and these outcomes.
Findings
Participants who experienced the gender-targeted decision aid reported higher levels of empowerment and preparedness. The positive relationship between collective interdependence and empowerment was stronger among those who received the targeted decision aid. The positive relationship between empowerment and preparedness was also significantly stronger in the targeted group. Empowerment mediated the effect of self-construal on preparedness.
Originality/value
Little to no research has evaluated the effectiveness of sports team metaphors in improving SDM and facilitating health-care value cocreation. Results provide insight into how to enhance service design and delivery for men facing medical decisions.
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Anthony Frank Obeng, Samuel Awuni Azinga, John Bentil, Florence Y.A. Ellis and Rosemary Boateng Coffie
While much attention has been given to work-related factors influencing turnover intention through affective commitment, little focus has been directed to non-work factors…
Abstract
Purpose
While much attention has been given to work-related factors influencing turnover intention through affective commitment, little focus has been directed to non-work factors affecting the service industry. Hence, this study aims to investigate the impact of links, fit and sacrifice, representing off-the-job embeddedness in the community, on turnover intention in the hospitality industry of Ghana: Sub-Sahara Africa using the theory of conservation of resources (COR) and social exchange. The model has been extended to include affective commitment as the mediating mechanism.
Design/methodology/approach
A multi-wave technique was used to collect data through a questionnaire from 341 full-time frontline hospitality employees in Ghana. The responses were analysed using AMOS software structural equation modelling.
Findings
The findings show that links, fit and sacrifice significantly influence employees’ turnover intentions. Moreover, it has been observed that affective commitment decreased the negative relationship and partly mediated the main relationship between the dimensions of off-the-job embeddedness and turnover intention.
Research limitations/implications
The study’s results and academic, practical implications and limitations are discussed for future research.
Originality/value
This study emphasises the theory of COR to demystify community factors employees deem as valued resources, which lighten up their commitment to their organisation and decrease their intent to leave.
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The purpose of this paper is to offer an accessible and interdisciplinary research strategy in organisational ethnography, called action ethnography, that acknowledges key…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer an accessible and interdisciplinary research strategy in organisational ethnography, called action ethnography, that acknowledges key concepts from action research and engaged and immersive ethnography. It aims to encourage methodological innovation and an impact turn in ethnographic practice.
Design/methodology/approach
A working definition of “action ethnography” is provided first. Then, to illustrate how an action ethnography can be designed by considering impact from the outset, the author draws on a study she is undertaking with a grassroots human rights monitoring group, based in England, and then discusses advantages and limitations to the approach.
Findings
The author suggests three main tenets to action ethnography that embrace synergies between action research and ethnography: researcher immersion, intervention leading to change and knowledge contributions that are useful to both practitioners and researchers.
Practical implications
This paper provides researchers who align with aspects of both action research and ethnography with an accessible research strategy to employ, and a better understanding of the interplay between the two approaches when justifying their research designs. It also offers an example of designing an action ethnography in practice.
Originality/value
Whereas “traditional” ethnography has emphasised a contribution to theoretical knowledge, less attention has been on a contribution to practice and to those who ethnographers engage with in the field. Action ethnography challenges researchers to consider the impact of their research from the outset during the research design, rather upon reflection after a study is completed.
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Patrick Hopkinson and Mats Niklasson
This paper aims to introduce International Digital Collaborative Autoethnographical Psychobiography (IDCAP).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to introduce International Digital Collaborative Autoethnographical Psychobiography (IDCAP).
Design/methodology/approach
This paper describes how IDCAP was developed to answer research questions about what it takes and what it means to recover from mental illness. During its development, IDCAP combined the diverse and intersectional experiences, knowledge and interests of an Anglo-Swedish research team with what could be found in different publications concerning the experiences and the mental illnesses of the musicians Syd Barrett, Peter Green and Brian Wilson.
Findings
IDCAP combines features of autoethnography and psychobiography to offer a novel qualitative research method.
Research limitations/implications
Whilst IDCAP was created to focus on recovery from mental illness and musicians, it can be applied to other areas of research. It shares the same limitations as autoethnography and psychobiography, although some of the features of IDCAP may go some way to mitigate against these.
Practical implications
IDCAP is a novel research method that is offered to other researchers to develop and enhance further through application.
Social implications
IDCAP is a collaborative research method that encourages the involvement of a wide range of researchers from different countries and cultures. It can be used to give voice to marginalised groups and to counter discrimination and prejudice. Recovery from mental illness is a topic of great personal and social value.
Originality/value
IDCAP is a novel research method that, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, has not been explicitly used before.
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Walid Chaouali, Mohamed Yacine Haddoud, Mohamed Mousa, Ahmed Mohamed Elbaz, Narjess Aloui and Fawzi Dekhil
This study aims to investigate the impact of perceived subtle and overt discrimination on employees’ emotional exhaustion, along with potential mitigating factors such as social…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of perceived subtle and overt discrimination on employees’ emotional exhaustion, along with potential mitigating factors such as social support, organizational inclusion and religiosity.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based on a sample of 359 Muslim employees working in US restaurants. The data are analyzed using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Techniques.
Findings
The results reveal that high/low emotional exhaustion in tourism and hospitality sector is triggered by multiple combinations of high/low levels of subtle and overt discrimination, family and friends support and religiosity. Such findings hold important implications to both theory and practice.
Research limitations/implications
By using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, this research stands out from studies on discrimination that use conventional statistical methods. It proposes several solutions leading to a single outcome (high/low emotional exhaustion). This new approach contributes to the advancement of theory in this context.
Practical implications
This study shows that there is no single best solution for high/low emotional exhaustion. Stated differently, multiple solutions provide several ways for firms to mitigate employees’ emotional exhaustion.
Originality/value
Religious discrimination in workplaces is increasing at an alarming rate, particularly in customer facing roles, such as the tourism and hospitality industry. This is having detrimental effects on employees from minority groups, often leading to excessive levels of emotional exhaustion. Nonetheless, the extant literature has somewhat understated the consequences of this issue, creating a void that needs to be fulfilled. This study addresses this gap.
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The paper aims to explore the relationship between accounting and racial violence through an investigation of sharecropping in the postbellum American South.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to explore the relationship between accounting and racial violence through an investigation of sharecropping in the postbellum American South.
Design/methodology/approach
A range of primary sources including peonage case files of the US Department of Justice and the archives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) are utilised. Data are analysed by reference to Randall Collins' theory of violence. Consistent with this theory, a micro-sociological approach to examining violent encounters is employed.
Findings
It is demonstrated that the production of alternative or competing accounts, accounting manipulation and failure to account generated interactions where confrontational tension culminated in bluster, physical attacks and lynching. Such violence took place in the context of potent racial ideologies and institutions.
Originality/value
The paper is distinctive in its focus on the interface between accounting and “actual” (as opposed to symbolic) violence. It reveals how accounting processes and traces featured in the highly charged emotional fields from which physical violence could erupt. The study advances knowledge of the role of accounting in race relations from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, a largely unexplored period in the accounting history literature. It also seeks to extend the research agenda on accounting and slavery (which has hitherto emphasised chattel slavery) to encompass the practice of debt peonage.
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This paper aims to offer insight into how strategies within the accounting profession, which has been becoming more global, might be changed by the recent outbreak of the Second…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer insight into how strategies within the accounting profession, which has been becoming more global, might be changed by the recent outbreak of the Second Cold War between the West and the Rest of the World.
Design/methodology/approach
We explore the strategies of those who called themselves “Confucian accountants” in China, a country which has recently discouraged its state-owned enterprises from using the services of the Big 4. We do this by employing qualitative research methods, including reflexive photo interviews, in which Big-4 accountants, recognised as the most Westernised accounting actors in China, and Confucian accountants are asked to take and explain photographs representing their professional lives. Bourdieu’s notions of “economy of practices” and “vision-of-division strategy” are drawn upon to understand who the Confucian accountants are and what they do strategically in their pursuit of a higher revenue stream and improved social standing in the Chinese social space.
Findings
The homegrown Confucian accountants share cultural-cognitive characteristics with neighbouring social actors, such as their clients and government officials, who have been inculcated with Confucianism and the state’s cultural confidence policy in pursuit of a “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics”. Those accountants try to enhance their social standing and revenue stream by strategically demonstrating their difference from Big-4 accountants. For this purpose, they wear Confucian clothes, have Confucian props in their office, employ Confucian phrases in their everyday conversations, use Confucian business cards and construct and maintain guanxi with government officials and clients.
Originality/value
This paper is the first attempt to explore Confucian accountants’ strategies for increasing their revenue and social standing at the start of the Second Cold War.
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