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Evaluating and optimizing e‐government services is imperative for governments especially due to the capacity of e‐services to transform public administrations and assist the interactions of governments with citizens, businesses and other government agencies. Existing widely applied evaluation approaches neglect to incorporate citizens' satisfaction measures. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to contribute to the understanding of citizen‐centric e‐government evaluation and unify existing key performance indicators (KPIs); and to propose a reference process model of a novel evaluation approach that uses the unified KPIs to facilitate the creation of a “know‐how” repository.

The authors adopt a quantitative research approach for the evaluation of e‐government services that is based on data envelope analysis (DEA). A survey was conducted for the empirical investigation and data were collected from 13 e‐government services in Turkey. Based on the empirical application of the e‐government evaluation method, a reference process model is designed.

The proposed evaluation method was proved valid and able to provide assessment with richer explanations than traditional statistical measurements. DEA enabled the identification of insufficient e‐government services and the provision of suggested improvements.

The reference process model is constructed based on the experience gained by applying the method to a sole cultural setting;, i.e. e‐government services in Turkey.

The proposed evaluation method, in comparison to other user‐oriented ones, provided assessments with richer explanations than traditional statistical measurements, such as structured equation modelling. The reference process model constructed based on the empirical research is expected to accelerate the citizen‐oriented evaluation of e‐government and promote impact‐oriented indicators.

This is the first application of DEA in the e‐government field, although it has been widely applied for performance measurement in other fields, especially operations research. The novelty of DEA is that the assessment results provide suggestions for strategic improvement of the e‐services.

This paper aims to assess the application of seven statistical and data mining techniques to second-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) for bank performance.

Different statistical and data mining techniques are used to second-stage DEA for bank performance as a part of an attempt to produce a powerful model for bank performance with effective predictive ability. The projected data mining tools are classification and regression trees (CART), conditional inference trees (CIT), random forest based on CART and CIT, bagging, artificial neural networks and their statistical counterpart, logistic regression.

The results showed that random forests and bagging outperform other methods in terms of predictive power.

This is the first study to assess the impact of environmental factors on banking performance in Middle East and North Africa countries.

The purpose of this study is to answer the following questions: How to measure customer satisfaction from the provisioning service of both: Islamic and Conventional banks? Can we trust one tool to measure such satisfaction or both banks are different identities and there is a need for separate measurement tool? What is the relationship between banks operating style (Islamic or Conventional) and bank performance?

A cross-sectional survey design was conducted to analyze a sample of customers. A total of 480 Jordanian participants were included in the study.

The results of confirmatory factor analysis show that the most important drivers of customer satisfaction are Sharia’ compliance, complaints, pricing and convenience, whereas the least important drivers are e-banking, the perception of employees, enjoyment and tangibles. Also, the result of the multi-group analysis shows that the significant impacts of all drivers on customer satisfaction differ from Islamic banks to Conventional banks except for the enjoyment. The significant effects of customer satisfaction on bank performance also differ from Islamic to Conventional banks.

The result is limited to the selected sample, and hence, future research in other countries should contribute to a better understanding of the impact of customer satisfaction relationship on bank success or performance.

This study provides a useful information for bank managers on the main driver of customer satisfaction and performance.

This study is intended to add to the existing literature in three ways: There is a lack of studies on the main drivers of customer satisfaction, especially those based on a consumer’s decision-making process in Arabic countries like Jordan. This study broadens the scope by testing the proposed model using data from a sample of consumers in Jordan. This study serves to propose and validate the drivers that influence customer satisfaction and bank performance and elucidate the manner of their influence, to help with the development of more effective business strategies.

Despite the wide availability of internet banking, levels of intention to use such facilities remain variable between countries. The purpose of this paper is to focus on e-banking in a country with low intention to use e-banking – Jordan – and to explain the slow uptake.

A quantitative method employing a cross-sectional survey was used as an appropriate way of meeting the research objectives. The survey was distributed to bank customers in Amman, Jordan, collecting a total of 328 completed questionnaires. SPSS and AMOS software were used, and multiple regression and artificial neural networks were applied to determine the relative impact and importance of e-banking predictors.

The statistical techniques revealed that several major factors, including perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, security and reasonable price, stand out as the barriers to intention to use e-banking services in Jordan.

This study theorizes a series of implications on intention to use e-banking. It draws the attention of Jordanian banks to the full functionality of their e-banking systems, emphasizing positive safety features, which could contribute to changing negative customer perceptions. It also contributes to eliciting the theory of customer value among banks by focusing on how they should properly enhance their use of shared value. Moreover, it will present to managers how e-banking predictors can send meaningful and timely information to customers.

This study aims to investigate and test the impact of competitive priorities, in terms of quality, speed, dependability, flexibility, cost and patient engagement, on patient satisfaction with healthcare services. It considers patients’ rather than managers’ points of view to collect responses about competitive priorities.

This research employed a cross-sectional survey design to analyze a sample of customers through an empirical study of 488 patients in Qatar’s healthcare service context.

The confirmatory factor analysis results show that competitive priorities and engagement positively and significantly impact patient satisfaction.

Researchers can use this methodology to explore the role of competitive priorities in different service contexts and sectors. The researchers conducted the study in Qatar; therefore, the results are not generalizable to all healthcare sectors. However, regardless of geographic location, the research approach can be used in healthcare.

Managers can employ the developed scales to diagnose competitive priorities and improve customer service experiences.

The paper is original as it suggests using competitive priorities as a measurement tool for predicting patient satisfaction compared to prior research that mostly measured competitive priorities based on internal perspectives (managers’ perspectives). Further, this paper is original because it depends on the external perspective (customers’ perspective) for the competitive priorities for measuring patient satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and test the relationship between a company’s strategic flexibility, as evidenced by new product development flexibility and market flexibility, and its operational performance (OP) in Jordanian manufacturing companies.

Using a survey questionnaire, data were collected against two strategic decisions market and new product flexibility (NPF) from 222 middle and senior managers belonging to 116 Jordanian manufacturing firms. Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to investigate the effects of these two strategic decisions on OP.

Results show a significant positive relationship between both NPF and market flexibility and OP. No significant differences between small and medium enterprises and large companies are found, indicating that the model is valid for both sizes. Also, the additional analyses suggest that the proposition that both NPF and market flexibility are important for OP was correct.

Only two strategic flexibility decisions were considered in this paper, however, researcher could investigate other strategic flexibility decisions on OP.

The strategic flexibility level, in terms of NPF and market flexibility, that is needed for coping with uncertainty equips managers to handle challenges by enhancing the company’s controlled capacity through a considerable reduction in response time. An improvement in the company’s strategic flexibility enhances its overall performance and competitiveness and this, in turn, has a positive impact on its long-term sustainability.

The paper provides insights into the strategic flexibility decision practices in a Jordanian context. It provides further evidence that both market flexibility and NPF are significant in enhancing OP.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the research design, methodologies and approaches utilised in electronic government (e‐government) research studies published in the last decade (2000‐2012).

A profiling approach is employed to analyse 114 (out of 3,934 from 2000 to 2012) e‐government publications (with specific focus on user satisfaction) including examining variables such as country of research, sample size, type(s) of respondents, data collection methods, and statistical tools and techniques employed.

Among the research design, methodologies and approaches adopted in the extant e‐government research studies, the quantitative research based approach supported by statistical analysis was the most dominant approach applied by authors in the last decade. Few studies were found to use qualitative‐based approaches such as case studies and interviews.

The prime value and uniqueness of this research lies in presenting the type of research design, methodologies and approaches used in studies that focus on issues surrounding user satisfaction in e‐government research. This has been achieved by synthesising existing publications in Electronic Government: An International Journal (EG), Electronic Journal of Electronic Government (EJEG), International Journal of Electronic Government Research (EJEGR), Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy (TG:PPP), Government Information Quarterly (GIQ), Public Administration Review (PAR), Public Administration: An International Quarterly (PA), Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART), and Local Government Studies (LGS).

This study aims to evaluate the efficiency of the three telecommunications companies in Saudi Arabia: Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Mobily and Zain over the period of 2010–2019. This evaluation is a step toward improving the performance of the Saudi telecommunications sector.

Three multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques were used to calculate technical efficiency. These techniques include the traditional data envelopment analysis (DEA), window DEA and analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The three inputs used were total assets, operating expenses and capital expenditures, whereas the two outputs were sales revenue and total stockholders’ equity.

STC was ranked first using the three techniques, followed by Zain, and then Mobily. According to the DEA window analysis, these three companies were all efficient only in 2012. The efficiency was high in the initial years, 2010–2013, when it was above 0.90, and it dropped below 0.90 in the subsequent years, 2014–2019. In addition, the efficiency of STC remained high, with an average of 0.990. However, the average efficiencies of Zain and Mobily during this period were 0.807 and 0.804, respectively.

This is the first study to use the three MCDM techniques to evaluate the performance of telecommunications providers. The results show that window DEA is better than the other two techniques at evaluating performance over time, as it has a higher discrimination power than either the traditional DEA or AHP.

Islamic finance is an alternative approach of financial intermediation based on risk-sharing and asset-backed operations, which evolved substantially in recent years in academic research raising the need for quantitative studies to address the intellectual development and scientific performance of this field. This study aims to provide quantitative statistics and comprehensive review of the key influential and intellectual structure of Islamic finance literature.

The authors apply the trending and cutting-edge quali-quantitative approach of bibliometric citation analysis. This study reviews 1,940 English studies and review papers published in scientific journals indexed by the Scopus database from 1983 to 2019. RStudio, VOSviewer and Excel’s software are used to analyze the collected data and apply the bibliometric tests.

The results identify the leading academic authors, journals, institutions and countries with relation to Islamic finance. The authors also propose six main research themes in this field, which are as follows: Islamic finance – fundamentals, growth and legitimacy; customer’s attitude and perception toward Islamic finance; accounting and social reporting of Islamic finance; performance and risk management of Islamic finance; Islamic financial markets; and efficiency of Islamic financial institutions. Lastly, the authors identify research gaps in the existing Islamic finance literature and present 24 future research directions.

The data in this study is confined only to the Scopus database of English papers and reviews. It also considers papers directly related to the field of Islamic finance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first to address the literature of Islamic finance from a bibliometric aspect. The results of this study along with future research questions will help researchers and practitioners to further explore and stand on firm quantitative bases regarding the scientific development of Islamic finance.

This study aims to provide a systematic review about the Internet of Things (IoT) and its impacts on happiness. It intends to serve as a platform for further research as it is sparse in in-depth analysis.

This systematic review initially observed 2,501 literary articles through the ScienceDirect and WorldCat search engines before narrowing it down to 72 articles based on subject matter relevance in the abstract and keywords. Accounting for duplicates between search engines, the count was reduced to 66 articles. To finally narrow down all the literature used in this systematic review, 66 articles were given a critical readthrough. The count was finally reduced to 53 total articles used in this systematic review.

This paper necessitates the claim that IoT will likely impact many aspects of our everyday lives. Through the literature observed, it was found that IoT will have some significant and positive impacts on people's welfare and lives. The unprecedented nature of IoTs impacts on society should warrant further research moving forward.

While the literature presented in this systematic review shows that IoT can positively impact the perceived or explicit happiness of people, the amount of literature found to supplement this argument is still on the lower end. They also necessitate the need for both greater depth and variety in this field of research.

Since technology is already a pervasive element of most people’s contemporary lives, it stands to reason that the most important factors to consider will be in how we might benefit from IoT or, more notably, how IoT can enhance our levels of happiness. A significant implication is its ability to reduce the gap in happiness levels between urban and rural areas.

Currently, the literature directly tackling the quantification of IoTs perceived influence on happiness has yet to be truly discussed broadly. This systematic review serves as a starting point for further discussion in the subject matter. In addition, this paper may lead to a better understanding of the IoT technology and how we can best advance and adapt it to the benefits of the society.