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As customer expectations expand and as product offerings hardly differ from each other, service excellence has gained in importance as a means of enhancing customer loyalty. The aim of this paper is to focus on expanding and extending what companies can do to achieve service excellence by comparing and evaluating three popular approaches to excellence.

The authors compare three of the most commonly used excellence models, Johnston's conceptualisation of service excellence, the EFQM Model as a representative of national quality award models and the Kano model, and their respective applicability and specific perspective on service excellence. The evaluation is based on theoretical arguments, criteria and on a qualitative expert study.

Combining the selected models provides a comprehensive approach to service excellence. Since all models are compatible and complementary with each other, the analysis provides an enhanced understanding of service excellence and also explains in which context it is most feasible to apply any of the respective approaches. Furthermore, the requirement for a genuine service excellence model becomes evident.

By focusing on three specific excellence models, others such as the Canadian Quality Award and the Australian Quality Award are not considered. Furthermore, a study across industries could reveal how service excellence is achieved in each industry to then transfer this knowledge into other sectors.

By comparing the selected models, benefits of merging the individual approaches are identified. The resulting combined perspectives offered by the individual models present a more detailed insight into what management can undertake to ensure service excellence.

As no prior research has examined the relationship between the selected excellence models and their implications for providing service excellence, this present research offers an innovative approach and thus yields new insights into the conceptualisation of service excellence.

Many early-career researchers (ECR) are motivated by the prospect of creating knowledge that is useful, not just within but also beyond the academic community. Although research facilities, funders and academic journals praise this eagerness for societal impact, the path toward such contributions is by no means straightforward. In this essay, we address five common concerns faced by ECRs when they strive for societal impact. We discuss the opportunity costs associated with impact work, the fuzziness of current impact measurement, the challenge of incremental results, the actionability of research findings, and the risk of saying something wrong in public. We reflect on these concerns in light of our own experience with impact work and conclude by suggesting a “post-heroic” perspective on impact, whereby seemingly mundane activities are linked in a meaningful way.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise and discuss the possible insights that can be generated for product development by analysing the user-generated content available from various social media platforms.

The paper reviews the role of user generated content in developing products and its features (e.g. appearance and shape). It delineates the directions in which the relationship between social media content and customer oriented concepts evolve while developing successful new products.

The review and arguments presented in this paper suggest that the social media approach adds more value than the traditional approaches for obtaining insights about the products. Availability of users’ opinions and information about existing products provide insights for the improvement in the product design process. Co-creation and self-construal are important components that are based on customer engagement and customer behaviour, respectively, in the product design and development.

As social media creates new ways of communication with users, businesses can include users into the product development process to improve and refine their products or for making the next generation of products.

This paper suggests a new approach in getting useful insights about the products from user-generated contents. This way of using social media helps businesses to move forward from the traditional product development paradigms.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of real-time data emerging from implementation of the Internet of Things (IoT) and netnography on the efficiency of the new product development (NPD).

Customer-oriented organizations are the ones that survive in the market with a flow of new products to the market. Expectations like reduced timelines with quality focus provoke innovations. Customer inputs become the soul for a successful product wherein it becomes important to keep a constant stream of information flow back from the market. Literature review states that real-time data gathering with the implementation of IoT ensures the same. Along with real-time data, researchers have envisaged the need to identify the customer persona before incorporating customer opinion and sentiments vide netnography.

The organization can leverage the collaboration of IoT origin real-time data and sentiment analysis to effectively manage the NPD. Real-time customer data coupled with customer opinions and sentiments prove to be a game changer in the NPD process.

The originalities of this study are impact of IoT origin real-time data coupled with sentiment analysis on the NPD process. While impact of IoT origin data is reported in isolation similar to sentiment analysis, influence of collaboration of real-time data with sentiment analysis on NPD process is reported in this study.

Audio-visual presentations – delivered either in real-life or virtually – feature heavily in educational assessments and employer recruitment. This study explored neurodivergent undergraduate students' experiences of presentations. The aim was to understand how neurodivergent students describe experiences of presentations in educational and workplace contexts and how neurodivergent students experienced training, support activities and learning technologies associated with presentations.

An exploratory qualitative phenomenological approach was taken, from students' perspectives. Overall, 12 neurodivergent undergraduate students (M_age = 21.89 years, SD_age = 2.57; nine women, two men, one non-binary) discussed their experiences of presentations within educational and/or professional contexts via semi-structured remote interviews. The sample included individuals with diagnoses of anxiety, depression, dyslexia, borderline personality disorder, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, and panic disorder.

Thematic Analysis of interview transcript data revealed four main themes (with sub-themes in parentheses): Control (preparedness; delivery); Audience Perceptions and Behaviours (expectations of “normality”; shared knowledge; audience “expertise”); Intervention Efficacy (early access; individuality; learning technologies) and Value of Presentation Skills (reciprocity between education – workplace; self-efficacy; self-esteem; learner development).

The dataset was extracted from a relatively small sample from a single university and indeed a single academic discipline. Furthermore, the dataset was collected during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic – although this gives us a valuable snapshot of students' experiences and perceptions during this time, whether the author can extrapolate these findings in future is unclear.

The findings help understand how we better support students. Better ways to support learners can be developed in developing presentation and audience skills. This research shows that alternative assessment provisions must be based on individuals and their own specific needs and skills, rather than their divergence label. This research can inform the development of digital learning technologies.

This research can inform how educators, coaches, trainers, and facilitators “train” audiences to be more inclusive and less prejudicial/biased. We can understand how to better construct social spaces for presentations, in the classroom and the world of work.

This report presents a valid and valuable methodological approach, conducted and reported transparently. This research was conducted during a crucial, unprecedented and precarious time period for learners and education professionals. Implications are considered with respect to the design of teaching, learning and assessment activities; facilitator, learner, and peer behaviours; the role of digital learning technologies; and employment/employability.

The purpose of this research paper is to report about an investigation on the relationship between knowledge acquisition and knowledge creation to find out whether knowledge acquisition can predict knowledge creation. The study measures the concept of knowledge acquisition through the faculty use of knowledge acquisition tools and reading knowledge sources while measuring the concept of knowledge creation through the faculty use of knowledge creation tools and publishing knowledge sources.

The population of the study is faculty members in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The sample of the population consisted of 300 faculty members affiliated with 26 universities and colleges. Data was collected from the sample through questionnaire instrument. Stated hypotheses and Mathew’s theory of knowledge consumption–production correlation are tested and verified through correlation matrix and regression analysis.

Findings of the study revealed that the use of knowledge acquisition tools by faculty members has a positive effect on the use of knowledge creation tools and on publishing knowledge sources. Likewise, reading knowledge sources appeared to have a positive impact on the use of knowledge creation tools and publishing knowledge sources. Accordingly, the study confirmed the stated four hypotheses. Moreover, the results of the study supported the theory of knowledge consumption–production correlation and strongly confirmed the prediction of knowledge creation through the use of information and communication technology (ICT) tools for knowledge acquisition and reading knowledge sources.

Findings of the study appeal to the decision-makers and stakeholders of academic institutions to make effective investment in ICT facilities and knowledge sources to improve knowledge creation among faculty members.

Not many studies have investigated how knowledge acquisition can predict knowledge creation in the academic environment. This paper contributes to the understanding of the relationship between knowledge acquisition and knowledge creation in academic settings. Findings of the study can be an important reference for providing and improving knowledge sources, knowledge acquisition tools and knowledge creation tools in the academic environment.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model of antecedents and consequences of service excellence (SE) in the retail industry.

Based on an extensive literature review, this paper has come up with the definition of potential antecedents and their consequences for SE in the retail service.

While the seven factors, service leadership, service culture, quality management and business excellence, service innovation, customer engagement, service brand image and service encounters have been proposed as antecedents of SE in retail service, employee loyalty, employee pride, customer delight, customer commitment and brand love, have been identified as consequences.

A major limitation of the study is that the developed model is not empirically validated.

The current research asserts that leadership in service firms has to build a professional service culture system in order to achieve business/competition advantages of SE.

This paper has emphasised that businesses cannot only act with the perspective of gaining short-term profit on every customer transaction. Customers have to be valued and firms have to focus on building long-term relationships with their customers.

This study has extended the research on SE by developing a new model with possible antecedents and outcomes in the retail context.

Value co-creation thinking is reshaping the understanding of markets and marketing and presents a significant opportunity to develop the theory and practice of social marketing. However, whilst value co-creation offers thought-provoking new directions for the field, applying this theory and its core concepts in social marketing is not without significant challenges. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This is a conceptual paper that seeks to integrate lessons from social marketing practice with the value co-creation discourse from commercial marketing. Drawing upon two projects that have applied principles of collaboration and co-design, the paper provides a critical perspective on the adoption of value co-creation in social marketing.

The collaborative and emancipatory ambitions of co-creation seem highly compatible with social marketing. However, the paper notes some significant conceptual, ethical and practical obstacles in the path of a workable theory of value co-creation for social marketing.

While representation of value co-creation and other collaborative approaches is increasing in the social marketing literature, this is the first attempt to provide an integrated and critical review of their compatibility with social marketing at a conceptual, ethical and theoretical level. The analysis shows that value co-creation theory can simultaneously offer opportunities and present obstacles for social marketing.