Search results

Many contemporary career theories emphasize the role of individual agency and choice, a perspective that may not be relevant for the careers of underprivileged groups around the world. The psychology of working theory notes this disconnect and highlights the role that contextual variables play in the careers of marginalized, disadvantaged groups of employees. The goal of this paper was to identify factors that impact employees' careers by examining the relationship between desired work values and obtained work values.

The data utilized in this study were from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) Work Orientations IV survey. Across 37 countries, 27,527 individuals were surveyed and multilevel moderation analyses were employed.

Using psychology of working theory as a theoretical framework, the authors identify the contextual factors that enable employees to secure their desired work values. Employees living in countries with higher levels of the Human Development Index have an easier time securing their desired intrinsic work values. Gender was not a statistically significant moderator.

The authors’ findings indicate that, for many employees, careers are influenced by larger socioeconomic factors, showing that individuals have a more difficult time shaping their own careers in some contexts.

This paper aims to facilitate positioning strategy formation by decoding the relationship between consumers’ desired values, service attributes and expected consequences.

Key informant depth interviews are followed by a questionnaire of self-cause-and-effect assessments. Total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) is used to identify hierarchical structures via pair-wise preference comparisons. The analytic network process (ANP) is used to compute relative weights to evaluate the overall image of identified alternatives. The feedback feature in the ANP is enabled to obtain objective assessments.

With the help of both TISM and ANP techniques, the hierarchical and interactive relationships among consumers’ desired values, expected consequences and service attributes are revealed in the context of international airline services.

The approach presented can help organizations to identify which attributes influence consumer evaluations of a company/brand; obtain the hierarchical and interactive relationships among service attributes, expected consequences and desired values; assess consumer preferences toward identified service attributes; and obtain an objective assessment of the competitive landscape, which can facilitate the development of effective positioning strategies and associated tactics.

Organizations adopting the methods presented in this study can have a better understanding of the consumer value chain and deliver better customer experiences.

The current study provides an innovative application of the TISM in conjunction with a feedback-enabled ANP technique to address brand positioning challenges. Future studies may consider adopting the TISM-ANP method as a foundation whenever one attempts to explore the values-consequences-attributes hierarchy.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a method to evaluate the quality of service delivery process designs, based on how closely they meet process requirements of key stakeholders while taking variability into account.

A Monte Carlo computer simulation of the flowchart of the service delivery process is used to capture the effects of multiple types of variabilities and parametric uncertainties on process variables of interest, and the Taguchi quality loss framework is applied to estimate overall process quality. As an example, a proposed modification to a patient‐treatment process in a hospital emergency department is evaluated.

This paper demonstrated a method that service managers can use to evaluate the quality of service delivery process designs.

This method can evaluate modifications to various aspects of a service delivery process, and can assist managers to fail‐safe the entire process. Furthermore, it characterises process quality using a range of probable values instead of a single value, such as the process mean, and thus provides a more realistic representation of quality.

This paper contributes to service engineering in two ways: by adapting the Taguchi quality loss approach, commonly used to assess manufacturing process quality, to a service delivery process; and by incorporating uncertainty, due to imprecise knowledge of process parameters, into the quality assessment.

In today’s markets, many organizations feel pressure to become more responsive to their customers. Managing your business to deliver superior value to targeted customers may provide a strong avenue to improved performance. The route from value-based strategies to share holder value can be complicated, however. These strategies have the most direct impact on performance with your customers in the form of customer satisfaction, word of mouth and loyalty. Successful customer performance should translate into higher market performance, as evidenced by a supplier’s higher customer retention rates and sales. Finally, market performance provides the engine for increasing company performance or shareholder value. Attaining shareholder value through customer value strategies requires committing major management attention to how best to create, deliver and communicate superior value to targeted customers.

Scholars and professionals are interested in studying customer value in fast-food restaurants. Previous research on the customer value of fast-food restaurants mainly measured the dimensions and relationships of the customer value. However, the research has not examined a method for identifying sources of customer value in fast-food restaurants. Therefore, this study used customer orientation to find customer needs and generate customer value in fast-food restaurants.

This study presents a conceptual framework with six constructs. A questionnaire was used to gather empirical data from fast-food restaurant customers in Greater Cairo, Egypt. The suggested framework was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis, reliability and validity analysis, standardized path coefficients and regression-based moderation analysis.

This study found that proactive customer orientation has a substantial direct and positive impact on customer perceived value. Customer perceived value is also positively influenced by responsive and proactive customer orientations, with customer desired value change intensity acting as a moderator. Customer perceived value substantially impacts customer satisfaction, and the latter substantially affects behavioural intention.

This study offers several suggestions for managers of fast-food restaurants on how to employ customer orientation to find current, latent and future customer desires to provide customer value.

This is the first research in the hospitality industry to demonstrate how responsive and proactive customer orientation may be used to recognize customer needs and provide the desired customer value.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether Hofstede’s (2001) cultural framework and the value paradox explain the use of appeals in advertising in Estonia.

Hypotheses are drawn in relation to Hofstede’s original four cultural dimensions – power distance, masculinity/femininity, individualism/collectivism and uncertainty avoidance. A sample of 110 print advertisements from four magazines were analyzed using Pollay’s (1983) classification of advertising appeals.

The results show that Estonian advertising reflects paradoxical values related to low power distance and femininity dimensions, and culturally congruent values related to high-uncertainty avoidance and individualism.

Findings suggest that cultural values (desired) alone are insufficient to predict the reflection of culture in advertising. Rather, consideration of the discrepancies between the cultural values (desired) and practices (desirable) enables a better explanation of the relationship between society and its advertising.

Scholars have shown increasing interest in the consequences of culture on advertising, but the opposing aspect of cultural values and practices has received limited research attention. The paper offers interesting insights regarding the effect of culture and the value paradox on the use of appeals in advertising. Additionally, analyzing the advertising of Eastern Europe is highly important because of the limited research attention that exists with respect to advertising in the region.

Robust design is a well‐known quality improvement method that focuses on building quality into the design of products and services. Yet, most well established robust design models only consider a single performance measure and their prioritization schemes do not always address the inherent goal of robust design. This paper aims to propose a new robust design method for multiple quality characteristics where the goal is to first reduce the variability of the system under investigation and then attempt to locate the mean at the desired target value.

The paper investigates the use of a response surface approach and a sequential optimization strategy to create a flexible and structured method for modeling multiresponse problems in the context of robust design. Nonlinear programming is used as an optimization tool.

The proposed methodology is demonstrated through a numerical example. The results obtained from this example are compared to that of the traditional robust design method. For comparison purposes, the traditional robust design optimization models are reformulated within the nonlinear programming framework developed here. The proposed methodology provides enhanced optimal robust design solutions consistently.

This paper is perhaps the first study on the prioritized response robust design with the consideration of multiple quality characteristics. The findings and key observations of this paper will be of significant value to the quality and reliability engineering/management community.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach to determine the optimal parameters and tolerances in concurrent product and process design in the early design stages utilizing fuzzy goal programming. A wheelchair design is provided for illustration.

The product design is developed on the basis of both customer and functionality requirements. The critical product components are then determined. The design and analysis of experiments are performed by using simulation, and then the probability distributions are adopted to determine the values of desired responses under each combination of critical product parameters and tolerances. Regression nonlinear models are then developed and inserted as constraints in the complete optimization model. Preferences on product specifications and process settings, as well as process capability index ranges, are also set as model constraints. The combined objective functions are finally formulated to minimize the sum of positive and negative deviations from desired targets and maximize process capability. The optimization model is applied to determine the optimal wheelchair design.

The results showed that the proposed approach is effective in determining the optimal values of the design parameters and tolerances of the critical components of the wheelchair with their related process means and standard deviations that enhance desired multiple quality responses under uncertainty.

This work provides a general methodology that can be applied for concurrent optimization of product design and process design in a wide range of business applications. Moreover, the methodology is beneficial when uncertainty exists in quality responses and the parameters and tolerances of product design and its critical processes.

The fuzziness is rarely considered in research and development stage. This research considers membership functions for parameters and tolerances of a product and its related processes rather than crisp values. Moreover, presented optimization model considers multiple objective functions, sum of deviations and process capability. Finally, the indirect quality responses are calculated from the best-fit probability distributions rather than assuming a normal distribution.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and examine a consumer-perceived value (CPV) formation model in the context of Hawaiian attire (aloha attire). The effects of key socio-demographic factors on perceived values of aloha attire were empirically determined.

CPV is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional construct including emotional value, social value, quality value, and price value. The investigated socio-demographic factors included residential status, age, gender, ethnicity, education level, income level, and type of retailers from which consumers usually purchase aloha attire. The primary data were gathered by a questionnaire survey of US consumers. Using 330 survey returns, factor analysis and multiple regression analysis were utilized for data analysis and hypothesis testing.

The proposed model was proven valid and the four value constructs cumulatively accounted for 68.6 percent of the variance in CPV of aloha attire. Majority of variances of perceived values (social value at 74 percent, emotional value at 70 percent, price value at 67 percent, and quality value at 65 percent, respectively) can be accounted for by investigated socio-demographic factors. Gender and ethnicity significantly affected perceived social and emotional values. Income level and education level significantly affected all perceived values. Residential status only affected perceived price and emotional values, while retailer type significantly affected perceived social, emotional, and quality values.

Incorporation of gender, ethnicity, income level, education level, residential status, and retailer type information in developing marketing strategies and promotional programs can help companies more effectively convey desired values of aloha attire to target consumers.

This empirical study responded to the need for better understanding of consumer desired values for aloha attire to support more effective product development and marketing. The knowledge gained from this study provides valuable insights for both academicians and industrial practitioners.

The purpose of this study is to identify consumer‐dining values for each restaurant segment (fast food restaurants, casual restaurants, and fine dining restaurants) using a means‐end approach and to suggest useful information for restaurant operators to develop differential marketing strategies for each segment.

This study applied a means‐end chain approach to identify underlying consumer values across three different restaurant segments. The participants responded to questions in a one‐on‐one interview procedure regarding attributes of restaurants, consequences, and values. Based on the responses, hierarchical value maps were developed to better understand consumer value patterns across the three restaurant segments.

The results suggested that attributes of fast food restaurants were largely associated with convenience, success, and economic values; attributes of casual dining restaurants were related to emotional and belonging values; and attributes provided by fine dining restaurants were linked to emotion and quality life values.

This research suggested what customers really want from the dining experience so that restaurant operators in each restaurant segment can develop effective marketing strategies, such as advertisements or promotions, which are distinguished from other competitive restaurants.

By using a means‐end chain approach, this study showed a holistic picture of the consumer dining values customers desire when they visit each restaurant segment, which is a unique contribution of this study.