Search results

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.

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, partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was employed for hypothesis testing.

The results showed a positive and significant relationship between customer-oriented behavior and employee etiquettes, technical selling skills and performance. The employee’s customer-oriented behavior, etiquettes, technical selling skills and performance were also found to be significantly related with 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.

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.

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.

Work-based learning is critical for enhancing employees’ skills and contributing to the firm’s performance. This paper aims to establish the effects of needs assessment on the relationship between training intensity as part of learning and how employees’ skills are reflected in firm performance.

The paper used the World Bank Tanzania Employees Skills Survey (TESS) dataset, which contains 424 firms. This paper estimated the moderated mediation model through partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and employed the index of moderated mediation to determine if the model was correctly specified.

The results show that among three skills, i.e. technical, interpersonal/communication and work ethic skills, only the level of technical skills mediated the relationship between training and the firm’s performance. The index of moderated mediation suggests a threshold point for the firm’s training needs, above which the indirect effect of training on performance through technical skills starts to decrease. The negative correlation between the firm’s training needs and the indirect effect suggests that employees’ essential human capital qualities, viewed from the angle of their training needs, are among the key factors for executing effective training.

This paper’s conceptual model is limited because it does not incorporate an education variable for the trained employees. In addition, it only conceptualized the perceived most important skills of interpersonal communication, technical skills and work ethic, despite there being other skills that could have been considered. Moreover, the data only measured the present skill level at three on the Likert scale, providing limited room for skill level variance.

Those who decide which training programme deserves priority given limited resources and the firm’s goals need to understand that training is an addition to what their employees already have and, thus, should make extra efforts to equip them with more knowledge relating to their assignments. Moreover, this understanding should extend to the employees themselves.

The paper introduced and showed the necessity of training needs assessment to increase the value of training in enhancing the firm’s performance. We propose a model for assessing training intensity through process analysis. The respective model depicts a threshold point for the firm’s training needs, below which the training will work.

The present study is specifically designed to accomplish two objectives: to validate the SERV*OR scale in an emerging oriental market; and to test empirically the effect of service orientation on front-line employees ' service performance in various service skill areas.

The whole research involved a triangulation process, which involved in-depth interviews, pilot test, and survey interviews, to collect both qualitative and quantitative information to validate the measurement scales and test the hypotheses. The major objective was to validate the measurement scales and test the relationship between service orientation and front-line service employees ' performance in various skill areas.

The results from measurement scale development show that service orientation was represented by service leadership, service contact, human resources management, and service system, whereas service skills were embodied by functional skills and technical skills. Results from structural equation model (SEM) analysis show that various dimensions of the service orientation have differential positive effects on different types of the service skills.

Although the model is supported by empirical findings, only through replication in other service industries can it enhance its generalizability. Such factors as investment in service training, quality of training program, employee learning attitude may mediate or moderate the effect of service orientation on performance in different skill areas and future research should include them for a better explanation of the effect of service orientation on service skills.

Based on the results of this study, firms can strengthen the service orientation as an effective strategy to improve service skills and this broad strategy can be decomposed into more workable tactics like building service leadership, service contact, human resources management and service system improvement.

The present study bridged the macro and micro perspectives by developing a framework that provides a deeper and richer portrait of what kind of front-line employees engage in good service performance and, at the same time, what kind of service orientation component will be more effective in facilitating service performance. The findings contribute to the explanation of significant variance in employees ' service performance. The present study is thus a compelling extension of the previous approach to research on service behavior.

Human capital theory hypothesizes that no firm rationally invests in general job skills training because its competitors might hire the trained employees away before the firm could recoup its costs through higher worker productivity. Drawing from four explanatory perspectives, we developed several research hypotheses about the organizational and environmental sources of variation in company-provided job skills training for core employees, which we tested with a national sample of U.S. work establishments. Contrary to human capital theory expectations, the large majority of employers with core training programs reported providing skills that were either “to a great deal” or “to some extent” useful to other employers. Our general skills training analysis supported only one hypothesis, suggesting the inadequacy of human capital theory for explaining company training investments. We found evidence that the substantive contents of company job skills training programs differentiated into technical skills and social skills dimensions. Multivariate equations supported several hypothesized effects of organizational and environmental factors on the social and technical skills contents of company core training investments. We conclude with a reassessment of the classic general-specific job skills hypothesis and speculate about future directions for job skills training theory and research.

This paper aims to focus on the human side of inbound open innovation by analyzing the effects that the adoption of different knowledge search strategies for innovation has on new recruitment needs.

Building on several theoretical perspectives, the study proposes three hypotheses regarding the relationship between openness and the need to recruit people with high technical and social skills. Using a pooled panel data from the Uruguayan Innovation Survey between 2004 and 2012, the authors identify open strategies followed by the firm.

The estimation results using pooled panel data confirm that the adoption of inbound open search strategies for innovation demands the recruitment of new employees with higher technical and social skills. Technical skills are more likely to be demanded than social skills. The effects observed are moderated by the intensity in the use of knowledge and information sources (KISs).

This paper revisits the analysis of specific knowledge search strategies at the firm level. In doing so, the study looks for the effects of specific strategies combining different knowledge sources and considers different levels of use of external KISs, from narrow to wide. While other studies have analyzed the human factor as a determinant of the success of openness for innovation, this paper re-examines the direction of this relationship. Finally, the study contributes to the evidence from a Latin American country, where these topics have received less attention.

American Community colleges are vital to the country's economic mobility and are leaders in developing and facilitating career, technical, and workforce education. This study explored employer perspectives on employees' common and specialized skills across industries in the United States.

Employers were profiled for one year using a case study and content analysis method. They submitted performance records for at least three employees who graduated from community college career, technical, or workforce programs.

Data revealed that overall, employees were successful at work, but employers focused on employability skills across disciplines (common skills); specialized skills employers focused on were associated with business operations and processes and seemed to be something other than industry-specific technical knowledge.

This article and the research it refers to constitute original work that has not been reproduced or published. The value of this article is premised on new longitudinal data, which could be used to improve and progress institutional CTE and WD programs.

The global shift in the traditional skills required of real estate graduates has led to an increased demand for employees who have the required skills and competencies. The purpose of this study is to evaluate employment considerations of real estate firms and analyse employers’ skill expectations and the observed skills possessed by the graduate employees. This study also analysed the self-assessed soft skill levels of the graduate employees, thereby establishing the skill gap.

Data were sought from real estate employers in the two dominant real estate markets of Nigeria: Lagos and Abuja, and real estate graduate employees who have had a minimum of six months working experience in real estate firms. Data collected were analysed using statistical techniques such as frequency, percentages, mean, correlation, multivariate analysis of variance, paired-samples t-test and independent samples t-test.

The findings of this study revealed that employers’ soft skills expectations were high with skills such as responsibility, administrative, listening, communication, business negotiation and work ethics. Based on employers' observed skills, there were significant skill gaps with respect to soft skills such as responsibility, business negotiation, logical thinking, marketing and dispute resolution. An analysis of the core skills reveals employers' preference for technical competencies in valuation, agency, property management, marketing, report writing and landlord and tenant laws. However, graduate employees possessed significant skill gaps with regards to technical skills such as valuation, property investment analysis, feasibility and viability appraisal, market research methods and facility management.

An understanding of the skill gaps will provide useful feedback to professional bodies, regulatory boards, institutions of higher learning, faculty members and other stakeholders regarding deficient skill areas, especially for curriculum review, development and training in the real estate sector.

There is a paucity of information about employers' skill preferences and the skill gaps in the real estate sector.

A cooperative bank customer in India has varied needs and is a unique segment of Indian banking. The purpose of the study is to provide the sector with an understanding of the needs of the cooperative bank customers in the context of improving core competencies required for the delivery of service.

The study adopted multiple methods that included the Delphi method as well for competency identification. Appropriate factor analyses are conducted to confirm the construct validity and to determine the underlying structure of the variables chosen for the study. Stepwise multiple regression analysis is employed for data analysis.

Surprisingly, emotional competency showed an insignificant relationship with customer satisfaction. The social and technical competencies are found significant. The findings suggest the incorporation of technological advancements in cooperative banks.

The generalization of the results is limited as the work was confined only to cooperative banks and also because of the limited sample size. The self-reported nature of competency measures also limits the accuracy of results.

This work suggests that a bank has to concentrate on improving the technical competencies of the employees. The findings could also aid the bank managements in policy decisions in recruitment, selection, performance appraisal among others.

Competent employees could help meet the customers to satisfy their financial needs and thereby the social and economic development of the weaker section of the society could be achieved.

Conducting primary research and identification of technical competency as the major contributor to customer satisfaction are the major contributions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine entrepreneurial leadership and to determine the entrepreneurial leadership skills which are important for success in a developing economy environment. Specifically, the focus of this research was on entrepreneurial leadership within the retail pharmacy sector in Nigeria.

This study was guided by an interpretivist-constructionist perspective. By adopting a qualitative approach, the lived experiences of the retail pharmacy entrepreneurs could be understood. In total, 51 semi-structured interviews were the mode of data collection, and data were triangulated via three sources: entrepreneurs, employees, and literature.

From the study results, a vivid picture of entrepreneurial leadership was formed, which in turn provides the basis for an empirical skill-based model of this phenomenon in a developing economy. This study identifies four distinct entrepreneurial leadership skill categories. These include technical/business skills, interpersonal skills, conceptual skills, and entrepreneurial skills. The findings of this study also show the factors and conditions necessary for entrepreneurial leadership in a developing economy.

The findings of this study have implications in theory and practice. Its results provide an empirical, skill-based framework on entrepreneurial leadership in a developing economy, a subject area for which there exists a lack of background literature. In practice, the findings of this study serve as a useful reference for practitioners and policy makers of the skills and other factors required for people to succeed as entrepreneurial leaders.

To explore potential mismatches between stakeholders' perceptions and expectations of key and technical skills needed for an advanced modern apprentice within the UK.

Using data collected from the automotive sector, the template process is used to establish lecturer, student and employee stakeholder group's expectations of a person taking up employment alongside an advanced modern apprenticeship or as an advanced modern apprentice. Perceptions of the extent to which expectations are met and their relative importance are assessed.

All stakeholders acknowledge that a skills gap exists across key and technical skills. However, whilst students focus on technical skills, lecturers and employees place greatest emphasis on key skills and their ability to transfer them.

Although this research is based on the UK automotive sector, the findings emphasise the importance of key skills and understanding as part of students' learning. Research is needed to establish why students appear to undervalue these and establish whether similar patterns exist in other sectors.

The voluntarist approach to UK vocational education and training has, when combined with the need for further education colleges to be economically viable, resulted in courses that appear attractive but do not always meet the automotive sector's needs. Research is needed to establish whether this is occurring across other sectors.

This template process offers a new technique to explore stakeholders' perceptions and expectations. The findings provide new insights into the mismatches between expectations of the stakeholders in vocational education and training.