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1 – 10 of 12Kristina Heinonen, Tore Strandvik, Karl‐Jacob Mickelsson, Bo Edvardsson, Erik Sundström and Per Andersson
The paper seeks to introduce to a new perspective on the roles of customers and companies in creating value by outlining a customer‐based approach to service. The customer's logic…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to introduce to a new perspective on the roles of customers and companies in creating value by outlining a customer‐based approach to service. The customer's logic is examined in‐depth as being the foundation of a customer‐dominant (CD) marketing and business logic.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors argue that both the goods‐ and service‐dominant logic are provider‐dominant. Contrasting the provider‐dominant logic with CD logic, the paper examines the creation of service value from the perspectives of value‐in‐use, the customer's own context, and the customer's experience of service.
Findings
Moving from a provider‐dominant logic to a CD logic uncovered five major challenges to service marketers: company involvement, company control in co‐creation, visibility of value creation, scope of customer experience, and character of customer experience.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is exploratory. It presents and discusses a new perspective and suggests implications for research and practice.
Practical implications
Awareness of the mechanisms of customer logic will provide businesses with new perspectives on the role of the company in their customers' lives. It is proposed that understanding the customer's logic should represent the starting‐point for the company's marketing and business logic.
Originality/value
The paper increases the understanding of how the customer's logic underpins the CD business logic. By exploring consequences of applying a CD logic, further directions for theoretical and empirical research are suggested.
Details
Keywords
Wadu Mesthrige Jayantha and Olugbenga Timo Oladinrin
Office workspace is more than a place but one of the essential resources in business organizations. In recent years, research in office workspace management has become an…
Abstract
Purpose
Office workspace is more than a place but one of the essential resources in business organizations. In recent years, research in office workspace management has become an increasingly important scholarly focus. However, there is a dearth of bibliometric studies to date on the subject. This study aims to explore a scientometric analysis of office workspace field.
Design/methodology/approach
The title/abstract/keyword search method was used to extract related papers from 1990 to 2018. A total of 1,670 papers published in Scopus were obtained and subjected to scientometric data analysis techniques via CiteSpace software.
Findings
The results revealed the active research institutions and countries, influential authors, important journals, representative references and research hotspots in this field.
Practical implications
While this study focused on office workspace management, the findings hold useful implications for the built environment in general and facility management in particular, being a sector that encompasses multiple disciplines involving building, office assets, people, processes and technology, which enable effective functioning of the built facilities.
Originality/value
This is probably the most comprehensive scientometric analysis of the office workspace field ever conducted. This study adds to the so far limited knowledge in the field and provides insights for future research.
Details
Keywords
Michael M. Beyerlein, Douglas A. Johnson and Susan T. Beyerlein
Fredrik Backlund and Erik Sundqvist
There are limited studies of continuous improvement (CI) from the perspective of a project-based organization (PBO). Hence, the purpose of this paper is to explore challenges that…
Abstract
Purpose
There are limited studies of continuous improvement (CI) from the perspective of a project-based organization (PBO). Hence, the purpose of this paper is to explore challenges that PBOs may encounter when applying CI.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory and qualitative approach has been used, involving six management teams in six different PBOs, using focus groups interviews as data collecting method.
Findings
A high degree of autonomy among project managers seems to limit a collective approach to project management in PBOs. As a consequence the overall PBO performance becomes subordinate to the individual project performance—an approach opposite to that of CI. Further, the management teams themselves seem to uphold a project focus, also complicating improvement initiatives from a PBO-perspective.
Research limitations/implications
The management teams have been the unit of analysis, where the PBOs mainly conduct projects in an engineering and construction context, and are located in the same country and region. This approach enables the thorough study of a phenomenon, while preconditions for generalization are limited. However, the findings could be used by researchers as a basis for more in-depth studies of specific challenges, and for making surveys to obtain generalization of results.
Practical implications
The results can induce awareness and understanding of different challenges if applying CI in a PBO, hence a starting point for finding ways to overcome these challenges.
Originality/value
The article contributes to an increased understanding of challenges that PBOs may encounter when applying CI, confirming and presenting additional findings compared to previous studies.
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Lars-Erik Gadde and Pegah Amani
The purpose of this paper is to present a “network” framing of food supply arrangements. Such frameworks have been asked for in previous research as supplements to prevailing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a “network” framing of food supply arrangements. Such frameworks have been asked for in previous research as supplements to prevailing supply chain conceptualizations.
Design/methodology/approach
The framework builds on industrial network theory. According to this approach, business reality is analyzed in three inter-related dimensions: the activities undertaken, the resources used for this undertaking, and the actors controlling resources and activities. For each dimension, relevant concepts are derived for analysis of the features of food supply and food waste.
Findings
The network framing was useful for analyzing the prerequisites and consequences for two approaches to reduce food waste: one based on extension of shelf-life, the other relying on enhanced responsiveness in the supply arrangement. The framework was then used for suggesting managerial actions to reduce food waste through increasing activity coordination, resource combining, and actor interaction with consideration of potential consequences of such actions.
Practical implications
Managerial issues in food supply are discussed with regard to the role of activity coordination, the role of resource combining, and the role of actor interaction in efforts to prevent food waste.
Originality/value
The paper suggests a novel approach for analyzing food supply networks with particular focus on food waste reduction. Such framings are applied in other supply systems, and requested by food supply researchers.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to explore what motivates patients to participate in service development and how participation may influence their well-being. Health-care providers…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore what motivates patients to participate in service development and how participation may influence their well-being. Health-care providers are increasingly adopting practices of customer participation in such activities to improve their services.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper builds on an analysis of data from a service development project in which lung cancer patients contributed by sharing their ideas and experiences through diaries. Out of the 86 lung cancer patients who were invited to participate, 20 agreed to participate and 14 fully completed the task. The study builds on participants’ contributions, in-depth interviews with six participants and the reasons patients gave for not participating.
Findings
This paper identifies a number of motives: non-interest in participating, restitution after poor treatment, desire for contact with others, volunteerism, desire to make a contribution and the enjoyment of having a task to complete. A self-determination theory perspective was adopted to show how the need to satisfy basic human needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness determines if and how patients participate. Participation may have important benefits for patients, especially an improved sense of relatedness.
Practical implications
Service providers must be prepared to meet different patient needs in service development, ranging from the need to express strong distress to expressing creativity. By understanding the dynamics of motivation and well-being, organizers may achieve better results in terms of improved services and in patient well-being.
Originality/value
This study makes a significant contribution to the study of customer participation in service development, especially in relation to health care, by offering a self-determination-based typology for describing different styles of patient participation.
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This chapter examines the influence of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy on some of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the past three decades. Mobilizing…
Abstract
This chapter examines the influence of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy on some of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the past three decades. Mobilizing the epistemic community framework, it demonstrates how network members, acting as amici curiae, litigators, academics, and judges worked to transmit intellectual capital to Supreme Court decision makers in 12 federalism and separation of powers cases decided between 1983 and 2001. It finds that Federalist Society members were most successful in diffusing ideas into Supreme Court opinions in cases where doctrinal distance was greatest; that is, cases where the Supreme Court moved the farthest from its established constitutional framework.