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This study aims to explore how managers of multi-unit retail chains balance unit customer satisfaction and profitability through the manager ' s customer, sales, and production operating orientations.

This research links survey data (gathered from unit managers and customers) to customer satisfaction and unit financial performance.

The study found that the store managers ' customer and sales operating orientations are strongly related to financial performance; further, these effects are negatively moderated by a production operating orientation. Results also indicate that the store manager ' s customer and sales operating orientations are related to customer satisfaction only when moderated by his/her production operating orientation.

Using a sample drawn from within a single firm, this research examines profitability and customer satisfaction at the unit level and identifies the manager of the unit as occupying a key strategic role in the multi-unit enterprise.

The findings highlight the critical role the unit manager of a multi-unit enterprise plays in driving customer satisfaction and unit profitability. Further, the results point to the challenge of managing the production-related responsibilities of the retail enterprise while striving to be sales and/or customer oriented. Implications for management are particularly salient when considering the combined effect of production-sales and production-customer orientations.

This study merges services operations and services marketing theory to explore how conflicting strategic initiatives are implemented at the store level, and how these, in turn, influence unit financial performance and customer satisfaction.

Intelligent solutions, based on expert systems (ES), to solve complicated practical problems in various sectors are becoming more and more widespread. However, the role of expert systems in the improvement of service industry has not yet been studied in the research community. The primary objective of this paper is to discuss the important role that ES can play in the improvement of service industry.

Based on the diplomacy, preparedness and engagement responsibilities with the aid of technology ((DPEAT) model proposed by Agnihothri et al. the article presents how ES can be used in order to create an effective service organization.

The key findings of the study show that carrying out ES‐based DPEAT can result in superior service outcomes.

Service industries are growing in importance in all over the world. These industries operate in a very competitive market where the need to differentiate a service from the competitor is analogous to survival. The effective use of information technology (IT) to help service companies improve service quality, financial performance, customer satisfaction and productivity is a very crucial issue nowadays. However, the role of expert systems in the improvement of service industry has not yet been studied in the research community. The value of this paper is that it describes how the DPEAT model can be used in order to create effective service organization.

Tipping within the foodservice industry has traditionally been reserved for full-service restaurants. However, there is a growing trend of tip requests at limited-service restaurants, where tipping occurs prior to consuming the product. This research aims to examine the effect of a point-of-sale tip request at limited-service restaurants on return intentions via customer irritation. It also aims to analyze the moderating effects of check amount and perceived deservingness.

Four online scenario-based experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. Participants were recruited from MTurk for all experiments (N_Study 1 = 152; N_Study 2 = 296; N_Study 3 = 206; N_Study 4 = 134).

Studies 1 and 2 suggested a negative impact of presenting a tip request on return intentions, with customer irritation as the underlying mechanism. Study 3 found the indirect effect was significant only when the check amount was low. Study 4 found that perceived deservingness of a tip also moderated this effect; the indirect effect was significant only when customers felt the employee did not deserve a tip. The effect was attenuated when customers felt the employee deserved a tip.

This paper contributes to the underexplored area of tipping behavior in the limited-service context. The findings contrast extant research on voluntary tipping at full-service restaurants, thus advancing theory by suggesting the consequences of tip requests are contextual and providing practical insights to limited-service establishments contemplating whether to begin requesting tips.

Non-voluntary tipping (e.g. automatic gratuity) has received growing attention in the service industry. Existing research suggests customers respond unfavorably to non-voluntary tipping, yet little research has examined why. The current study aims to address this question, with particular interest in response to non-voluntary tipping under high-quality service.

Two scenario-based experiments tested the proposed hypotheses in between-participants design using ANOVA, hierarchical regression and PROCESS.

Study 1 showed that non-voluntary tipping resulted in higher negative emotions, which led to lower return intentions. Surprisingly, the negative effect of non-voluntary tipping was as strong (or stronger) under high (vs low) quality service. To understand this counterintuitive effect, Study 2 developed and tested two competing process models (i.e. blocked vengeance vs blocked gratitude). Supporting the blocked gratitude model, results revealed that non-voluntary tipping hinders customers’ ability to reward service employees, undermining positive emotions and lowering return intentions.

Current work was conducted in two settings using two scenario-based experiments. Hence, additional settings with non-scenario-based studies are encouraged.

The present work cautions managers considering a move to non-voluntary tipping to be aware of its negative effects, especially when the service quality is high. The blocked gratitude model suggests that managers should clarify methods available for customers who wish to reward good service.

This paper is the first to examine customer response to non-voluntary tipping under different levels of service quality and the underlying emotional mechanisms.

Professional touching behavior (PTB), defined as intentional touching behavior that occurs between organizational members and that falls within the boundaries of appropriateness and professionalism in the workplace, is prevalent in organizations. Scholars from multiple disciplines, including human resources researchers, have acknowledged the importance of physical contact for facilitating interpersonal communication and relationship-building. However, PTB may not only elicit positive reactions from those who receive it but also negative reactions as well, with implications for social dynamics in organizations. PTB can, on the one hand, fulfill employees’ desires for interpersonal connection; at the same time, such physical contact at work can represent a threat to employees’ health. To explain the nature and implications of these divergent effects of receiving PTB, the authors draw upon sociometer theory and behavioral immune system (BIS) theory to model the emotional, cognitive, and physiological processes via which, and the conditions under which, receiving such behavior will result in socially functional responses and prompt subsequent prosocial behavior, and when PTB will be perceived as a health risk and prompt withdrawal behavior. The theoretical framework of this chapter expands our conceptual understanding of the consequences of interpersonal physical contact at work and has important human resources management (HRM) implications for organizational managers.

Religious institutions can affect organizational practices when employees bring their religious commitments and practices into the workplace. But those religious commitments function in the midst of other organizational factors that influence the working out of employees’ religious commitments. This process can generate varying outcomes in organizational contexts, ranging from a heightened effect of religious commitment on employee behavior to a negligible or nonexistent influence of religion on employee behavior. Relying on social identity theory and schematic social cognition as unifying frameworks for the study of religious behavior, we develop a theoretically informed approach to understanding how and why the religious beliefs, commitments and practices employees bring to work have varying behavioral impacts.

OF old the public library was wont to take its reputation from the character of the newsroom. That room, as everyone knows, attracts every element in the community and it may be it attracts especially the poorer elements;—even at times undesirable ones. These people in some towns, but perhaps not so often now‐a‐days, have been unwashen and often not very attractive in appearance. It was natural, things being as they are, that the room should give a certain tone to the institution, and indeed on occasion cause it to be avoided by those who thought themselves to be superior. The whole level of living has altered, and we think has been raised, since the War. There is poverty and depression in parts of the country, it is true; but there are relief measures now which did not exist before the War. Only those who remember the grinding poverty of the unemployed in the days, especially the winter days, before the War can realise what poverty really means at its worst. This democratic levelling up applies, of course, to the public library as much as to any institution. At present it may be said that the part of the library which is most apparent to the public and by which it is usually judged, is the lending or home‐reading department. It therefore needs no apology if from time to time we give special attention to this department. Even in the great cities, which have always concentrated their chief attention upon their reference library, to‐day there is an attempt to supply a lending library service of adequate character. We recall, for example, that the Leeds Public Library of old was first and foremost a reference library, with a lending library attached; to‐day the lending library is one of the busiest in the kingdom. A similar judgment can be passed upon Sheffield, where quite deliberately the city librarian would restrict the reference library to works that are of real reference character, and would develop more fully the lending library. In Manchester, too, the new “Reference Library”—properly the new Central Library—has a lending library which issues about 1,500 volumes daily. There must be all over the country many libraries issuing up to a thousand volumes each a day from their central lending departments. This being the case the department comes in for very careful scrutiny.

UK higher education has faced an unprecedented period of change due to multiple UK governmental policies over a short period – coupled with demographic change and the vote to leave the European Union. This pressures universities to meet third mission aims by engaging effectively with society and business, generating income in the process to address reduced funding. Support from the UK Government includes over 20 years of funding for universities to develop entrepreneurial structures and processes, termed entrepreneurial architecture (EA). While the government regularly collects data on funds generated through third mission activities, less is known about how EA is perceived by those inside the university. The purpose of this paper is to meet that gap by exploring the perspectives of those employed specifically as part of EA implementation, as knowledge exchange intermediaries.

The study takes a phenomenological approach to achieve deeper insights into those routines and norms resulting from the application of EA. This is a purposeful sample with what is reported to be an under-researched group (Hayter, 2016); those employed as internal knowledge intermediaries across 15 universities (two from each). These university employees are specifically charged with business engagement, knowledge exchange and research commercialization; their contracts are funded and designed as a part of the EA rather than for research or teaching. An initial pilot comprising four semi-structured interviews indicated suitable themes. This was followed up through a set of three interviews over 18 months with each participant and a mapping of EA components at each institution.

Despite EA strategies, the picture emerging was that universities had embedded physical components to a greater or lesser degree without effective social architecture, shown by conflicts between stated and actual routines and norms and by consistent barriers to third mission work. Power and perceived power were critical as participants felt their own worth and status was embedded in their senior manager’s status and power, with practical difficulties for them when he or she lost ground due to internal politics.

The benefits of this study method and sample include deep insights into the perspectives of an under-reported group. The purposeful sample might be usefully expanded to include other countries, other staff or to look in depth at one institution. It is a qualitative study so brings with it the richness, insights and the potential lack of easy generalizability such an approach provides.

In designing organizations to achieve third mission aims, EA is important. Even where the structures, strategies, systems, leadership and culture appear to be in place; however, the resulting routines and norms may act against organizational aims. Those designing and redesigning their institutions might look at the experience suggested here to understand how important it is to embed social architecture to ensure effective actions. Measuring cultures and having this as part of institutional targets might also support better results.

Governments in the UK have invested resources and funding and produced policy documents related to the third mission for over 20 years. However, the persistent gap in universities delivering on policy third mission aims is well documented. For this to change, universities will need to ensure their EA is founded on strong underlying supportive cultures. Knowledge sharing with business and community is unlikely when it does not happen in-house.

The study adds new knowledge about how EA is expressed at individual university level. The findings show the need for more research to understand those routines and norms which shape third mission progress in UK universities and how power relations impact in this context, given the pivotal role of the power exerted by the senior manager.

We began this chapter with storied experiences of relationships with children and youth and of questions around tensions they can experience as they make home, familial, community, and school transitions. These questions included: Why do we do it this way? Who decides? Can’t I think about what's best for my child? For Aboriginal children? As Khea, Jennifer, and Brenda Mary storied the experiences noted earlier, and as we collectively inquired into their stories, attentive to the intergenerational narrative reverberations of colonization made visible, it was their attentiveness to the particular life of a youth, Robbie; of a child, Rachel; and of a grandchild that we were first drawn. Their deep yearnings for something different in schools also turned our attention toward the counterstories to live by which they were composing. Across Khea's, Jennifer's, and Brenda Mary's earlier storied experiences the counterstories to live by around which they were threading new possible intergenerational narrative reverberations were focused on understanding children and youth as composing lives shaped by multiple contexts, that is, lives shaped through multiple relationships in places in and outside of school. This need for understanding the multiple places and relationships shaping the lives of children and youth as they enter into schools is, as shown in the earlier noted stories, vital in Aboriginal families and communities given the ways in which the narrative of colonization continues to reverberate in present lives.