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Article
Publication date: 1 September 2001

Go¨ran Svensson

Argues that the unidirectional measurement and evaluation of service quality in any specific service encounter is not enough in itself to understand the existing service quality

1378

Abstract

Argues that the unidirectional measurement and evaluation of service quality in any specific service encounter is not enough in itself to understand the existing service quality between two actors in a dyadic service encounter. Therefore, a method is introduced for the express purpose of analysing the perceptual bi‐directionality of service quality in order to measure and evaluate the dynamics of service quality in dyadic service encounters.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 15 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 July 2023

Karthik Padamata and Rama Devi Vangapandu

The purpose of this study is to capture patients' and employees' perception of quality of care in the Indian private hospitals and to find the possible perceptual gaps between…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to capture patients' and employees' perception of quality of care in the Indian private hospitals and to find the possible perceptual gaps between both the groups.

Design/methodology/approach

Authors have referred to the Victorian patient satisfaction monitoring (VPSM) scale and studied the responses of 327 patients and 327 employees collected from six private Indian tertiary care hospitals. SPSS v26 software was used to conduct the data reliability test, descriptive analysis and Mann–Whitney U test.

Findings

Authors have found significant differences in perceptions of quality of care between the patients and employees in the Indian hospitals. Employees have high positive perceptions towards the provided medical care whereas the patients have less favourable perceptions for many quality indicators.

Practical implications

This study findings help the healthcare managers, practitioners and healthcare workers of the Indian hospitals to understand the perceptions of both the employees and the patients towards healthcare quality elements and help to reduce the existing perceptual gap in the process of providing quality healthcare services.

Originality/value

To the best of authors knowledge, this is one of the pioneering studies conducted in Indian healthcare industry to capture and compare the perceptions of both the employees' and the patients' perceptions of various quality of care elements. This study highlighted the existing perceptual gap between the employees and the patients on various healthcare quality elements and indicated the critical areas for improvement to provide high quality healthcare services.

Details

Benchmarking: An International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-5771

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 November 2022

Aslan Ahmet Haykir and Ilkay Oksuz

Data quality and data resolution are essential for computer vision tasks like medical image processing, object detection, pattern recognition and so on. Super-resolution is a way…

109

Abstract

Purpose

Data quality and data resolution are essential for computer vision tasks like medical image processing, object detection, pattern recognition and so on. Super-resolution is a way to increase the image resolution, and super-resolved images contain more information compared to their low-resolution counterparts. The purpose of this study is analyzing the effects of the super resolution models trained before on object detection for aerial images.

Design/methodology/approach

Two different models were trained using the Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Network (SRGAN) architecture on two aerial image data sets, the xView and the Dataset for Object deTection in Aerial images (DOTA). This study uses these models to increase the resolution of aerial images for improving object detection performance. This study analyzes the effects of the model with the best perceptual index (PI) and the model with the best RMSE on object detection in detail.

Findings

Super-resolution increases the object detection quality as expected. But, the super-resolution model with better perceptual quality achieves lower mean average precision results compared to the model with better RMSE. It means that the model with a better PI is more meaningful to human perception but less meaningful to computer vision.

Originality/value

The contributions of the authors to the literature are threefold. First, they do a wide analysis of SRGAN results for aerial image super-resolution on the task of object detection. Second, they compare super-resolution models with best PI and best RMSE to showcase the differences on object detection performance as a downstream task first time in the literature. Finally, they use a transfer learning approach for super-resolution to improve the performance of object detection.

Details

Information Discovery and Delivery, vol. 51 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-6247

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 August 2021

Farid Ahmed, Felicitas Evangelista and Daniela Spanjaard

Relationship marketing has been playing an important role in the development of marketing theory and practice. Though the concept has been extensively applied in international…

Abstract

Purpose

Relationship marketing has been playing an important role in the development of marketing theory and practice. Though the concept has been extensively applied in international marketing in understanding the dynamics of exporter-importer relationships, few studies have looked at dyadic data to investigate the impact of mutuality of relational variables on the exporter-importer relationships. The objective of this study is to understand the impact of mutuality of key relational variables on exporter-importer relationship performance. A dyadic model of mutuality is proposed. The model highlights the impact of balance, level and quality of perceptual bi-directionality of relational variables.

Design/methodology/approach

The model was tested using dyadic data collected from exporter-importer relationships involving Australian exporters and their Southeast Asian import partners through a cross-sectional, quantitative survey. Mutuality of relationship constructs was measured using the perceptual bi-directionality (PBD) method.

Findings

The results support the central hypothesis that mutuality of relational constructs has an impact on relationship performance.

Originality/value

The study is the first to apply the perceptual bi-directionality method to measure mutuality of relational constructs in an exporter-importer setting. The study contributes to the general understanding of international business and exporter-importer relationship performance in particular.

Details

International Marketing Review, vol. 38 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-1335

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 March 2020

Kemal Yildirim, Aysen Ozkan, Elif Gunes and Ahmet Mestan

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of window proximity on perceptions of employees in the call center offices.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of window proximity on perceptions of employees in the call center offices.

Design/methodology/approach

A semantic differential scale composed of nine bipolar adjectives, four of which dealt with “planning,” three of “privacy,” while the rest measured “lighting” was applied for evaluation. In total, 92 employees at the TEPE Call Center in the Bilkent District, Ankara, Turkey participated in the research.

Findings

The results showed that window proximity directly affected the call center employees’ perceptions. In addition, a positive approach was even less affected when the location of the workstation was more at the inner part of the workspace. On the contrary, workstations in front of the window were evaluated more positively, presumably because the employees were happy at feeling roomy and by giving them a higher level of privacy, while also minimizing distractions and interruptions. It was also found that call center employees with secondary education responded more positively than higher educated employees.

Research limitations/implications

This study was limited to examining the effects of window proximity in a call center on employees’ perceptions of an open-plan office. The study supports the results of planning, privacy and lighting, as well as the study on physical environmental factors, such as design, ambient and social, which are thought to be realized in the future.

Originality/value

This study presents suggestions that would be useful for increasing the working and solution-focused perceptual performance values in call center environments from the new generation of work areas. They should be appropriate for the psychological and physical needs of employees in twenty-first-century communication environments, especially in spatial environments and for the suitability of the technological equipment used.

Details

Facilities , vol. 38 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-2772

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 January 2020

Min Chen and Chien-wen Shen

The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of innovative service mode of intelligent library on improving the service quality and a series of impacts on user behavior…

1275

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of innovative service mode of intelligent library on improving the service quality and a series of impacts on user behavior. With the rapid development of information technology, internet of things has become an important carrier of people’s “intelligent life”. The emergence of intelligent library will no longer be limited by space; it is affecting people’s lives and work imperceptibly. This new service mode was studied here, and the relationship between the service quality of intelligent library and users’ behavior was analyzed from the perspective of user acceptance and use behavior of intelligent library. Moreover, this study explores how to optimize the service quality to let users accept this technology and service mode and thus realize the original idea.

Design/methodology/approach

Through 800 questionnaires issued to the users in the Zhejiang Provincial AI Library, the authors obtained the study data. Among the received questionnaires, 676 copies are valid, and 124 responses are either incomplete or not answered, and so, the efficient rate is 84.5 per cent.

Findings

There is a significantly positive correlation between service innovation and service quality. There is a significantly positive correlation between service quality and behavioral intention. There is a significantly positive correlation between service innovation and behavioral intention.

Originality/value

From the point of view of innovative service, this paper analyzes the effect of innovative service mode of intelligent library on improving the service quality and a series of impacts on user behavior. This study confirms that intelligent library is a relatively new service innovation. Users’ curiosity and exploration will make them access some relevant information. As a result, a reasonably innovative service is an important factor in users’ acceptance behavior.

Article
Publication date: 30 September 2019

Ιoannis Tzavlopoulos, Katerina Gotzamani, Andreas Andronikidis and Chris Vassiliadis

The quality assessment of e-commerce services is of particular research interest, as it has been widely found that quality is directly linked to customer satisfaction and loyalty…

6352

Abstract

Purpose

The quality assessment of e-commerce services is of particular research interest, as it has been widely found that quality is directly linked to customer satisfaction and loyalty, which in turn leads to improved sales results, the creation of reputation and enhanced competitiveness for active companies in the industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the quality in e-commerce and to examine the relationships developed among its individual dimensions and satisfaction, perceived value, perceived risk and customer loyalty.

Design/methodology/approach

Initially, exploratory factor analysis with the equamax rotation method was applied to identify the perceptions of consumers regarding quality, value, satisfaction, risk and loyalty. The effect of the factors that make up perceived quality of e-services on customer value, satisfaction, risk and loyalty was examined by using OLS regression analysis. Likewise, path analysis was applied to confirm the impact of perceived quality on total consumer satisfaction, perceived value and loyalty, utilizing perceived risk as a moderating variable.

Findings

The authors found that quality overall has a positive and statistically significant relationship with perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty and negative with perceived risk. From the individual dimensions of quality, it has been found that ease of use of websites, design, responsiveness and security lead to increased levels of perceived value, while ease of use, responsiveness and personalization lead to an increase in the overall satisfaction of consumers. Overall, it has been documented that high levels of quality lead to higher satisfaction and perceived value, mitigating perceived risk and positively impacting the adoption of desirable consumer behaviors as reflected in customer loyalty.

Research limitations/implications

In this respect, future research in the field of e-commerce can examine the quality of the respective electronic services taking into account different product and business categories. In addition, the future research can focus on the impact of high satisfaction, perceived value and customer loyalty on various sizes of business performance, including sales, market share, competitiveness, financial efficiency and sustainability.

Practical implications

Given the clear relationship between quality, perceived value and satisfaction, e-commerce businesses have the potential to benefit significantly from improvements in the quality of their services, as this leads to increased levels of perceived value, high level of satisfaction and hence enhanced customer loyalty, which is in turn reflected in increased sales, positive word-of-mouth, improved reputation and brand loyalty. In this way, e-businesses will be able to improve their financial position, achieve higher market shares, maintain their competitive advantage, attract new development resources and become sustainable on a long-term basis.

Social implications

Businesses need to understand the factors that determine the quality in e-commerce to be able to achieve customer satisfaction and reduce perceived risk through improved quality. These factors, which consumers perceive as important for quality, are critical.

Originality/value

The concepts of quality, perceived value, risk, satisfaction and loyalty are considered to be interlinked in both traditional consumer research and e-commerce, as high levels of perceived quality are believed to lead to positive assessments of the cost-benefit and, hence, the perceived value (Cronin et al., 2000; Sweeney and Soutar, 2001; Korda and Snoj, 2010) and loyalty. In this context, this study attempted to study the relationship of these five variables, through both regression and path analysis, resulting in similar results. According to the findings of the study, perceived quality of website services has a positive and statistically significant impact on perceived value, satisfaction and an opposite effect on perceived risk, while the last is mitigating variable for and loyalty.

Details

International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, vol. 11 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-669X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 April 2015

François Anthony Carrillat, Alain d'Astous, François Bellavance and François Eid

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of field sponsorship through sponsor recall and recognition across two environments that differ on the degree of felt…

2279

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of field sponsorship through sponsor recall and recognition across two environments that differ on the degree of felt presence they trigger among viewers: on-site and television. A series of research hypotheses concerning the interaction effects of viewing environment, event – sponsor congruence and arousal intensity were developed.

Design/methodology/approach

To test the effect of the viewing environment, a field experiment was conducted where 44 ice hockey fans attended a professional ice hockey game in the local team’s arena, whereas 44 others saw the same game, at the same time, on television. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the two game viewing conditions.

Findings

A higher level of arousal was detrimental to sponsor identification in a manner consistent with the intensity of the processing principle according to which arousal polarizes attention resources on the arousing stimulus (the event) while diverting resources away from the peripheral stimuli (the sponsors). In addition, because the event congruent sponsors are more superficially processed in comparison with the incongruent ones, this negative impact was more pronounced in the former group. This was qualified by a three-way interaction with the type of environment; the on-site, direct, audience was less affected by the processing intensity principle and exhibited better recall and recognition than the television audience as arousal and congruency increased, whereas, at lower levels of arousal, higher event – sponsor congruence hampered on-site sponsor identification in comparison with television.

Research limitations/implications

The findings were obtained in the context of a single sports event; additional studies need to be conducted using different sports. In addition, the comparison of on-site audience with other types of media audiences (e.g. on-line broadcasting) is warranted.

Practical implications

Arousal intensity results from the game’s drama, which is a function of game importance and game outcome uncertainty. Hence, except for low-stakes games (e.g. pre-season matches, exhibitions), initiatives that promote a leveled playing field such as salary cap, financial fair play and open leagues are likely to jeopardize sponsor identification, particularly for congruent sponsors. With respect to the impact of the viewing environment, congruent sponsors should reap superior benefits from the television audience when the stakes are low. However, when the stakes are high, their benefits will accrue to a greater extent from on-site spectators.

Originality/value

This is the first study to offer a rigorous comparison of sponsorship’s impact on direct (on-site) versus indirect (television) audiences through a field experiment. This is also the first research to provide a framework based on the processing intensity principle that encompasses predictions related to arousal and its interaction with event – sponsor congruence and the viewing environment. Within this perspective, the degree of sponsor integration in the viewing environment is instrumental in predicting sponsorship outcomes.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 49 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 October 2010

Hyunjoo Im, Sharron J. Lennon and Leslie Stoel

Visual information quality is one of the most important elements that determines online shoppers' experience on a web site. Yet, currently many e‐tailers use poor quality visual…

5052

Abstract

Purpose

Visual information quality is one of the most important elements that determines online shoppers' experience on a web site. Yet, currently many e‐tailers use poor quality visual information such as small and blurry images. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of visual information quality on online shoppers' affective responses and behavioral intent toward the web site. The theoretical framework of perceptual fluency, the ease with which perceptual forms (i.e. objects) are processed, guided the research.

Design/methodology/approach

A theoretical model was developed based on the literature and tested using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). The model proposed a mediating effect of pleasure in creating positive aesthetic evaluations and behavioral outcomes of the perceptual fluency effect. An online experiment (n=1,999) was employed with two levels of perceptual fluency.

Findings

MANOVA results confirmed the perceptual fluency effect on aesthetic evaluation and pleasure. SEM analysis supported the proposed model. Pleasure had a stronger impact on behavioral intent than aesthetic evaluation. Theoretical and managerial implications of the perceptual fluency effect on online consumer behavior are discussed.

Originality/value

Previous research has not addressed perceptual fluency from a strong theoretical framework. The paper empirically tested and extended the perceptual fluency hypothesis. Although previous researchers observed the fluency effect on preference choices without testing the mediating effect of affect, this paper examined the mediating role of affect and confirmed the importance of pleasure in aesthetic evaluation. Also, this paper extends the scope of the perceptual fluency effect beyond aesthetic preference/evaluations to behavioral intent.

Details

Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, vol. 4 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7122

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 August 2010

Hossein L. Najafi

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel approach for digital watermarking and steganography technique that uses neural networks. The performance of the proposed solution…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel approach for digital watermarking and steganography technique that uses neural networks. The performance of the proposed solution in terms of its capacity, transparency, and robustness is investigated.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed technique trains a neural network to learn the perceptual masking model of the human vision system. Once trained, the neural network identifies pixels whose most significant alteration will be least perceptible to the human eye. The image is then altered based on the network recommendation to include the watermark or the covert data.

Findings

Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique offers excellent transparency and good capacity. In addition, since neural networks store their learned knowledge in a distributed fashion, steganalysis of the image without access to the network is very difficult, if not impossible. Results demonstrate good performance of the proposed solution in terms of its capacity, transparency, and robustness.

Originality/value

Use of neural networks in extracting and representing perceptual masking model of human vision system is interesting. Value added by the proposed approach is in its use of artificial neural networks to model the perceptual masking model of human vision system for injecting imperceptible data into most perceptually significant pits of an image. The proposed approach may be used in combination with most current and popular methods with little impact on perceptual quality of the resulting image.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics, vol. 3 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-378X

Keywords

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