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1 – 10 of over 74000Veridiana Rotondaro Pereira, Melanie E. Kreye and Marly Monteiro de Carvalho
The purpose of this paper is to investigate distinctive pathways for product-service system (PSS) development. Moreover, it investigates the contingent effect of the business…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate distinctive pathways for product-service system (PSS) development. Moreover, it investigates the contingent effect of the business ecosystem (BE) in terms of being provider-pushed or customer-pulled.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a case-based research, performed in the Brazilian and Danish healthcare industries in order to explore the subject.
Findings
The results reveal that the capital available for investments influences the pathway. The customer-pulled PSS fast evolved to become result-oriented and connected to a complex resource-dependent network in the BE. The provider-pushed PSS showed a slow evolutionary pathway, limited to product-oriented offerings with low dependence among actors in the BE.
Originality/value
The research offers various managerial implications for PSS providers, policymakers and customers of the healthcare industry.
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Alison Smith, John Whittaker, John Loan Clark and Graham Boocock
It has been recognised that management training and development in SMEs is a relatively poorly researched area and that the influencing factors for SMEs are not well understood…
Abstract
It has been recognised that management training and development in SMEs is a relatively poorly researched area and that the influencing factors for SMEs are not well understood. This paper outlines a regional study of the interest in competence based management development amongst SMEs. This is compared with a study of the providers’ approach to management development provision for the SME market. It is apparent, from the study, that the value of Management NVQs remains unclear both to the provider and the SME recipient. Unless a means can be found to demonstrate value and benefits to both sides it is unlikely that take‐up will improve significantly within the SME community or that quality providers will continue to deliver to the sector. The paper highlights the major issues to be addressed for, and with, both parties if progress is to be made.
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Veronica Burke and David Collins
This paper aims to discuss a framework for analysing the learning and transfer of conflict handling skills via leadership development programmes. The framework links the role of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss a framework for analysing the learning and transfer of conflict handling skills via leadership development programmes. The framework links the role of knowledge in skill acquisition to the process of learning transfer to suggest how different methodologies may influence learning outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
In order to explore the veracity of the framework, content analysis was conducted on 22 UK leadership development programmes. In addition, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 18 managers acting in leadership roles and ten leadership development providers.
Findings
Results confirmed the model to be tenable insofar as providers reportedly utilised both design paths represented in the framework and as managers used the approaches in handling business conflicts.
Research limitations/implications
The framework remains to be tested longitudinally with a large sample of managers and providers. Given the lack of empirical work to support an expressed link between design and outcome to maximise effect, a mixed methodology examining both approach and rationale would be essential.
Practical implications
It is suggested that clients question the training provider about the philosophy underlying skills learning and transfer. Due consideration should also be given to the circumstances under which learning transfer may be optimised.
Originality/value
It is proposed that the framework may offer clients an evaluation tool in respect of particular methodologies or course designs and that this may help to maximise the chances of focused learning and subsequent skills transfer.
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Wentao Zhan, Minghui Jiang and Chengzhang Li
Customer-intensive services refer to the service that a provider needs to invest in customers with high patience and experience. Within a certain rate range, the slower service…
Abstract
Purpose
Customer-intensive services refer to the service that a provider needs to invest in customers with high patience and experience. Within a certain rate range, the slower service rate and the longer service time, the higher customer’s utility; however, this may cause queue congestion. And the advertising of service provider will affect the revenue. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of advertising on the optimal price, service rate and the optimal revenue of such service provider at different development stages.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper investigates the service strategies of service provider based on advertising effects. The authors first divide service provider into insufficient customers or sufficient customers according to the development stage, then analyze the impact of advertising at different stages. The authors focus on the formulation of the optimal price, service rate and the optimal revenue of service provider at different stages.
Findings
This paper finds that in the insufficient customers stage, the service provider’s strategy of “small profits but quick turnover” is conducive to quickly accumulating customers. With the development of service provider, the advertising indirectly increases the revenue of service provider by maintaining popularity. The result also shows that with the development of service provider, the initiative of such service market has gradually been mastered by service provider, from “buyer market” to “seller market.”
Originality/value
The finding provides an alternative explanation for the impact of advertising on service provider’s optimal strategies; it also solves the settings of service price and rate of customer-intensive service provider at different development stages. This study is essential to create the optimal revenue and solve supply–demand conflicts (such as doctor–patient conflict) between service provider and customers.
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Discusses and examines the relationship of major stakeholders in open learning within management development and the association of open learning with management development. Used…
Abstract
Discusses and examines the relationship of major stakeholders in open learning within management development and the association of open learning with management development. Used a survey methodology to obtain information from purchaser and provider stakeholders. Interprets survey findings in written and graphical format to show the progression of open learning over the last ten years; the likely future progress with reference to the main technologies, media and trends; the factors most influential in the change in perception and utilization; and an identification of the advantages and barriers of open learning within management development. Discusses limitations along with the implications for future research. Concludes with an evaluation of the research findings and the presentation of a multiple stakeholders model of open learning in management development, which could be used for future research.
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Yangyan Shi, Tiru Arthanari and Lincoln Wood
This paper aims to examine the opportunity for third-party logistics providers (3PLs) to develop further value-added services for their clients, focused on purchasing. The provider…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the opportunity for third-party logistics providers (3PLs) to develop further value-added services for their clients, focused on purchasing. The provider perspectives on third-party purchase (3PP) services are examined in conjunction with their business environment, with a survey informed by transaction cost economics.
Design/methodology/approach
New Zealand 3PL providers were surveyed, and 166 responses were received. Structural equation modeling was used to test the conceptual model.
Findings
From the perspective of 3PL providers, uncertainty, frequency and transaction size, but not asset specificity, are significantly associated with client value from a 3PP service. While asset specificity in investments is not required by 3PLs, they need a high frequency of orders, sufficient order size and low levels of uncertainty as supporting conditions for the development of 3PP services.
Research limitations/implications
The sample focuses on 3PL providers and therefore does not address the behavioral characteristics of users or customers of the services.
Originality/value
This study shows that 3PP services may be further developed by 3PL providers to improve the value offered to their clients.
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This paper investigates the paths through which innovation community affects content providers' new service development (NSD) performance in technology-based service ecosystem and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper investigates the paths through which innovation community affects content providers' new service development (NSD) performance in technology-based service ecosystem and contingency factors exist in the paths.
Design/methodology/approach
The research model is built based on service-dominant (S-D) logic, exploring the relationship among innovation community, content providers' knowledge acquisition and content providers' NSD performance as well as the moderating role of content providers' technology readiness and content providers' complexity. Using survey data collected from 386 content providers of selected open network platforms in China, this study finds broad support for the proposed research model.
Findings
The findings of this paper reveal that content providers' tacit knowledge acquisition from users plays a mediating role between the innovation community and new service ratings. Content providers' technology readiness plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between innovation community and their explicit or tacit knowledge acquisition. Content providers' task complexity negatively moderates the effects of their explicit knowledge acquisition from users on new service volumes or ratings, but positively moderates the effects of tacit knowledge acquisition from users on new service volumes or ratings.
Originality/value
Though extant literature highlights the importance of knowledge acquisition in NSD performance, few studies explore the antecedents of content providers' knowledge acquisition from users and the paths through which these antecedents affect content providers' NSD performance. Moreover, boundary conditions exist in the process of improving NSD performance are generally ignored in previous literature. With the lens of S-D logic, this paper explicates how content providers of different technology readiness and different task complexity enhance their new service volumes and ratings through acquiring explicit and tacit knowledge from users in innovation community. Adopting S-D logic from marketing area to NSD area, this paper not only enriches the theoretical accumulations of antecedents and boundary conditions of content providers' NSD performance but also offers insights for content providers and users on how to synergistically advance NSD activities and co-create value in the technology-based service ecosystem.
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Competition is now widely used as the means of choosing the providers of essential public services in the USA and the UK. Many different approaches are found in the USA and there…
Abstract
Competition is now widely used as the means of choosing the providers of essential public services in the USA and the UK. Many different approaches are found in the USA and there are useful lessons for the UK. With particular reference to mental health and substance abuse services, describes the effects of using competitive tendering on users, providers, purchasers and citizens and examines the problems of specification, transaction costs, the use of consultants, supply, the level playing field, trust, innovation, local accessibility and accountability. Ends with discussion of co‐operation and collaboration and the emergence of monopolies and integrated delivery systems in the USA and concludes by finding politics and political decision making of overriding importance.
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The objective of sustainability assurance (SA) is to give credibility to nonfinancial information (Cheng et al., 2015). In France, certain companies are subject by regulation to…
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of sustainability assurance (SA) is to give credibility to nonfinancial information (Cheng et al., 2015). In France, certain companies are subject by regulation to the implementation of SA in particular with the transposition of European Directive 2014/95/EU into national law. SA mission is a process by which an independent third-party organization (ITO) assures companies' nonfinancial information. Although this assignment is mostly performed by professional accountants, other providers can perform this assignment (Cohen and Simnett, 2015). In this research, the authors are interested in strategies for legitimizing the SA missions of independent third-party bodies. Assurance providers use their website to promote their missions. How do independent third-party bodies legitimize their assurance mission in a regulatory context relating to European Directive 2014/95/EU?
Design/methodology/approach
The authors carried out a discursive analysis of the promotion of SA missions on independent third-party body websites. A content analysis was performed on the collected textual data.
Findings
The results highlight different strategies for promoting the implementation of assurance missions aimed at legitimizing their new skills. Nevertheless, it appears that the providers make very little reference to the quality of nonfinancial information as the objective of SA missions.
Research limitations/implications
The research made it possible to study the promotion of SA through the websites of ITOs. Nevertheless, it would have been interesting to be able to question the ITOs to study their perceptions on their new SA missions.
Practical implications
The research enriches the literature on SA, particularly in a regulatory context relating to European Directive 2014/95/EU. It sheds light on the different strategies put in place by the providers appointed by regulations. From a managerial point of view, the study may allow ITOs to adapt their communication to promote extra-financial missions relating to the European Directive and thus to attract new clients. Finally at the institutional and regulatory level, this research highlights the need to put in place a precise framework relating to extra-financial assurance missions. This may also encourage countries not subject to the verification obligation to introduce such an obligation into their national law.
Originality/value
This is the first study to examine the promotion of SA practice by providers. In addition, very few studies have looked at this practice in a regulatory context and in particular within the framework of the European directive.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore how social housing providers could respond to residents living with dementia in non-specialist housing.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how social housing providers could respond to residents living with dementia in non-specialist housing.
Design/methodology/approach
A research framework was developed from published material and used to assess how dementia friendly a national housing provider was, and what could be different. Electronic surveys were completed by 209 members of staff; semi-structured interviews with 18 senior managers and an external contractor; a customer focus group with five residents. A literature review and telephone interviews with housing providers identified current areas of innovation and good practice which informed the research recommendations.
Findings
There are ways a non-specialist social housing provider can develop dementia friendly services through developing a customer focused approach, staff awareness raising and training, and through working collaboratively with specialist statutory and non-statutory services across health and social care. These have the potential to impact positively on the quality of life of residents with dementia or caring for people with dementia.
Practical implications
Social housing providers should be considering their older residents, and how they can design and develop services to respond to specific needs.
Originality/value
There is limited understanding of how mainstream housing providers could and should develop an offer for their residents living with dementia. This research provides an assessment approach and has developed ideas about what this offer could look like.
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