Search results

This article evaluates how consumer expectations evolve over time and if three antecedents (negative experiences, alternative attractiveness and level of visitation) explain possible changes in expectations.

A conceptual model is structured with six hypotheses that are tested through articulated studies. First, a study with a longitudinal approach is developed and applied to a sample of students. Data collection is carried out over three periods and a latent growth model (LGM) is applied. Further ahead, another essay is developed to reexamine the moderating role of corporate image and level of visitation on the effect of negative experiences on expectations. For this, the role-playing approach is applied.

Study 1 reveals that patterns of expectations change from one service meeting to another, and these mutations are influenced by negative experiences and alternative attractiveness. Three pieces of evidence are highlighted. First, negative experiences produce contradictory and simultaneous movements in consumer expectations. Negative experiences reduce desired expectations and, at the same time, increase adequate expectations. These effects change in magnitude because of the corporate image. This confirms the moderating role of the corporate image in the relationship between negative experiences and expectations. This does not happen with the level of visitation, in which the moderating function is not sustained. The findings about moderating effects are confirmed by Study 2. Second, as customers have alternative companies, the minimum level of expectation rises. Alternative attractiveness positively impacts only adequate expectations. Third, the results do not support the relationship between the level of visitation and expectations. This reveals that more frequent customers do not necessarily have higher expectations.

This paper is the first to provide empirical results about the moderating effects of corporate image and level of visitation on the relationship between negative experiences and expectations.

The article addresses the optimization of safety stock service levels for parts in a repair kit. The work was undertaken to assist a public transit entity that stores thousands of parts used to repair equipment acquired over many decades. Demand is intermittent, procurement lead times are long, and the total inventory investment is significant.

Demand exists for repair kits, and a repair cannot start until all required parts are available. The cost model includes holding cost to carry the part being modeled as well as shortage cost that consists of the holding cost to carry all other repair kit parts for the duration of the part’s lead time. The model combines deterministic and stochastic approaches by assuming a fixed ordering cycle with Poisson demand.

The results show that optimal service levels vary as a function of repair demand rate, part lead time, and cost of the part as a percentage of the total part cost for the repair kit. Optimal service levels are higher for inexpensive parts and lower for expensive parts, although the precise levels are impacted by repair demand and part lead time.

The proposed model can impact society by improving the operational performance and efficiency of public transit systems, by ensuring that home repair technicians will be prepared for repair tasks, and by reducing the environmental impact of electronic waste consistent with the right-to-repair movement.

The optimization model is unique because (1) it quantifies shortage cost as the cost of unnecessary holding other parts in the repair kit during the shortage time, and (2) it determines a unique service level for each part in a repair kit bases on its lead time, its unit cost, and the total cost of all parts in the repair kit. Results will be counter-intuitive for many inventory managers who would assume that more critical parts should have higher service levels.

This paper aims to explore the concept of “actor engagement” within the context of the sharing economy, a novel and dynamic business model. Specifically, it investigates the formation of actor engagement and its relationship with value creation within this business model.

Drawing on Storbacka et al. (2016)actor engagement framework and service-dominant logic service ecosystem model, unstructured data (text and images) from the Airbnb platform in seven countries and text- and image-mining techniques such as machine learning are used to measure the research variables and test the model by PLS-SEM.

The results indicate that affective engagement has a more significant impact on behavioural engagement than cognitive engagement for multidimensional actor engagement. Service providers’ engagement – directly, and through customer engagement – influences value creation for service providers (i.e. performance). Moreover, national-level moderator (i.e. economic, competitiveness, technology, social and political factors) plays a significant moderating role in our model.

This study encourages future research to explore how actor engagement leads to value creation for all actors on the different sharing economy platforms.

The findings provide practical insights for service providers to engage their customers and platform managers, especially in an international context, on managing their relationships with both customers and service providers in different countries.

This study advances the current literature on actor engagement and its role in value creation by providing a better understanding of the role of the national context in this process through unstructured data analysis.

Technological advancement has forced academic libraries to change their traditional services and routines by adopting emerging technologies to respond to the changing information needs of their users who are now more technologically inclined and prefer to access information remotely and in a timely manner. Smart technologies are the recent trends in academic libraries. This research aims to investigate the level of smart information service implementation at academic libraries in Jordan. It also aimed to investigate the correlation between the level of smart information services offered by the libraries and the level of digital competencies among the library staff.

This research is designed using survey design to collect comprehensive information from the study participants. A questionnaire was disseminated to 340 respondents, and 246 questionnaires were returned and were suitable for analysis with a response rate of 72.4%.

The results indicated a moderate level of smart information service offered by academic libraries, as well as a moderate level of digital skills associated with the advocacy of smart information services. The results also indicated a strong and positive relationship between the level of smart information services at the investigated libraries and the level of digital competencies among the librarians.

The findings will help other academic libraries understand how to respond to the emergent change in users’ information-seeking behavior by understanding their available human resources competencies and the requirement to undergo this emergent change.

This paper provides insights and practical solutions for academic libraries in response to global information trends based on users’ behaviors. This research was conducted in Jordan as one of the developing countries and hence it provides insights of the situation there. It will help academic libraries in Jordan and the region to handle and cope with the challenges associated with technology acceptance based on its staff level of digital competencies. The contribution of this research that it was done in a developing country where progress in the filed can be considered slow because of many factors, mainly economics, where institutions focus on essential library objectives, which are information resources development and databases subscriptions.

The quality of service determines whether service firms can satisfy customers and achieve business quality and sustainability. As contemporary service firms are dependent on both team and employee to serve customers, it is important to investigate how to simultaneously facilitate team service performance (TSP) and employee service performance (ESP). Our aim is to build a multilevel model of the curvilinear effect of task conflict (TC) on TSP and ESP, as well as the moderating effects underlying the above curvilinear relationships.

Two-sourced data were obtained from 47 team leaders and 326 employees in Chinese hotels. Multilevel structural equation modeling was utilized for validating the model.

The results revealed that TC exerted a curvilinear effect on both TSP and ESP. Ethical climate (EC) and internal knowledge transfer (IKT) served as moderators strengthening the curvilinear nexus between TC and ESP.

We contribute to the conflict-performance stream in management literature by unmasking the curvilinear effects of TC on both TSP and ESP, and the moderation mechanisms underlying such curvilinear effects.

This study aims to uncover the mechanisms behind the marginalization of county-level public libraries.

The research surveyed 25 counties in central China, including Hubei, Chongqing, Hunan, and Guizhou provinces. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with library directors and deputy directors, focusing on main and branch library construction, cultural inclusivity, library assessment, and digital services.

Contributing factors to library marginalization were identified as economic pressure, institutional domain, longstanding issues, organizational entity, and societal misconceptions. Building on this, the study introduces the HBAC model to explain county-level public library marginalization. Considering the actual social context of these libraries, the article proposes a “3 + 1” approach to mitigate their marginalization.

The research methodology, analysis process, theoretical model, and recommendations provided could shed light on academic research and practical exploration in the field of public libraries globally.

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of digital technology on promoting the equalization of basic regional public services based on measuring the level of digital technology and the equalization level of regional basic public services.

Based on the inter-provincial panel data from 2013 to 2021, this article utilizes the method of replacing digital technology to verify the robustness of the conclusion, evaluating the impact of digital technology on promoting the equalization of basic regional public services, while carrying out an extended analysis of government intervention, population density and regional heterogeneity.

According to our findings, digital technology has significantly promoted the equalization of basic public services in the region. According to the result of the heterogeneity test, digital technology has a better effect on promoting the equalization of public services in regions with moderate government intervention and relatively low population density. Moreover, the development of digital technology can significantly promote the equalization of public services in China’s eastern region.

This article elaborates on the impact of digital technology on the equalization of basic regional public services from three perspectives: reducing the cost of public services, increasing the degree of marketization of public services and realizing the sharing of public service resources. Thus, it enriches the empirical research literature on digital technology and the equalization of regional public services.

This study aims to optimize the levels of factors for a green supply chain (GSC) while concurrently gaining valuable insights into the dynamic interrelationships among several factors, leading to reductions in CO₂ emissions and the maximization of the average service level, thereby enhancing overall supply chain performance.

Response surface methodology (RSM) is employed as a technique for multiple response optimization. This study uses a supply chain simulation model that includes decision variables related to the level of inventory control parameters and vehicle capacity. The desirability approach is adopted to achieve optimization objectives by focusing on minimizing CO₂ emissions and maximizing service levels while simultaneously determining the optimum levels of considered decision variables.

The high R² values of 97.38% for CO₂ and 97.28% for service level, along with adjusted R² values reasonably close to predicted values, affirm the models' capability to predict responses accurately. Key significant model terms for CO₂ encompassed reorder point, order up to quantity, vehicle capacity, and their interaction effects, while service level is notably influenced by reorder point, order up to quantity, and their interaction effects. The study successfully achieved a high level of desirability value of %99.1 and the validated performance levels confirmed that the results fall within the prediction interval.

This study introduces a metamodel framework designed to optimize various design parameters for a GSC combining discrete event simulation (DES) and RSM in the form of a simulation optimization model. In contrast to the literature, the current study offers an exhaustive and in-depth analysis of the structural elements of the supply chain, particularly the inventory control parameters and vehicle capacity, which are crucial for comprehending its performance and environmental impact.

Facilities management (FM) as a strategic management tool has been an attractive research topic among scholars and practitioners alike for decades. The primary purpose of this paper is threefold: to assess the extent of use of FM roles (strategic, tactical and operational); to examine user satisfaction of service quality performance; and to analyse the influence of FM roles on service quality performance using data from Nigeria’s banking sector.

Relying on exploratory cross-sectional survey, 350 copies of a structured questionnaire were purposively distributed to senior management staff, bank staff, FM supervisors and bank customers in Lagos, Nigeria. One hundred and forty valid responses were returned to give a response rate of 40%. Data collected were analysed using descriptive, Spearman rank correlation and Kruskal–Wallis tests.

It was discovered that strategic facilities planning, IT planning strategy and real estate decisions are the most important FM roles at the strategic level; resource management, data control and planning change at the tactical level; and implementations, building operations and emergencies at the operation level. Findings equally revealed that visual appealing of materials associated with services (tangibles), insisting on error-free records (reliability), willing to help (responsiveness), having the knowledge to answer questions (assurance) and giving individualised attention (empathy) were the most important service quality performance indicators. Furthermore, the study revealed that strategic FM roles significantly influenced tangibles, reliability and responsiveness of staff and the services. Besides, tactical FM roles significantly influenced all service quality indicators except assurance, while operational FM roles had significant influence on tangibles, responsiveness and empathy.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study has provided first ever insight into the extent of FM strategic roles in the banking sector and influence of FM roles on service quality performance.

The purpose of the chapter was to examine the impact of customer care chatbots on customer satisfaction levels in the mobile telephony industry in Zimbabwe, with a special focus on the company Econet Wireless. This chapter shows the conceptual framework used. An online questionnaire was administered to a sample of 100 Econet Wireless subscribers who were selected using probability stratified random sampling from Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces. The research data were collected and analysed for correlation, and a multiple regression analysis was carried out to identify the relationship between customer satisfaction and the three customer service improvements brought in by the introduction of customer service chatbots. The study discovered that there is a positive relationship between customer satisfaction levels and each of the three customer service improvements brought in by customer service chatbots, namely customer service convenience, speed of response, and omnichannel strategies. This study thereby proves that the introduction of customer service chatbots in the mobile telephony industry in Zimbabwe can lead to an improvement in customer satisfaction levels. However, addressing service quality only as a determinant of customer satisfaction in isolation is not sufficient to fully improve customer satisfaction levels. Therefore, organisations that seek to improve their customer satisfaction should consider strategies that address all determinants of customer satisfaction, namely price, product quality, service quality, situational factors, and personal factors. This study contributes to the body of knowledge, particularly regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for customer service in developing economies.