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This paper analyzes how quality management in Ecuador’s national parks is explained through the quality practices contained in Deming’s quality principles from the point of view of employees.

Quantitative research was conducted with the participation of 254 employees from all national parks in Ecuador who rated the quality management practices (leadership, talent management, work climate and training) in their respective parks.

The results show that leadership, talent management, work climate and training significantly explain the service quality in the national parks. This study contributes to the adaptation of Deming’s quality principles to national parks via individual and joint analysis of the relationship between leadership, talent management, work climate and training with service quality in order to highlight which practices are the most important to service quality.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the key factors that influence service quality in the National Parks of Ecuador. Its multidisciplinary approach and exhaustive research make this work an invaluable tool for understanding and improving the preservation of natural resources and the tourism experience in these protected areas.

Este trabajo analiza cómo la gestión de la calidad en los parques nacionales del Ecuador se explica a través de las prácticas de calidad recogidas en los principios de la calidad de Deming desde el punto de vista de los empleados.

Se realizó una investigación cuantitativa en la que participaron 254 empleados de todos los parques nacionales del Ecuador quienes valoraron las prácticas de gestión de la calidad (liderazgo, gestión de talento, clima laboral y formación) en sus respectivos parques.

Los resultados muestran que el liderazgo, la gestión del talento, el clima laboral y la formación explican significativamente la calidad de servicio en los parques nacionales. Este estudio contribuye en la adaptación de los principios de calidad de Deming a parques nacionales a través del análisis individual y conjunto de la relación entre liderazgo, gestión de talento, clima laboral y formación con la calidad del servicio para destacar qué prácticas son las más importantes para la calidad del servicio ofrecido.

The paper aims to investigate the practices facilitating the transformation of healthcare services, understanding the resulting outcomes in terms of well-being and uplifting changes. a systematic literature review (SLR) focusing on analyzing the healthcare sector under the transformative service research (TSR) theoretical domain is conducted to achieve this goal.

Employing a structured SLR developed based on the PRISMA protocol (Pickering and Byrne, 2014; Pickering et al., 2015) and using Scopus and WoS databases, the study identifies and analyzes 49 papers published between 2021 and 2022. Content analysis is used to classify and analyze the papers.

The SLR reveals four transformative practices (how) within the healthcare sector under the TSR domain, each linked to specific well-being outcomes (what). The analysis shows that both practices and outcomes are mainly patient-related. An integrative framework for transformative healthcare service is presented and critically examined to identify research gaps and define the trajectory for the future development of TSR in healthcare. In addition, managerial implications are provided to guide practitioners.

This research is among the first to analyze TSR literature in the context of healthcare. The study critically examines the TSR’s impact on the sector’s transformation, providing insights for future research and offering a roadmap for healthcare practitioners to facilitate uplifting changes.

This paper explores optimal service resource management strategy, a continuous challenge for health information service to enhance service performance, optimise service resource utilisation and deliver interactive health information service.

An adaptive optimal service resource management strategy was developed considering a value co-creation model in health information service with a focus on collaborative and interactive with users. The deep reinforcement learning algorithm was embedded in the Internet of Things (IoT)-based health information service system (I-HISS) to allocate service resources by controlling service provision and service adaptation based on user engagement behaviour. The simulation experiments were conducted to evaluate the significance of the proposed algorithm under different user reactions to the health information service.

The results indicate that the proposed service resource management strategy, considering user co-creation in the service delivery, process improved both the service provider’s business revenue and users' individual benefits.

The findings may facilitate the design and implementation of health information services that can achieve a high user service experience with low service operation costs.

This study is amongst the first to propose a service resource management model in I-HISS, considering the value co-creation of the user in the service-dominant logic. The novel artificial intelligence algorithm is developed using the deep reinforcement learning method to learn the adaptive service resource management strategy. The results emphasise user engagement in the health information service process.

The global market for cloud gaming is growing rapidly. How gamers evaluate the service quality of this emerging form of cloud service has become a critical issue for both researchers and practitioners. Building on the literature on service quality and software as a service, this study develops and validates a gamer-centric measurement instrument for cloud gaming service quality.

A three-step measurement instrument development process, including item generation, scale development and instrument testing, was adopted to conceptualize and operationalize cloud gaming service quality.

Cloud gaming service quality consists of two second-order constructs of support service quality and technical service quality with seven first-order dimensions, namely rapport, responsiveness, reliability, compatibility, ubiquity, smoothness and comprehensiveness. The instrument exhibits desirable psychometric properties.

Practitioners can use this new measurement instrument to evaluate gamers' perceptions toward their service and to identify areas for improvement.

This study contributes to the service quality literature by utilizing qualitative and quantitative approaches to develop and validate a new measurement instrument of service quality in the context of cloud gaming and by identifying new dimensions (compatibility, ubiquity, smoothness and comprehensiveness) specific to it.

The UAE is among the fastest-growing facilities management (FM) markets globally. Nevertheless, conclusive evidence on this market is scarce in the literature. Therefore, this paper aims to provide an in-depth insight into the FM market in the UAE.

Fourteen interviewees were purposively selected to provide insight into FM status through their field experiences. A SWOT analysis of their answers held place.

Interviewees revealed that the main trends of FM in the UAE include interests in sustainability, integration of technology, health and safety, outsourcing FM, switching to total facilities management (TFM), and performance management systems use. Besides, the quality of the service in the FM market is driven by the real-estate boom, services sophistication, the increasing awareness of FM and focus on the quality of services. Furthermore, the interviews found that the recruitment of poorly skilled labors can threaten the FM market to meet the allocated budget, misperception of FM, the value of money, the lack of continuous follow-up with recent advancements in technologies and the lack of performance measurement models.

This paper highlights the major trends, drivers and threats of the FM market in the UAE, and the implications of its findings can direct FM organizations and researchers in their practices.

The purpose of this study is to identify the characterizations of business process management (BPM) methodology in hotel industry through an aggregate processing of the core cyclesteps (CCCs) of the highly-cited BPM life-cycle models in the literature aiming to highlight the major issues of the current methodological approach of BPM in hotels when to put the notion of service process into practice.

The paper identifies and examines the most popular BPM life-cycles models in the literature and locates 15 life-cycles that are highly cited. The paper then focuses on applying the theory on nine listed hotel companies in Egypt using a questionnaire in the form of a semi-structured interview technique.

The CCSs of BPM life-cycle model applied in hotels revealed a gap between BPM theory and practice in this sector. Utilizing this model of BPM life-cycle, the paper focuses on describing several of the main problems or pitfalls found in the methodological approach of BPM in hotels, which brings the essence of the whole operation management problems.

In light of these findings, the paper discusses the practical implications and focuses on recommendations on how to properly improve the methodological approach of BPM in hotels in order to get better business results.

The paper bridges the gap between BPM theory and practice and suggests recommendations that will assist hotel companies to eliminate the problems of poor process management (PM). There are also future research recommendations to enhance the knowledge of BPM theory in the service sector.

This paper deals with external audits, which are now commonly used in many industries (e.g. food, automotive and electrical). This study aims to assess whether a given organization meets the specific criteria. If the audit ends with a positive result, information about it is provided to selected interested parties, e.g. clients or contractors. Credibility is pivotal in adding value for all interested parties within the audit processes. This study seeks the factors which, in the opinion of the audited enterprises, have the most decisive impact on the credibility of external audits.

In keeping with the extant literature, research questions were developed regarding the factors influencing the credibility assessment of external audits. Data collected from 100 companies in the Polish food sector were used to construct the model and carry out statistical analyses. Linear regression analyses were also applied to determine the key factors influencing the credibility of audits.

This study is part of the research trend on the rationality of external audits and certification of quality management systems. This paper identifies nine main factors shaping the credibility of external audits. Two of them have the most decisive influence on credibility. The first one is the professional audit method (procedure). The second factor is the auditor’s knowledge of the specificity of the audited area.

This study did not consider the impact that the image/credibility of the organization represented by the auditors may have on the reliability of audits. This is one of the fundamental limitations that should be considered when analyzing the obtained results. To recognize this type of dependence, additional research should be carried out. Another limitation is that the research covers the food industry only. It would be interesting to know the situation in other types of industries.

This paper looks at the possibility of increasing the added value for audited enterprises. The proposed model can be used by managers of organizations conducting external audits and auditors to effectively use resources for process improvement, influencing the maximization of credibility of activities in the area of conformity assessment.

The originality of this study lies in adopting the perspective of audited enterprises in assessing the credibility of audits. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that adopts this approach. This paper contributes to the literature, particularly to better understand audited enterprises’ behavior (trust in audit results, satisfaction with audits, etc.).

This paper compares traditional and digital banks in nine categories of complaints and provides insights to improve complaint management performance.

A sample of the major Brazilian banks was defined, with four traditional and four digital banks. The grey relational analysis (GRA) method was applied as an analytical tool to compare the most frequent complaints of traditional and digital banks. The most critical complaints identified were considered to discuss potential improvements in complaint management using quality and service management system concepts.

The GRA method enabled the development of a ranking of nine complaint categories, considering the uncertainty involved in the data and differentiating between traditional and digital banks. The most critical complaint categories, regardless of business model, were “unauthorized charges” and “poor service,” which were ranked first and second in the frequency rankings. Traditional and digital banks differed the most in the complaint category “unfair charge,” ranking third and eighth in the rankings, respectively.

Managers from traditional and digital banks can improve complaint management performance by applying ISO 9001 and ISO 20000 concepts such as incident, problem, change, service level, availability, capacity, information technology service continuity and financial management.

The study's findings can help bank managers improve service levels in the face of technological competition. Improving these organizations is an important factor for developing countries such as Brazil.

This paper reveals the differences between two business models regarding complaint management. It also considers a methodological approach to include the uncertainty related to customers' perception and subjectivity inherent to complaints.

Variations in customer expectations pose a challenge to service quality improvement in the airline industry. Understanding airline customers' expectations and satisfaction help service providers improve their offerings. The extant literature examines airline passengers' expectations in isolation, neglecting the overall impact of online reviews on service quality improvement. This paper systematically evaluates the airline industry's passengers' expectations and satisfaction using expectation confirmation theory (ECT) and the SERVQUAL framework. The paper analyzes online reviews to examine the relationship between airline service quality attributes and passengers' satisfaction.

The SERVQUAL framework was employed to examine the effects of customer culture, the reason for traveling, and seat type on customer's expectations and satisfaction across a large sample of airline customers.

A total of 17,726 observations were gathered from the Skytrax review website. The lowest satisfaction ratings were from passengers from the USA, Canada and India. Factors that affect perceived service performance include customer service, delays and baggage management. Empathy and reliability have the biggest impact on the perceived satisfaction of passengers.

This research increases understanding of the consumer expectations through analysis of passengers' online reviews. Results are limited to a small sample of airline industries.

This study provides airlines with valuable information to improve customer service by analyzing online reviews.

This study provides the opportunity for airline customers to gain better services when airline companies utilize the findings.

This paper offers insights into passengers' expectations and their perceived value for money in relation to seat types. Previous studies have not investigated value for money as a construct for passengers' expectations and satisfaction relative to service quality dimensions. This paper addresses this need.

The advancement of technologies has made it possible for health-care organizations to provide convenient online services that enable people to manage their health conditions. Although many studies have investigated the adoption and benefits of e-health services, there has been little focus on health-oriented behaviors after adoption, particularly in relation to service quality and user satisfaction.

This paper is based on the SOR model and service quality theories to investigate behavioral responses, including word-of-mouth, intention to use and intention to act. The authors use a partial least squares structural equation modeling analysis with 194 participants and the diabetes risk test survey in Finland.

The results show that people are willing to engage in health self-management behaviors if they intend to use the e-health service and are satisfied with it. User satisfaction can be enhanced by improving the visual appeal of the website presentation, the quality of the presented information, as well as the usability of the website, all as components of e-health services.

The authors contribute by creating a construct “intention to act,” referring to health-oriented behaviors resulting from e-health service use. In addition, this study is among the first to apply the SOR model to investigate how user satisfaction leads to intention to use, intention to act and word-of-mouth.