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Services touch the lives of every person in every country every day. Today, intense global competition and increasing customer expectation have forced service firms to adopt various quality improvement approaches in retaining their competitive positions. Perhaps the most commonly used method for quality improvement is benchmarking. Although there exist a number of models for the implementation of benchmarking, a survey revealed that most companies still did not know how to benchmark. In this work, we address such a fundamental issue as the setting of quality goals in services systems in order to facilitate the application of universal models of benchmarking. We identified five elements of service operations, i.e., people, time, place, tangibles, and intangibles. We reviewed three methods for the identification of a firm’s quality problems. We proposed a matrix to deploy quality problems and presented key points in the selection of benchmarking partners.

Total quality management (TQM) is widely recognized as an effective approach to enhance a firm’s competitive advantage. In addition to technical elements such as statistical process control, product design, etc. the successful implementation of TQM requires senior executive leadership and effective human resources management. Examines the leadership and human resources management of TQM in Taiwan. Data were collected from field interviews and questionnaire surveys conducted in US and Japanese subsidiaries, and local firms. Criteria stipulated in the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award of the USA were used to assess the quality of leadership and human resources management. Results of MANOVA (Multivariate analysis of variants) reveal that a company with larger sales revenue, a larger number of employees, or with greater production automation manifests better leadership and human resources management. The chi‐square test shows that foreign‐invested companies are superior to local firms in leadership. Canonical correlation analysis concludes that both leadership and human resources management are positively correlated with the management effectiveness of the quality department. Discusses the managerial implications of these research findings.

This case study serves to illustrate the fact that Chinese philosophy may play an important role in guiding a firm along the path of quality transformation. We examined the successful quality transformation of a Chinese firm in Taiwan. We presented the firm’s experiences from the perspectives of people, technology, and structure. By adopting Confucian tenets, the case company stressed humanistic management and implemented a step‐by‐step procedure to first build positive work environment, then to change employee attitude, behaviour, and work habits, and finally to form an organizational culture. On the technological level, the firm implemented the following step‐by‐step quality programs: 5S, QCC, SQC, TQC, and TQM to keep employees in touch with the people management. From the structural point of view, the firm stressed a team‐based approach both internally and externally. Furthermore, we observed that in this Chinese setting, relentless learning, consistency in strategic business planning, a step‐by‐step approach, and teamwork were crucial to the successful implementation of its quality programs.

Statistical process control charts have long been used as tools to ensure high quality of process output. A substantial amount of literature has been reported on the economic design of control charts by considering the trade‐offs between inspection cost, penalty for operating in out‐of‐control state, and the cost of restoring the process. However, the focus of this work has been on the development of solution procedures ‐ exact and approximate, to determine the design parameters and qualitative insights into their behaviour which are obtained by sensitivity analysis. In contrast, analyses an approximate cost function of the widely used X‐ control chart and develops results which characterize the behaviour of design parameters. Provides, through simplifying approximations, several interesting properties characterizing the design parameters. In addition to qualitative observations about the behaviours of design parameters, develops an efficient algorithm to compute optimal values of design parameters. Also discusses alternative quick heuristics to determine near optimal values of design parameters for practical use.

Research in tourism and hospitality industry marketing has identified many highly effective applications of social media. However, studies in the existing literature do not enable a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon because they lack a theoretical foundation. Therefore, this study systematically reviewed the literature from the perspective of the task-technology fit (TTF) theory. The purpose of this paper is to map out what is known about social media use in tourism and hospitality marketing and what areas need further exploration.

A descriptive cumulative review of the literature obtained 99 articles published in tourism and hospitality journals from 2010 to 2019.

The analysis suggests that to understand social media use in tourism marketing, researchers and practitioners in the industry must clarify the following four issues: the control variables, longitudinal analyzes and TTF concepts that should be used in future studies; the fitness of social media platforms for tourism marketing; how various social media platforms differ in terms of performance outcome; and the digital divide in the use of social media for tourism.

An integrated framework was developed to identify constructs and to understand their relationships. Recent studies in this domain are discussed; theoretical and practical suggestions and implications for future research are given.

The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated cost of quality ‐ activity‐based costing (COQ‐ABC) framework for measuring quality costs under ABC. The main deficiencies of most COQ systems are: (1) no consensus method to allocate overhead costs to COQ elements, (2) the failure to trace quality costs to their sources, and (3) the lack of information about how indirect workers spend their time on various activities. These deficiencies can be easily overcome under ABC together with work sampling. The cost and nonfinancial information achieved from the integrated COQ‐ABC system can be used to identify the magnitude of the quality improvement opportunities, to identify where the quality improvement opportunities exist, and to continuously plan the quality improvement programs and control quality costs. The ultimate goal of the integrated COQ‐ABC system will be to continuously improve processes/activities/quality so that no defects at all are produced and quality cost measurement ultimately becomes unnecessary.

This paper aims to examine how consumers evaluate and respond after failing to receive the promotional price for a quantity discount because the minimum purchase requirement (MinPR) is out of reach. Although quantity discounts are effective in terms of increasing sales volume, the outcome of using them is not always positive.

Two 2 × 2 experiments are carried out to test the research hypotheses in the context of apparel shopping.

The results of Experiment 1 demonstrate that offering quantity discounts with a high MinPR (e.g. “4 for 30 per cent off”) can result in greater willingness to buy (WTB) a single product at the full price than offering promotions with a low MinPR (e.g. “2 for 30 per cent off”) in the wake of a missed quantity discount. In other words, the purchase quantity has a positive effect on the consumers’ WTB even when they are not able to take advantage of the discount. However, this relationship weakens when the selection of discounted items is limited (i.e. the scope of the promotion is narrow). The results of Experiment 2 reveal that when the missed quantity discount is based on dollars rather than on the number of pieces (e.g. “Buy $100, get 30 per cent off” vs “Buy four pieces, get 30 per cent off”), the effect of purchase quantity on WTB is enhanced. Finally, perceived closeness of purchase outcome to the MinPR mediates the effect of purchase quantity on WTB.

To maximize internal validity, hypothetical scenarios were used as stimuli rather than an actual consumption experience, and the setting involved only a single product category (clothing). Future work including other types of merchandise and a more natural setting is needed to generalize our findings.

The purchase quantity or MinPR serves as a reference point that influences consumers’ purchase decisions, even those who do not buy enough to qualify for the price reduction. Our findings suggest that retailers should specify a relatively high MinPR for quantity discounts. In addition, proper selection of the promotional scope and discount base will significantly improve consumers’ behavioral reactions when they are not able to take advantage of a quantity discount.

The primary contribution of this article to the marketing literature is that it provides empirical results that shed some light on the situational influences that missing a quantity discount has on the consumer’s WTB a single product at the regular price, and what the mechanisms for the purchase quantity effect might be.