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The purpose of this paper is to identify customers’ needs and expectations regarding servicescape surveillance management (SSM) in order to suggest to service managers how they can carefully design a service environment to ensure a high level of security while concurrently enhancing the customer service experience.

Given that this study is explorative in nature, it is based on a specific method of qualitative data collection: focus group interviews. Three focus group sessions were organised with 24 Italian customers of retail stores, hotels and hospitals. The multi-expectation model proposed by Parasuraman, Berry and Zeithaml, which distinguishes between what customers consider acceptable (adequate service level) and what they hope to receive (desired service level), was chosen as the reference framework to investigate customers’ needs and expectations from SSM.

Servicescape surveillance must be compatible with customer satisfaction. Customers are acceptably satisfied when servicescape surveillance offers them feelings of physical safety, psychological security, economic security and the right to privacy. They desire that surveillance also allows them to live a positive service experience in sensorial, psychological, social and temporal terms. However, customers’ expectations of adequate and desired service levels are different in terms of the presence, quantity and visibility of surveillance in the three service areas examined. Interestingly, customers expect to find more visible surveillance measures inside retail stores rather than in hotels and hospitals, but they prefer to receive invisible surveillance in the servicescape.

Service managers should consider surveillance not as a cost or a tool for detecting and punishing inappropriate or criminal behaviour, but rather, as an opportunity for enhancing the customer service experience. They can invest in servicescape design elements, technological surveillance solutions and continuous training of security personnel to meet their customers’ adequate and desired service levels.

This study provides two major contributions. From the theoretical viewpoint, it extends knowledge of the hitherto under-researched area of SSM by identifying customers’ needs and expectations of surveillance and the customer service experience, which are topics usually examined separately in the literature. In terms of managerial implications, it provides store/hotel/hospital managers with recommendations on how to design a servicescape that is both secure and pleasant.

Doctoral students are expected to undertake work-based skills training within their doctoral studies in areas such as problem solving, leadership and team working. The purpose of this paper is to explore student expectations of doctoral training within a UK Higher Education context.

The data for the study were gathered via two focus groups conducted among doctoral students from different faculties in a post-92 UK University. Participants were selected using a snowball sampling approach.

The findings suggest that the expectations of doctoral students are contingent upon their year of study, study mode, perceived fit between training goals and available training, peer recommendations, word-of-mouth (WoM) and the scholarly support they received from their supervisors.

The study suggests a better understanding of students’ segmentation can help Higher Education Institutions deliver training that meets the expectations of doctoral students in a way that result in zero or a positive disconfirmation.

This paper develops and deepens the understanding of the doctoral students’ expectations of work-based skills training and highlights the need for universities to adapt their doctoral training according to the expectations of different student segments.

Many criticisms questioning the role and the efficiency of business consultants have been addressed. However, although a great deal of research has been carried out on business consultancy, little has been written on business consultancy from the consultant's viewpoint. In order to gain a detailed view of the situation from an internal consultant's perspective, an investigation of how business consultants perceive their role and contribution within their clients' organisations was undertaken. Drawing on different perspectives, this study aims to demystify the role of business consultants, and to ascertain how they perceive their role within their clients' organisations.

A series of interviews were conducted, where business consultants were asked to comment on issues related to the nature of the relationship with their clients, the pros and cons of their role and also the amount of control and discretion they exercise over the different projects in which they are engaged. Interview data from 17 business consultants from a variety of fields, such as change management, information technology, corporate finance and human resource, are analysed using an interpretive frame.

The research findings reveal that differences exist between the rather pejorative conclusions of previous research and the conclusions of this study. Whereas previous research highlighted the omnipotence and the more or less deontological practice of consultants, the data analysis from this study concludes that business consultants appear very humble in their approach to their relationship with clients, and believe that moving clients forward is their ultimate goal. The findings also enable the study to demonstrate that business consultants are conscious of the amount of control and discretion that is passed on to them by clients, and do recognise that criticisms of their role can be at times justified.

The study has value for both consultants and clients. The role determinants model presented in the study highlights the main characteristics of the role of business consultants and helps both clients and consultants to rethink their approach to the consulting process.

This study aims to survey academic users in order to identify their needs and expectations about multilingual information processing when they interact with digital libraries. The study specifically aims to determine the disparities in needs and expectations when users speak different languages.

A survey was designed to fill in the gaps in the knowledge about academic users' multilingual needs and expectations for digital libraries. The survey questionnaire incorporates questions about different aspects of the participants' multilingual needs and expectations covering multilingual needs, the multilingual behavior, often‐used multilingual information resources, and desired functions for the multilingual services, retrieval and interfaces in digital libraries. The results are obtained through statistical analyses and clustering methods.

Overall, participants exhibited many multilingual needs during their academic activities. They often require multilingual information when they access academic databases or web information. Frequently, participants use online translation resources and tools, but they are not satisfied with the translation quality. Participants want many multilingual capabilities in digital libraries; they also want more sophisticated multilingual search interfaces. However, participants from different countries or who speak different languages show significant differences in their multilingual needs and expectations of digital libraries. This study's three user groups demonstrated clear differences in all aspects of multilinguality examined, as did the three latent groups identified through the clustering methods.

Few studies have examined the multilingual information process in digital libraries from the point of view of academic users. This study draws its inputs directly from real academic users from different countries and provides insights into multilinguality in digital libraries.

The purpose of this study is to optimize and improve service delivery configurations by integrating both customers’ and service providers’ perspectives into service delivery design processes using quality function deployment (QFD) methodology at shopping malls.

QFD is used to determine and close the gap between the most important customer needs and expectations and the opinions of service providers using a unique platform.

On customer side, the highest relative weight was given to “prompt response to customer concerns”, “not being crowded and loud”, “providing services for disabled customers” and “security of mall” customer expectations. On engineering side, “employees’ attributes, the size of parking area, reliable service, the time to find a product, the size of mall, disabled friendly infrastructure and the number of elevators and escalators” were determined to be the most important technical requirements.

Integrating the voice of customer into the voice of engineering, this study is the first attempt to describe how QFD methodology could be used to holistically optimize service delivery configurations in the mall industry. Unlike conventional QFD that ignores the cost perspective, this study has implications for operations managers with regard to solving resource allocation problems.

Public information disclosure is a manifestation of transparency and contributes to governance-by-disclosure. Also, better financial reporting can improve the credibility and integrity of public finances and contribute to a better management of public resources. A survey was carried out in Cyprus of users’ of public financial reports concerning an expectation gap about the types of information included in such reports (information needs expectation gap) as well as the quality of such information (information quality satisfaction gap). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Two focus groups of users and preparers of public financial reports were used to construct the questionnaire. Users of such reports, who belonged to all three categories of public sector financial reporting identified by IPSASB, were surveyed. The quantitative data obtained was analysed using SPSS and quadrant analysis to answer the research questions posed.

Data from 101 respondents confirmed that each of the information needs identified in the IPSASB Consultation Paper (2008) was rated as being a significant information need. Data analysis also showed that both types of expectation gap exist, especially as far as local authority and semi-public organisations are concerned.

The response rate in the self-administered survey was admittedly rather low but it was not unexpected mainly due to the survey’s very specialised nature and the tendency by people in Cyprus not to critique public bodies.

Deficient financial public sector reporting means the auditor general is not able to adequately express an opinion on public spending at the local government level. This, in turn, means taxpayers do not get the quality of services they pay for. At the same time, the lack of information transparency means corrupt practices are not eradicated. One answer to the problem would be legislating the content of public financial reports.

The lack of governance-by-public exposure means that services to the local community cost a lot more, due to corruption and inefficiency. In addition, it contributes to lowering market confidence and eventually contributes to financial crisis at the national level.

The survey conducted was the first of its kind in Cyprus to investigate financial public sector reporting and document both manifestations of the expectation gap. In addition, information needs identified in the IPSASB Consultation Paper (2008) was rated as significantly needed and this is the first time it has been done in Eurozone member state and in a country facing a financial crisis.

There is an integral link between theory and measurement suggesting that validation of measures should be the first stage of theory testing. The purpose of this paper is to validate the factorial validity of needs and expectations (NAE) features as determinants of low-income residents’ housing satisfaction in South Africa.

Empirical data were collected by a questionnaire survey conducted among 751 low-income housing residents’ in three metropolitan and one district municipality in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. Data gathered via the questionnaire survey were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) version 6.2 which was used to assess the factorial structure of the constructs.

SEM analysis revealed that the internal consistency coefficients were over 0.70 criterion for acceptability and the constructs showed a good mode fit to the sample data. The Z-statistics analysis revealed that the construct (NAE) have direct influence in determining low-income residents’ satisfaction with their houses.

The SEM result advocates a practical consideration of the construct and its respective indicator variables in future development of low-income housing in South Africa.

The purpose of this study is to assess the users' needs and expectations on information services provided in libraries, in four public universities from the western region of Kenya. The study explores the extent to which the libraries address users' needs and expectations examining the challenges being encountered, remedies and best practices put in place to mitigate the challenges. The level of users satisfaction towards the information services provided is also examined.

Structured questionnaires were distributed among undergraduates (384) and lecturers (86), where 342 were successfully filled and returned, giving a response rate of 73%. The study interviewed ten library staff revealing their views in addressing users' needs and expectations in respective libraries. Collected data were analysed descriptively using statistical methods and presented in figures and tables. Qualitative data were analysed in narrative form.

Majority of users had a positive perception towards the library, while others indicated that their needs were yet to be meet. The study noted the poor state of affair with inadequacies in information materials infrastructure, dwindling budget, facilities and unskilled personnel. The study recommended the need for additional library budget to facilitate acquisition of additional and up-to-date information resources and facilities.

The concept of user needs and expectations has been widely discussed in developed countries. Identifying and understanding users’ requirements in the context of public libraries in developing countries would start up constructive trends towards building useable collections.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that understanding and exceeding customer expectations in the aged care services is more complex than other health services and general services because of the multiple stakeholders and additional intimacies that exist.

The author first explores expectation theory and how it links to customer behaviour and then discusses confirmation/disconfirmation theory.

The author builds an argument that aged care service providers must understand consumer needs and expectations so that customer satisfaction is generated.

Exploring patient and relative expectation and satisfaction in different theoretical contexts.

This study focuses on memorable customer shopping experience design in the sporting goods retail setting. It aims to identify the phygital customers' needs and expectations that are satisfied through in-store technologies and to detect the in-store strategies that use these technologies to make the store attractive and experiential.

This exploratory study adopted a qualitative research methodology, specifically a multiple-case study, by performing semi-structured interviews with sporting goods store managers.

Sporting goods retailers use various in-store technologies to create a phygital customer shopping experience, including devices, mobile apps, wireless communication technologies, in-store activations, support devices, intelligent stations, and sensors. To improve the phygital customer journey and the phygital shopping experience, retailers meet customers' needs for utilitarian, hedonic, social, and playfulness experiences. Purely physical or digital strategies, as well as phygital strategies, are identified. This research also proposes a model of in-store phygital customer shopping experience design for sporting goods retailers.

Sporting goods managers can invest in multiple technologies by designing a physical environment according to the customers' needs for utilitarian, hedonic, social, and playful experiences. In addition, they can improve the phygital customer shopping experience with specific push strategies that increase customer engagement and, in turn, brand and store loyalty.

This study highlights how the phygital customer experiential journey can be created through new technologies and improved with specific reference to the sporting goods stores.