| 1. |
- Walter, Ute, et al.
(författare)
-
Drivers of customers’ service experiences : a study in the restaurant industry
- 2010
-
Ingår i: Managing Service Quality. - Yorkshire, United Kingdom : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 0960-4529 .- 1758-8030. ; 20:3, s. 236-258
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify, portray and analyse the frequent drivers of customer service experiences as described by customers in their own words – the voice of the customer.Design/methodology/approach: A critical incident technique study was conducted, based on 122 interviews, including 195 favourable and unfavourable narratives, about customer experiences. The data were analysed in an inductive manner and the results are presented by means of extracts from the narratives.Findings: The findings describe the dimensions of drivers of customers' favourable and unfavourable experiences and the frequent drivers, the social interaction, the core service and the physical context.Research limitations/implications: Customer experiences are processes and include dynamic interactions and the customer as a co-producer. The study context is limited to the restaurant setting and Swedish customers.Practical implications: For managers the results suggest that great effort needs to be put into understanding the process of customer experiences and the various interactions involved, especially social interactions and the crucial roles of contact employees and customers involved in these interactions.Originality/value: The paper provides a detailed description and analysis of the frequent and less frequent drivers of favourable, and unfavourable customer experiences – the constellation of drivers. The findings are illustrated by extracts from customer narratives and show how experiences occur and that experiences are processes occurring in a social and physical environment when people do things together. Furthermore, the paper introduces customer experience to service dominant logic by describing the dynamics of resource interactions in customer experience formation.
|
|
| 2. |
- Gebauer, Heiko, et al.
(författare)
-
The Impact of Service Orientation in Corporate Culture on Business Performance in Manufacturing Companies
- 2010
-
Ingår i: Journal of Service Management. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1757-5818 .- 1757-5826. ; 21:2, s. 237-259
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The purpose of this paper is to examine if there is a relationship between the interdependence among different components of service culture and performance. This paper also contributes to the discussion on how integrating or separating the service organization from the product organization interacts with service culture.Design/methodology/approachData are collected through a survey and structural equation modeling is used for the data analysis.FindingsThe three main findings are: identified interactions among different elements of service orientation in corporate culture, the positive association between the service orientation of corporate culture and business performance, and the moderating effects of the type of organizational structure on interactions among service‐orientation elements in corporate culture.Research limitations/implicationsThere may be alternative explanations for the correlations in the model. There are limitations in survey research in measuring service orientation in service culture.Practical implicationsSeparating the service and product organization strengthens the creation of a service orientation in the corporate culture, but at the same time, does not affect the link between culture and performance.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper comes from combining service orientation in corporate culture with types of organizational structure. In addition, compared to the dominant single dimension approach to service orientation in corporate culture, four dimensions are used (service orientation of management values, management behavior, employee values, and employee behavior).
|
|
| 3. |
- Lundberg, Christine, 1972-
(författare)
-
Challenges in Delivering Services: The Front-Line Hospitality and Tourism Employee Perspective
- 2010
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Significant challenges are faced by front-line hospitality and tourism employees interacting with customers on a daily basis. These challenges and the ways they are dealt with form the focus of this thesis. As they interact, a range of incidents may arise from highly satisfactory encounters to service failures. It has been argued that in order to achieve satisfactory service encounters, employees need to feel in control, satisfied and motivated as well as being given appropriate assistance, information and training. Front-line employees in hospitality and tourism are focused on here due to the complex nature of the industry. It is commonly agreed that it is characterised by poor working conditions such as anti-social working hours, part-time and/or seasonal work, minimal on-the-job training and low levels of pay. These are all factors which may affect employee work satisfaction and motivation as well as recruitment and retention. The thesis is comprised of four studies. In Study I, hospitality and tourism employee work motivation is analysed. Study II examines front-line hotel restaurant employees’ experiences of service encounters. How the skills utilised by employees during these service encounters are acquired and developed is then explored in Study III. Study IV concludes by examining employee informal information sharing activities, which offer one way of developing these skills. The thesis’ findings paint a more positive picture of work and workers in hospitality and tourism than suggested in some of the earlier published research. This could be explained by the fact that the thesis utilises an employee perspective in its truest sense. The findings of the thesis show that employees are motivated (to large extent by factors that have been pointed out in earlier published work motivation research) and that they are active in the pursuit of developing skills necessary to create satisfactory service encounters. Another conclusion of the thesis’ findings is that the interaction between workers and guests in the service encounter provides an important opportunity for workers to feel satisfied at work.
|
|
| 4. |
|
|
| 5. |
|
|
| 6. |
- Gebauer, Heiko, et al.
(författare)
-
Match or Mismatch : Strategy-Structure Configuration in the Service Business of Manufacturing Companies
- 2010
-
Ingår i: Journal of Service Research. - : Sage. - 1094-6705 .- 1552-7379. ; 13:2, s. 198-215
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A new trend seems to be emerging for multinational manufacturing companies to make a strategic reorientation into becoming service providers. For some companies, such as Kone and IBM, the revenues from services are 50% or more of their total sales. Despite the increasing interest in exploring various aspects of the service part of the business in manufacturing companies, existing research has not focused on the interdependencies between different service strategies and organizational designs. This article studies different service strategies in manufacturing companies and highlights the organizational design necessary for implementing each service strategy. The service strategies explored are aftersales service providers, customer support service providers, outsourcing partners, and development partners. Each service strategy is supported by organizational design factors related to the service orientation of corporate culture, the service orientation of human resource management, and the service orientation of organizational structures. This research concludes that a specific strategy-structure configuration is needed in order to succeed with a chosen service strategy
|
|
| 7. |
- Camén, Carolina, 1975-
(författare)
-
Using contracts to manage services : A study of contracts in public transport
- 2011
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Contracts play a key role in many business to business relationships. Service organisations are no exception. Despite a growing interest of services and how services are managed, research on how to use contracts to manage services has been surprisingly sparse in service research. The overall aim of this thesis is to contribute to a deeper understanding of using contracts to manage services in business-to-business relationships. Contract theories together with concepts from service research are used to enrich and understand how contracts are used to manage services and thus make contributions to service research. The thesis will give an empirically grounded understanding of managing services through contracts. The thesis consists of six separate papers, all based on data gathered from contractual relationships between contractors and service providers. The results are based on studies of authentic contracts which are not the case in most previous studies. The methods used for gathering and analysing data involve case studies, content analysis of authentic contracts, interviews and document studies of the public transport sector in Sweden which is an empirically rich area for studying contracts. The three main contributions of this dissertation are; firstly, an extended understanding of how contracts are used to manage the prerequisites for service quality for the parties involved. It was found that the concept service quality is brought forward on three interdependent managerial levels; from a detailed operational level, to a systemic oriented strategic level, and also a visionary rhetorical level each specifying the prerequisite for the services. To manage the prerequisites, the contracts rely on three identified means; laws and regulations, standards and measurements and economical incentives. Secondly, the detailed contents and rigidity of the contracts bring forward an inflexible and asymmetric relationship, where the parties are restricted in their activities. Here the contracts become a substitute for trust and commitment instead of supporting the development of trust and commitment. Finally, the thesis deepen the understanding of the role of contracts in governing services, from being a static abbreviator to a dyadic market based relationship, to becoming a dynamic tool for developing and sustaining a value creating and value driven collaborative network.
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
- Slåtten, Terje
(författare)
-
Emotions in service encounters from the perspectives of employees and customers
- 2011
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall aim of this thesis is to contribute to deepening and extending our understanding and knowledge of emotions in service encounters by studying it from the two most central human actors in service encounter: (i) the service firm’s employees and (ii) the customer of this firm. This dissertation consist of five separate papers that conceptualize and empirically investigate how different appraisals by employees and customers generate positive and negative emotions, and how types of emotions in service encounters are linked to patterns of behavioural responses. The methods used for gathering data involved interviews and questionnaire studies of various service firms. This dissertation has sought to offer two main contributions. First, this thesis presents an extended understanding of employees’ emotions in service encounter and their effect on employees’ perceptions of service quality. One of the chief findings is that work-related conditions such as employees’ perception of their working role and managerial practices are related to both positive and negative emotions in service encounters. Moreover, the findings indicate that there exists a spill-over effect between employees’ experiences of emotions and employees’ perceptions of the delivery of service quality in service encounters. Secondly, this thesis also contributes to furthering our understanding of the customer’s appraisal of service quality with respect to customers’ positive emotions in service encounters as well as to deepening our understanding of negative emotions when customers experience a negative service encounter. Specifically, it was found that both human and non-human service-quality factors are able to trigger customer’s positive emotions in service encounters. Positive emotions were strongly related to behavioural responses such as customer loyalty. When a customer experiences negative emotions in service encounters as a result of negative experience, the findings point to three sources of these negative emotions: (i) ‘self’ (the customer’s own fault), (ii) ‘other’ (the fault of the company), and (iii) ‘situational’ (the fault is beyond the customer’s and company’s control). Another finding is that customers’ negative emotions in service encounters tend diminish but only to some extent, even after the service firm has set into motion a process of service recovery. In summary, this thesis contributes to our understanding of emotions in service encounters and contributes to the ongoing debate and discussion in service research about the role of emotions in this context.
|
|
| 10. |
- Witell, Lars, et al.
(författare)
-
Exploring Modes of Innovation in Services
- 2010
-
Ingår i: Proceedings of the 2nd CIRP IPS2 Conference 2010; 14-15 April; Linköping; Sweden. - : Linköping University Electronic Press. - 9789173933810 ; , s. 409-415
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Manufacturing companies differentiating their offerings with new services need to combine both product and service innovation. We study how service development is influenced by (a) the choice of separation or integration of service development and (b) the modes of innovation. Our results show that service development often is more structured if services are developed separately. Furthermore, service innovations often follow a sequence of innovation modes different from those of product innovations. Since different innovation modes benefit from varying degree of structure in the development process, many companies find it hard to develop products and services within the same development project.
|
|
