THE MARKET SHARE IMPACT OF SERVICE FAILURES

This paper develops a simple but powerful model that relates service satisfaction/dissatisfaction to market share. The model is based on an intuitive service satisfaction framework that relates three service system parameters (service success rate, complaint rate, and service recovery rate) to the percent of satisfied customers. A dynamic model is then posited that relates the defection rate and the addition rate to market share changes. The service satisfaction/market share model yields useful insights into how market share is influenced by these service system parameters. The surprisingly simple model predicts changes in market share due to changes in customer satisfaction.     

Sensitivity of Linear Programs to Related Changes in Multiple Inputs*

In a 1991 paper in Decision Sciences, Camm and Burwell presented smart modeling techniques for obtaining the sensitivity of linear programs to simultaneous common changes in common inputs. This note addresses sensitivity analysis of simultaneous related changes in multiple inputs, and shows how related multi-parametric analysis can be performed with software that has no or only limited parametric programming capability.     

Optimal Steiner trees under node and edge privacy conflicts

Journal of Combinatorial Optimization - In this work, we suggest concepts and solution methodologies for a series of strategic network design problems that find application in highly data-sensitive...     

Pictures of you: God images,gun ownership,and empowerment in the United States

Objective

In the current study, we seek to shed new light on the role of religion in American gun culture by considering whether images people hold of God affect the probability of gun ownership and the experience of empowerment through guns for religious Americans (i.e., the extent to which owners derive security, identity, and status from their guns).

Methods

We analyze nationally representative data from the 2021 Baylor Religion Survey in the United States. Binary logistic and ordinary least squares regression models were used.

Results

We failed to observe any associations between God images and gun ownership. However, among gun owners (n = 430), belief in an engaged God was associated with lower levels of gun empowerment, while belief in a judgmental God was associated with higher levels.

Conclusion

God images may contribute to the experience of empowerment through guns by representing spiritual connection and intimacy or divine anger and retribution. We suggest that future research delve deeper into the intersection of God images and gun-related beliefs and behaviors.     

Relative Objective Functions in Multiobjective Decision Support Models*

This paper considers the importance of using the nondominated minimum in forming relative objective functions. Other minima can prevent the decision maker from reaching a preferred decision. They disturb the zero and distort the scale, thereby misguiding the decision maker by falsifying trade-off possibilities. Worse, some of these other minima can inadvertently hide whole regions of preferred solutions. Zeleny's multiple criteria simplex method is used to find the nondominated minimum for the linear case.     

Modeling the Effects of a Service Guarantee on Perceived Service Quality Using Alternating Conditional Expectations (ACE)*

This paper addresses the dearth of empirical research on the relationship between service guarantee and perceived service quality (PSQ). In particular, we examine the moderating effects of a service guarantee on PSQ. While a recent study provided empirical evidence that service quality is affected by service guarantee and employee variables such as employee motivation/vision and learning through service failure, the nature and form of the relationships between these variables remain unclear. Knowledge of these relationships can assist service managers to allocate resources more judiciously, avoid pitfalls, and establish more realistic expectations. Data was obtained from employees and customers of a multinational hotel chain that has implemented a service guarantee program in 89 of its hotels in America and Canada. As the employee variables could affect performance in a non‐linear fashion, we relaxed the assumption of model linearity by using the Alternating Conditional Expectations (ACE) algorithm to arrive at a better‐fitting, non‐linear regression model for PSQ. Our findings indicate the existence of significant non‐linear relationships between PSQ and its determinant variables. The ACE model also revealed that service guarantee interacts with the employee variables to affect PSQ in a non‐linear fashion. The non‐linear relationships present new insights into the management of service guarantees and PSQ. Explanations and managerial implications of our results are presented and discussed.     

An Experimental Comparison of Dispatching Rules for Field Service Support*

Field service repair management is increasing in importance as “high tech” machines such as computers, communication systems, and copy machines are becoming more popular and more widely disbursed geographically. Complicating the management of these systems are response time performance guarantees (e.g., 8-hour response time), which are a popular marketing tool for many field service businesses [21]. These response time), guarantees especially complicate the field service dispatching problem. With response time guarantees, dispatchers must consider travel times and other issues to determine which call should be assigned to an available technician. This research proposes several dispatching rules that might be applied for dispatching sequential-trip technicians in this environment and compares these rules in a simulation experiment to determine which rule is best in terms of average tardiness. The proposed composite travel time-expiration time rule was found to be the best on average tardiness performance and on all other tardiness-related measures. Given the increased importance of tardiness performance in field service organizations, the proposed composite rule appears to have promise.