A DYNAMIC PROCESS MODEL OF DISSATISFACTION FOR UNFAVORABLE,NON-ROUTINE SERVICE ENCOUNTERS

This paper explores the effect of expectations and information on customer dissatisfaction in unfavorable, nonroutine service encounters. In complex services (e.g., health care) with multiple encounters and wide range of services, customers use some of the services rarely or only once. In such encounters, customers may not have clear expectations regarding the process and/or outcome of the impending service delivery. This may increase the likelihood of the customer to perceive poor service or be dissatisfied. Hypotheses regarding the nature of expectations—levels, uncertainty, consistency—and its affects on customer dissatisfaction are tested using a dynamic process model of customer dissatisfaction.     

Exploring cultural economies of internationalization: the role of ‘iconic individuals’ and ‘brand leaders’ in the globalization of headhunting

Understanding the internationalization of professional services like advertising, architecture, accounting, consulting and legal services continues to attract considerable attention in academic and policy circles. Research in geography and management studies has emphasized the different organizational strategies adopted by firms as they seek to develop and maintain a competitive position within an increasingly global economy. In this article we develop a new strand in this literature by adopting a cultural economy approach to argue that an important, yet comparatively neglected, aspect of the internationalization strategies of transnational professional service firms is the role of certain ‘iconic individuals’ and ‘brand leaders’ in influencing the practice of internationalization. Drawing on empirical research into the burgeoning European executive search (headhunting) industry we identify a cadre of such individuals and brand leaders that act as resources other firms leverage when internationalizing. This highlights the importance of a cultural economy perspective in theories of the internationalization of professional services and its value in moving discussions beyond purely economic analyses of competitive advantage.     

A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF A SERVICE GUARANTEE ON SERVICE QUALITY

This paper develops a theoretical framework that relates a service guarantee to service quality. The framework hypothesizes that a service guarantee can positively affect service quality through its positive effect on both learning through service failure and employee motivation and vision. A longitudinal, empirical study was conducted to test these hypotheses. Surprisingly, the service guarantee was not found to have a direct effect on learning through service failure. However, the service guarantee clearly had a positive effect on service quality primarily through its positive effect on employee motivation and vision. The research strongly supports using a service guarantee to improve service quality.     

MEASUREMENT OF MULTIPLE SITES IN SERVICE FIRMS WITH DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS

Data envelopment analysis (dea) has become an increasingly popular method to measure performance for service firms with multiple sites. DEA is superior to many traditional methods for firms that have multiple goals. The promise of DEA is that the complex, multi-objective problem of performance measurement can be reduced to a single number. Unfortunately, the practice of DEA often belies the promise. Misconceptions concerning the purpose and implementation of DEA can cause DEA applications to be less than successful. Here, the technique is explained, and a guide to the implementation of DEA is proposed, utilizing DEA studies of retail bank branches.     

BUILDING THE SERVICE OPERATIONS COURSE AROUND A FIELD PROJECT

Service operations courses are often too concerned with concepts or techniques and not enough with the solution of real-world service problems. This article presents a case study of the successful turnaround of such a course by rebuilding it around a field project. The project is presented in some details. It largely dictates the content and paces the delivery of the course. Strategic and tactical aspects in the design of such a course are discussed with the benefits and limitations of the approach.     

OUTPATIENT SCHEDULING IN HEALTH CARE: A REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This paper provides a comprehensive survey of research on appointment scheduling in outpatient services. Effective scheduling systems have the goal of matching demand with capacity so that resources are better utilized and patient waiting times are minimized. Our goal is to present general problem formulation and modeling considerations, and to provide taxonomy of methodologies used in previous literature. Current literature fails to develop generally applicable guidelines to design appointment systems, as most studies have suggested highly situation‐specific solutions. We identify future research directions that provide opportunities to expand existing knowledge and close the gap between theory and practice.     

INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT: RESOURCE TOOLKIT FOR RESEARCH AND TEACHING

Increasing globalization has affected the way that firms are managed today. While its impact on competitive strategy, marketing, and finance has been well accepted and well studied, its effect on the firm's technology and operations has not. This paper provides resources for research and teaching in international technology and operations management (itom). Included are an extensive bibliography of papers and an overview of large-scale survey research initiatives in the area. By bringing together and categorizing this body of work, we hope to facilitate further work in the area and to help define ITOM'S scope.     

Predicting Psychological Empowerment Among Service Workers: The Effect of Support-Based Relationships

Data from 292 service workers in 21 privateclubs show that supportive peer and customerrelationships are predictive of higher levels ofemployee experienced empowerment. Both organizationaland employee customer relationships accounted forsignificant variation in the dimensions of empowerment:meaningfulness, influence, and self-efficacy. Peerhelping and supportive customer relationships were thetwo most influential predictors of all threeempowerment dimensions. Implications for future researchand for management practice are discussed.     

APPOINTMENT POLICIES IN SERVICE OPERATIONS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ECONOMIC FRAMEWORK

In this paper we review the literature on appointment policies, specifically in terms of the objective function commonly used and the assumptions made about the behavior of demand. First, we provide an economic framework to analyze the problem. Based on this framework we make a critical analysis of the objective functions used in the literature. We also question the validity of the assumption made throughout the literature that demand is exogenous and independent of customers' waiting times. We conclude that the objective functions used in the literature are appropriate only in the case of a central planner facing a demand that is unresponsive to waiting time. For other scenarios, such as a private server facing a demand that does react to waiting time, these objective functions are only shortcuts for the real objective functions that must be used. A more general model is then proposed that fits these scenarios well. Finally, we determine the impact of using the literature's objective functions on optimal appointment policies.     

RETAIL INVENTORY CONTROL WITH LOST SALES,SERVICE CONSTRAINTS,AND FRACTIONAL LEAD TIMES

This paper describes a periodic review, fixed lead time, single-product, single-facility model with random demand, lost sales and service constraints that was developed for potential application at a Western Canadian retailer. The objective of this study was to determine optimal (s, S) policies for a large number of products and locations. To this end, we evaluate the long run average cost and service level for a fixed (s, S) policy and then used a search procedure to locate an optimal policy. The search procedure is based on an efficient updating scheme for the transition probability matrix of the underlying Markov chain, bounds on S and monotonicity assumptions on the cost and service level functions. A distinguishing feature of this model is that lead times are shorter than review periods so that the stationary analysis underlying computation of costs and service levels requires subtle analyses. We compared the computed policies to those currently in use on a test bed of 420 products and found that stores currently hold inventories that are 40% to 50% higher than those recommended by our model and estimate that implementing the proposed policies for the entire system would result in significant cost savings.