Performance measures of net-enabled hypercompetitive industries: the case of tourism

This paper investigates the theory and practise of e-metrics. It examines the tourism sector as one of the most successful sectors on-line and identifies best practice in the industry. Qualitative research with top e-Marketing executives demonstrates the usage and satisfaction levels from current e-metrics deployment, selection of e-metrics for ROI calculation as well as intention of new e-metrics implementation and future trends and developments. This paper concludes that tourism organizations gradually realise the value of e-measurement and are willing to implement e-metrics to enable them evaluate the effectiveness of their planning processes and assess their results against their short and the long term objectives

Measuring customer satisfaction and understanding customer effort in a B2B context

Our members asked us to investigate a number of aspects of Customer Satisfaction measurement in a Business-to-Business (B2B) context. Specific questions were:- What are the different metrics of customer satisfaction that are measured in a BTB relationship? Which are used the most? Which are the most effective? Do they vary by type of company? Are there new ways to measure customer satisfaction that more closely reflects their customer experience? What does customer effort mean in a B2B relationship? How do we identify where we are not easy to do business with? What do we have to do differently? Our approach to the subject was to review existing literature and previous research and then to conduct an exploratory qualitative review into the subject by conducting interviews with a range of B2B companies and a sample of their customers. The purpose behind the interviews was to try to answer the above questions and to identify if there were opportunities for more in-depth research in the future. The project demonstrates that the B2B companies compile and use a customer satisfaction rating for their business-to-business relationships but that there is little commonality between companies in both the full range of questions asked and the scales used for the individual questions. All of the companies use a mixture of global and dimensional measures (see literature review in section 2). There is some scope for manipulation of the customer satisfaction process in most companies so the results have to be treated with a degree of caution. However, the companies believe that they are getting good positive and negative feedback from the process so they see significant value from it. Where the customer satisfaction rating falls below an acceptable level, which differs by company, responses are shared with the customer as part of the regular relationship meeting and a monitored action plan is the normal result. In addition, in most cases, common issues are identified at company level and considered for improvement programs. The questions about customer effort showed that companies in general consider themselves more difficult to do business with than their customers do. Analysis of both company and customer views of what was ‘easy’ and what was ‘difficult’ about the relationship identified a number of interactions that could potentially be the subject of process improvement initiatives. It appears from this research that the inclusion of customer effort questions would benefit the customer satisfaction process for B2B companies and a number of best practise approaches were identified from this and previous research

Using Counts as Heuristics for the Analysis of Static Models

The upstream activities of software development are often viewed as both the most important, in terms of cost, and the yet the least understood, and most problematic, particularly in terms of satisfying customer requirements. Business process modelling is one solution that is being increasingly used in conjunction with traditional software development, often feeding in to requirements and analysis activities. In addition, research in Systems Engineering for Business Process Change, highlights the importance of modelling business processes in evolving and maintaining the legacy systems that support those processes. However, the major use of business process modelling, is to attempt to restructure the business process, in order to improve some given aspect, e.g., cost or time. This restructuring may be seen either as separate activity or as a pre-cursor to the development of systems to support the new or improved process. Hence, the analysis of these business models is vital to the improvement of the process, and as a consequence to the development of supporting software systems. Supporting this analysis is the focus of this paper. Business processes are typically described with static (diagrammatic) models. This paper proposes the use of measures (counts) to aid analysis and comparison of these static process descriptions. The proposition is illustrated by showing how measures can be applied to a commonly used process-modelling notation, Role Activity Diagrams (RADs). Heuristics for RADs are described and measures suggested which support those heuristics. An example process is used to show how a coupling measure can be used to highlight features in RADs useful to the process modeller. To fully illustrate the proposition the paper describes and applies a framework for the theoretical validation of the coupling measure. An empirical evaluation follows. This is illustrated by two case studies; the first based on the bidding process of a large telecommunications systems supplier, and the second a study of ten prototyping processes across a number of organisations. These studies found that roles of the same type exhibited similar levels of coupling across processes. Where roles did not adhere to tentative threshold values, further investigation revealed unusual circumstances or hidden behaviour. Notably, study of the prototyping roles, which exhibited the greatest variation in coupling, found that coupling was highly correlated with the size of the development team. This suggests that prototyping in large projects had a different process to that for small projects, using more mechanisms for communication. Hence, the empirical studies support the view that counts (measures) may be useful in the analysis of static process models

Measuring the software process and product: Lessons learned in the SEL

The software development process and product can and should be measured. The software measurement process at the Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) has taught a major lesson: develop a goal-driven paradigm (also characterized as a goal/question/metric paradigm) for data collection. Project analysis under this paradigm leads to a design for evaluating and improving the methodology of software development and maintenance

Beyond Personalization: Research Directions in Multistakeholder Recommendation

Recommender systems are personalized information access applications; they are ubiquitous in today's online environment, and effective at finding items that meet user needs and tastes. As the reach of recommender systems has extended, it has become apparent that the single-minded focus on the user common to academic research has obscured other important aspects of recommendation outcomes. Properties such as fairness, balance, profitability, and reciprocity are not captured by typical metrics for recommender system evaluation. The concept of multistakeholder recommendation has emerged as a unifying framework for describing and understanding recommendation settings where the end user is not the sole focus. This article describes the origins of multistakeholder recommendation, and the landscape of system designs. It provides illustrative examples of current research, as well as outlining open questions and research directions for the field.Comment: 64 page

HR Metrics and Strategy

[Excerpt] The idea that an organization\u27s people represent a key strategic resource is widely accepted. The business press is filled with examples of top executives proclaiming how important it is to engage people\u27s minds and spirits in the quest for competitive advantage (Boudreau & Ramstad, 1997; Boudreau, 1996). There is also mounting scientific evidence that certain bundles of high-performance work practices (e.g., performance-contingent pay, team-based work structures, selective recruitment and hiring, extensive training, etc.) are associated with higher organizational financial performance (Becker & Huselid, forthcoming; Ichniowski, Arthur, MacDuffie, Welbourne & Andrews)

Strategic Human Resource Management Measures: Key Linkages and the PeopleVantage Model

The field of human resource management faces a significant dilemma. While emerging evidence, theory and practical demands are increasing the visibility and credibility of human capital as a key to organizational success, the measures used to articulate the impact of human resource management decisions remain misunderstood, unwanted by key constituents, or even counter-productive. This article proposes that the key to creating meaningful HR metrics is to embed them within a model that shows the links between HR investments and organizational success. The PeopleVantage model is proposed as a framework, the application of the model is illustrated, and the potential of the model for guiding research and practical advances in effective HR measures is discussed

Consumption authenticity in the age of the sharing economy: the keys to creating loyal customers who love your brand

Airbnb has gained popularity as an alternative to hotels, with the authenticity of the consumption experience being a critical differentiating factor. However, the hospitality and tourism literature has not fully explored how Airbnb and traditional hotel brands are facilitating authentic travel experiences and the impact of these experiences on brand love and brand loyalty. In this study, we explore three elements of consumption authenticity and examine their how they interact in the context of an accommodation brand. Second, we compare the components of consumption authenticity across hotels and Airbnb, and examine their relative impact on brand love for these two segments of the accommodations industry. We found that hotels and Airbnb draw upon different sources of authenticity to create brand-loving customers. Our results indicated that Airbnb leverages brand, existential, and intrapersonal authenticity in creating brand-loving and brand-loyal customers, while hotels utilize only brand authenticity. Thus, the keys to creating customers who love and are loyal to the brand differ between hotels and Airbnb. Implications for theory and practice are discussed, and areas of future research are identified.Accepted manuscrip