An Exploratory Study of the Gap between Client Expectations and Client Perceived Performance of the Delivered Information System

This exploratory study is designed to answer “what happens when the clients complain that the delivered Information Systems (IS) don’t match their expectations?” This discrepancy between client expectations and the client perceived system performance at the time of system delivery can be described as a “gap”. The “gap” phenomenon, the failing to match client expectations with the delivered system, will lead to client dissatisfaction, system rejection, and project failure. Since we know little about the “gap” phenomenon, and no literature has directly and systematically investigated this phenomenon before, an exploratory qualitative study was conducted to answer (1) what the gap is; and (2) how and why the gap is generated in the IS development process. Focus group interviews were conducted with project managers, developers and consultants from four leading IS developing organizations. This paper reports the findings of the first part of the exploratory study. In this study, two dimensions of the gap – the possible areas of the gap and the forms of the gap are identified and four types of the gaps are classified based on the two dimensions. We then adopt a process view to investigate how the gap is generated in the IS development process. To assist the discussion and investigation, we defined four sub-gaps – requirements definition gap, system design gap, construction gap, and system delivery gap. Propositions are proposed and a gap model is developed to explain the relationship between the four sub-gaps and the final gap

Delivering ‘Effortless Experience’ Across Borders: Managing Internal Consistency in Professional Service Firms

This article explores how professional service firms manage across borders. When clients require consistent services delivered across multiple locations, especially across borders, then firms need to develop an organization that is sufficiently flexible to be able to support such consistent service delivery. Our discussion is illustrated by the globalization process of law firms. We argue that the globalization of large corporate law firms primarily takes place in terms of investments in the development of protocols, processes and practices that enhance internal consistency such that clients receive an ‘effortless experience’ of the service across multiple locations worldwide. Over the longer term the ability to deliver such effortless experience is dependent upon meaningful integration within and across the firm. Firms that achieve this are building a source of sustainable competitive advantage

Quality Uncertainty as a Barrier to Business Services Development

Highly performing innovative business services became important factors of competitiveness in modern economies, but their potential contribution is severely restricted by market dysfunctions, as companies reported during previous studies. There is also a lack of adequate policies partly explained by the fact that the services related knowledge is underdeveloped and poorly disseminated among decision makers. Having found that quality uncertainty limit the size of the market and the access of new companies and SMEs to valuable business services, the authors make a review of existing conceptual models of service quality assessment; discuss the implications of information asymmetry and explore with selected service providers the situation in specific industries, as well as the solutions for overcoming the current shortcomings.services quality, business services, information asymmetry, knowledge intensive business services

Mobile Agents for Mobile Tourists: A User Evaluation of Gulliver's Genie

How mobile computing applications and services may be best designed, implemented and deployed remains the subject of much research. One alternative approach to developing software for mobile users that is receiving increasing attention from the research community is that of one based on intelligent agents. Recent advances in mobile computing technology have made such an approach feasible. We present an overview of the design and implementation of an archetypical mobile computing application, namely that of an electronic tourist guide. This guide is unique in that it comprises a suite of intelligent agents that conform to the strong intentional stance. However, the focus of this paper is primarily concerned with the results of detailed user evaluations conducted on this system. Within the literature, comprehensive evaluations of mobile context-sensitive systems are sparse and therefore, this paper seeks, in part, to address this deficiency

Satisfaction and service quality in the quantity surveying profession

This thesis investigates client satisfaction and service quality in the quantity surveyingprofession. Whilst many reasons abound for dissatisfaction with the construction industry,this thesis focuses on client satisfaction with the provision of quantity surveyors' services. To this end, a greater understanding of the psychological processes involved in making a satisfaction decision is required and is achieved by the presentation of the theory of consumer satisfaction. It was found that consumer satisfaction is the result of meeting or exceeding expectation with performance. Furthermore, performance is not measured in technical terms, but as a result of client perceptions. Perceptions are at the heart of this thesis. This study investigates the relationship between client perceptions and quantity surveyors' perceptions of the same

QUALITY, SATISFACTION AND VALUE IN OUTSOURCING: ROLE OF RELATIONSHIP DYNAMICS AND PROACTIVE MANAGEMENT

Service Quality, Value and Satisfaction literature in the past have shown that quality drives satisfaction leading to loyalty and financial growth – both revenues and better profits. Recently Relationship Marketing, Information Systems and Service Science streams have focused on relationship factors. But the dynamic perspective of this interdisciplinary model has not been studied within business-to-business context. We show, based on a qualitative study of three large outsourcing accounts, how networked relationships between provider and client plays a crucial role in driving the dynamics of this model. At an operational level, relationship helps manage the expectations so that the client satisfaction levels can be sustained higher and create the opportunity for value proposition. When managed proactively, it helps facilitate value creation with the clients. At extended levels, it helps enhance client value perceptions. From a theoretical perspective, grounded theory from the cases suggests recursive dynamics between quality and satisfaction

Offshore Business Processing Outsourcing by Australian Enterprises to Service Providers Located in India

The primary research question for this PhD was: “What are the key factors that contribute to the success of offshore business process outsourcing (OBPO) by Australian and international organisations to service providers located in India and the Philippines?” A qualitative research design in the positivist paradigm was adopted, involving longitudinal case studies of five client companies. A primary contribution was identification of critical success factors for management of OBPO at the individual company level

An Assessment of the Effect of Remuneration on the Construction Performances of the Professionals in the Nigerian Building Industry

Construction professionals are the authors on one hand and co-executors of construction projects on the other, therefore, the quality of the services expected of them in construction project delivery as environmental resource manager is key. This paper investigated whether quality of service of the construction professionals in Nigeria is influenced by the level of professional fees receivable for services rendered hence their resource management role. The determinants of service quality are identified and their means of evaluation examined using the SERVQUAL; instrument used for measurement of the service quality on responses got from a set of questionnaires administered on the construction stakeholders comprising of the construction clients on one hand and the construction professionals on the other hand in Lagos, Nigeria with a view to assessing the perception of the clients regarding the quality of services being received from their construction professionals vis-a-vis clients expectations. The study revealed that there was no significant relationship between the level of fees paid and the quality of service rendered by the construction professionals as the result of the analysis of variance between service quality gap and the various methods of fees paid is not reflected in the service quality of construction professional

Sustainable Value Proposition Design in a Product-Service System

Many companies have started to add services to their tangible products in order to defend themselves from increased competition from low-cost economies. Research regarding the transition towards product-service systems (PSS) and how the PSS providers' business models are affected exists, but there is a lack of research regarding how the suppliers to the PSS providers are affected by the transition towards PSS. Therefore, this thesis studies the situation for a supplier/partner to an OEM that has changed their business model to a PSS providing one. As the first step in a development of a new business model aims this thesis to provide guidelines for how to set up value propositions suitable for a supplier/partner in this new environment. When technologically complex products, such as aircraft engines, are provided through PSS offerings it is hard to translate customer needs into quality parameters, which makes it hard to sustain the value to customer over time. Therefore, how to keep the value offering sustainable over time is also investigated in this thesis. The aim of this study was to investigate how a sustainable value proposition can be designed for a product and technology supplier/partner to an OEM that offers PSS solutions. The research has been performed through studying relevant literature and collecting empirical data from a case company through semi-structured interviews and a workshop. The case company in this research is Volvo Aero Corporation (VAC). The empirical findings show that VAC wants to offer product-service bundled solution, which fit the whole spectra of PSS value propositions, to their partners/customers. To be able to deliver these different types of product-service bundled solutions different value propositions that suit the different kinds of PSS offerings are needed. Requirements that must be fulfilled to be able to offer and deliver the different types of value propositions exist in terms of securing sufficient information access, aligning the incentives of all actors involved and achieving an internal consensus of what is delivered