Value co-creation characteristics and creativity-oriented customer citizenship behavior

For the competitive advantage of service organization, it is important to improve the creative performance of human resources in the organization. For example, when employees perform creatively, in other words, if they generate novel and useful ideas, it will contribute to organizational competiveness. Therefore, there has been an increased focus in identifying its antecedents and consequences. Unfortunately, little is known about the creative performance of customers. According to service-centered dominant logic, customer is the value co-creator, it emphasizes co-opting customer involvement in the value creation process as an additional human resource. In addition, customers can be a valuable resource for service improvement efforts for firms. For instance, companies might benefit greatly from customer feedback and complaints regarding their offerings and can enhance their productivity in terms of quality and quantity. In this paper, the type of novel, creative-oriented customer behaviors highlighted in the preceding paragraph are referred to as creativity-oriented customer citizenship behaviors (CCBs). In the customer value co-creation context, creative-oriented CCBs refer to extra-role efforts by customers with regards the development of ideas about products, practices, services, and procedures that are novel and potentially useful to a firm. According to the intrinsic motivation perspective, the context in which customers create values, influences their intrinsic motivation, which in turn affects creativity-oriented CCBs. The intrinsic motivation perspective suggests that high intrinsic motivation is affected by information from both task characteristics (i.e., autonomy) and social characteristics (e.g., supplier support). Specifically, complex and challenging task characteristics such as high levels of variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback are expected to increase customer intrinsic motivation. Under these conditions, customers should increase the likelihood of creativity-oriented CCBs. Therefore, customers are expected to be most creative when they experience a high level of intrinsic motivation. In contrast, complex and challenging task and social characteristics can have the opposite effect to customers. For example, in a high level of variety task, increased autonomy can lead to increased workload because they must take on related extra responsibilities and accountability. Increased workload, in turn, is expected to lead to decreased likelihood of creativity-oriented CCBs. Therefore, this study attempts to explore the impact of task characteristics and social characteristics on creativity-oriented CCBs. Furthermore, a substantial body of research has examined the possibility that creativity is affected by personal characteristics. As such, in addition to the relevant task and social characteristics, the moderating influence of several trait variables is also considered. This article makes several contributions. First, this study investigates the trade-off effect of the customer value co-creation related task and social characteristics by examining the underlying opposing mechanism of motivation and work overload. Second, this research provides a deeper understanding of contingency factors that systematically strengthen the relationships under consideration. Third, this study may indicate that companies seek to promote the creativity of their industrial customers and should design the tasks and social characteristics of their industrial customers in a way that maximizes their creativity. But, companies should be aware of the negative impact of specific tasks and social characteristics that may minimize the creativity of industrial customers

Investigation into re-shoring UK manufacturing using additive manufacturing as a method to enable manufacturing postponement

This thesis describes case study research investigation into re-shoring UK manufacturing using Additive Manufacturing as a method to enable manufacturing Postponement. After identifying the gap in the knowledge by conducting a literature review, the author aims to understand the primary motivation behind the re-shoring phenomenon in the UK. The initial investigation is done by targeting the UK based organisations that have been involved in supporting the re-shoring phenomenon. As a result, lack of responsiveness was found to be the key factor behind re-shoring in the UK. This is then followed by an investigation considering this issue from countries to which manufacturing has been offshored in the past, in particular, India. The research studies the factors that influence this decision from Indian industries perspectives and investigates what the key issues are behind the lack of responsiveness in India. This is whilst India is one of the most attractive offshoring destinations among the other low-cost countries. This introduces the next objective of this research which is to identify a strategy that could help the industries to address such issues. Consequently the concept of Postponement was selected as a strategy and Additive Manufacturing (AM) was identified as a manufacturing method that could enable Postponement. Such a combination can enable companies to shorten their lead-time and be more responsive to their domestic customers. This study also develops a clear picture of re-shoring in the UK and bridges this phenomenon to the new generation of technologies and emerging mega trends. It particularly focuses on AM technologies as an enabling manufacturing method the Industry 4.0. The results obtained from the survey study indicate that there is a positive view towards applicability of AM technologies within the supply chain of the re-shoring companies. The final section of this thesis aims to iii provide a series of case studies where AM technologies are used to further enable companies to reduce their lead time and achieve more customisation. It shows that the companies can re-shore their production activities back to the home country by using AM technologies and engage in a local supply chain. Therefore this study adds insight into manufacturing challenges related to re-shoring and provides a potential solution for the companies that are involved in the production of high value added production. The results from this section indicate that the re-shoring companies will be capable of accommodating product changes and process changes. They can also reduce their inventories, production lead-time, and transportation costs, meanwhile increase product customisation

Offshoring and backshoring: A multiple case study analysis

Abstract Motivations underscoring offshoring and backshoring are typically investigated as separate entities in the academic literature. This separation undermines a deeper comprehension of the two phenomena, and implicitly denies the conceptualization of backshoring as a possible step of the firm internationalization process. Our paper seeks to fill this gap by (1) understanding the relations (if any) among offshoring and backshoring motivations at firm level; (2) exploring whether backshoring is a "failure" of the offshoring initiative, or rather the evolution of the firm's competitive and location strategies. A content-based literature review provides the base for the identification of the key motives for offshoring and backshoring, which are then organised using a theory-grounded framework. Next, we conduct a multiple case study analysis based on four companies, searching for common patterns in offshoring and subsequent backshoring initiatives. Cases allow understanding how the motivations (Why) connect with the governance modes (How), and the location choice (Where). Building on the case findings, the paper presents some propositions for future empirical research

Responsiveness, the primary reason behind re-shoring manufacturing activities to the UK: an Indian industry perspective

Purpose: Due to today’s volatile business environment companies have started to establish a better understanding of the total risk/benefit-balance concerning manufacturing location decisions of their component supply. The focus is now much more on comprehensive and strategic supply chain issues rather than simply relying on piece part cost analysis. This has led to an emerging trend called re-shoring. The aim of this paper is to understand the primary motivation behind the re-shoring strategy in the UK and investigate the factors that influence this decision from Indian industries perspectives. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis of the paper is based on interviews conducted in the UK and India (State of Tamil Nadu) in various industries including automotive, industrial goods, textile, and marine. For this purpose an interview framework based on key enablers identified from the literature, being IT solutions, manufacturing equipment and human factors. This provided an assessment of the capability of the companies for being responsive to western demand. Findings: The findings indicate that re-shoring to the UK is the result of inadequacy in responsiveness and long production lead-times of the Indian suppliers. The outcome of this paper indicates that the top factors behind this inadequacy in responsiveness are logistics and transportation, electricity shortage, excessive paperwork and working attitude. Originality/value: This paper aims to fill the gap in the re-shoring literature by providing a clear picture behind the reason for re-shoring in the UK and identify the drivers behind this shortcoming in the component supply from India

How customers react to service unfairness? Moderating roles of interpersonal similarities on experience of envy and benign envy

Session: 04-206The “Customer Pyramid” and other similar customer management concepts advise firms to prioritize customers and treat them differently. Yet, offering preferential treatment to selected customers is potentially controversial. It implies a relatively inferior treatment to other customers and elicits the perception of service unfairness. In this study, we employ the social comparison theory to explicate the underlying process of how service unfairness impacts non-recipients’ behaviors. Specifically, we examine (1) impacts of service unfairness on the customers’ emotional experiences of envy and benign envy, (2) the differential effects of envy and benign envy on the non-recipients’ behaviors toward the preferentially treated customers (spreading negative word of mouth) and the sources of unfairness (cooperation with the salesperson and repurchase intention toward the store), and (3) the boundary conditions of the non-recipients’ similarities with those preferentially treated customers and the salesperson on the impacts of service unfairness. We tested our framework with laboratory experiments and a survey study in the context of clothing retail stores of 331 customers. Results support the roles of envy and benign envy in mediating the impact of service unfairness on those non-recipients’ behavioural outcomes. Specifically, if service unfairness elicits envy, it will increase the non-recipients’ negative WOM mouth toward those preferentially treated customers, reduces their repurchase intention, and lessens their cooperation with the salesperson. However, witnessing a preferential treatment received by others could be motivating for the non-recipients because they would also have the chance to enjoy such preferential treatment in the future (i.e., experience of benign envy). Our findings show that if service unfairness increases non-recipients’ experience of benign envy, it will motivates them to repurchase more, be more cooperative with the salesperson, but with no impact on the act of spreading negative WOM. Moreover, findings on the moderation influence of customers’ similarity with other customers and the salesperson further shed insights about the conditions for the differential impacts of service unfairness on ones’ experiences of envy and benign envy. Our study offers important implications on how firms can benefit from implementing customer management strategies involving differential treatments while minimizing their drawbacks.postprin

A Study On The Effect Of Partnership Quality On Business Process Outsourcing For Banks And Financial Institutions In Malaysia

Penyelidikan ini bertujuan untuk mengkaji kesan kualiti hubungan perkongsian dengan penyumberluaran proses preniagaan bagi pihak bank dan institusi kewangan di Malaysia. This research studied the effect of partnership quality on business process outsourcing for banks and financial institutions in Malaysia

Fostering employee creativity through creativity-contingent extrinsic and intrinsic rewards that emphasise creativity: A systematic review of creativity academic papers

Creativity is widely believed to be necessary to increase quality performance. Thus, in today’s more challenging and competitive environment, the contemporary organization frequently utilizes rewards practices to stimulate creative activities among employees. Existing research on reward practices shows evidence that creativity contingent rewards play a vital role in improving employee creative performance. This study presents a systematic review of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards that contribute to creativity and their effect on employee creativity. The findings show that regardless of the degree of importance of the rewards perceived by the employee, both the extrinsic and intrinsic rewards were positively correlated with the behaviour of creativity behavior. Interestingly, the results showed that creativity-contingent intrinsic rewards have relatively stronger effects on employee creativity when compared to creativity-contingent extrinsic rewards