220,318 research outputs found

    Mapping and Developing Service Design Research in the UK.

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    This report is the outcome of the Service Design Research UK (SDR UK) Network with Lancaster University as primary investigator and London College of Communication, UAL as co-investigator. This project was funded as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council Network grant. Service Design Research UK (SDR UK), funded by an AHRC Network Grant, aims to create a UK research network in an emerging field in Design that is Service Design. This field has a recent history and a growing, but still small and dispersed, research community that strongly needs support and visibility to consolidate its knowledge base and enhance its potential impact. Services represent a significant part of the UK economy and can have a transformational role in our society as they affect the way we organize, move, work, study or take care of our health and family. Design introduces a more human centred and creative approach to service innovation; this is critical to delivering more effective and novel solutions that have the potential to tackle contemporary challenges. Service Design Research UK reviewed and consolidated the emergence of Service Design within the estalished field of Design

    Customer Relationship Management and Service Quality: a qualitative study

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    This study examined customer relationship management effectiveness and Service quality on international customers in a single University in the UK higher education sector. We adopted the qualitative research design with focus group interview approach. Focus group discussions were carried out with twelve purposively sample units of analysis from the case University. The study primary data was analysed using thematic template technique with Nvivo 10. The study found that the CRM programme of the case University is effective following the various students‟ oriented social and academic programs. Findings also showed that its CRM program influenced international students‟ satisfaction and positive advocacy behaviour. The study found six emerging themes for evaluating customer relationship management effectiveness in the higher education sector. Thus, recommended the need for strategic policy makers in the higher education sector to enhance investments on building stronger customer relationship management infrastructure.KEYWORDS: Customer Relationship Management, Service Quality, Qualitative Stud

    Construction informatics in Turkey: strategic role of ICT and future research directions

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    Construction Informatics deals with subjects ranging from strategic management of ICTs to interoperability and information integration in the construction industry. Studies on defining research directions for Construction Informatics have a history over 20 years. The recent studies in the area highlight the priority themes for Construction Informatics research as interoperability, collaboration support, intelligent sites and knowledge sharing. In parallel, today it is widely accepted in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry that ICT is becoming a strategic asset for any organisation to deliver business improvement and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, traditionally the AEC industry has approached investing in ICT with a lack of strategic focus and low level of priority to the business. This paper presents a recent study from Turkey that is focused on two themes. The first theme investigates the strategic role of ICT implementations from an industrial perspective, and explores if organisations within the AEC industry view ICT as a strategic resource for their business practice. The second theme investigates the ‘perspective of academia’ in terms of future research directions of Construction Informatics. The results of the industrial study indicates that ICT is seen as a value-adding resource, but a shift towards the recognition of the importance of ICT in terms of value adding in winning work and achieving strategic competitive advantage is observed. On the other hand, ICT Training is found to be the theme of highest priority from the academia point of view

    Construction informatics in Turkey: strategic role of ICT and future research directions

    Get PDF
    Construction Informatics deals with subjects ranging from strategic management of ICTs to interoperability and information integration in the construction industry. Studies on defining research directions for Construction Informatics have a history over 20 years. The recent studies in the area highlight the priority themes for Construction Informatics research as interoperability, collaboration support, intelligent sites and knowledge sharing. In parallel, today it is widely accepted in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry that ICT is becoming a strategic asset for any organisation to deliver business improvement and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, traditionally the AEC industry has approached investing in ICT with a lack of strategic focus and low level of priority to the business. This paper presents a recent study from Turkey that is focused on two themes. The first theme investigates the strategic role of ICT implementations from an industrial perspective, and explores if organisations within the AEC industry view ICT as a strategic resource for their business practice. The second theme investigates the ‘perspective of academia’ in terms of future research directions of Construction Informatics. The results of the industrial study indicates that ICT is seen as a value-adding resource, but a shift towards the recognition of the importance of ICT in terms of value adding in winning work and achieving strategic competitive advantage is observed. On the other hand, ICT Training is found to be the theme of highest priority from the academia point of view

    Indigenous entrepreneurship as a research field : developing a definitional framework from the emerging canon

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    This study investigates the possibility and utility of clearly defining Indigenous entrepreneurship as a distinct disciplinary field of science and charting for it a preparadigmatic framework that distinguishes this field of scholarship from all others. This study uses a strategy of literature search and examination to argue that Indigenous entrepreneurship, as a research area, is sufficiently distinguished from both mainstream entrepreneurship and other social and management sciences to constitute a legitimate, well defined sub-field of research in its own right. The study provides both a formal definition of the field and an illustrated theoretical framework to describe it.<br /

    Socio-Economic and Developmental Needs - Focus of Foresight Programmes

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    Emerging economies in the CEE/NIS region – faced with a number of similar or same challenges when trying to find their new role in the changing international settings, while still characterised by their own distinct level of socio-economic development, set of institutions, culture and norms – can benefit significantly from conducting foresight programmes. Yet, foresight should not be conducted for its own sake – just because it is becoming “fashionable” throughout the world, and currently being promoted by the EU. On the contrary, there should be a strong link between foresight, decision preparation and policy-making. In other words, foresight should be used in the context of (adequately identified) policy needs. Its focus (e.g. purely technological, technoeconomic or broad socio-economic orientation) is, therefore, largely determined by the perceived socio-economic and developmental needs. Further, its focus, broad objectives, geographical scope (level), themes, time horizon, methods and participation are closely interrelated, and thus a careful – but flexible – project design is needed to assure coherence among these constituents. It should be borne in mind, however, that foresight is only one of the available policy instruments, and definitely not a panacea.

    Innovation for a circular economy : exploring the adoption of PSS by UK companies in the baby products sector

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    Several authors have commented on the relatively slow rate at which Product Service Systems (PSS) have been adopted in B2B networks. Despite some prominent examples, such as the provision of integrated lighting systems to Sainsbury’s (supermarket chain) by Parkersell in the UK, and the ‘pay per copy’ (lease and take back) systems provided by copier companies such as Xerox and Canon, PSS has not been widely adopted even though the business case seems sound. Consequently, the question of identifying and overcoming barriers to PSS adoption has become an important research topic. In this study we explore barriers to the adoption of PSS in the UK baby products industry using a qualitative research design employing in-depth interviews with baby products suppliers (manufacturers) and buyers (retailers). The novelty of the approach adopted in this study is that key concepts from the Industrial Networks Approach are used to frame the analysis. Buyers and suppliers of baby products acknowledge the value of the PSS approach, but PSS adoption is found to require considerable adaptation to conventional patterns of inter-organizational interaction
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