Does Relationship Quality Affect Customer Loyalty of Malaysian National Carmakers: Alternative Attractiveness as Moderator

This paper aims to explore how the intangible element of relationship quality influences the level of customer loyalty towards Malaysian national carmakers in the competitive business of automotive after-sales service. After-sales service is a good platform to retain the customers for a longer term of relationship which creates sustainable business opportunities. The repeated service encounter during the given free warranty period has developed a continuous customer-service provider relationship. Most importantly, the sales of a vehicle have offered existing customers after-sales service business. However, the attractive offers from ordinary workshops have encouraged the existing customers to choose ordinary workshops after the vehicle warranty has expired and the existing relationship with the current service provider is terminated. The loss of existing customers has denied the opportunity for the national carmakers to take advantage of recommendations, referrals, good publicity, and positive word-of-mouth that contribute to a higher level of customer loyalty. Using PLS-SEM as the method of data analysis, this study empirically tested the influence of relationship quality as the independent variable towards customer loyalty while competition variable of alternative attractiveness was tested as a moderator. The data were collected from 312 respondents through the technique of intercept survey and the respondents were chosen based on systematic sampling. The findings revealed that relationship quality was positively related to customer loyalty. However, alternative attractiveness was not significant as a moderator in the relationship between relationship quality and customer loyalty. Based on the results, this study empirically proved that high quality of relationship gives more impact towards customer loyalty compared to other competitors offers. This study benefited the Malaysian national carmakers as it provides empirical evidence on the importance of high-quality customer-service provider relationship which might assist them to develop a unique marketing strategy to retain the existing customers and generates more loyal customers

Make-or-buy configurational approaches in product-service ecosystems and performance

This research examines firm boundary configurations for manufacturers' product-service offerings. We argue that the building of a product-service ecosystem through collaboration with service providers in certain types of business services can increase performance as a result of the superior knowledge-based resources coming from specialized partners. By using fuzzy set qualitative analysis on a sample of 370 multinational manufacturing enterprises (MMNEs), the results reveal that effective servitization is heterogeneous across manufacturing industries and across business service offerings. The findings indicate that most industries achieve their highest performance through collaborations with value-added service providers in two out of three of the service continuum stages (Base and Intermediate services); while keeping the development of Advanced services in-house. The results help to contextualize the best practices for implementing service business models in MMNEs by detailing which service capabilities should be retained in-house and which should be outsourced to specialized partners in various industrial contexts.Peer ReviewedPreprin

The Impact of Automotive After-Sales Service Quality and Alternative Attractiveness on Customer Loyalty

This study intends to explore the impact of an industry-specific dimension of service quality in automotive after-sales service and how it influences the level of customer loyalty towards Malaysian national carmakers. Each service industry carries different characteristics of consumer behavior and thus, an industry-specific measure of service quality to capture the uniqueness of different service setting is required. In relation to that, this study has evaluated service quality in automotive after-sales service as a second-order construct which allows for identification of the relative importance of each dimension in influencing the level of customer loyalty. Aside from that, the fierce competition from the non-national brands in Malaysian automotive market and the attractive offers made by the alternative workshops for car service maintenance and repair have motivated this study to empirically examines the competition factor of alternative attractiveness and its influences on customer loyalty. The data collected through the technique of intercept survey in systematic sampling from 312 respondents were analyzed using PLS-SEM. The findings revealed that customer service was the most important dimension of service quality that contributes to the positive relationship with customer loyalty. Meanwhile, support service was found as the impotent element of service quality dimension, however, the positive significant relationship of service quality with customer loyalty showed that support service is still important to capture a higher level of customer loyalty. Aside from that, the finding also showed that the competition variable of alternative attractiveness was not a significant contributor to influence the level of customer loyalty. Further, this study benefited the Malaysian national carmakers as it provides empirical evidence on the relative importance of service quality dimension. The role of competitors also revealed to help in strategic decision-making in which may allow the national carmakers to sustain as a market leader in the local automotive arena

Importance of culture, personality and environmental awareness in automotive purchasing behavior

While the automotive industry is in a historical transformation phase, it is essential for affected manufacturers to meet the associated challenges. Today, more than ever, established automotive groups are required to address the prevailing demand mechanisms as precisely as possible to remain competitive in the market. In this context, market research and the analysis of customer behavior are becoming increasingly important. Behavioral analyses offer the opportunity to accurately identify the demands of international mobility customers, to implement these needs in the form of products or brand strategies, and thus to satisfy both customer and company interests. The present cumulative dissertation consists of three research projects. The central and comprehensive objective of the individual essays was to contribute to the behavioral analysis of automotive customers and to investigate the influences of culture, personality and environmental awareness. Moreover, the relevance of behavioral theories in automotive marketing practice was assessed, and differentiators of automotive brand management were examined. Against the background of the research questions raised, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) offered a very practical methodology. This analysis technique served to illustrate significant moderating characteristics of the investigated constructs such as culture, personality, and environmental awareness in the automotive/marketing-specific context and helped to investigate brand theorems (e.g., brand personality, self-congruity, and green marketing) in connection with established consumer metrics such as perception and behavior

Artificial Intelligence Advancements for Digitising Industry

In the digital transformation era, when flexibility and know-how in manufacturing complex products become a critical competitive advantage, artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the technologies driving the digital transformation of industry and industrial products. These products with high complexity based on multi-dimensional requirements need flexible and adaptive manufacturing lines and novel components, e.g., dedicated CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, TPUs and neuromorphic architectures that support AI operations at the edge with reliable sensors and specialised AI capabilities. The change towards AI-driven applications in industrial sectors enables new innovative industrial and manufacturing models. New process management approaches appear and become part of the core competence in the organizations and the network of manufacturing sites. In this context, bringing AI from the cloud to the edge and promoting the silicon-born AI components by advancing Moore’s law and accelerating edge processing adoption in different industries through reference implementations becomes a priority for digitising industry. This article gives an overview of the ECSEL AI4DI project that aims to apply at the edge AI-based technologies, methods, algorithms, and integration with Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and robotics to enhance industrial processes based on repetitive tasks, focusing on replacing process identification and validation methods with intelligent technologies across automotive, semiconductor, machinery, food and beverage, and transportation industries.publishedVersio

Kecenderungan kerjaya sebagai usahawan di kalangan pelajar bumiputera di Politeknik Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah, Kuantan, Pahang

Usahawan memainkan peranan penting dalam pembangunan ekonomi sesebuah negara. Walau bagaimanapun, jika dilihat senario sekarang, masih ramai Bumiputera yang kurang berminat untuk menceburi bidang keusahawanan. Justeru itu, kajian ini bertujuan untuk menyelidik tentang tahap kecenderungan keijaya sebagai usahawan di kaiangan pelajar Bumiputera tahun akhir Diploma Akauntansi Politeknik Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah, Kuantan (POLISAS). Secara khususnya, kajian ini akan menyelidik sejauh mana cita-cita pelajar Bumiputera untuk menjadi seorang usahawan dipengaruhi oleh ciri-ciri peribadi pelajar, faktor keluarga, faktor pengajian, pengalaman keija dan faktor persekitaran. Responden kajian terdiri daripada pelajar Bumiputera POLISAS iaitu seramai 51 orang. Data dikumpul menggunakan soal selidik dan dianalisis dengan menggunakan prosedur Ujian T, Crosstabs dan Korelasi Pearson melalui perisian SPSS (Statistical Package For Social Sciences). Dapatan kajian menunjukkan hanya faktor persekitaran (iaitu faktor pihak yang paling mempengaruhi pelajar untuk berniaga) yang dapat menarik minat pelajar untuk melibatkan diri dalam perniagaan. Faktor-faktor lain didapati kurang memberikan sumbangan dalam menarik minat pelajar untuk cenderung kepada bidang keusahawanan. Oleh itu, beberapa cadangan telah dibuat bagi menangani masalah ini agar kaum Bumiputera tidak jauh ketinggalan berbanding kaum lain dan seterusnya memenuhi hasrat kerajaan dalam merealisasikan matlamat Dasar Ekonomi Baru (DEB) yang masih belum dicapai sepenuhnya hingga ke hari ini

An Empirical Analysis to Control Product Counterfeiting in the Automotive Industry\u27s Supply Chains in Pakistan

The counterfeits pose significant health and safety threat to consumers. The quality image of firms is vulnerable to the damage caused by the expanding flow of counterfeit products in today’s global supply chains. The counterfeiting markets are swelling due to globalization and customers’ willingness to buy counterfeits, fueling illicit activities to explode further. Buyers look for the original parts are deceived by the false (deceptive) signals’ communication. The counterfeiting market has become a multi-billion industry but lacks detailed insights into the supply side of counterfeiting (deceptive side). The study aims to investigate and assess the relationship between the anti-counterfeiting strategies and improvement in the firm’s supply performance within the internal and external supply chain quality management context in the auto-parts industry’s supply chains in Pakistan

Forecasting technology costs via the Learning Curve - Myth or Magic?

To further our understanding of the effectiveness of learning or experience curves to forecast technology costs, a statistical analysis using historical data has been carried out. Three hypotheses have been tested using available data sets that together shed light on the ability of experience curves to forecast future technology costs. The results indicate that the Single Factor Learning Curve is a highly effective estimator of future costs with little bias when errors were viewed in their log format. However, it was also found that due to the convexity of the log curve an overestimation of potential cost reductions arises when returned to their monetary units. Furthermore the effectiveness of increasing weights for more recent data was tested using Weighted Least Squares with exponentially increasing weights. This resulted in forecasts that were typically less biased than when using Ordinary Least Square and highlighted the potential benefits of this method