The effects of costumer satisfaction, service quality and perceived value on behavioural intentions in retail industry

The retail industry has in the last decades assumed a preponderant role in the Portuguese economy, similar to that of other European countries, and is definitely one of the biggest and more vibrant industries nowadays. The significance of the retail industry for the Portuguese economy, a central sector for its growth and dynamic, and the relationship between service quality and efficiency of business are the motivations for this study. In a highly competitive industry, as is the retailing sector, it is crucial that organizations have a good knowledge of the business aspects that are important to their customers. The purpose of this study is to identify the dimensions of service quality and to evaluate the interrelationships among customer satisfaction, perceived value and behavioural intentions and service quality in the modern retail industry. A multi-level and hierarchical model is used as an instrument to synthesize the effects of customer satisfaction, service quality and perceived value on behavioural intentions of customers at retail stores. The results shown that, service perceived quality significantly influences customer satisfaction. Also perceived value and quality service are the main determinants of customer satisfaction. Additionally, customer satisfaction, retail service quality and perceived value significantly affect behavioural intentions towards the act of buying.The preparation of the paper was supported by FCT - Portuguese Foundation for the Development of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education; “Project Code Reference UID/GES/4752/2016”info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Strategic Relevance of IT-enabled Organizational Virtues

Inspired by recent calls for a greater infusion of ethics into business organizations, this research-in-progress paper proposes an ethical perspective to the development of organizational capabilities. Drawing upon Pavlou and El Sawy’s (2010) recent work, it recognizes that organizations need both dynamic and improvisational capabilities in order to be successful. This paper proposes that certain ethical characteristics of organizations, notably organizational virtues, influence these dynamic and improvisational capabilities. The paper also recognizes the salience of IT, in terms of organizational IT affordances, in engendering such virtues. Specifically, certain core organizational IT affordances are theorized to influence the development of such organizational virtues. Overall, this paper contributes by articulating the strategic usefulness of organizational ethicality (in terms of virtues) and the important role IT plays in this mix. The theory presented here is the first step in this research and will guide the future empirical study

Personalized marketing - A qualitative study on tailored marketing online from a consumer's perspective

When consumers today navigate and shop online they meet different types of advertisements, both directly on the e-commerce website and through other channels. Many companies use personalized marketing as a way to create relationships with consumers. However, personalization today is a sensitive area and often twinned with privacy issues. Many consumers feel as they are being stalked. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how consumers perceive personalized marketing in purchasing situations online when it is used as a customer relationship management-tool. The result should be of great use for practitioners that deal with retailing online in order to maximize the effect of their marketing efforts. Through qualitative interviews we intend to investigate consumers’ sensitivity concerning e-retailers data gathering on the Internet. Our main findings concern the degree of personalization in marketing messages, when personalization strengthens the consumer-company relationship and when it is seen as an intrusion on privacy

Guidelines for technology industry chatbot content development

Chatbot is a software that can provide answers to questions and solve common problems on a web page or in an application. Companies are using chatbots to make processes more efficient and to increase customer experience. Currently most of the chatbots are published in the companies which are concentrating on consumer customers. Chatbots can helping customers to solve problems and questions with products and services company is providing. This master’s thesis studied how chatbot can be used to improve customer experience in global technology company and what properties and requirements users have concerning chatbot. Literature review included studies about user experience, customer experience and content strategy. Goal was to find out how these concepts are described and what makes them successful. Study was carried out by doing online survey to case company employees around the world. Survey was built partly based on studies in the literature review. Study results were used to create content development model and guidelines for chatbot by using design science research. Results showed that people are willing to use chatbot and chatbot have positive impact on customer experience. In addition, primary content of chatbot should be customer support, technical information and product information. Study also implicated that people have posi-tive attitudes towards chatbot and it has positive effect on customer experience. Outcome of this study were guidelines that can be used in chatbot content development. Guidelines are easy to use and easy to understand. Addition to this, guidelines solved existing problem in the case company. Guidelines are intended for people who are developing and creating chatbot and its content. They can be used in the development of the chatbot and also reviewing existing chatbot. They can be also developed further since user experience, custom-er experience and content strategy concepts are evolving all the time and based on them, these guidelines can be developed further.Chatbot on ohjelmisto joka vastaa tavallisimpiin kysymyksiin ja ratkaisee yleisimpiä ongelmia verkkosivulla tai sovelluksessa. Yritykset käyttävät chatbotteja prosessien tehostamiseen ja paremman asiakaskokemuksen tarjoamiseen. Tällä hetkellä suurin osa chatboteista on käytössä yrityksissä jotka tarjoavat kuluttajatuotteita tai kuluttajapalveluita. Chatbot auttaa asiakasta ratkaisemaan ongelmia ja vastaamaan kysymyksiin koskien yrityksen tuotteita tai palveluita. Tämä Pro Gradu -tutkielma tutki kuinka chatbottia voidaan hyödyntää asiakaskokemuksen parantamisessa teknologiateollisuuden yrityksessä. Lisäksi tutkimus selvitti ominaisuuksia ja vaatimuksia mitä käyttäjillä on chatboteille. Kirjallisuuskatsaus käsitteli tutkimuksia jotka tutkivat käyttäjäkokemusta, asiakaskokemusta ja sisältöstrategiaa. Tavoite oli selvittää miten nämä käsitteet oli määritelty ja miten saavutetaan paras mahdollinen käyttäjäkokemus, asiakaskokemus ja sisältöstrategia. Varsinainen tutkimus toteutettiin verkkokyselynä yrityksen työntekijöille ympäri maailmaa. Tutkimuksen kysymykset ja teemat perustuivat osittain kirjallisuuskatsaukseen. Kyselyn tuloksien avulla rakennettiin ohjeistus ja malli käyttäen suunnittelutieteellistä lähestymistapaa. Tuloksien perusteella vastaajat ovat halukkaita käyttämään chatbottia ja chatbotilla on positiivinen vaikutus asiakaskokemukseen. Tämän lisäksi, chatbot sisällön pitäisi keskittyä asiakastukeen, tekniseen tukeen ja tuoteinformaatioon. Tuloksista myös selvisi, että ihmiset suhtautuvat positiivisesti chatbottiin ja se vaikuttaa myös asiakaskokemukseen. Tutkimuksen lopputuloksena rakennettiin ohjeistus mitä voidaan käyttää chatbotin sisällön suunnittelussa ja sisällöntuotannossa. Ohjeistus on helppokäyttöinen ja sitä on helppo ymmärtää. Tutkimus myös ratkaisi yrityksessä olevan ongelman joka liittyy chatbotin sisältöön. Ohjeistus on tarkoitettu ihmisille jotka kehittävät chatbottia ja luovat sisältöä siihen. Ohjeistusta voidaan käyttää suunnittelusta, mutta myös olemassa olevan chatbotin arvioinnissa. Tämän lisäksi ohjeistus on mahdollista kehittää eteenpäin, sillä käyttäjäkokemus, asiakaskokemus ja sisältöstrategia kehittyvät koko ajan ja siksi ohjeistusta voi kehittää eteenpäin jatkuvasti

Enhancing e-learning effectiveness using an intelligent agent-supported personalized virtual learning environment: an empirical investigation

Virtual learning environments (VLEs) developed under constructivism and embedded personalization learning functions have the potential to meet different requirements of different learners and thus increase e-Learning effectiveness. We formulated internal personalized learning mechanisms by implementing intelligent agents in a VLE under a constructivist learning model and further developed an e-learning effectiveness framework by integrating educational and IS theories. An empirical field experiment involving 228 university students was conducted. The findings suggested that personalized e-learning facilities enhance online learning effectiveness in terms of examination, satisfaction, and self-efficacy criteria

Secure portable execution and storage environments: A capability to improve security for remote working

Remote working is a practice that provides economic benefits to both the employing organisation and the individual. However, evidence suggests that organisations implementing remote working have limited appreciation of the security risks, particularly those impacting upon the confidentiality and integrity of information and also on the integrity and availability of the remote worker’s computing environment. Other research suggests that an organisation that does appreciate these risks may veto remote working, resulting in a loss of economic benefits. With the implementation of high speed broadband, remote working is forecast to grow and therefore it is appropriate that improved approaches to managing security risks are researched. This research explores the use of secure portable execution and storage environments (secure PESEs) to improve information security for the remote work categories of telework, and mobile and deployed working. This thesis with publication makes an original contribution to improving remote work information security through the development of a body of knowledge (consisting of design models and design instantiations) and the assertion of a nascent design theory. The research was conducted using design science research (DSR), a paradigm where the research philosophies are grounded in design and construction. Following an assessment of both the remote work information security issues and threats, and preparation of a set of functional requirements, a secure PESE concept was defined. The concept is represented by a set of attributes that encompass the security properties of preserving the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the computing environment and data. A computing environment that conforms to the concept is considered to be a secure PESE, the implementation of which consists of a highly portable device utilising secure storage and an up-loadable (on to a PC) secure execution environment. The secure storage and execution environment combine to address the information security risks in the remote work location. A research gap was identified as no existing ‘secure PESE like’ device fully conformed to the concept, enabling a research problem and objectives to be defined. Novel secure storage and execution environments were developed and used to construct a secure PESE suitable for commercial remote work and a high assurance secure PESE suitable for security critical remote work. The commercial secure PESE was trialled with an existing telework team looking to improve security and the high assurance secure PESE was trialled within an organisation that had previously vetoed remote working due to the sensitivity of the data it processed. An evaluation of the research findings found that the objectives had been satisfied. Using DSR evaluation frameworks it was determined that the body of knowledge had improved an area of study with sufficient evidence generated to assert a nascent design theory for secure PESEs. The thesis highlights the limitations of the research while opportunities for future work are also identified. This thesis presents ten published papers coupled with additional doctoral research (that was not published) which postulates the research argument that ‘secure PESEs can be used to manage information security risks within the remote work environment’

Development of a Procedure Reference Model for the Alignment of Non‐medical Support Service Applications in Hospitals – A Framework for Ensuring the Correct Reporting and Configuration of Key Performance Indicators

The outcome of this thesis is the systematically developed and empirically validated “Procedure Reference Model for the Alignment of Non-medical Support Service Applications in Hospitals” comprising six component models, the metamodel, two input documents and a documentation for application as integral parts. The development of the model was done based on a pragmatic philosophical grounding in a multi-methodological iterative approach, including Design Science Research (DSR) principles for the modelling actions and mixed methods principles for the empirical research. In the “Theorising” phase, a sequential mixed methods approach combining a quantitative survey with qualitative expert interviews was conducted generating the basis for the modelling. In two iterations of the “Building” phase, the modelling actions were conducted. While in the “Evaluating” phase, the model was validated in two iterations based on expert interviews and focus group discussions. The model turned out to be relevant in the context of the challenges posed by the current structural changes in healthcare and hospitals. As part of these changes, non-medical support services are increasingly seen as essential not only in contributing to a better cost-efficiency but also as service enabler for the medical services. To be able to deliver the adequate services and service levels and control them within the very complex service provision of hospitals, the managers depend on relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) in an appropriate reporting setting. In Swiss hospitals, the configuration of KPI reporting had only partially been aligned in terms of software applications and/or in terms of reporting styles. Therefore, the research aims and objectives of this thesis were to find a procedure and its significant aspects for aligning non-medical-support service applications in hospitals so that in the future, relevant key performance indicators for systematic controlling and optimization can be generated and configured as effectively and efficiently as possible including the development of a model providing the necessary information. The evaluation of the model showed that the research output was credible and contributory. For practice, it provides a systematic basis for communication between different non-medical support service application stakeholders and thus enables managers to indirectly contribute to the development of a more effective healthcare provision. For the scientific community, it contributes to the development of multi-methodological DSR approaches suitable for complex environments and for multi-disciplinary environments