COBRA framework to evaluate e-government services: A citizen-centric perspective

E-government services involve many stakeholders who have different objectives that can have an impact on success. Among these stakeholders, citizens are the primary stakeholders of government activities. Accordingly, their satisfaction plays an important role in e-government success. Although several models have been proposed to assess the success of e-government services through measuring users' satisfaction levels, they fail to provide a comprehensive evaluation model. This study provides an insight and critical analysis of the extant literature to identify the most critical factors and their manifested variables for user satisfaction in the provision of e-government services. The various manifested variables are then grouped into a new quantitative analysis framework consisting of four main constructs: cost; benefit; risk and opportunity (COBRA) by analogy to the well-known SWOT qualitative analysis framework. The COBRA measurement scale is developed, tested, refined and validated on a sample group of e-government service users in Turkey. A structured equation model is used to establish relationships among the identified constructs, associated variables and users' satisfaction. The results confirm that COBRA framework is a useful approach for evaluating the success of e-government services from citizens' perspective and it can be generalised to other perspectives and measurement contexts. Crown Copyright © 2014.PIAP-GA-2008-230658) from the European Union Framework Program and another grant (NPRP 09-1023-5-158) from the Qatar National Research Fund (amember of Qatar Foundation

World Views, Political Attitudes and Risk Perception

Dr. Sjöberg questions the Cultural Theory approach to evaluating variance in risk perception. He also presents the results of a survey using elements of that and other scales to help explain individual differences in risk perception

Country knowledge and familiarity effects on consumer perceived risk and rejection of foreign-made products

Las preocupaciones de los consumidores por los productos fabricados en el extranjero plantean interrogantes sobre lo que éstos conocen acerca del país de origen y la medida en que ese conocimiento se traduce en su rechazo de los productos extranjeros. El presente estudio examina tres tipos de variables de conocimiento acerca del país de origen que, junto con la experiencia de uso/familiaridad, actúan como antecedentes potenciales del riesgo percibido y, a su vez, de la reticencia de los consumidores españoles a comprar y de la (no) posesión de productos chinos. Los resultados revelan que el conocimiento medioambiental del país genera riesgo de auto-imagen/social, mientras que la experiencia de uso/familiaridad reduce tanto el riesgo de auto-imagen/social como el riesgo de rendimiento. Ambos tipos de riesgo afectan significativamente (positivamente) a la reticencia de los consumidores a comprar y (negativamente) a la posesión de productos extranjeros. Se discuten las implicaciones teóricas.Consumer concerns about foreign-made products raise questions about what consumers know about the COO and the extent to which such knowledge translates into their rejection of foreign products. The present examines three types country knowledge variables, along with familitarity/usage experience, as potential antecedents of perceived risk and, in turn, of Spanish consumers’ reluctance to buy and (non-)ownership of Chinese apparel products. The findings reveal that environmental country knowledge can engender self-image/social risk, whereas familiarity/usage experience reduces both self-image/social and performance risks. As expected, the two distinct risk types considered here significantly contributed to consumers’ reluctance to buy (positively) and product ownership (negatively). Theoretical implications are discussed

Critical review of the e-loyalty literature: a purchase-centred framework

Over the last few years, the concept of online loyalty has been examined extensively in the literature, and it remains a topic of constant inquiry for both academics and marketing managers. The tremendous development of the Internet for both marketing and e-commerce settings, in conjunction with the growing desire of consumers to purchase online, has promoted two main outcomes: (a) increasing numbers of Business-to-Customer companies running businesses online and (b) the development of a variety of different e-loyalty research models. However, current research lacks a systematic review of the literature that provides a general conceptual framework on e-loyalty, which would help managers to understand their customers better, to take advantage of industry-related factors, and to improve their service quality. The present study is an attempt to critically synthesize results from multiple empirical studies on e-loyalty. Our findings illustrate that 62 instruments for measuring e-loyalty are currently in use, influenced predominantly by Zeithaml et al. (J Marketing. 1996;60(2):31-46) and Oliver (1997; Satisfaction: a behavioral perspective on the consumer. New York: McGraw Hill). Additionally, we propose a new general conceptual framework, which leads to antecedents dividing e-loyalty on the basis of the action of purchase into pre-purchase, during-purchase and after-purchase factors. To conclude, a number of managerial implementations are suggested in order to help marketing managers increase their customers’ e-loyalty by making crucial changes in each purchase stage

Examining client perceptions of partnership quality and its dimensions in an IT outsourcing relationship

This paper reports on an empirical study of the multidimensionality of partnership quality in IT outsourcing arrangements and the relationships between these dimensions of partnership quality. A two-phase national survey was conducted to collect empirical data to confirm the dimensions of partnership quality in an IT outsourcing arrangement from the client organisation perspective and to identify the significant relationships between these dimensions using a second generation multivariate analysis technique—partial least squares (PLS). The findings from results of the data analyses show that inter-organisational trust, shared business understanding and to a lesser extent, functional and dysfunctional conflict between the client organisation and the outsourcing vendor in an IT outsourcing relationship are the key determinants of partnership quality. The key outcome variable for high partnership quality between the client organisation and the outsourcing vendor in an IT outsourcing relationship is mutual beneficial sharing of risks and benefits. Commitment in an IT outsourcing relationship is confirmed as a multidimensional construct of behaviour commitment and temporal/continuance commitment and was found to be influenced by the other dimensions of partnership quality. The key findings of this study provide support for the notion that trust and shared business understanding are key drivers in the IT outsourcing partnership style relationship ensuring that the sharing of risks and benefits are realised and conflict is minimised leading to a high quality and ultimately successful partnership between the client organisation and the outsourcing vendor. Furthermore our findings indicate that behavioural commitment to the contractual obligations of an IT outsourcing relationship sustains an ongoing temporal commitment to the partnership between the client organisation and the outsourcing vendor

Tone from the Top in Risk Management: A Complementarity Perspective on How Control Systems Influence Risk Awareness

Prompted by the weaknesses of standardized risk management approaches in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, scholars, regulators, and practitioners alike emphasize the importance of creating a risk-aware culture in organizations. Recent insights highlight the special role of tone from the top as crucial driver of risk awareness. In this study, we take a systems-perspective on control system design to investigate the role of tone from the top in creating risk awareness. In particular, we argue that both interactive and diagnostic use of budgets and performance measures interact with tone from the top in managing risk awareness. Our results show that interactive control strengthens the effect of tone from the top on risk awareness, while tone from the top and diagnostic control are, on average, not interrelated with regard to creating risk awareness. To shed light on the boundary conditions of the proposed interdependencies, we further investigate whether the predicted interdependencies are sensitive to the level of perceived environmental uncertainty. We find that the effect of tone from the top and interactive control becomes significantly stronger in a situation of high perceived environmental uncertainty. Most interestingly, tone from the top and diagnostic control are complements with regard to risk awareness in settings of low perceived environmental uncertainty and substitutes at high levels of perceived environmental uncertainty.Series: Department of Strategy and Innovation Working Paper Serie

Managerial Gaps in e-Banking Quality Drivers: An Empirical Assessment

Providing quality service to the customer is a main issue for e-banking. The extant literature on e-services has preferentially examined quality factors as perceived by customers. On the other hand, quality depends on the managerial perceptions about quality drivers and the decisions that would follow from these perceptions. According to SERVQUAL - the most known service quality model - any gaps between management’s and customers’ perceptions would affect the experienced quality and then the customer satisfaction. The aim of this paper is to explore how bank managers perceive quality drivers for e-banking through a preliminary empirical survey

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

Effects of Store Brand Perceived Risk on Buyers’ Behavior – Four Decades of Research Overview

Celem artykułu jest prezentacja pojęcia postrzeganego przez konsumentów ryzyka związanego z markami własnymi oraz przegląd najważniejszych badań nad tym konstruktem, prowadzonych na przestrzeni ostatnich 40 lat. Realizacja tak postawionego celu wymagała przeprowadzenia wyczerpujących studiów literatury na ten temat. Wyjaśniono szereg aspektów pojęcia postrzeganego ryzyka oraz przedstawiono główne efekty oddziaływania postrzeganego ryzyka związanego z markami własnymi na zachowania nabywców. Artykuł dostarcza menedżerom marki wiedzy na temat głównych kierunków ich działań odnoszących się do zarządzania asortymentem marek własnych. The majority of undertaken research on the influence of store brand perceived risk on the consumers’ behavior concerned mainly producer’s brands. Albeit, the research advances in the last four decades on store brand perceived risk, research and literature gaps still remain. This article aims to review what we know about examining and measuring perceived risk of store-branded products. The article is organized as follows. First, some aspects of the risk constructs are emphasized, such as how it is defined and used in consumer and marketing research. Second, major effects of store brand perceived risk are introduced and next, the conclusion and highlighted implications are indicated