An investigation on the Relationship between New Service Development, Market Orientation and Marketing Performance

New service development has been recognized as sources of advantage for service organizations.  Market orientation, also, has long been considered as one of the most productive strategic options in satisfying market needs more efficiently. It has been recognized as the best option to attain and preserve a competitive advantage in the market. Unfortunately, the impact of market orientation on firm performance was influenced by certain environmental and organizational contexts, as well as, mediating variables. While the empirical evidence is not unequivocal, the generalizability of its impact required further research. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between new service development, market orientation and marketing performance. More specifically, main objective of this study is to investigate the mediating effect of new service development on the relationship between market orientation and marketing performance. The proposed model was tested on data were obtain through survey conducted on managers of Jordanian hotels. Structural equation modeling using EQS 6.2 for Windows with maximum likelihood estimation was conducted to verify the reliability and validity of the multi-item scales and to test the hypothesized relationships. The measurement properties of the measures were examined using a sequential process of exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. However, all measures were found to be exhibit acceptable reliability and validity. As regards the goodness of fit of the causal model, the results showed a reasonable fit between the model and the data. However, the findings confirm the effect of market orientation on new service development and Marketing performance. Result also provides evidence that new service development had a positive and significant impact on marketing performance. In addition, the indirect effect of market orientation on marketing performance through new service development as mediator was also verified. However, these results indicate the dual role of market orientation as both direct contributor to marketing performance and as indirect contributor through new service development. The study shed light on the usefulness of new services development that will help hotel become more market oriented and achieve superior performance outcomes. In sum the study has made a useful contribution to the hotel industry in emerging markets. Keywords: New Service Development; Market Orientation; Marketing Performance; Structural equation modeling.

Theory of Resource Allocation for Robust Distributed Computing

Lately, distributed computing (DC) has emerged in several application scenarios such as grid computing, high-performance and reconfigurable computing, wireless sensor networks, battle management systems, peer-to-peer networks, and donation grids. When DC is performed in these scenarios, the distributed computing system (DCS) supporting the applications not only exhibits heterogeneous computing resources and a significant communication latency, but also becomes highly dynamic due to the communication network as well as the computing servers are affected by a wide class of anomalies that change the topology of the system in a random fashion. These anomalies exhibit spatial and/or temporal correlation when they result, for instance, from wide-area power or network outages These correlated failures may not only inflict a large amount of damage to the system, but they may also induce further failures in other servers as a result of the lack of reliable communication between the components of the DCS. In order to provide a robust DC environment in the presence of component failures, it is key to develop a general framework for accurately modeling the complex dynamics of a DCS. In this dissertation a novel approach has been undertaken for modeling a general class of DCSs and for analytically characterizing the performance and reliability of parallel applications executed on such systems. A general probabilistic model has been constructed by assuming that the random times governing the dynamics of the DCS follow arbitrary probability distributions with heterogeneous parameters. Auxiliary age variables have been introduced in the modeling of a DCS and a hybrid continuous and discrete state-space model the system has been constructed. This hybrid model has enabled the development of an age-dependent stochastic regeneration theory, which, in turn, has been employed to analytically characterize the average execution time, the quality-of-service and the reliability in serving an application. These are three metrics of performance and reliability of practical interest in DC. Analytical approximations as well as mathematical lower and upper bounds for these metrics have also been derived in an attempt to reduce the amount of computational resources demanded by the exact characterizations. In order to systematically assess the reliability of DCSs in the presence of correlated component failures, a novel probabilistic model for spatially correlated failures has been developed. The model, based on graph theory and Markov random fields, captures both geographical and logical correlations induced by the arbitrary topology of the communication network of a DCS. The modeling framework, in conjunction with a general class of dynamic task reallocation (DTR) control policies, has been used to optimize the performance and reliability of applications in the presence of independent as well as spatially correlated anomalies. Theoretical predictions, Monte- Carlo simulations as well as experimental results have shown that optimizing these metrics can significantly impact the performance of a DCS. Moreover, the general setting developed here has shed insights on: (i) the effect of different stochastic mod- els on the accuracy of the performance and reliability metrics, (ii) the dependence of the DTR policies on system parameters such as failure rates and task-processing rates, (iii) the severe impact of correlated failures on the reliability of DCSs, (iv) the dependence of the DTR policies on degree of correlation in the failures, and (v) the fundamental trade-off between minimizing the execution time of an application and maximizing its reliability

Expected impact quantification–based reliability assessment methodology for Chilean copper smelting process: A case study

Currently, a lack of interpretation tools and methodologies hinders the ability to assess the performance of a single piece of equipment or a total system. Therefore, a reliability, availability, and maintainability analysis must be combined with a quantitative reliability impact analysis to interpret the actual performance and identify bottlenecks and improvement opportunities. This article proposes a novel methodology that uses reliability, availability, and maintainability analysis to quantify the expected impact. The strengths of the failure expected impact methodology include its ability to systematically and quantitatively assess the expected impact in terms of reliability, availability, and maintainability indicators and the logical configuration of subsystems and individual equipment, which show the direct effects of each element on the total system. This proposed analysis complements plant modeling and analysis. Determining the operational effectiveness impact, as the final result of the computation process, enables the quantitative and unequivocal prioritization of the system elements by assessing the associated loss as a ‘‘production loss’’ regarding its unavailability and effect on the system process. The Chilean copper smelting process study provides useful results for developing a hierarchization that enables an analysis of improvement actions that are aligned with the best opportunities

Weather effect considerations in reliability evaluation of electrical transmission and distribution systems

The weather environment has a significant impact on the reliability of a power system due to its effect on the system failure mechanisms of overhead circuits and on the operational ability of an electric power utility. The physical stresses created by weather increase the failure rates of transmission or distribution lines operating in adverse weather conditions, resulting in increased coincident failures of multiple circuits. Exceptionally severe weather can cause immense system damages and significantly impact the reliability performance. Recognition of the pertinent weather impacts clearly indicates the need to develop appropriate models and techniques that incorporate variable weather conditions for realistic estimation of reliability indices. This thesis illustrates a series of multi-state weather models that can be utilized for predictive reliability assessment incorporating adverse and extremely adverse weather conditions. The studies described in this thesis are mainly focused on the analyses using the three state weather model. A series of multi-state weather models are developed and utilized to assess reliability performance of parallel redundant configurations. The application of weather modeling in reliability evaluation is illustrated using a practical transmission system. The thesis presents an approach to identify weather specific contributions to system reliability indices and illustrates the technique by utilizing a test distribution system. The analysis of a range of reliability distributions with regard to major event day segmentation is presented.The research work illustrated in this thesis clearly illustrates that reliability indices estimated without recognition of weather situations are unrealistic and that at minimum the three state weather model should be applied in reliability evaluation of systems residing in varying weather environments. The conclusions, concepts and techniques presented in this thesis should prove useful in practical application