Exploring the Zone of Tolerance for Internal Customers in IT-Enabled Call Centers

Today, call center employees’ service encounters with external customers are extensively supported with modern information technology (IT). However, prior research on service quality and zone of tolerance (ZOT) focuses primarily on external customers with little attention paid to how internal customers (e.g., service employees) respond to services provided by internal functions, particularly IT function that supports employees’ IT use. Drawing on theory of administrative behavior and IT success literature, we conducted a study at a call center of a telecommunications firm and found that the impact of internal IT service quality (ITSQ) on employees’ service quality (ESQ) to external customers, as well as on their satisfaction with and use of the deployed technology, exhibits a positive diminishing pattern as ITSQ increases from below to within and to above the ZOT. We also found that ITSQ’s impact on ESQ employees\u27 satisfaction with technology changes more dramatically around adequate service level than desired service level. Finally, we show that call center employees’ satisfaction with technology partially mediates ITSQ’s impact on ESQ. Besides adding to the service and IT literature, our findings suggest that managers should understand internal customers’ different levels of expectations toward internal IT service and the differential performance impacts of those levels

Hybridization and Bond-Orbital Components in Site-Specific X-Ray Photoelectron Spectra of Rutile TiO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e

We have determined the Ti and O components of the rutile TiO2 valence band using the method of sitespecific x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Comparisons with calculations based on pseudopotentials within the local density approximation reveal the hybridization of the Ti 3d, 4s, and 4p states, and the O 2s and 2p states on each site. These chemical effects are observed due to the large differences between the angular-momentum dependent matrix elements of the photoelectron process

Marketing Actions and the Value of Customer Assets: A Framework for Customer Asset Management

This article develops a framework for assessing how marketing actions affect customers’lifetime value to the firm. The framework is organized around four critical actions that firms must take to effectively manage the asset value of the customer base: database creation, market segmentation, forecasting customer purchase behavior, and resource allocation. In this framework, customer lifetime value is treated as a dynamic construct, that is, it influences the eventual allocation of marketing resources but is also influenced by that allocation. By viewing customers as assets and systematically managing these assets, a firm can identify the most appropriate marketing actions to acquire, maintain, and enhance customer assets and thereby maximize financial returns. The article discusses in detail how to assess customer lifetime value and manage customers as assets. Then, it identifies key research challenges in studying customer asset management and the managerial challenges associated with implementing effective customer asset management practices.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

In Search of the High Road: Meaning and Evidence

This article is the first in a series to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ILR Review. We will be highlighting important research themes that have been featured in the journal over its many years of publication. In this article, Paul Osterman reviews research on the quality of jobs and recent debates over “High Road” and “Low Road” approaches to employment practices. Scholars and policy advocates frequently utilize the distinction between High Road and Low Road firms as a framework for efforts to improve the quality of work in low-wage employers. This article assesses the logic and evidence that underlies this construct. The author provides a definition of the concept and examines the evidence behind the assumption that firms have a choice in how they design their employment policies. He then takes up the assertion that firms that adopt a High Road model can “do well by doing good” and adds precision to this claim by reviewing the evidence that a profit-maximizing firm would benefit from following the High Road path. The article concludes by suggesting a research agenda and providing a framework for policy that flows from the conclusions drawn from the existing research base

Managing in the Service Economy

Bostonviii, 211 p.: illus.; 24 c