Customer adoption of e-service : an experimental study

So far, the term e-commerce has been primarily associated with communicating the brand and/or enabling sales transactions. However, the next vista for companies operating in the virtual marketplace seems to be e-service or, delivering value-added, interactive services to customers. This e-business function has been left virtually unexplored in the services research literature. In this article, an attempt is made to investigate the impact of organizational reputation, relative advantage, and perceived risk on perceived service quality, trust and behavioral intentions of customers towards adopting e-services. In the context of an electronic travel service, hypotheses on the relationships between aforementioned variables are investigated by means of an experimental study. The results suggest that the three factors have a significant main effect on the customers' attitude and behavior towards e-service. The only exception is that relative advantage does not appear to have a significant impact on customer trust. The results also show that organizational reputation and perceived risk have a combined effect: a good organizational reputation impacts the effect of perceived risk on the three dependent variables. Finally, the three factors appeared to be evenly important in the forming of customers' attitude and behavior. Again, the only exception is that organizational reputation and perceived risk appear to be more important in terms of trust than relative advantage

An assessment of equivalence between online and mail surveys in service research

This article examines whether online and mail surveys produce convergent results, which would allow them to be used in mixed-mode service quality studies. In the context of a large business-to-business service quality assessment, an analysis of the accuracy and completeness of respondent answers to both open and closed questions suggests that online and mail surveys produce equivalent results. Composite reliability shows consistently high levels for both groups, and the means and variance-covariance matrices are equal across modes. However, minor differences occur between the two survey methods; online respondents provide more improvement suggestions, indicate more often to which competitor they want to switch, and provide lengthier answers in response to requests for examples of positive experiences with the company. This research provides important findings regarding the process for, and results of, comparing two survey modes

Het meten van kwaliteit van dienstverlening vanuit een integraal perspectief

In dit artikel wordt onderzocht of er een verschil bestaat tussen de externe en de interne kwaliteitsperceptie met betrekking tot de interactie tussen dienstverlenend personeel en hun klanten. Daartoe worden twee methoden voor bet meten van de kwaliteit van diensten geïntegreerd: SERVQUAL en de conjuncte analyse. Uit het onderzoek blijkt dat er een duidelijk verschil bestaat tussen de externe en de interne gepercipieerde kwaliteit met betrekking tot de interactie tussen (een deel van) het dienstverlenend personeel en de klanten van de Nederlandse Spoorwegen. De resultaten worden van enkele kanttekeningen voorzien en enkele suggesties voor verbetering van de kwaliteitsperceptie worden gegeven. Trefwoorden: dienstverlening, spoorwegen, sociale interactie, kwaliteitszor

Consumer acceptance of wireless finance

M-commerce has been heralded repeatedly as the new service frontier of the millennium. Present market reality, however, seems to be less optimistic. Therefore, the current study explores the factors contributing to the adoption of mobile services in a context of wireless finance. The technology acceptance model was used as a point of departure. For this study, perceived cost, system quality and social influence were added to the model, and the latter two displayed significant effects in the empirical research. Moderating effects of the variables age, computer skills, mobile technology readiness and social influence were investigated, all of which proved to be relevant in the context presented

Hospitality retail operations types and styles in the management of human resources

This article explores the relationship between the service operation type adopted by organisations and the style of human resource management (HRM) which best fits with it. The degree of standardisation and the level of tangibility in the service offer are shown as being the critical ‘strategic drivers’ of this process. Four distinct operations types are identified and four corresponding ‘ideal’ HRM styles are introduced. Within hospitality retailing it is possible to identify that three of these operations types are prevalent. Three short case studies, of well-known exponents in the hospitality industry of these types, are utilised to explore the extent to which their actual HRM styles correspond to the ideals outlined

The role of attitude strength in marketing intelligence use concerning customer satisfaction

Considering the strategic importance of satisfying customers and the high costs of conducting customer satisfaction research, deeper understanding of the determinants of customer satisfaction information use seems important. In this paper, we aim at predicting intentions of selectively using satisfaction-related information from decision-maker attitude strength by applying latent variable modelling. The results suggest that two dimensions of attitude strength, commitment and embeddedness, contribute directly and indirectly to selective customer satisfaction intelligence use. Indirect effects occur through cognitive processes and selective judgment of satisfaction-related information

Wat bepaalt de effectiviteit van marktonderzoek informatie: een gebruikersonderzoek

Zonder enige twijfel is goede informatie, verkregen via marktonderzoek, van cruciaal belang voor het succes of falen van hedendaagse ondernemingen. Ondanks dit belang van marktonderzoek en de toenemende hoeveelheid informatie die tegenwoordig beschikbaar is, lijkt het echter nog maar de vraag of en op welke manier hiervan door het management van organisaties daadwerkelijk gebruik wordt gemaakt bij het nemen van beslissingen. In dit artikel wordt het effectief gebruik van marktonderzoek informatie door organisaties nader onder de loep genomen en wordt een poging ondernomen dit gebruik door managers en factoren die het beïnvloeden in kaart te brengen. Hierbij wordt het uitvoeren van marktonderzoek door marktonderzoeksbureaus als een dienst beschouwd die verleend wordt aan een opdrachtgever. Door middel van een empirisch onderzoek onder NVMI leden die regelmatig marktonderzoek laten uitvoeren wordt een aantal hypothesen betreffende het effectief gebruik van marktonderzoek informatie getoetst