Making SENS: exploring the antecedents and impact of store environmental stewardship climate

Retailers increasingly recognize that environmental responsibility is a strategic imperative. However, little research has investigated or identified the factors that facilitate the successful implementation of environmentally responsible strategies across a network of customer-facing sales units (stores). We propose that a store manager’s ability to lead by example facilitates this process by fostering a supportive climate for store environmental stewardship (SENS-climate). By examining the influence of store managers’ actions on sales associates’ perceptions of the SENS-climate, as well as the subsequent impact on their performance—measured by margins, as well as sales of green and regular products—this study demonstrates that store managers can foster a SENS-climate by articulating their prioritization of environmental responsibility in their operational decisions. These positive effects are sustained by relational factors, such as the moderating effect of the store manager–sales associate dyadic tenure. In contrast, when store managers display high variability in their environmental orientation, it hinders the development of SENS-climate perceptions among sales associates. If sales associates perceive an enabling SENS-climate, they achieve higher margins and more green but fewer regular sales

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

Antecedents and consequences of the service climate in boundary-spanning self-managing service teams

In this article, the authors examine antecedents and consequences of the service climate in boundary-spanning self-managing teams (SMTs) that deliver financial services. Using data from members of 61 SMTs and their customers, the authors show a differential impact of the SMT service climate on various marketing performance measures. Furthermore, they obtain support for independent group-level effects of intrateam support and team member flexibility on employee perceptions of the SMT service climate. Both effects are persistent over time and demonstrate that collective perceptions in the SMT have incremental value in the explanation of the service climate

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

Service climate in self-managing teams: Mapping the linkage of team member perceptions and service performance outcomes in a business-to-business setting

Drawing from the organizational behaviour and services marketing literature, we develop a conceptual model of self-managing team (SMT) service climate, taking into account characteristics of the organizational context, the SMT, and the individual employee. In order to assess the impact of SMT service climate, we include a number of internal consequences (i.e., in-company performance data) and external service performance outcomes (i.e., customer-perceived service quality). As a result of the hierarchically nested data-structure (i.e., groups and individuals), we investigate the antecedents of SMT service climate in service groups using a multi-level approach. Our results reveal that organizational and group factors have a significant cross-level influence on individual employee perceptions of SMT service climate. Furthermore, we demonstrate that employee perceptions of SMT service climate are positively related to customer-perceived service quality, while there is no relationship with service productivity measures

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

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