The Use of Heuristics in Service Evaluations

Submitted to the School of Business and the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Managing Business-to-Business Customer Relationships Following Key Contact Employee Turnover in a Vendor Firm

This is the published version. Copyright 2002 by the American Marketing Association.Customers form relationships with the employees who serve them as well as with the vendor firms these employees represent. In many cases, a customer’s relationship with an employee who is closest to them, a key contact employee, may be stronger than the customer’s relationship with the vendor firm. If the key contact employee is no longer available to serve that customer, the vendor firm’s relationship with the customer may become vulnerable. In this article, the authors present the results of two studies that examine what business-to-business customers value in their relationships with key contact employees, what customers’ concerns are when a favored key contact employee is no longer available to serve them, and what vendor firms can do to alleviate these concerns and to retain employee knowledge even if they cannot retain the employee in that position. The studies are based on a discovery-oriented approach and integrate input from business-to-business customers, key contact employees, and managers from a broad cross-section of companies to develop testable propositions. The authors discuss managerial and theoretical implications and directions for further research

Psychological Implications of Customer Participation in Co-Production

This is the published version. Copyright 2003 by the American Association of Marketing.Customer participation in the production of goods and services appears to be growing. The marketing literature has largely focused on the economic implications of this trend and has not addressed customers’ potential psychological responses to participation. The authors draw on the social psychological literature on the self-serving bias and conduct two studies to examine the effects of participation on customer satisfaction. Study 1 shows that consistent with the self-serving bias, given an identical outcome, customer satisfaction with a firm differs depending on whether a customer participates in production. Study 2 shows that providing customers a choice in whether to participate mitigates the self-serving bias when the outcome is worse than expected. The authors present theoretical and practical implications and provide directions for further research

Outcome Mapping as a Monitoring and Evaluation Tool for Livestock Value Chain Interventions: The Case of imGoats

Background: The dynamic and complex natures of value chains added up with the multi-layered and open socio-technical systems that are affected by a range of factors and the continuous adaptation processes to changing conditions, makes measuring changes of value chain interventions a challenging task. Selection of M&E approach is dictated by the reality of multiple actors, relationships and perspectives in complex change processes. The traditional M&E approaches and tools specifically the log frame have been criticized for its failure in measuring changes in complex interventions. M&E approaches and tools that are learning focused, flexible, allow involvement of stakeholders, capture unintended results and focus on contribution of the interventions are more appropriate. Purpose: This paper discussed the process and results of using OM as monitoring and evaluation tool for value chain interventions and reflect on the success, challenges and lessons. Setting: imGoats   project implemented in India and Mozambique with the aim of increasing income and food security in a sustainable manner by enhancing pro-poor small ruminant value chains. Intervention:  The project employed value chain (VC) and Innovations Systems (IS) approaches rather than traditional methods of technology transfer. IS approaches rely on innovation platforms (IPs), which are spaces facilitated by local innovation brokers where individuals and organizations can come together to address priority issues related to development of value chains. OM was one of the M&E tools used by the project. Research design: Action research component was superimposed in the project implementation process where data were collected continuously on various aspects. Predominantly, the emic approach is used as most of the authors are directly involved in the action research process.  The team had direct exposure in designing and implementing the tool, observing and improving (based on practical experiences and reflections) in the project implementation process.  The OM process was continuously monitored and documented with a support from an external consultant. Data collection and analysis:  Data were gathered through a multi-method process including review of documents, key informant interviews, focus group discussions and participant observations. Three workshops were conducted at the beginning, midterm and end of the project to evaluate the progress and challenges of OM application. The reports and feedbacks provided by participants in these workshops are one of the data sources for this study.  Furthermore, data was collected from project implementation partners on their reflections with regards to OM as M&E tool.  Findings: The findings of the study depict that Outcome Mapping has many demonstrated qualities that makes it suitable for value chain and innovation systems interventions.  If properly applied, OM promotes strategic thinking and enhances organizational responsiveness due to its reflective and learning nature. Even if OM requires an environment which promotes participation, learning and flexibility, it could bring attitudinal change among those involved in its design and implementation. Due to its flexibility OM can capture unintended effects. Moreover, OM can have parallel positive effects on how partners are conducting project management and monitoring activities. In the action research it was evident that OM is adaptable to different methodologies, contexts and type of interventions. Project/intervention duration has implication to fully utilize OM. As behavioral change is a slow process and needs reasonable time, OM could not be fully utilized in terms of measuring some of the behavioral changes in short duration projects.  OM is resource intensive especially when it is used for larger projects. It requires time, skilled manpower and other logistics for collecting and analyzing data. Hence, the investment needs to be carefully balanced against the use of it. Keywords: Outcome Mapping, M&E Approaches, Value Chain, Log Frame, Complex Intervention

Photoluminescence and heavy doping effects in InP

Photoluminescence (PL) studies on LPE-grown InP layers doped with selenium and having carrier concentrations from 1 × 1018 to 1 × 1020 cm-3 have been reported in this paper. Measurements at 300 and 77 K showed that the band to band recombination peak energy shifts to values as high as 1.7 eV with increasing doping, the increase being sharp beyond 4 × 1019 cm-3. These results have been explained as being the result of the Burstein shift and the band-gap shrinkage

Stereo Visual Odometry with Deep Learning-Based Point and Line Feature Matching using an Attention Graph Neural Network

Robust feature matching forms the backbone for most Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (vSLAM), visual odometry, 3D reconstruction, and Structure from Motion (SfM) algorithms. However, recovering feature matches from texture-poor scenes is a major challenge and still remains an open area of research. In this paper, we present a Stereo Visual Odometry (StereoVO) technique based on point and line features which uses a novel feature-matching mechanism based on an Attention Graph Neural Network that is designed to perform well even under adverse weather conditions such as fog, haze, rain, and snow, and dynamic lighting conditions such as nighttime illumination and glare scenarios. We perform experiments on multiple real and synthetic datasets to validate the ability of our method to perform StereoVO under low visibility weather and lighting conditions through robust point and line matches. The results demonstrate that our method achieves more line feature matches than state-of-the-art line matching algorithms, which when complemented with point feature matches perform consistently well in adverse weather and dynamic lighting conditions

Market Segmentation in the 21st Century: Discrete Solutions to Continuous Problems

Market segments exist because of information and cost constraints If manufacturers had accurate individual-level demand information and the ability to produce and deliver unique products at low cost, then individual customization of products would be a viable market strategy But as uncertainty about consumer demand increases and/or the cost of customization increases, firms find it more profitable to reduce the variety of the products they offer This paper reports on a critical examination of trends in the analysis of customer data and in reductions in the cost of customization brought about by innovations such as the Internet and flexible manufacturing systems We conclude that recent trends are not sufficient to support individual customization in most product categories However, despite the inability of these trends to support individual customization, we predict several changes In the dimensions surrounding successful segmentation strategies that will be used by firms in the future