Individual Service Providers Research Articles

If the Supplier's Human Capital Walks Away, Where Would the Customer Go?

Purpose: Professional service firms' clients often develop stronger attachments to their key contact employee than to the service firm. Since professionals are highly mobile, buyers of professional business services constantly have to decide whether to follow their key contact employee or remain with their incumbent firm, while service firms face the threat of losing customers if the employee leaves. This study examines how the key contact employee's human capital, the social capital between the contact employee and the client, and the service company's structural capital affect the decision whether to follow the key contact employee to another professional service firm. Methodology/approach: The model is tested on a sample of 120 organizational buyers of advertising services by using partial last squares, a structural equation modelling technique. Findings: Professional service firms' investments in company-specific structural capital create a deterrent for clients to follow the contact employee, because remaining with the service firm will increase clients' return on the service providers' structural capital. Furthermore, higher levels of structural capital reduce the value of the contact employee's investments in human capital should the employee leave. Conversely, human capital creates motivation to follow the contact employee, while social capital only provides value in combination with human capital. Research implications: This study employs concepts developed in economics and economic sociology rather than relationship marketing variables to examine attachments to individual professional service providers and to professional service firms. Practical implications: The findings underline the importance of competence, both at the company and individual level, for retaining clients of professional services. These results contrast previous studies emphasizing close interpersonal relationships and service firms' relationship-building activities. Originality/value/contribution: Human, social, and structural capital provide value to clients and therefore apply well to professional services. Hence, these variables provide alternative explanations to service firms' client retention or desertion than traditional relationship marketing variables do. The findings add to our understanding of service provider–client relationships in professional services and knowledge intensive firms.

Hmong Mental Health Needs Assessment: A Community‐Based Partnership in a Small Mid‐Western Community

The overall goal of this assessment was to verify the mental health needs of Hmong living in a mid-west community in order clarify the format, content, and feasibility of providing mental health services for Hmong in the future. Using a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) model, we held four focus groups with 36 men, women, adolescents and professionals, all of Hmong descent, as well as interviewed 28 individual medical, mental health, education, and social service providers in the Eau Claire community. Our Hmong sample was frequently unclear about what "mental" health meant, indicating a low level of mental health literacy. Results confirmed that there are significant mental health needs in this refugee and immigrant population. Participants described problems consistent with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders, and severe social stress and acculturation difficulties in every generation. Elder people and male adolescents were described as the most disaffected and in need of immediate services. It will be critical to address mental health literacy before designing future interventions. Treatment suggestions were provided with the intention of removing barriers and incorporating culturally sensitive methodologies, while continuing to work closely with our local mental health providers and Hmong leadership.

Transforming Health Care Service Delivery and Provider Selection

Commoditization pressures in medicine have risked transforming service provider selection from "survival of the fittest" to "survival of the cheapest." Quality- and safety-oriented mandates by the Institute of Medicine have led to the creation of a number of data-driven quality-centric initiatives including Pay for Performance and Evidence-Based Medicine. A synergistic approach to creating quantitative accountability in medical service delivery is through the creation of consumer-oriented performance metrics which provide patients with objective data related to individual service provider quality, safety, cost-efficacy, efficiency, and customer service. These performance metrics could in turn be customized to the individual preferences and health care needs of each individual patient, thereby providing an objective methodology for service provider selection while empowering health care consumers.

Failure in Service Delivery by Public-Private Networks: The Case of Flemish Childcare

The involvement of private actors (non-profit and/or for-profit) in public service provision has a lot of consequences and implications not only for users and service providers, but also for government. This article explores the consequences for the relations within public-private service provision networks, by focusing on the governance regime of childcare in Flanders. Our case analysis clearly shows that public-private service provision networks may threaten the transparency of the service provision field for users, and challenge the role of the oversight authority, often requiring a two-level steering of the service provision field: a direct steering of individual service providers and the network and/or market steering of the whole service provision field (in a community or region). Governance regimes comprising service providers of different sectors may complicate this kind of network steering, as there seem to exist at least six relationships within such networks. Furthermore, we noticed that service providers may face conflicting (public) accountabilities.

The fickle fates of push and pull in the dissemination of mental health programs for children.

As the demand for evidence-based programs has increased, considerable research has concentrated on the development and testing of innovative and promising prevention and treatment programs. However, a knowledge gap remains between research in children's mental health and the educational and health services providers who could use the programs produced. In contrast to the elaborate national system set up for monitoring and disseminating medications, the infrastructures to support the evaluation and dissemination of prevention and treatment programs targeting children's mental health have only begun to be developed. Based on my experiences in a community-based research project that has worked for the last decade to develop and evaluate the WITS (Walk away, Ignore, Talk it out, and Seek help) programs for the prevention of peer victimization, I illuminate obstacles to the dissemination of evidence-based prevention programs for children and solutions that are beginning to address these obstacles. In particular, I argue that enduring, integrated community, provincial and federal infrastructures are needed to improve program dissemination and to monitor their effects on children's well-being. Keywords: knowledge transfer, diffusion of innovation, mental health, children adolescence The reality that children and adolescents suffer from mental health problems is no longer questioned. There is also no doubt that the social, emotional and behavioural problems that are symptomatic of their mental health problems can have pervasive consequences for healthy child development: childhood and adolescent mental illnesses can disrupt school readiness and academic achievement; compromise relationships with family, teachers and peers; undermine attention; exacerbate physical complaints, and even damage the architecture of the developing brain (Gunner, 2007; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000; Tolan & Dodge, 2005). The fact that few children who have mental health problems receive the care that they need is also widely recognised. Canadian and United States data indicates that only 5-18% of children with a diagnosable psychological problem receive any form of treatment (Kirby & Keon, 2006; Tolan & Dodge, 2005). Two widely circulated reports Out of the Shadows at Last: Highlights and Recommendations of the Final Report on Mental Health, Mental Illness and Addiction (Kirby & Keon, 2006) and Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 1999) make clear that early detection of childhood mental health concerns can help to prevent school failure, poor employment opportunities and criminal activities. Considerable research also shows that even prodromal or subclinical symptoms, those that do not meet criteria for diagnosis of a disorder, can affect children's development and their relationships with their parents, peers, teachers, and so forth. However, universal mental health promotion programs or secondary prevention programs addressing these concerns are not widely available. What role can prevention programs play in the gathering momentum to improve children's mental health? Prevention of mental health problems in children shows benefits in reducing treatment costs in the United States (Weissberg, Kumpfer, & Selligman, 2003), but in Canada universal and even secondary prevention programs - particularly involving mental health concerns typically are not widely distributed and their effectiveness and cost savings are not monitored. Indeed, despite extensive research on the development and evaluation of innovative programs, only a few are adopted, often only locally, and typically for only short periods. In this paper, I argue that there are serious obstacles embedded in our traditional reliance on relationships between individual researchers and service providers for the development and dissemination of evidence-based programs to promote children's mental health and prevent illness. …

Hedonic study on mobile telephony market in France: pricing–quality strategies

This paper provides a hedonic price analysis of mobile telephony services for the French market. We adopt the hedonic price theory to examine the relationship between changes in price levels and the evolution of the market for mobile telecommunications industry in France from June 1996 to December 2002. The results support the hypothesis that there was price competition between service providers in the earlier period. There were also large differences in prices set by individual service providers which, however, did not persist over time. Next, using estimates from hedonic-price equation for each operator separately, we found that the three-mobile providers seemed to adopt similar pricing strategies over the period 1996---2002. Quality indexes are also calculated. The results of a comparative analysis indicate that in the period 2000---2002 neither the quality nor the price indexes show significant changes for the three mobile providers. These results are of some consequence, especially after the French competition authority decision in December 2005 which stated the existence of collusion on the mobile market during the same period (2000---2002). Surprisingly, our primer results supporting the assumption of potential collusive conduct in France are not re-affirmed when comparing the French and German markets.

Recent Changes in Medicaid Policy and Their Possible Effects on Mental Health Services

Recent Changes in Medicaid Policy and Their Possible Effects on Mental Health Services

Regional Differences in the Efficiency of Health Production: An Artefact of Spatial Dependence?

The inefficiency of health care provision presents a major health policy concern in Germany. In order to address the issue of efficiency comprehensively - i.e., at the level of the entire system of health care provision rather than individual service providers - empirical analyses are often based on data at the regional level.However, regional efficiencies might be subject to spatial dependence, rendering any analysis biased that aims at identifying the determinants of efficiency differentials. We address this issue by specifying a spatial autoregressive model to explain efficiency scores for German districts which we derive through data envelopment analysis. Regression results suggest that spatial dependence is not a dominant feature in the data. Hence, ignoring spatial interdependence is unlikely to severely bias results of efficiency analyses based on regional data.This holds, in particular, for the role of the states in the efficiency of health production. Significant heterogeneity among states is found in the data regardless of whether or not spatial dependence is accounted for.

Characteristics of Traumatic Experience and Survivor Perceptions of Mental Health Services: The 2004–2005 Erie County Community Trauma Survey

Trauma is associated with severe mental illness and substance abuse problems, yet it typically is not addressed sufficiently in treatment. This article reports on an assessment of mental health service recipients and their experience of traumatic events and perceptions of service providers' sensitivity, helpfulness, and knowledge regarding their trauma and service needs using a community-based participatory research model. Demographic characteristics and status of co-occurring disorders were measured. Participants perceived that individual therapists and peer service providers were sensitive to and knowledgeable about their trauma. Group treatment and peer programs were seen as being most helpful. Psychiatric services were seen as being the least sensitive to trauma issues. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

Are Women More Loyal Customers than Men? Gender Differences in Loyalty to Firms and Individual Service Providers

Prevailing wisdom assumes that female consumers are more loyal than male consumers. The authors report conditions under which the reverse is found, depending on the object of customer loyalty. For example, whereas female consumers tend to be more loyal than male consumers to individuals, such as individual service providers, this difference is reversed when the object of loyalty is a group of people. The authors find a similar crossover interaction effect for loyalty to individual employees versus loyalty to companies. This effect is mediated by self-construal in terms of relational versus collective interdependence. The authors discuss the managerial and theoretical implications of these gender differences.

Are Women More Loyal Customers Than Men? Gender Differences in Loyalty to Firms and Individual Service Providers

Prevailing wisdom assumes that female consumers are more loyal than male consumers. The authors report conditions under which the reverse is found, depending on the object of customer loyalty. For example, whereas female consumers tend to be more loyal than male consumers to individuals, such as individual service providers, this difference is reversed when the object of loyalty is a group of people. The authors find a similar crossover interaction effect for loyalty to individual employees versus loyalty to companies. This effect is mediated by self-construal in terms of relational versus collective interdependence. The authors discuss the managerial and theoretical implications of these gender differences.

Predictors of the incidence and discontinuation of long-term use of benzodiazepines: A population-based study

Long-term use of benzodiazepines (BZDs) has been linked with an array of negative health consequences and increased medical costs and social burden. In this study, we sought to investigate the factors accounting for differential risks in the process from incident BZD use to long-term use and discontinuation in the general population. On the basis of a random sample of 187,413 people enrolled in Taiwan's National Health Insurance program on January 1, 2000, data of 2000–2002 healthcare and pharmacological services utilization were retrieved. Long-term use (LTU) was defined by having received BZD prescriptions for 180 or more days within any given calendar year. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were carried out to assess the strength of associations while adjusting for the effects of individual sociodemographics, service providers, and pharmacological agents simultaneously. Results indicated that males, elderly, and those with physical or mental disorders were more likely to become long-term users of BZDs. Having received BZD prescriptions in multiple pharmacological agents, short-acting or mixed-type agents, and hypnotic indication were associated with a roughly 2- to 5-fold increased risk of BZD LTU soon after prescription initiation. With respect to discontinuation, the effects of pharmacological characteristics seem more salient as compared to those of individual and service-provider factors. Future strategies targeting individual factors and modifying service-provider prescription behaviors may be considered to reduce possible negative consequences of BZD LTU.

Targets of commitment in service provider‐consumer relationships: a prototyping study

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the question of whether or not there are three distinct targets of commitment in consumers' relationships with their service providers; commitment to the service company, commitment to the individual service provider, and commitment to the individual provider as a friend or acquaintance.Design/methodology/approachInitial theories regarding targets of commitment in service relationships are developed with reference to the literature in psychology, organizational behavior, and marketing. Exploratory research into the commitment construct in service relationships is conducted using a prototyping approach. The prototyping approach involves the exploration of natural language concepts including the identification of a concept's attributes, and the concept's relationship to other concepts.FindingsThe results of the prototyping analysis give us preliminary evidence to suggest that that the three targets of commitment while related, are independent. Each target of commitment has a number of unique and central attributes.Originality/valueCommitment is an important variable in the study of relationship marketing; however, in most marketing studies, the target of a customer's commitment is not clearly defined, nor have potential differences between various targets of commitment been fully explored. This research highlights the fact that relationship commitment is a multi‐level variable. In addition, this research demonstrates the effectiveness of the prototyping methodology in the exploration of abstract concepts and the relationship between them.

An examination of the impact of cultural orientation and familiarity in service encounter evaluations

PurposeCustomers' judgment of service quality is by and large based on their evaluation of personal experiences during the service encounter. The purpose of this study is to investigate from a customer perspective, the impact of familiarity (of the individual service provider) and cultural orientation on evaluations of both successful and failed service encounters.Design/methodology/approachThe authors employ an experimental design with data collected from student samples in the USA (Western, individualist culture) and Thailand (Eastern, collectivist culture).FindingsResults show an individual customer's cultural orientation, as well as familiarity (with a focal service provider), have an impact on perceptions and post‐purchase evaluations of both successful and unsuccessful service encounters.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the services marketing and consumer behavior literature by shedding light onto the role of familiarity and cultural value orientation in influencing consumer responses to service encounters. It is one of only a handful of cross‐cultural studies in this research domain.

Price Bundling and Travel Product Pricing Practices Used by Online Channels of Distribution

Price bundling is one of the most prevalent marketing practices in many industries, including hospitality and travel. Virtually all types of firms in the hospitality and travel industry, from suppliers such as hotels and airlines to intermediaries such as travel agents, are encouraging customers to purchase travel “packages” rather than a single component of travel to save money and streamline the purchasing process. The purpose of this research is to determine whether the practice of price bundling by online travel agents results in actual monetary savings for consumers (i.e., lower prices) relative to the prices charged by individual service providers (i.e., hotels and airlines) through their own online Web sites. The results indicate that there are monetary savings in the form of lower prices realized by consumers who purchase bundled offerings from online travel agents, and there is an interaction effect between channel and hotel class.

Health-sector responses to intimate partner violence in low- and middle-income settings: a review of current models, challenges and opportunities

There is growing recognition of the public-health burden of intimate partner violence (IPV) and the potential for the health sector to identify and support abused women. Drawing upon models of health-sector integration, this paper reviews current initiatives to integrate responses to IPV into the health sector in low- and middle-income settings. We present a broad framework for the opportunities for integration and associated service and referral needs, and then summarize current promising initiatives. The findings suggest that a few models of integration are being replicated in many settings. These often focus on service provision at a secondary or tertiary level through accident and emergency or women's health services, or at a primary level through reproductive or family-planning health services. Challenges to integration still exist at all levels, from individual service providers' attitudes and lack of knowledge about violence to managerial and health systems' challenges such as insufficient staff training, no clear policies on IPV, and lack of coordination among various actors and departments involved in planning integrated services. Furthermore, given the variety of locations where women may present and the range and potential severity of presenting health problems, there is an urgent need for coherent, effective referral within the health sector, and the need for strong local partnership to facilitate effective referral to external, non-health services.

Individual Service Providers versus the Firm

This study addresses the strategic relationship marketing question: Where do customer attachments lie, with the individual service provider or with the firm? Multiple Constituency theory is drawn upon to explain the relationships. It is proposed that individual relationships impact the customer's relationship with the firm, which as a result impacts relationship marketing strategy behavioral outcomes. Tested in the context of professional services, results of structural equations modeling indicate that multiple relationships occur at the individual level. However, firm level perceptions of trust and commitment are distinct and are impacted by multiple individual relationships. Desirable strategic outcomes such as return intention, positive word-of-mouth, and ease of voice are found to be primarily influenced by firm trust; whereas, firm commitment exerts minimal effect, suggesting that trust may be the underlying impetus for successful relationship marketing cultures.

Improving consistency and quality of service delivery: Implications for the addiction treatment field

Addiction treatment providers face serious problems in delivering consistent, high-quality services over time. Among those providers with multiple treatment sites, there is also intersite variability. This is a serious problem in the addiction field, likely to be made worse as new technologies are introduced and/or as there is industry consolidation (Corredoira, R., Kimberly, J. (2006) Industry evolution through consolidation: Implications for addiction treatment. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 31, 255-265.). Although serious, these problems in managing and monitoring to assure consistent service quality have been faced by many other industries. Here, we review evidence from research in other industries regarding three different forms of management (vertical integration, franchising, and licensing) across a chain of individual service providers. We show how each management form affects the level, consistency, and improvement of service delivery over time. In addition, we discuss how such performance advantages affect customer demand as well as regulatory endorsement of the consolidated firm and its approach.

A Dynamic Two-Phase Commit Protocol for Adaptive Composite Services

Next-generation applications based on Web services impose additional requirements on the use of coordination protocols with various optimizations, such as the two-phase commit protocol (2PC). This article analyses the well-known 2PC optimizations “presumed commit” and “presumed abort,” and presents an improved 2PC that is suitable for Web-service-based applications. More specifically, the protocol allows every individual service provider to choose dynamically the most appropriate presumption for any distributed transaction. This new capability is especially useful when a composite Web service is integrating component services that make different presumptions in their commit protocols. The protocol does not introduce extra overhead to the previous 2PC variants in terms of number of messages and log records, and it is easy to understand and realize. Our simulation shows that the choice of appropriate presumption has significant influence on system performance, and that in some heterogeneous settings, combining different presumptions in individual transactions outperforms adopting only one single presumption.

Validation Process and Uncertainty Budget: A Recommended Approach for Performance Verification

Within its Occupational Radiation Protection Programme, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) initiated and funded many international and regional intercomparison exercises, with the aim of verifying performance of the individual monitoring service providers. An important component within the quality system is the validation and uncertainty budget of the method used. Each method must be validated. This validation process must provide evidence that the method can fulfil all requirements for its intended use. A method may be regarded as validated only when it fulfils all requirements established before the validation process. This paper reviews methods recommended for different types of measurement techniques in individual monitoring.