Intangible Services Research Articles

Energy Conservation in Cement Manufacturing: Challenges, Opportunities, and Sustainable Practices

The industrial sector, encompassing both tangible goods and intangible services, is pivotal to economic growth, with chemical manufacturing playing a critical role by transforming raw materials into diverse products. This study explores the importance of energy conservation in the cement manufacturing industry, focusing on its critical role in reducing production costs, minimizing environmental impact, and enhancing overall sustainability. The introduction provides an overview of the manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors, highlighting the unique characteristics and contributions of each. The chemical manufacturing sector's significance is discussed, with an emphasis on its complex processes and energy-intensive nature. The cement industry, as a major energy consumer, is examined in detail, outlining the energy-intensive processes, challenges in energy conservation, and proposed solutions for improving heat efficiency. The analysis of energy flow in cement production identifies key areas for efficiency improvement. Waste heat recovery systems are presented as a viable solution for energy conservation, along with advanced technologies and process optimization. The study concludes by emphasizing the necessity of adopting sustainable practices and innovative technologies to enhance energy efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint in cement manufacturing.

Usługi wczesnego wspomagania rozwoju dziecka w prawie oświatowym

Early support for child development is a form of targeted and specialized support for a child who has not yet started fulfilling educational obligations. It is implemented in order to stimulate the child’s psychomotor and social development, from the moment of detecting a disability until the child starts school. It is intended to prevent potential future failures in school education. Early support for child development is a conglomerate of public services whose type, scope and frequency of provision are adapted to the needs of a specific child, and take into account their individual limitations. The right to use these services stems from an opinion issued by the adjudicating panel of a public psychological and pedagogical counseling center confirming the child’s need for early development support. The article discusses the legal aspects of the public task of organizing and providing services in the field of early development support. The aim is to explain the meaning of the concept of early support for child development, discuss the legal provisions regulating them and determine the ratio legis of their introduction into the Polish legal system. It also involves identifying intangible services falling within the scope of early support for child development, determines their beneficiaries and identifying the entities providing them. In the context of acquiring the right to use these services, special attention will be paid to the opinion issued on the need to support early child development, in particular, the procedure for its issuance it and its components. In order to achieve the research goals, the dogmatic-legal method will be used, consisting of the analysis and interpretation of the texts of legal acts. Administrative court jurisprudence regarding the subject of the article will also be taken into account to the required extent.

Exploring Consumers' Negative Electronic Word-of-Mouth of 5 Military Hospitals in Taiwan Through SERVQUAL and Flower of Services: Web Scraping Analysis.

In recent years, with the widespread use of the internet, the influence of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has been increasingly recognized, particularly the significance of negative eWOM, which has surpassed positive eWOM in importance. Such reviews play a pivotal role in research related to service industry management, particularly in intangible service sectors such as hospitals, where they have become a reference point for improving service quality. This study comprehensively collected negative eWOM from 5 military hospitals in Taiwan that were at or above the level of regional teaching hospitals. It aimed to investigate service quality issues before and after the pandemic. The findings provide important references for formulating strategies to improve service quality. In this study, we used web scraping techniques to gather 1259 valid negative eWOM, covering the period from the inception of the first review to December 31, 2022. These reviews were categorized using content analysis based on the modified Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry service quality (PZB SERVQUAL) scale and Flower of Services. Statistical data analysis was conducted to investigate the performance of service quality. The annual count of negative reviews for each hospital has exhibited a consistent upward trajectory over the years, with a more pronounced increase following the onset of the pandemic. In the analysis, among the 5 dimensions of PZB SERVQUAL framework, the "Assurance" dimension yielded the least favorable results, registering a negative review rate as high as 58.3%. Closely trailing, the "Responsiveness" dimension recorded a negative review rate of 34.2%. When evaluating the service process, the subitem "In Service: Diagnosis/Examination/Medical/Hospitalization" exhibited the least satisfactory performance, with a negative review rate of 46.2%. This was followed by the subitem "In Service: Pre-diagnosis Waiting," which had a negative review rate of 20.2%. To evaluate the average scores of negative reviews before and during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, independent sample t tests (2-tailed) were used. The analysis revealed statistically significant differences (P<.001). Furthermore, an ANOVA was conducted to investigate whether the length of the negative reviews impacted their ratings, which also showed significant differences (P=.01). Before and during the pandemic, there were significant differences in evaluating hospital services, and a higher word count in negative reviews indicated greater dissatisfaction with the service. Therefore, it is recommended that hospitals establish more comprehensive service quality management mechanisms, carefully respond to negative reviews, and categorize significant service deficiencies as critical events to prevent a decrease in overall service quality. Furthermore, during the service process, customers are particularly concerned about the attitude and responsiveness of health care personnel in the treatment process. Therefore, hospitals should enhance training and management in this area.

Perceptions and knowledge of ecosystem services in urban river systems, Eastern Cape, South Africa

The ecosystem services concept has been studied in rural contexts but not as much in urban landscapes, particularly for aquatic ecosystems in Africa. There is little knowledge of how people perceive ecosystem services (ES) supplied by rivers in urban centres and the factors influencing their perceptions. To fill this gap, the research presented here addresses two objectives: 1) to assess local communities’ perception and knowledge of different types of ecosystem services of an urban river in South Africa, 2) to assess the influence of particular demographic characteristics (age and gender), socio-economic characteristics (education, housing type, income, and years of residence), and prior knowledge of the ecosystem services concept on people’s perception of the ecosystem services provided by the Swartkops River in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. To address these objectives, a team of ten trained field staff collected 181 surveys between May–June 2021 in communities within the river catchment. We used multinomial logit models to analyse the relationships between demographic and socio-economic variables, and people’s perception of ecosystem services. For the majority of the ecosystem services, there was almost an equal split between the perception “sometimes” and “never” that the river provides a particular ecosystem service, and people were less likely to say that the river always provide a particular service. Prior knowledge of the ecosystem services concept, years of residence, age, income and housing type significantly influence people’s perception of ecosystem services. Prior knowledge, was important for the intangible services, whereas years of residence was more important for tangible services with direct use value. Level of formal education was not a significant variable. An important implication of this study is that ecological interventions can be designed through an understanding of factors influencing people’s perceptions of ecosystem services.

Beyond the ephemeral: Scaling experiences through productization

Experiences have gained significant relevance in recent years. People now favor memorable experiences over tangible goods or intangible services, so experiences generally offer companies the prospect of both enhanced profit margins and improved reputations. Millennials and Generation Z consumers now fuel the growth of the experience economy. Yet the individualized, resource-intensive, and ephemeral nature of well-designed experiences makes them inherently harder to compress or to replicate at scale, thereby limiting productivity gains. This article highlights how some companies have successfully overcome this issue by standardizing experiences and making them more product-like. These simplified experiences still deliver emotional value for consumers but require far fewer company resources. Drawing from the productization literature, we break down the process and provide advice for developing experiences that can be both commoditized and customized.

Integrating object detection and natural language processing models to build a personalized attraction recommendation agent in a smart product service system

Product Service System (PSS) is a new business model that integrates tangible products and intangible services to better meet customer needs and expectations. In recent years, scholars had some efforts to enhance the capability of PSS with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) which is known as Smart PSS(SPSS). So far, most previous studies adopted a single model which cannot handle multiple tasks simultaneously that results in unsatisfactory services to customers. In addition, customer preference cannot be fully addressed to achieve personalization. Therefore, this study proposes a method that integrates multiple models into an SPSS with three steps: (1) Collect data and construct an appropriate object detection model. (2) Develop smart PSS solutions. Then, (3) Optimize the system based on feedback through Natural Language Processing (NLP) to provide customers with personalized services. An attraction recommendation case study with experiment is designed to verify the proposed method. The results show that proposed SPSS can optimize the system in time according to the feedback of users, and provide better personalized services. This research is the first research that utilizes applied both text and image data to extract customer characteristics to better capture the voice of customers.

Profit shifting to tax havens: Withholding tax impact on passive flows from Poland

This paper aims to identify determinants and channels of tax avoidance through passive flows to tax havens using harmful tax competition, considering the effect of changes in withholding tax regulations. For the empirical analysis, we exploit the data of 110 ​907 nonresidents from 134 countries that gain passive flows paid by Polish taxpayers. We utilise data from IFT-2R returns on withholding tax (WHT) for 2012–2019. We use a two-stage Arellano-Bond estimator of the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) with instrumental variables for dynamic panel data and the difference-in-differences method. We show that the amendment to the withholding tax legislation, preceded by a no-avoidance clause in 2017, reduced passive flows overall and separately from the manufacturing and service sectors, primarily profit-shifting through interest, royalties and intangible services payments. Moreover, our results confirm that the tax system tightening against aggressive tax competition has reduced passive income transfers from service companies, not manufacturing companies. Instead, the latter make higher transfers to tax havens included in both Polish and the E.U. list of countries applying harmful tax competition.

Exploring factors and customer perceptions of airport services: A quantitative textual analysis

&lt;span lang="EN-GB"&gt;This study conducted an analysis of 1500 user generated content from Google Travel to examine the factors influencing airport services and customer perceptions. Quantitative textual analysis is employed to extract meaningful insights. Our findings highlighted the most frequently used words in airport user generated content, reflecting critical aspects of airport experiences such as the airport itself, the quality of service, and international travel. A cluster analysis revealed five distinct clusters, representing flight operations, location, views, customer feelings, and intangible services. A co-occurrence network analysis showed strong correlations among keywords associated with positive experiences, underscoring the importance of service quality and infrastructure in customer satisfaction. Furthermore, through topic modeling, we categorized words into five distinct groups: airport flights, ground services, international services, customer experience, and location. The practical implications of this study are substantial. The insights can help airport management identify strengths and areas needing improvement, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction and the overall airport experience.&lt;/span&gt;

Calculation of product service systems in single and small batch production

AbstractSingle and small batch production is characterized by complex value-added processes and products. The transparent calculation of new offers and change requests is therefore a particular challenge. At the same time, the rising spread of product service systems (PSS) increases the complexity of costing, as additional intangible services have to be calculated precisely. In addition to the challenges posed by such precise calculation of intangible services, companies have to master another complexity driver in the form of PSS. Innovative information and communication technologies (ICT) offer new potential for effective and efficient design of the costing process for the entire life cycle. The rising availability of data along the entire product life cycle significantly increases transparency and, thanks to intelligent analysis algorithms, allows the identification of clear cause-and-effect relationships and forecasting options. The aim of the presented paper is thus to develop a model for calculation of PPS in single and small batch production that exploits the new potential of ICT.

The effects of the gap between actual and expected income on individuals’ happiness

ABSTRACT According to the Pigouvian approach, utility (or satisfaction) is positively affected by income level. A higher income allows for more tangible goods and intangible services, thereby ‘elevating’ individuals’ happiness. This article departs from the traditional Pigouvian approach and implements concepts found in ancient religious and historical sources. Accordingly, individuals’ well-being or utility are affected not only by income but also by the gap between fulfilment and desire that is derived from individuals’ income. By decreasing desires and educating individuals to be satisfied with fewer resources, they gain more satisfaction.

New educational approach for the sustainability of natural forest capital: review, analysis and conceptual contributions on the natural capital of the Romerillo forest

The concept of Natural Capital of the Romerillo forests (NCR) has been little studied in relation to the Education of this important type of natural capital. However, currently, many researchers have argued that Education can contribute significantly to the teaching and learning of this natural capital. By investigating how the concept has been studied, this article has attempted to establish the direction, understanding and use of Education that the NCR may take in the future, within the context of research into an Intangible Creative Ecological Economy (ICEE). This study used an exploratory research methodology with secondary information, in combination with chronological, conceptual and thematic literature review techniques. The literature review indicates that Education on NCR has been used in three areas of research to explain or address a particular construct: (1) promotion of formal and informal programs for use of the intangible environmental services, (2) development of an ICEE that promotes biotrade of intangible services from the Romerillos forests, and (3) short- and long-term conservation of the Romerillos forests. For future studies, it is recommended to address the concept of Education in “Intangible Forest Natural Capital” as a strategy for the sustainable use of the intangible environmental services of the NCR, aiming to mitigate deforestation and preserve the forests of the Romerillos Andean.

Effects of Sports Event Tourism Service on Social Imagery and Socioeconomic Benefit

Current sports tourism market focuses on sports events. In terms of economic benefits, it does not simply create tourism output, but also increases consumption to further boost the economy and increase employment opportunities. Sports tourism present great influence on modern life, and hosting sports events allows the organizers enhancing exposure and visibility as well as resulting in considerable tourism receipts for the place. Sports events would increase tourists’ consumption in host places and create new job opportunities and considerable income. Selecting people in Fujian Province, with experience in sports event tourism, as the research samples, total 800 copies of questionnaire are distributed. After removing ones without participating in sports event tourism and invalid/incomplete copies, 423 copies are valid, with the retrieval rate 53%. The research results show that sports tourists could feel the service provided by sports event organizers through actual participation and perceive certain value to achieve satisfaction and further promote social imagery and socioeconomic benefit and sports tourists perceiving quality and complete tangible products or intangible services in the activity and consistent sports tourism activity to the expectation before participation would present the worthy feeling and value and further positively affect the social imagery. According to the results to propose discussions and suggestions, it is expected to affect the social imagery and social benefit of host places in the future events to present good service quality and benefit domestic relevant events in the future.

Living Lab-Based Service Interaction Design for a Companion Robot for Seniors in South Korea.

A living lab is a valuable method for designing tangible and intangible service elements, ensuring a comprehensive user experience. Developing a digital companion service, which users may be unfamiliar with, requires observing user behavior in real-world environments and analyzing living and behavioral patterns. A living lab starts with understanding user characteristics and behaviors. Living lab methods have an impact on the accuracy and precision of service design. The number of seniors in South Korea is rapidly increasing, leading to a rise in social issues like solitary deaths and suicide. Addressing these problems has led to a growing demand for companion robots. To design effective companion services, understanding seniors' living environments and their cognitive and behavioral traits is essential. This opinion piece, based on a national R&D project, presents the development of a digital companion for seniors. It offers insights, providing a comprehensive overview of living lab-based service interaction design and proposing methodologies about living lab environment construction and experimentation and considerations when designing robot interaction functions and appearance. The living lab environment includes real living spaces, laboratories, virtual reality settings, and senior welfare centers. Using the research findings, we created service scenarios, analyzed senior language characteristics, and developed the concept and facial expressions of the digital companion. To successfully introduce a novel service, it is crucial to analyze users' real-life behavior and adjust the service accordingly.

Development of Modular Architectures for Product–Service Systems

Driven by servitization, an increasing number of manufacturing companies are transforming from being a pure product provider to a provider of Product–Service Systems (PSS). PSS offer unique benefits to both providers and customers by combining physical products and intangible services. However, this results in an increase in variety for the provider, which causes an increase in variety-induced complexity and, finally, also in costs. This correlation is proven based on the literature; possible approaches to manage the complexity are presented and the current research gap is addressed. To address the gap, a method for the development of modular architectures for PSS is presented in this paper. The method comprises five phases and supports companies from identifying PSS-based business models up to modularizing product components and service components. To validate this method, it is first applied to the example of a product family of pressure-reducing valves and then its results are discussed afterwards. It is proven that this method is suitable for the development of modular PSS architectures, but there is also a need for further research, which is described in the Conclusions section.

Unboxing the Complex between Job Satisfaction and Intangible Service Quality: A Perspective of Sustainability in the Hotel Industry

The quality of service is one of the key assumptions of a sustainable and profitable business in the hotel industry. On the other hand, employees as direct providers of hotel services have a direct impact on the perceived quality of service. Establishing a relationship between job satisfaction and perceived intangible service quality is of great importance for customer relationship management and sustainable competitive advantage. For the collection of primary data, questionnaires were distributed to two groups of respondents, namely hotel employees and guests. Thus, 456 paired questionnaires were obtained. The testing of defined hypotheses and relations between constructs and latent variables was completed using the PLS-SEM approach. The results of the study showed that all validated constructs, namely pay, promotion, supervision, fringe benefits, contingent rewards, coworkers, communication, and the nature of work, contribute positively to job satisfaction. A positive relationship between job satisfaction and intangible service quality constructs was confirmed for reliability, assurance, and responsiveness but not for empathy. The study confirmed that perceived intangible service quality can be influenced by increasing job satisfaction and that payment and communication can achieve the most significant influence.

The Internet’s Impact on Trade – An Analysis Applying the Gravity Theory

The gravity model of international trade analyzes synergistic trade flows based on the economic size and distance between two parts. The model suggests that trade tends to fall with distance due to geographical distance. This paper an analyzes the internet's impact on the geographical distance of the gravity model. Firstly, it briefly describes the gravity model focusing on the importance of geographical proximity. Secondly, it illustrates the introduction of the internet and changes that occurred by it specifically targeting intangible services developed through the introduction of the internet. Thirdly, it analyzes the internet's impact on the distance advantages with historical trade data. Lastly, this paper forecasts how the model will change due to an increasing information technology dominance economy

A review on the integrative approach for economic valuation of forest ecosystem services

Forests have the most biodiversity and provide vital ecosystem services. They offer numerous forest-related services, some of which can be commercialized. This improves social, cultural, health, and scientific life. Nonmarketable and intangible services are discounted because people think they're endless and free. Humans have changed the natural and social worlds through using resources and improving well-being. Public and private decision-makers often compete over natural capital. The loss of biodiversity, climate change, and global warming are interconnected with social development and ensuring an acceptable level of well-being for the majority of humanity, making it difficult for a single, individual approach to estimating the value of these goods and services to generate and support decisions and policies in these complex areas. The complexity of ecosystem products and services requires an integrated assessment with cutting-edge technologies and approaches using a pluralist framework of heterogeneous values. This evaluation should encompass costs and benefits of several ecosystem commodity and service applications. These usage' effects on economic, social, and cultural advancement are also crucial. The extensive and thorough enthronization of natural ecosystems can affect the amount and quality of ecosystem goods and services; thus, it is vital to quantify the complicated inverse effect from civilization to nature. Studies show that incorporating sustainability sciences approaches into an integrative assessment approach may be vital to environmental policy in the future.

Identifying Cultural Ecosystem Services and Relevant Landscape Elements Provided by Urban Green Space throughout History from an Information Communication Perspective

Throughout the long history of urban expansion and development, some of the natural mountains, lakes, and rivers that were once located on the outskirts of a city have gradually been encircled within it and have become nature in the urban, i.e., they are now in the heart of the city. These are not only green infrastructure for contemporary cities; they have also accumulated a rich cultural heritage and are closely related to the physical health and subjective well-being of city dwellers. The objectives of this study were: (1) to identify the no-material services that the public perceives from UGSs throughout history that contribute to subjective well-being; (2) to analyze which landscape elements are associated with the provision of such services and then to clarify the value of UGSs throughout history and provide a theoretical basis for urban managers. We returned to the original concept of cultural services (information services) to understand how UGSs throughout history, as information sources, have provided subjective well-being to specific groups of people. And we build a classification system for information services based on this understanding. Based on existing research methods on cultural services, we found that collecting information carriers such as texts, images, and interview transcripts is a more effective way to identifying the intangible services provided by a landscape than monetary methods. From understanding of the information communication process, we attempted to integrate the supply and demand indicators of information services. We validated the feasibility of the method of information service identification using Yuexiu Hill in Guangzhou, which has a construction history of 2000 years, as an example. Through the word frequency statistics of 1063 ancient poems (a type of information carrier), elements of the historical landscape of Yuexiu Hill and the information services provided in the past were identified. After that, semantic networks were constructed to analyze the association between elements and services. The results of this study show that information service identification is an effective method of analyzing the effect of the promotion of UGSs throughout history on the subjective well-being of the public. The provision of information services depends on the accumulation and dissemination of environmental information; both natural and cultural elements, especially symbolic elements, play an important role in this process.

Short Essay on the Literature Review of the Service Supply Chain

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the concrete type of service supply chain, which has been remaining on a conceptual level in previous studies. For this purpose, this study analyzed the differentiation of service supply chain, which could be hardly explained by the traditional manufacturing supply chain architecture.&#x0D; Design/methodology/approach: The research method was conducted through in-depth literature review. It was intended to identify the structure and characteristics of the service supply chain through an in-depth literature review in the service and supply chain fields.&#x0D; Findings: The service industry is made up of a wide range of fields and has various characteristics. The characteristics of the service industry are expected to be more diverse and complicated depending on the tangibility spectrum or servitised degree of the combination of tangible products and intangible services. According to the literature review, remarkable differences were shown between the type of the traditional manufacturing-oriented supply chain and that of the logistics service supply chain in respect of industrial architecture and direction of the entities in the supply chain.&#x0D; Research limitations/implications: This study cannot suggest general service supply chain types through literature review. The reason may be that it was difficult to generalize the types of service supply chains due to the diversity of the service industry and the characteristics of services that are different from tangible products. It was also difficult to apply the methodology to scientifically distinguish service supply chain to the traditional supply chain.&#x0D; Originality/value: The research results of this study on the service supply chain are meaningful in both academic and practical aspects. Academically, it provides the foundation for research on the service supply chain structure. In practice, it suggests the possibility that service companies can also use supply chain management as a business strategy.

Holding company location: a Polish tax perspective

This paper aims to present the size and structure of passive income payments, such as dividends, interest, royalty payments, and fees for intangible services, made by companies domiciled in Poland belonging to a multinational enterprises (MNE) group. The authors formulate a hypothesis that tax jurisdictions offering extensive legal and tax incentives for holding structures, in particular concerning the tax treatment of dividends and other withholding tax payments, are the preferred location of holding companies. A review of the literature and legal sources precedes empirical research. The empirical analysis shows that passive income flows, including dividends, interest, royalties, and fees for intangible services, which constitute the dominant type of payments to holding companies, are directed from Poland primarily to countries with tax and regulatory solutions that are friendly to holding companies, including in particular the so-called intra-EU tax havens, namely Luxembourg, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Malta and Ireland. Real trade with these countries is neither significant nor proportional to the scale of passive income.