Penalty-reward Contrast Analysis Research Articles

Annual variation in attribute importance to upland game hunter satisfaction in Nebraska

AbstractTo sustain recreational hunting participation, we need to identify what makes a hunting experience satisfying. Merely identifying which factors are important to hunter satisfaction may be insufficient, however, as factor importance could vary across consecutive hunting seasons. Using online surveys, completed by individuals who hunted upland game in Nebraska, USA, from 2018 to 2022, we applied importance grid analysis (IGA) and penalty–reward contrast analysis (PRCA) to examine how activity‐specific factors influenced satisfaction across 5 consecutive hunting seasons. Results suggested consistent differences between the explicit (perceived importance) and implicit (performance) importance of factors for each hunting season. Factors related to seeing birds and harvest held greater implicit importance than expected based on explicit importance ratings (τ > 0.55, P < 0.05), whereas factors relating to access and other hunters held relatively lower implicit importance (τ < 0.31, P < 0.05). The PRCA method consistently identified seeing game birds as a minimum requirement to upland game hunting (penalty β < −0.26, P < 0.01). However, factors relating to harvest, access, and other hunters emerged as important only within certain seasons. Using IGA and PRCA provided valuable insights about the importance of hunters seeing game birds, and how aspects of different hunting seasons may improve satisfaction for hunters.

Dynamic Asymmetry Relationship Between Employee Satisfaction and Its Influencing Factors: Evidence from the Airline Industry

ABSTRACT With the intensification of global competition in the airline companies, understanding employee satisfaction has become increasingly crucial for company development. This study aims to explore the dynamic and asymmetric relationship between employee satisfaction and its influencing factors, considering both temporal and spatial dimensions. We collected 23,112 employee-generated data items across 126 airlines in Asia and North America, employing penalty-reward contrast analysis for data examination. The principal research findings suggest that the asymmetric relationship between employee satisfaction and its influencing factors undergoes dynamic changes concerning geographical location and working years. Specifically, differences in the asymmetric relationship between employee satisfaction and its factors were observed among short-term employees in North American and Asian airlines. As employees’ working years increase, the negative asymmetric effect of satisfaction factors gradually predominates in influencing employee satisfaction, which presents a dynamic change of strong influence to weak influence. These findings not only mark a breakthrough in the field of employee-generated content but also offer practical guidance for managers in the aviation industry.

The relationship between attribute performance and customer satisfaction: An interpretable machine learning approach

Understanding the relationship between attribute performance (AP) and customer satisfaction (CS) is crucial for the hospitality industry. However, accurately modeling this relationship remains challenging. To address this issue, we propose an interpretable machine learning-based dynamic asymmetric analysis (IML-DAA) approach that leverages interpretable machine learning (IML) to improve traditional relationship analysis methods. The IML-DAA employs extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) and SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) to construct relationships and explain the significance of each attribute. Following this, an improved version of penalty-reward contrast analysis (PRCA) is used to classify attributes, whereas asymmetric impact-performance analysis (AIPA) is employed to determine the attribute improvement priority order. A total of 29,724 user ratings in New York City collected from TripAdvisor were investigated. The results suggest that IML-DAA can effectively capture non-linear relationships and that there is a dynamic asymmetric effect between AP and CS, as identified by the dynamic AIPA (DAIPA) model. This study enhances our understanding of the relationship between AP and CS and contributes to the literature on the hotel service industry.

Understanding asymmetric effects of attribute performance on tourist satisfaction with island tourism using user-generated data

PurposePast research often relies on linear relationship assumptions from the perspective of managers when studying the relationship between attribute performance and satisfaction. However, this study extracts tourists’ online reviews to explore asymmetric relationships and identifies island tourism satisfiers, hybrids and dissatisfiers.Design/methodology/approachThe research uses 3,523 reviews from Tripadvisor to examine Langkawi Island’s tourist satisfaction. Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) machine-learning approach, penalty–reward contrast analysis and asymmetric impact-performance analysis (AIPA) were employed to extract and analyse the data.FindingsLangkawi’s dissatisfiers included “hotel and restaurant”, “beach leisure”, “water sport”, “snorkelling”, “commanding view”, “waterfall”, “sky bridge walk”, “animal show”, “animal feeding”, “history culture”, “village activity” and “duty-free mall”. Amongst these, five were low performers. Hybrids encompassed “ticket purchasing”, “amenity” “traditional food market” and “gift and souvenir”, all of which were low performers. Only one attribute was categorised as a satisfier: “nature view” which performed exceptionally well.Practical implicationsThis study provides recommendations to enhance tourist satisfaction and address tourist dissatisfaction. The elements requiring immediate attention for enhancement are the five low-performance dissatisfiers, as they represent tourists’ fundamental expectations. Conversely, the satisfier or excitement factor (i.e. nature views – mangroves and wildlife) could be prominently featured in promotional materials.Originality/valueThis research constitutes an early endeavour to categorise attributes of island tourism into groups of satisfaction, hybrid or dissatisfaction based on user-generated data. It is underpinned by two-factor and three-factor theories.

Exploring the asymmetric relationships between satisfaction factors and overall employee satisfaction in the airline industry

ABSTRACT Understanding the asymmetric relationships between satisfaction factors and overall employee satisfaction is critical for airlines if they are to formulate effective strategies for improving job satisfaction. However, little research has been done on this topic. In this study penalty–reward contrast analysis is adopted to analyze 53,718 items of employee-generated data from 225 airlines. The results show that work/life balance, career opportunities, compensation & benefits and senior management are ‘basic’ factors, and culture & values is a ‘performance’ factor. Furthermore, the asymmetric impacts of these factors vary with employment status and geographic region. Additionally, the priorities attached to these satisfaction factors by employees of different employment status from different regions are analyzed using 3-dimensional asymmetric impact performance analysis. The obtained results are valuable for formulating strategies to improve employee satisfaction in the airline industry.

Marketability Study of Mathematical Sciences Students in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)

Higher Education Institute (HEI) has a vital role in developing human capital of a country. Measuring the quality of teaching and learning system in HEI and also industry’s satisfaction level is important to ensure the marketability of HEI graduates. This study examined Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Mathematical Sciences students’ marketability by determining industry’s satisfaction level on students’ skills and abilities during industrial training and identifies factors that affect students’ marketability. There were 22 student attributes that were categorized into four factors. Mean scores and Relative Importance Analysis determined the satisfaction and importance level of each attribute studied respectively. Besides, Penalty-Reward Contrast Analysis (PRCA) showed that affective factor was categorized as a basic factor where its existence did not increase but its absence decreased the industry’s satisfaction level. For Importance Performance Analysis (IPA), cognitive, affective, and cognitive & psychomotor factors were observed in the first quadrant which had high importance level but low performance level. Lastly, all four factors were found in the loyal customer zone and at an excellent level through Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) analysis. In conclusion, UKM Mathematical Sciences students have high marketability in general, but preservation and improvement should be implemented on important attributes to enhance their marketability.

How Are Guests Satisfied?

Online reviews provide a wealth of information on how customers assess the different attributes of a service. Research shows that the performance of hotel service attributes is expected to have asymmetric effects on customer satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to analyze online reviews and determine whether different hotel service attributes have asymmetric or symmetric effects on hotel customer satisfaction and how these effects differ for different customer segments. Positive and negative comments on hotels are analyzed using the three-factor theory and penalty-reward contrast analysis. Results show that the most important service attributes for customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction (hybrids) are location/access and personnel quality. All other attributes are either frustrators (cleanliness, process quality, perceived value) or dissatisfiers (installation quality, room quality, food quality). However, when the sample is split into business (solo and groups) and leisure (solo, groups, families, couples) results differ by customer segment. Results show that there should be a customized approach to managing customer satisfaction based on online reviews where service attributes are prioritized differently according to their importance for the satisfaction of different customer segments.

Artificial intelligence in service industries: customers’ assessment of service production and resilient service operations

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded into service firms’ operations. However, production systems and operations management scholars have not yet examined if AI-empowered service operations are positively judged by service customers. To bridge this gap, this study draws on the three-factor theory of customer satisfaction applied to online review data, to capture the effect of AI-empowered service operations on overall customer satisfaction, operationalised by means of online review ratings. Based on text analytics techniques applied to a sample of more than 50,000 TripAdvisor ORs covering 35 international hotels in Asia and America, we develop a penalty–reward contrast analysis. The findings reveal that the effects of customer interaction with mechanical AI on customer satisfaction with service operations are asymmetric: positive customer interaction with mechanical AI positively and significantly influences overall customer satisfaction with AI-empowered service operations, whereas negative customer interaction with mechanical AI does not significantly alter customer satisfaction. Taken together, these findings suggest that mechanical AI constitutes a key element of resilient AI-empowered service operations.

Online learning attributes on overall tourism and hospitality education learning satisfaction: Tourism Agenda 2030

PropósitoLa promoción de la “Educación de Calidad” como parte del Objetivo de Desarrollo Sostenible 4 requiere que los actores educativos entiendan la naturaleza del aprendizaje en línea desde la perspectiva de los estudiantes. Este estudio explora los efectos asimétricos de los atributos del aprendizaje en línea sobre la satisfacción general del aprendizaje en la educación en turismo y hotelería.Diseño/Metodología/EnfoqueAplicamos la teoría de la satisfacción de tres factores y los tres pasos analíticos: análisis de contraste de penalización-recompensa (PRCA), análisis de rendimiento del rango de impacto (IRPA) y análisis de impacto asimétrico (IAA). A continuación, aplicamos los resultados de estos enfoques analíticos al tradicional análisis de importancia-rendimiento (IPA) para obtener más información.ResultadosEl análisis tradicional de importancia-rendimiento sugiere nueve atributos en línea de gran importancia y rendimiento. Sin embargo, el IRPA revela que sólo cuatro atributos se encuentran dentro de la franja de alto rendimiento y alto impacto en la satisfacción. El atributo “seguridad” tuvo un desempeño bajo a pesar de tener un impacto significativo en la satisfacción.Implicaciones de la investigaciónAl explorar los efectos asimétricos, los académicos, los proveedores de servicios y los participantes de la educación en línea pueden tener una visión más profunda de la naturaleza y el efecto dinámico de los atributos en la satisfacción general.Valor originalAl explorar los impactos asimétricos de los atributos del aprendizaje en línea en la satisfacción general del aprendizaje, nuestros hallazgos brindan una visión novedosa de la multidimensionalidad de los atributos del aprendizaje en línea.

What influences the behavior intention of movie theater customers? Comparing linear and nonlinear points of view

PurposeThis paper aims to identify the influence of dimensions of movie theater service on customer behavior intention, comparing linear and nonlinear methods.Design/methodology/approachWith a sample of 345 cinema customers, the analysis compares penalty–reward contrast analysis (PRCA) and multiple linear regression analysis (MLR).FindingsThis research demonstrates that PRCA brings a better identification of the antecedents of customer behavior intention than MLR, showing that a nonlinear analysis can bring superior decision information to movie theater managers. Also, this study shows that superior performance of aspects related to the client's feelings leads the consumer to a tendency to return and recommend the cinema (behavior intention). This study also confirms that successful recovery actions can compensate for failures.Originality/valueAlthough the nonlinear antecedents of customer satisfaction have been studied in the scientific literature, there is a gap of studies applying methods to identify nonlinear antecedents of customer behavior intention (tendency to return and recommend), particularly in the industry of movie theater services. The findings of this research may allow movie theaters to improve the service provided, confronting the great challenges of online movie-watching alternatives.

Hotel Service Analysis by Penalty-Reward Contrast Technique for Online Review Data

Hotel reviews play an important role in the selection of hotels by travelers. Online travel platforms (e.g., Tripadvisor, Expedia) provide multi-criteria (e.g., room, service, location, sleep quality, etc.) ratings to make it easier for travelers to choose a hotel from reviews. Through penalty-reward contrast analysis (PRCA), this study aims to explore the asymmetric effects of attribute performance (Value, Cleanliness, Location, Rooms, Service, and Sleep Quality) on customer satisfaction with different geographic and cultural backgrounds using review data from hotels in Shanghai, Seoul, and New York. This study compares the asymmetric effects of attribute performance on customer satisfaction of hotels in different cities. At the same time, this study compares the asymmetric effects of attribute performance on customer satisfaction of reviews that are written in English and reviews that are written in the domestic language of hotels in the same city. The findings of this study help hotel managers serve customers from different cultural backgrounds and improve hotel services by identifying the criteria that affect customer satisfaction. As a result, it will be possible to improve the service and profitability of the hotel.

An online reviews-driven method for the prioritization of improvements in hotel services

Service improvement is of great importance for hotels to gain advantages. Several studies determined the prioritization of service improvement by identifying the relationship between service performance and customer satisfaction but ignored the impact of consumer expectations and managers' subjective opinions. This paper provides an online reviews-driven method for hoteliers to determine the prioritization of improvements in hotel services. Firstly, the improved penalty–reward contrast analysis that quantifies the sentiment tendencies and intensities in online reviews is used to identify types of service attributes. Secondly, based on the categorization of attribute types, three types of consumer expectations that affect consumer satisfaction are mined. Thirdly, the improved three-way decision model is used to determine the priority of allocation resources combining with managers’ subjective opinions. Finally, the proposed method is applied to the case study of Four Seasons Hotel service improvement, and the advantages of this method are illustrated by comparative analysis.

How to use spontaneous customer comments to identify nonlinear background of satisfaction with restaurant services

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to demonstrate how to use customer spontaneous comments to identify which aspects influence the overall customer satisfaction with restaurant services from a nonlinear perspective.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected data from 399 spontaneous comments about a chain of fast-food restaurants in Brazil. The comments are freely available on the TripAdvisor portal and were extracted and classified according to seven dimensions related to the quality of services: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, quality of the food and price. Next, the authors combine the critical incident technique (CIT) and the penalty-reward contrast analysis (PRCA) to investigate the nonlinear relationship between service quality assessment and overall customer satisfaction.FindingsThe method of integrating CIT with PRCA explains 64.7% of the variation in the customer's assessment of the services provided ( = 0.647). This shows that spontaneous comments from customers are related to their overall satisfaction with the service provided. Besides, the findings suggest that consumers tend to comment more about positive than negative experiences regarding aspects related to food, attendants' empathy and service assurance, and more negative comments about aspects related to responsiveness and price. However, it was found that negative comments have a stronger influence on overall satisfaction than positive comments.Originality/valueUsing comments available for free on the Internet and evaluating how positive and negative comments can jointly influence customer satisfaction, the proposed methodology demonstrates how restaurants can use their customers' spontaneous comments to identify critical aspects to be managed and improved. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study presenting how restaurants can use customer spontaneous comments, freely available on the internet, to identify the relevance of different aspects of the services provided from a nonlinear perspective. In addition, the present study shows that although customers spontaneously tend to share more positive than negative comments about restaurant services, events related to negative experiences have a stronger influence on overall satisfaction.

Identifying factors influencing hunter satisfaction across hunting activities in Nebraska

ABSTRACTUsing an online survey completed by individuals who hunted deer, waterfowl, upland game, or spring turkey in Nebraska during the 2017–2018 hunting seasons, we applied importance-grid analysis (IGA) and penalty-reward-contrast analysis (PRCA) to examine how activity-related attributes are related to satisfaction for each type of hunting activity. Effective response rates for the deer, waterfowl, small and upland-game, and spring turkey hunting surveys were 23%, 16%, 19%, and 27%, respectively. Results suggested that among hunting activities, different attributes were related to their sense of satisfaction. PRCA identified “seeing game animals” as a minimum requirement for participation in all activities except waterfowl hunting. “Seeing game birds” and “harvesting the daily bag limit” were identified as attributes that related to satisfaction and dissatisfaction among waterfowl hunters. Our study provides insights into factors that are important to satisfaction for each hunting activity.

Exploring asymmetric effects of attribute performance on customer satisfaction in the hotel industry

Understanding the asymmetric effects of attribute performance (AP) on customer satisfaction (CS) is important for the managers in the hotel industry. Although several studies concerning this issue have been conducted, the varies of asymmetric effects across different market segments have not been revealed. To this end, this study aims to explore the asymmetric effects of AP on CS with respect to different market segments, including different types of hotels, different types of travelers and travelers from different regions. Four theories, i.e., expectation-disconfirmation paradigm, three-factor theory of CS, customer delight theory and prospect theory, are adopted to explain the formation of CS from the perspective of different market segments. The penalty–reward contrast analysis (PRCA) and asymmetric impact-performance analysis (AIPA) are used to analyze 1,547,869 user-generated ratings collected form TripAdvisor posted by the travelers from 140 countries concerning 9,596 hotels from 75 capital cities around the world. The results suggest that the asymmetric effects of AP on CS may vary across different market segments, including different types of hotels, different types of travelers and travelers from different regions. In addition, the priorities of hotel attributes for each type of hotel with respect to different types of travelers and travelers from different regions are also analyzed by AIPA. The obtained results will be valuable for researchers to conduct further studies and hotel managers to formulate improvement strategies.

Exploring the nonlinear impact of critical incidents on users’ satisfaction with healthcare services

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the nonlinear impact of users’ memories on their general evaluation of outpatient healthcare services by the integration of two methodologies: critical incidents technique (CIT) and penalty-reward contrast analysis (PRCA).Design/methodology/approachThe authors carried out a survey with 356 respondents, users of seven outpatient clinics located in the city of Blumenau/SC, Brazil, during 2016. The participants were asked about their perceptions of positive and negative aspects of the service; and, using CIT, the answers were categorized according to the following dimensions: empathy, communication, facilities, access, promptness, medicines availability, complementary services, safety/confidentiality and service performance. Then, the authors evaluated the nonlinear impact of critical incidents on users’ general evaluation of the service using the identified incidents as input variables in a PRCA.FindingsThe findings show that users of healthcare services tend to remember emotion and health aspects positively, while technical and formal aspects tend to be more negatively than positively remembered. On the other hand, PRCA identifies that incidents of three dimensions positively influence the overall perception of the service (empathy, complementary services and privacy) and five negatively (empathy, facilities, speed, drugs/pharmacy and health performance), explaining 26.3 percent of the variation in clients’ general satisfaction.Originality/valueThe present paper explores the integration of two methodologies, showing how we can use open listening to healthcare service users to identify the nonlinear impact of different incidents on their general evaluation of the service. The results show that what customers remember does not necessarily influence overall customer satisfaction. The present approach allows companies to improve the process of listening to customers. There are no other papers exploring this approach, particularly in relation to healthcare services.

The inclusion of competitor information in the three-factor theory of customer satisfaction

PurposeThe three-factor theory of customer satisfaction suggests that product attributes may have an asymmetric effect on customer satisfaction. Although this relationship has been demonstrated in many different settings, the main drawback of previous research is the lack of information about competitors. This study aims to propose asymmetric impact competitor analysis (AICA) for addressing this shortcoming.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed method is conducted by using both impact asymmetry index and relative performance value of each product attribute. While the former is derived by penalty-reward contrast analysis, the latter is obtained by the comparison of the focal company’s performance with competitor’s performance.FindingsThe paper shows the application of AICA by using data belonging to two competing hotels. Results offered different strategies for each hotel attribute.Originality/valueAICA considers both asymmetric effects of attributes on customer satisfaction and competitor information related to same attributes. The proposed method also suggests the strategies for each attribute depending on the quadrant it is located.

The influence of motivation versus experience on recreation satisfaction: How appreciative- versus achievement-oriented recreation experience preferences relate to hunter satisfaction

We present methods derived from customer satisfaction research that clarify factors influential to the satisfaction of recreation participants. We conducted mail surveys of Minnesota wild turkey hunters to explore differences between the explicit (i.e., stated) and implicit (i.e., derived from the relationship to satisfaction) importance of recreation experience preferences. Revised importance performance analysis, importance grid analysis, and penalty reward contrast analysis revealed differences between the explicit and implicit importance of recreation experiences and clarified how activity success may influence the relationship between experiences and satisfaction. We found some support for our hypothesis that experiences related to achievement (of goals for an activity) may more strongly relate to satisfaction than experiences related to appreciation (of nature) or affiliation (with family and friends). Our results emphasized the importance of activity-specific experiences over activity-general experiences for both successful and unsuccessful hunters and exposed a “motivation matching” process related to harvest success.

Integrating methods for the prioritization of innovations and improvements in services

PurposeThis paper aims to present a methodology for the prioritization of innovations and improvements in services and products that integrates penalty–reward contrast analysis (PRCA) and improvement gap analysis (IGA).Design/methodology/approachThe presented method is theoretically developed and simulated. It uses a case study with 290 clients of supermarkets, evaluating 16 attributes of this service, to demonstrate the advantages of integrating PRCA and IGA.FindingsThe integration of PRCA and IGA provides benefits that outweigh the use of each method individually. The joint use of these methods allows the identification of possible nonlinear impact of attributes on customers’ overall satisfaction, allowing managerial recommendations to be made with greater discriminatory power, in addition to qualifying the identification of innovative attributes.Originality/valueManagers must be aware of the effect of the interaction of innovative attributes with attributes already used by the company. At the same time, it is appropriate to verify whether there is potential to improve the existing attributes. The literature shows that PRCA identifies the nonlinear influence of customers’ satisfaction with individual attributes on overall satisfaction, but it fails to identify the possible impact of innovative attributes. In turn, IGA identifies innovative attributes but does not identify how the attributes influence overall satisfaction. Thus, the benefits of integrating PRCA and IGA outweigh the individual limitations of each method, thereby increasing the quality of managerial recommendations. Moreover, a limitation of PRCA makes this method useful for identifying innovative attributes in relation to attractive attributes identified by the IGA method.

Nonlinear antecedents of customer satisfaction and loyalty in third-party logistics services (3PL)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the nonlinear impact of quality dimensions of third-party logistics (3PL) services on customer satisfaction and loyalty.Design/methodology/approachBy interviewing 167 small-size companies, and using penalty and reward contrast analysis, the paper explores the nonlinear impact of seven dimensions of 3PL services (safety, fault’s recovery, reliability, speed, flexibility, communication, and friendliness) on customer satisfaction and loyalty.FindingsThe results confirm the existence of the dimensions’ nonlinear impact on customer satisfaction. It also shows that some quality dimensions have a direct and nonlinear impact on loyalty. The dimension “friendliness” has a direct impact on loyalty if the company has a below market average performance, which may lead customers to switch service providers. “Flexibility on collection and delivery” has a direct impact if the company has a higher performance, contributing to customers’ intention to continue using the service. Another finding is that, if the company delivers good service recovery after the customer found faults in the service, and if customers trust the company service, they say they intend to continue to work with the company.Research limitations/implicationsThe present research focused only on small companies in one country (Brazil). Further studies should be carried out to explore different countries, with different realities, and different size of companies.Practical implications3PL companies should not only deal with customers’ satisfaction, but also with other quality aspects that directly affect customer intention to continue doing business with the 3PL service provider. These are friendliness, flexibility regarding time and frequency of collection and delivery and faults’ recovery.Originality/valueThe present research confirms that the personal relationship is a crucial aspect to be managed in order to keep customers in the long term. In addition, as opposed to most research looking for the antecedents of satisfaction and loyalty of 3PL customers, the present research shows that there is a direct nonlinear impact of the dimensions’ performance on customers’ loyalty, what should be taken in consideration by 3PL managers. It also shows how penalty-reward contrast analysis may reveal nonlinear antecedents that could be used for better understandings companies’ success in the long term.