Service Management Literature Research Articles

Network Parenting in International Service Development

This paper explores theoretical and practical aspects (i.e. resources allocated, activities undertaken, actors/decisions involved) of corporate 'parenting' in the development of international service networks. A review of the relevant corporate strategy, supply-chain, networks and services management literature underpins a preliminary content (capability; market orientation) and process (top-down; bottom-up) typology of network parenting. This provides the structure for discussion of two telecommunications-sector case studies. Analysis of the data acknowledges the influence of generic network mechanisms (e.g. weak and strong social ties) but the parenting typology also highlights other mechanisms, the effectiveness of which appears contingent on specific parenting roles. The paper details these roles (labelled: governing; training; curating; facilitating) and makes some preliminary comments on the role trajectories (e.g. governing training) observed. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible directions for future work.

Network Parenting in International Service Development

This paper explores theoretical and practical aspects (i.e. resources allocated, activities undertaken, actors/decisions involved) of corporate ‘parenting’ in the development of international service networks. A review of the relevant corporate strategy, supply‐chain, networks and services management literature underpins a preliminary content (capability; market orientation) and process (top‐down; bottom‐up) typology of network parenting. This provides the structure for discussion of two telecommunications‐sector case studies. Analysis of the data acknowledges the influence of generic network mechanisms (e.g. weak and strong social ties) but the parenting typology also highlights other mechanisms, the effectiveness of which appears contingent on specific parenting roles. The paper details these roles (labelled: governing; training; curating; facilitating) and makes some preliminary comments on the role trajectories (e.g. governing ↔ training) observed. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible directions for future work.

Developing retail credit infrastructure: a network perspective

This paper explores theoretical and practical aspects (i.e. resources allocated, activities undertaken, actors/decisions involved) of corporate “parenting” in the development of a retail lending network. A review of the relevant corporate strategy, supply‐chain, networks and services management literature underpins a preliminary content (capability; market orientation) and process (top‐down; bottom‐up) typology of network parenting. This provides the structure for discussion of findings from extended analysis of a UK retail banking sector case study. Analysis of the case data suggests that a richer conceptualisation of different forms of “network parenting” is needed to provide both practical guidance and support further theoretical developments. A preliminary typology (with contingent management mechanisms) is developed and used to represent the parenting trajectory described in the case study. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible directions for future work.

MODELING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS: ASSESSING THE EFFECTS OF MULTIPLE TRANSACTION POINTS ON THE PERCEIVED OVERALL PERFORMANCE OF THE PROVIDER

The ability of telecommunication operators to focus successfully on the customer has proven to be one of the most competitive issues toward the end of the 20th century. The services management literature is short of theoretical and empirical studies on customer satisfaction measurement in the telecommunications industry. This, however, is contrary to the industry practice since almost all major telecommunications companies around the world gather information about customer satisfaction and other related information about the quality of their services. Our research focuses on the customer satisfaction function of residential customers of a major European telecommunications company. Customer satisfaction is seen as the overall performance of the telecommunications company stemming from adequate service provision, value for money, loyalty, and relationship management. The antecedents of the performance of the organization are obtained from the contact points between the customers and the service points of the telecommunications company.

The Human Service Managerial Dilemma

The purpose of the study was to explore 115 human services manager's responses to current challenges, and determine whether or not managers engaged in the kind of administrative practice that has been advocated for in the human service management literature. Interview data revealed that the primary concerns among managers appeared to be related to resource development and organizational climate, and the solutions included staff development, resource development through fundraising and grant writing, staff recruitment, and some strategic planning. Binary logistic regression was used to predict the occurrence of identified challenges and solutions based on agency type, size, and location. Overall, the findings reflect a disparity between current management practices and expectations for more visionary and innovative responses. Often, solutions did not match with the identified challenges. The findings indicate that human service managers have to move beyond solving systematic problems with symptomatic solutions, and recommendations were discussed.

New service development: areas for exploitation and exploration

AbstractThe management of new service development (NSD) has become an important competitive concern in many service industries. However, NSD remains among the least studied and understood topics in the service management literature. As a result, our current understanding of the critical resources and activities to develop new services is inadequate given NSD’s importance as a service competitiveness driver. Until recently, the generally accepted principle behind NSD was that “new services happen” rather than occurring through formal development processes. Recent efforts to address this debate have been inconclusive. Thus, additional research is needed to validate or discredit the belief that new services happen as a result of intuition, flair, and luck. Relying upon the general distinctions between research exploitation and exploration, this paper describes areas in NSD research that deserve further leveraging and refinement (i.e. exploitation) and identifies areas requiring discovery or new study (i.e. exploration). We discuss the critical substantive and research design issues facing NSD scholars such as defining new services, choice in focusing on the NSD process or performance (or both), and specification of unit of analysis. We also examine what can be exploited from the study of new product development to further understanding of NSD. Finally, we explore one important area for future NSD research exploration: the impact of the Internet on the design and development of services. We offer research opportunities and research challenges in the study of NSD throughout the paper.

Realizing innovation in services

This article describes a number of innovation forms that are of special relevance to firms in the service industry. Not only technological innovations but also organizational innovations have been distinguished. In the service industry organizational innovations seem to play a significant role. The literature on innovations makes little mention of new organizational arrangements in services. Based on the service management literature a scheme with three forms of organizational innovation and one form of technological innovation is developed. This scheme is illustrated and elaborated in ten case studies of firms in various service industries. The case studies shed some light on innovations in multi-unit forms, combinations of services and co-operation with customers. On a basis of the service management literature and the case studies some of the main processes supporting the (organizational) innovations are analysed.

Customer equity considerations in service recovery: a cross‐industry perspective

Service recovery, or “doing things very right the second time” has been identified as a strategic issue in the services marketing and management literature. So far, much of the research on this phenomenon has departed from the disconfirmation paradigm. However, since perceptions of fairness play such an important role in service recovery situations, it seems desirable to supplement extant literature with the equity paradigm. Therefore, we designed an experimental study to assess the impact of customer equity considerations on perceived quality, satisfaction, loyalty and trust with respect to service recovery across different service industries. Our findings reveal that in general, distributional fairness and procedural fairness during the service recovery significantly improve scores for service quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and trust, whereas interactional fairness only enhances customer trust perceptions. Furthermore, our results suggest that the effects of equity considerations in a service recovery situation are idiosyncratic to specific service industries.

Exploratory research: consolidations and economies of scope

The consolidation of numerous highly‐fragmented US service industries has attracted considerable capital inflows during the 1990s. Fundamental questions about this phenomenon include the sources of value in consolidations, and how these firms avoid the diseconomies of scale and scope noted in the service management literature. This paper introduces the consolidation phenomenon, discusses relevant theory, and begins to develop a framework useful in the understanding of scope economies for services.

Positioning services along the volume‐variety diagonal

Draws on the service management literature to enhance understanding of the key operational differences in managing professional services, at one extreme, and mass services, at the other. Contributions are drawn together, developed and integrated into the service process model. This yields an understanding of the contingencies which render the design, control and improvement of different service processes appropriate. Strategic implications of the service process model are considered. It is contended that cost effective services will be positioned along the volume‐variety diagonal. It is proposed that the service process model can be used as a strategic tool in three ways. First, it can be used to evaluate possible strategic moves along the volume‐variety diagonal. Second, it can be used to analyse a competitive area and evaluate a service offering relative to the competition. Third, it can be used to analyse internal organisational processes with a view to identifying processes which have different volume‐variety characteristics and which should therefore perhaps be managed separately.

Inconsistent Performance during the Service Encounter

This article deals with the effects of inconsistent performance during the service encounter on judgments of service quality and purchase intentions. The service management literature has emphasized strong starts and consistent performance throughout the encounter, asserting, for example, that the service bookends should be performed at the same level of quality. In this study, the authors found that an improvement in performance during the encounter produced more favorable evaluations than when there was a decline in performance or when there was consistent but average performance. The results here also indicate that overall judgments of quality and purchase intentions are driven more by the performance of the final event in the encounter than by the initial event regardless of the trend in performance. The managerial implication is that the beginning of the encounter might not be as important as previously thought and that a buildup to a strong ending results in higher perceived service quality.

Empowerment in five‐star hotels: choice, voice or rhetoric?

This article highlights the ambiguities and debates surrounding the meaning, application, purpose and concomitants of the concept of empowerment presented in the service management literature and argues that these flow from the attempt to reconcile the need for control to secure employee compliance with the need to cede a degree of autonomy to secure co‐operation and initiative. It shows how empowerment is conceived primarily in terms of “choice” ‐ increase discretion over how work if performed ‐ rather than “voice” ‐ greater involvement in organizational decision‐making ‐ and is increasingly regarded as a particular and contingent management strategy in which control via regulation and supervision is replaced by more indirect controls. A study of five‐star hotels in Amsterdam is reported which shows that, despite managerial rhetoric, there was little “empowerment” in practice and what there was amounted to increased employee responsibility rather than greater choice over how work was done or more voice in organizational decisions and that supporting forms of recruitment, training and remuneration were mostly absent.

Understanding user perceptions of information systems success

There is constant pressure on information systems management to improve service to users, often at the same time that their budgets are being reduced. The question of service management is important, and should be explicitly addressed by IT management. It follows that we must understand the attributes of information systems that users perceive to be important, because it is these attributes that underpin their perceptions of information systems success. Previous research work dealing with the perceptions of users has led to a number of useful models, but these models are not necessarily appropriate in all situations. Further, we must try to understand how specific attributes relate to the perceived success of the information system and this is not always possible with previous models. By reference to the service management literature and by using the repertory grid technique, this paper develops a set of service attributes which give a good indication of user perceptions of information system success. The paper examines their relationship with the nature of the organisation, the level and involvement of users, and the kind of system to which they relate. It is found that there is no single overall set of attributes that relate to user perceptions of success, but it is possible to find subsets that do. The measurement and analysis of these attributes are helpful in setting management policies and guidelines for the improvement of perceptions of information systems success.

Quality Measurement in Service Industries

A number of writers in the service management literature have observed that because service quality is difficult to measure there is a danger that service organisations will neglect to measure it, despite the fact that service quality is often critical to their competitive business success. The results of an empirical research project investigating the quality measurement systems of six multi‐site UK service organisations, all of which consider themselves to differentiate on the basis of service quality, are described. Two of the organisations were found to have very few quality measures and recognised that this was a major gap in their performance measurement systems. Two had developed a range of customer‐based measures of service quality which were reported regularly and widely in the organisations. The other two companies had developed a wide range of internal and external, hard and soft quality measures. These companies used managers as well as customers to measure both tangible and intangible aspects of service. Internal measures were used to corroborate the perceptual measures drawn from customers and, conversely, the external measures were used to support service design and the setting of internal quality targets.

Service management and organizational design

In this paper it is pointed out that customers and service firms receive scant attention in organization theory in general, and in the field of organizational design specifically. Some of the contributions of service management literature are discussed. This stream of literature has generated important insights, but it does not constitute a novel theoretical perspective. The author reformulates the theoretical arguments, drawing on a general contingency approach to organizational design. Thirteen hypotheses on appropriate design choices are proposed. In the last section the hypotheses are related to the substance of transaction cost theory and structural contingency theory. It is concluded that research could fruitfully proceed by integrating new insights from service management with existing perspectives in organization theory.