Search

We empirically explore the link between environmental sustainability practices, service quality, and customer satisfaction. Using the hotel industry as the empirical setting, we provide evidence that by effectively integrating environmental and quality practices, service organizations can provide a legitimate signal of overall service excellence. This has a positive effect on customer satisfaction. In addition, we empirically demonstrate the existence of synergies between environmental practices and service quality on customer satisfaction, and show how experimental procedures with the help of video technology can be utilized in operations management research to provide insights on the relationships between various constructs and their interactions. The use of video technology provides respondents with the opportunity to better “experience” the scenarios involved in experimental designs. Based on our findings, we stress the importance of linking environmental and quality practices in the design of service delivery systems.

Service quality improvement has become an imperative in today's service firms. In this paper, we present a modeling framework that combines marketing and operations viewpoints for resource allocation. The framework can be used to allocate resources to the different stages of a multistage service system, where the manager's goal is to improve customers' perceptions of service quality, given some budget. Optimal allocation guidelines are provided, and the interplay of three factors on the resulting allocation scheme is captured. These factors are the current level of customers' perceptions of service quality at each stage, the cost of implementing a service quality improvement at each stage, and the importance placed by customers at each stage. Sensitivity analysis to provide additional managerial insights is also performed. We demonstrate the applicability of the modeling framework, using data from a real life health care environment. Model limitations and future research are also discussed.

1492 1497

In this paper a theoretical framework to assess the efficiency of the Requirements Capture and Analysis (RCA) process in software development is introduced. Although it is widely recognized that successful implementation of the first stages of the software development process is critical for the overall development process, RCA efficiency assessments have not been given much attention. The presented theoretical framework to assess RCA efficiency follows a production approach to model the early stages of a software project. An approach based on Data Envelopment Analysis that utilizes the proposed framework to isolate the effects of exogenous factors, such as the environment or the type of project, on the project's RCA efficiency is also presented. Finally, the applicability of the methodology through an exploratory empirical study is demonstrated, and managerial implications are discussed.

One of the defining characteristics of services is the existence of some form of contact between the customer and the service firm during the service production process. In the 1980s, customer contact (CC) became an important dimension in virtually all service taxonomies. Its importance to perceived service quality (SQ) was also recognized, but the direct linkage between CC and SQ was difficult to determine without an operational definition of CC. In 1995, Kellogg and Chase addressed this issue and developed an empirically derived operational measure of contact. In this paper, we employ the Kellogg/Chase measures as the basis for a conceptual model linking the CC dimensions of communication time and intimacy with SQ. We assert that `desirable' levels of these contact dimensions do exist and present hypotheses as to the nature of their relationship. We report results from an empirical study undertaken in a hotel environment which support the existence of such desirable contact levels. Managerial implications and future research are also discussed.

Applying total quality management (TQM) principles in education still remains a great challenge. This paper focuses on hospitality education. Although anecdotal evidence on successful TQM implementation in various hotels can be easily found, no formal approaches on how to implement TQM to the hospitality educational process have appeared in the literature. The Higher Hotel Institute, Cyprus, has recently embarked towards the establishment of a customer‐driven management culture. The paper presents and discusses the approach taken by the Institute in collecting and using service quality‐related information from three principal groups: namely, future employers, staff and students, towards this goal. Future research directions are also discussed.

Delivering high quality service during the service encounter is central to competitive advantage in service organizations. However, achieving such high quality while controlling for costs is a major challenge for service managers. The purpose of this paper is to present an approach for addressing this challenge. The approach entails developing a model linking service process operational variables to service quality metrics to provide guidelines for service resource allocation. The approach enables the service operations manager to take specific actions toward service quality improvement, in light of the costs involved. A novel feature of the approach is the development of robust optimization models, which provide optimal operational guidelines while accounting for uncertainty in the model's parameters. We demonstrate the applicability of the approach in a large health care facility. (Service quality Robust optimization) ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management is the property of INFORMS: Institute for Operations Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) 2 3