Ana Isabel Lopes, Edward C. Malthouse, Nathalie Dens and Patrick De Pelsmacker
Engaging in webcare, i.e. responding to online reviews, can positively affect consumer attitudes, intentions and behavior. Research is often scarce or inconsistent regarding the…
Abstract
Purpose
Engaging in webcare, i.e. responding to online reviews, can positively affect consumer attitudes, intentions and behavior. Research is often scarce or inconsistent regarding the effects of specific webcare strategies on business performance. Therefore, this study tests whether and how several webcare strategies affect hotel bookings.
Design/methodology/approach
We apply machine learning classifiers to secondary data (webcare messages) to classify webcare variables to be included in a regression analysis looking at the effect of these strategies on hotel bookings while controlling for possible confounds such as seasonality and hotel-specific effects.
Findings
The strategies that have a positive effect on bookings are directing reviewers to a private channel, being defensive, offering compensation and having managers sign the response. Webcare strategies to be avoided are apologies, merely asking for more information, inviting customers for another visit and adding informal non-verbal cues. Strategies that do not appear to affect future bookings are expressing gratitude, personalizing and having staff members (rather than managers) sign webcare.
Practical implications
These findings help managers optimize their webcare strategy for better business results and develop automated webcare.
Originality/value
We look into several commonly used and studied webcare strategies that affect actual business outcomes, being that most previous research studies are experimental or look into a very limited set of strategies.
Details
Keywords
Patrick Arthur and Samuel Koomson
There is evidence of country-level contextual variations regarding the benefits of practical experience acquired by students during higher education. This paper, therefore…
Abstract
Purpose
There is evidence of country-level contextual variations regarding the benefits of practical experience acquired by students during higher education. This paper, therefore, analyses the benefits of student internships in the Ghanaian context.
Design/methodology/approach
In Study 1, two structured but distinct surveys were distributed to senior members and students of six specialised technical education institutions (TIs). Study 2 involved in-depth interviews with the heads of organisations in the tertiary education sector, including trade groups, industries and government agencies.
Findings
Internship provides soft skills, confidence, career development, sense of responsibility, employability, income, knowledge sharing and networking for students/interns. For TIs, it contributes to the professional development of faculty supervisors and helps them to update the content they teach. For employers, it unveils talented and promising students who can be employed immediately after graduation at a relatively cheaper cost.
Research limitations/implications
There is still the need for additional research in different contexts: both developed and developing economies to clear doubts on the controversies surrounding the relevance of internship in the 21st century.
Practical implications
TIs should continue to champion student internship programmes. This study highlights the need for employers to place internship students in areas that relate to their fields of study. It also underscores the need for students to embrace internship since it is the cornerstone to their employability in the labour market.
Social implications
Undeniably, student internships provide a critical platform for career beginners.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to knowledge by offering contextual literature in Ghana on the benefits of student internship programme for interns/students, TIs and employers, all together.
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Charles-Henri Fredouet and Patrick Le Mestre
Implementations of inter-organizational networks are common, following a growing diversity of cooperative modes between the independent companies associated in these…
Abstract
Implementations of inter-organizational networks are common, following a growing diversity of cooperative modes between the independent companies associated in these networks.
Their scientific analysis has recently intensified, attention to network structures obviously including the study of the way their performance can be measured. Although academic research has mostly dealt with the performance of the network’s members, the concern of this article is rather with the performance of the global network.
Among the numerous forms of existing inter-organizational networks, maritime port communities are complex organizations which have to deal with operational synchronization, strategic cohesiveness and global performance measurement problems.
This article therefore mainly describes a port performance measurement system (PPMS): built in a predominantly empirical research context, the performance model and the associated measurement indicators illustrate the kind of network-level dedicated, performance control systems, on which port communities need to rely when designing their global strategy.