Chengzhang Li, Minghui Jiang and Xuchuan Yuan
Consumers are inclined to join longer queues due to social interactions in service consumptions. This purchase behavior brings in operational challenges in terms of capacity…
Abstract
Purpose
Consumers are inclined to join longer queues due to social interactions in service consumptions. This purchase behavior brings in operational challenges in terms of capacity planning, which affects consumers’ demand, leading to an unstable and fluctuated arrival process. This paper aims to investigate the dynamic characteristics of the arrival process of a service system with boundedly rational consumers whose purchase decisions are influenced by the queue length under social interactions.
Design/methodology/approach
Consumers’ bounded rationality is modeled based on the random utility theory. Due to social interactions, the equilibrium queue length and its interaction with the expected waiting time affect consumers’ value perception. The authors first analyze the optimal service capacity decision with or without considering the influence of social interactions in a static setting. They then focus on the dynamic characteristics of the arrival process by a one-dimensional dynamical model in terms of the arrival rate.
Findings
This paper finds that the service system can behave chaotic in terms of arrival rate dynamics under social interactions. The results highlight the dynamical complexity of a simple service system due to consumers’ behavioral factors and the influence of social interactions, which may be the critical drivers leading to fluctuated and uneven demand.
Originality/value
The findings demonstrate that due to consumers’ limited cognitive ability and the influence of social interactions, the demand to a service system can be stable, periodic or even chaotic in terms of the arrival process. This study provides an alternative explanation to the observed demand fluctuations in various service processes under the influence of social interactions, which is important for service providers to effectively manage service capacity to achieve a stable service process and improve operational efficiency.
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Wentao Zhan, Minghui Jiang and Chengzhang Li
Customer-intensive services refer to the service that a provider needs to invest in customers with high patience and experience. Within a certain rate range, the slower service…
Abstract
Purpose
Customer-intensive services refer to the service that a provider needs to invest in customers with high patience and experience. Within a certain rate range, the slower service rate and the longer service time, the higher customer’s utility; however, this may cause queue congestion. And the advertising of service provider will affect the revenue. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of advertising on the optimal price, service rate and the optimal revenue of such service provider at different development stages.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper investigates the service strategies of service provider based on advertising effects. The authors first divide service provider into insufficient customers or sufficient customers according to the development stage, then analyze the impact of advertising at different stages. The authors focus on the formulation of the optimal price, service rate and the optimal revenue of service provider at different stages.
Findings
This paper finds that in the insufficient customers stage, the service provider’s strategy of “small profits but quick turnover” is conducive to quickly accumulating customers. With the development of service provider, the advertising indirectly increases the revenue of service provider by maintaining popularity. The result also shows that with the development of service provider, the initiative of such service market has gradually been mastered by service provider, from “buyer market” to “seller market.”
Originality/value
The finding provides an alternative explanation for the impact of advertising on service provider’s optimal strategies; it also solves the settings of service price and rate of customer-intensive service provider at different development stages. This study is essential to create the optimal revenue and solve supply–demand conflicts (such as doctor–patient conflict) between service provider and customers.
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Chengzhang Li, Minghui Jiang and Xuchuan Yuan
This paper aims to investigate the optimal price and service rate decisions in a customer-intensive service, where customers’ perceived service quality decreases in the service…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the optimal price and service rate decisions in a customer-intensive service, where customers’ perceived service quality decreases in the service speed. Customers are assumed to be forward-looking in purchase decision-making and heterogeneous in their reservation utilities. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of customers’ forward-looking behavior and the heterogeneity on the operational decisions in a customer-intensive context.
Design/methodology/approach
The service is delivered through an M/M/1 queue system with unobservable queues. Customers are forward-looking in queue joining decisions, where the purchase decisions are made when the expected utility is greater than the reservation utility. The optimal price and service rate decisions are analyzed with both homogeneous and heterogeneous customers, where homogenous customers have the same reservation utility in purchase decision-making, while heterogeneous customers have different reservation utilities, which are captured by a random variable.
Findings
The optimal price and service rate decisions with forward-looking customers depend on the customer intensity, potential market size and customers’ reservation utility distribution. The results suggest that customers’ heterogeneity in terms of their reservation utilities affects the optimal decisions, market coverage and the expected revenue. Service providers need to take customers’ heterogeneity and the forward-looking behavior into operational decision-making.
Originality/value
This paper extends previous studies in customer-intensive service and contribute to the service operations management area by explicitly incorporating customers’ forward-looking behavior and heterogeneity in purchase decision-making. Assuming customers are forward-looking and heterogeneous is more realistic and practical. The results highlight that knowing customers’ behavioral characteristics can better improve decision-making in service operations, which is critical for enhancing customers’ satisfaction and loyalty, thus critical to a firm’s success in the market with intensive competition.
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Lihong Song, Qiang Liang, Yuan Lu and Xinchun Li
Based on the stakeholder theory, this study aims to investigate Chinese entrepreneurial firms’ selective satisfaction of Stakeholder demands on corporate social performance (CSP).
Abstract
Purpose
Based on the stakeholder theory, this study aims to investigate Chinese entrepreneurial firms’ selective satisfaction of Stakeholder demands on corporate social performance (CSP).
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses the survey data from privately owned companies in China, which is collected by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce in three years of 2006, 2008 and 2010.
Findings
This paper suggests a contingency model of CSP: entrepreneurial firms selectively perform corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues rather than all CSP dimensions. Furthermore, this study illustrates that international operations, such as overseas exports, would strengthen the above positive relationships between foreign ownership and selected CSR issues.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the understanding of CSR activities in Chinese entrepreneurial firms, which are more selective when performing social issues. In addition to the theoretical contribution, this work suggests a contingency model to the stakeholder theory, indicating the moderating factors to the entrepreneurial firms’ motivation to perform specific social responsibilities.
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Keqing Zhong and Jae Park
This policy review paper is an analysis of the Double Reduction Policy (DRP) of China that was promulgated in July 2021. It looks into its rationale as well as different…
Abstract
Purpose
This policy review paper is an analysis of the Double Reduction Policy (DRP) of China that was promulgated in July 2021. It looks into its rationale as well as different stakeholders' early reactions to the policy.
Design/methodology/approach
Critical policy analysis (CPA) method was used to identify (1) the artefacts, such as language, objects and acts, that were significant carriers of the DRP; (2) communities of meaning, interpretation, speech and practice that are relevant to the DRP and its implementation; (3) the local discourses relevant to the DRP; and (4) the tension points and their conceptual sources (affective, cognitive and/or moral) by different DRP stakeholders. As per the comparative education field, this paper compares the pre-DRP and post-DRP periods to tease out how the policy affects different stakeholders of education.
Findings
The DRP in China could be attributed to diverse factors such as demography, socialist economic and developmental visions and manpower structure. The implementation of the DRP has generated uneven reactions among different stakeholders and geographical regions both in speed and scale. While education stakeholders have no choice but to adopt the policy, they face challenges derived from a sudden halt of private educational resources and subsequent increased duties of parents and schools.
Originality/value
The significance of this early policy analysis lies in offering an insight into education development in China by analysing and deliberating the DRP from different perspectives.
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The aim of this paper is reviewing the discipline development course of the history of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics and recognising the changes of its…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is reviewing the discipline development course of the history of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics and recognising the changes of its development and its historic mission in the new stage will be beneficial to the construction of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics from the perspective of doctrinal history.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper from the aspect of discipline formation and development, the history of China’s socialist political economy has experienced two stages: emergence and formation (the first stage) and steady development (the second stage). It has explored new research fields and improved the quality of research levels. However, the role of studying the history of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics has not been fully played regarding satisfying the needs of constructing socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics.
Findings
In this study when the construction of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics entered a new era, the study of the history of socialist political economy also entered a new stage, showing new features in terms of research objectives, principles, scale and methods.
Originality/value
Therefore, the research on the history of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics should be highly emphasised, and the focus on serving the construction of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics should be its historic mission and core task. Also, researchers should pay attention to changing ideas, laying a good foundation, highlighting key points, building platforms and broadening horizons.
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The relationship between government and market is the key to the economic development performance of market economy countries. Due to the limits such as the state/market…
Abstract
Purpose
The relationship between government and market is the key to the economic development performance of market economy countries. Due to the limits such as the state/market dichotomy, the focus on static allocation efficiency and the ignorance of the diversity of the market economy and the relationship between government and market, economic liberalism and state interventionism can hardly position and explain the role and evolution of government and market in the real world accurately.
Design/methodology/approach
China’s economic transition has always adhered to the reform direction of the socialist market economy and the development goal of a modern socialist country as well as the symbiosis and positive and progressive evolution of government and market, blazing a “third way” in handling the relationship between government and market.
Findings
The “China’s experience” shows that the key for emerging market economies to achieve good economic development performance lies in whether they can build a new relationship of the mutual integration between and common prosperity of government and market regarding target selection, production organisation, technological innovation, institutional change and regulatory adjustment.
Originality/value
The second part of this paper analyses the inherent defects of economic liberalism and state interventionism as well as the reasons why they can hardly be adopted as the theoretical guidance for emerging market economies to handle the relationship between government and market. The third part analyses how China has transcended the inherent thinking of liberalism and interventionism and shaped the new relationship between government and market through goal-oriented, active and progressive, two-way interactive exploration and practice to ensure the success of China's economic transition.