For the internet to realise its full marketing potential, travel agencies need a well‐designed e‐travel site. Yet the attributes that affect customers' perceptions leading to…
Abstract
Purpose
For the internet to realise its full marketing potential, travel agencies need a well‐designed e‐travel site. Yet the attributes that affect customers' perceptions leading to acceptance of e‐travel sites are still unclear. This study seeks to focus on why users accept or reject e‐travel sites and how users' acceptance is affected by three widely recognised features of sites – relevant information content, information quality, and functionality needs service.
Design/methodology/approach
The study analysed a survey of 242 users of Taiwanese e‐travel sites to test the hypothesised expanded technology acceptance model.
Findings
The empirical results indicate that the information content, information quality and functionality service of e‐travel sites strongly determine the perceived ease of use. Relevant information content and information quality also strongly determine perceived usefulness, which in turn leads to the behavioural intention to use e‐travel sites.
Originality/value
The findings of the study suggest that web site information must be sufficiently provided, quickly expanded and constantly updated to maintain correct and current content to meet users' information needs as well as an appropriate assistance function to provide good levels of web‐based customer service. These attributes should satisfy visitors, making them likely to revisit e‐travel sites.
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Dirk J. Primus and Euthemia Stavrulaki
This study applies a product centric view to examine three product development (PD) decisions that relate to a new product and its supply chain (SC): product design, sourcing…
Abstract
Purpose
This study applies a product centric view to examine three product development (PD) decisions that relate to a new product and its supply chain (SC): product design, sourcing strategy and product delivery strategy (PDS). The purpose of this paper is to expand the understanding of alignment decisions in this area to include concurrent compatibility between product design, SC strategy and market conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
The study leverages existing theory to identify the key dimensions of alignment between product design, SC strategy and market conditions in a conceptual model. Using survey data from 124 new PD projects collected from various industries, the authors then empirically test the impact of multiple alignment decisions on new product introductions (NPIs) performance.
Findings
The results suggest that one specific project-level design parameter (interface intensity) is a key alignment dimension for product design decisions. Specifically, the authors find that alignment between interface intensity and sourcing strategy, as well as between interface intensity and clock-speed improves NPI performance. Additionally, the authors find evidence that three-way alignment between PDS, interface intensity and market volatility will benefit NPI performance.
Research limitations/implications
Because the study is cross-sectional and conducted at the project level, future work should continue this line of inquiry with longitudinal exams and across a families of development projects.
Practical implications
The findings inform the deliberate management of the PD/SC interface and provide managers with quantitative benefits of concurrent alignment decisions.
Originality/value
This study identifies and addresses important deficits in the understanding of concurrent alignment between product design, SC strategy and market conditions.
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Rizqa Anita, Muhammad Rasyid Abdillah and Nor Balkish Zakaria
This study aims to extend the understanding of the role of authentic leadership in encouraging subordinates to become internal whistleblowers. The current study aims to seek…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to extend the understanding of the role of authentic leadership in encouraging subordinates to become internal whistleblowers. The current study aims to seek whether authentic leadership can encourage internal whistleblowing (IW) through employee controlled motivation for IW and moral courage.
Design/methodology/approach
The samples of this study were 221 employees working at 26 government organizations in one of the provinces located on Sumatera Island, Indonesia. Based on the cross-sectional survey method, this study used partial least square-structural equation modeling analysis with SmartPLS 3 software to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The result revealed that employee controlled motivation for whistleblowing and moral courage significantly mediates the effect of authentic leadership toward IW. This result also indicates that the two mediating variables in this study fully mediate the effect of authentic leadership toward IW.
Practical implications
This study highlights the critical role played by leaders in encouraging subordinates to IW in the workplace. The role of an authentic leader will have positively affected enhancing IW by employees, which has significant implications for the organization that particularly in manage organization wrongdoing in terms of eliminating or preventing unethical practice.
Originality/value
Theoretically, the current study extends the understanding of the mechanism underlying the relationship between authentic leadership and IW. This study proposes employee controlled motivation for IW and moral courage as the new mediator variables to explain how and why authentic leadership may encourage IW. Empirically, the current study chooses the Indonesian Government as a context that rarely conducts in the prior study.
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Reza Abdoli Bidhandi and Changiz Valmohammadi
The purpose of this paper is to identify factors affecting agile supply chain and evaluate the effect of these factors on profitability. To that end, after reviewing the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify factors affecting agile supply chain and evaluate the effect of these factors on profitability. To that end, after reviewing the theoretical foundations of this field, the authors identified the factors affecting supply chain agility and profitability and provided an appropriate conceptual model to measure and verify this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
A 48-item questionnaire was prepared and distributed among 270 members of staff and managers of the company from which 240 questionnaire were completed and returned. The response rate was 88 percent. Using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), 37 indicators were selected and redundant questions were excluded. Results were analyzed using the structural equation modeling technique, and the relationships between factors were obtained and the impact of each supply chain agility factor on profitability was determined and prioritized.
Findings
Through EFA, the indicators related to each supply chain agility factor and profitability were extracted and using the literature, supply chain agility indicators were classified in four factors of speed, responsiveness, competency and flexibility and the indicators related to profitability in one factor, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted accordingly. The CFA results showed that all four factors are significantly associated with profitability, and flexibility has the greatest impact on profitability, and speed has minimal impact on profitability.
Research limitations/implications
As this study has been done in the context of Iran, cautious should be taken to generalize the results.
Originality/value
Other studies have examined the effect of agility on business performance and the relationship between them but this study, by providing a comprehensive set of supply chain agility evaluation criteria and indicators and considering all its dimensions, intends to identify the factors affecting supply chain agility and evaluate and determine the effects of these factors on profitability and examine if supply chain agility affects profitability.
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Yahia Zare Mehrjerdi, Hossein Sayyadi Toranlo and Reza Jamali
The purpose of this paper is to present the perception of service quality. The measurement of service quality has grown significantly in importance over recent years. However…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the perception of service quality. The measurement of service quality has grown significantly in importance over recent years. However, since customers' perceptions of service quality are expressed subjectively in vague linguistic terms therefore, a fuzzy approach to service quality of an academic library is applied and the gap between the student's expectations and perceptions analyzed.
Design/methodology/approach
The LibQUAL method is applied to identify the gap between customer expectation and perceptions of the actual service received. The linguistic procedure is developed considering four dimensions of LibQUAL. The quality analyses are based on the non‐parametric rank‐based statistics (Wilcoxon's two‐sample rank sum statistic) and extended to fuzzy data which consequently reinforces results in comparison with crisp data.
Findings
It is found that there is no gap between the students' expectations and perceptions in three dimensions of “affect of service”, “library as a place”, and “personal control”. But, from the students' point of view, regarding the “access to information” dimension, there is a significant difference between the students' expectations and perceptions.
Research limitations/implications
The instrument that is administered is a paper questionnaire version based on the 2002 model of LibQUAL.
Practical implications
It is felt that application of this fuzzy procedure has implications on possible constraints on the statistics of interest, as well as on the p‐value of any associated significance tests.
Originality/value
This paper is possibly the first to demonstrate the application of fuzzy logic to the LibQUAL model. This fuzzy procedure persuades possibility constraints on the statistic of interest, as well as on the p‐value of an associated significance test. This fuzzy procedure persuades possibility constraints on the statistic of interest, as well as on the p‐value of an associated significance test.