Heidi K. Gardner and Melissa Valentine
This chapter examines collaboration among highly autonomous, powerful, professional peers to explain why the benefits of teamwork that scholars typically find in traditional teams…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter examines collaboration among highly autonomous, powerful, professional peers to explain why the benefits of teamwork that scholars typically find in traditional teams may not apply. The chapter analyzes the perspectives of individual professionals to show that, in this setting, collaboration is often seen as more costly than rewarding for the individuals involved. It presents a conceptual framework exploring this paradox and suggests directions for future research to elaborate an underlying theory.
Methodology/approach
The chapter draws on extensive qualitative data from surveys and interviews in three professional service firms, including a top 100 global law firm, a boutique executive search firm, and a large, US-based commercial advisory firm. Findings are married integrated with organizational theory to develop testable propositions for future research.
Findings
Because senior professionals collaborate with peers who have the autonomy to choose to work collectively or independently, power and authority are not means to create a team or make it effective. Findings show how professionals interpret the relative costs and benefits of collaboration, and suggest that in most cases, senior professionals will not attempt it or give it up before collaborations can reap important benefits. Thus, short-term costs prevent opportunities to experience longer term benefits for many professionals. Yet, some professionals have figured out how to use “instrumental collaboration” to shift the balance in their favor. The chapter’s conceptual framework uses a longitudinal perspective to resolve this seeming paradox.
Research implications
The chapter presents a nascent theory of instrumental collaboration, including five testable hypotheses, an emergent conceptual framework, and suggestions for specific future research directions.
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A model of service quality is developed which includes three groups of service quality components: physical and procedural, behavioural, and judgemental. Classification schemes…
Abstract
A model of service quality is developed which includes three groups of service quality components: physical and procedural, behavioural, and judgemental. Classification schemes for service operations based on their relative degrees of labour intensity, process and product customisation, and contact and interaction between the customer and the service organisation are reviewed and synthesised. The application of the service quality model to different classes of service organisations are discussed.
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The term architectural management has been in use since the 1960s and forms an essential part of this journal's title. However, the evolution of the architectural management field…
Abstract
The term architectural management has been in use since the 1960s and forms an essential part of this journal's title. However, the evolution of the architectural management field has not been a smooth affair, coming into, out of, and then back into fashion; and concise definitions continue to be illusive. Architectural management is a powerful tool that can be applied to the benefit of the professional service firm and the total building process, yet it continues to receive scant attention in the professional journals, seen as little more than a specialist interest. This paper charts the development of the architectural management field and takes a critical look at the field in relation to current research and its applicability to those who stand to gain the most from architectural management, the professional service firms. The paper concludes that architectural management is a cultural issue.
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MARTIN J. JENNINGS and MARTIN BETTS
Strategic planning in pursuit of competitive advantage has become a wide‐spread modern business objective. The construction industry shows some evidence of strategic planning…
Abstract
Strategic planning in pursuit of competitive advantage has become a wide‐spread modern business objective. The construction industry shows some evidence of strategic planning implementation; however such concepts are mainly adopted by large contracting companies that have the resources to identify and develop competitive weapons such as information systems/technology (IS/IT). For professional service firms in construction, the nature of the service, the form of client‐customer relations and thus the style of competition are quite different from those followed by contractors. The relevance of competitive strategy and the competitive use of weapons such as IS/IT for professional service firms in construction has not, as yet, been quantifiably tested. Therefore this paper aims to address this imbalance in construction organization research by identifying the competitive strategies used by quantity surveyors based in the UK and assessing the support that IS/IT provides to the competitive strategies of members of this profession. A survey of quantity surveying practices questioned which competitive strategies are followed, how these strategies are implemented and the extent to which IS/IT is being used in each strategy's implementation. The results of this survey, in association with existing competitive strategy and IT literature, are used to derive a new model which proposes specific strategies that UK quantity surveyors can and are using to influence their competitive positioning.
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Kristin Brandl, Peter D. Ørberg Jensen, Andrew Jones and Patrik Ström
The implemented European Union Services Directive aimed at creating a unified European market for trade in services. However, the implementation of the institutions was not fully…
Abstract
The implemented European Union Services Directive aimed at creating a unified European market for trade in services. However, the implementation of the institutions was not fully successful as to the characteristics of international services caused challenges in the ratification of the Directive. Research on international services is facing similar challenges based on the fragmented, inconclusive, and at times even contradictory findings of international services literature with regard to service characteristics. Thus, each academic field of international business, economic geography, and service management has tried to identify international service characteristics, but no unified characterization is found. The challenges in defining the different types of services, difference in the levels of analysis, and various impacts of policies and institutional environments on the service, cause these differences. The authors see the need for a unified framework that combines the different literatures and considers the policy implications. The authors develop a framework consisting of four components of international service characteristics, that is, the connectivity of service actors to the environment, the configuration of service activities within organizational set-ups, the dyadic collaborative interaction between service actors, and the created value by the services. The authors specifically consider policy and institutions as well as a vast variety of literature streams to support the arguments.
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Hsin-You Chuo and John L. Heywood
Since waiting in a queue may induce both negative and positive effects on customers’ quality perceptions of which the queue is formed, an optimal queuing wait which is long enough…
Abstract
Since waiting in a queue may induce both negative and positive effects on customers’ quality perceptions of which the queue is formed, an optimal queuing wait which is long enough but not too long to have positive effects on the pursued service is critical for successful queuing management. This study examined the existence of an optimal queuing wait at theme parks by merging the interpretative approach of institutional norms with the measuring application of the adapted Return Potential Model from crowding studies. Using quota and systematic sampling techniques, survey data were collected from 1,440 visitors to five leading theme parks in Taiwan. An optimal queuing wait represented by an institutional norm among visitors with moderate consensus for the longest acceptable waiting time (LAWT) was revealed in this study. As a critical reversal point of visitors’ quality perception, significant ascent of visitors’ crowding perception did occur when their actual waiting times exceeded their LAWT.
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Introduction The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effect on inventory levels of centralisation, i.e., moving from a logistics system formed from a number of field…
Abstract
Introduction The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effect on inventory levels of centralisation, i.e., moving from a logistics system formed from a number of field warehouses to one where all demands are met from a single location. In particular, we shall examine the “square root law of locations”, a result which asserts that the total inventory in a system is proportional to the square root of the number of locations at which a product is stocked.
The purpose of this research is to examine multisource feedback from a stakeholder perspective, arguing that select competency assessments that different rater groups provide are…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to examine multisource feedback from a stakeholder perspective, arguing that select competency assessments that different rater groups provide are valid predictors of the “partner” potential and advancement of senior professional service professionals (PSPs).
Design/methodology/approach
A 360‐degree assessment tool for PSPs, the Relationship Management Survey (RMS), was administered to 391 principals as part of their professional development. Six RMS dimensions (clusters of competencies) were used to predict a principal's high‐potential promise and promotion to partner three to five years later.
Findings
The results support hypotheses detailing how different rater groups assess PSPs differently, and how these differences are relevant to PSP promotion to partner. The predictability of becoming partner increased by 50 percent compared to partner‐only assessments through the use of direct report assessments of the principals' leadership and coaching, peer assessments of collaboration, and client assessments of trust.
Practical implications
Professional service firms can improve their succession planning and promotion decisions by including multirater assessments in their decision making process; PSPs can guide their career planning and professional development by attending to the distinct competency interests of different stakeholders.
Originality/value
This article supports a broader use of different rater group assessments in promotion decisions and the career development of professionals. It suggests the need for dialogue and research regarding when different rater assessments in 360‐degree assessment tools are an index of instrument validity.