Somnath Chakrabarti, Deepak Trehan and Mayank Makhija
As the retail banking institutions are becoming more customer centric, their focus on service quality is increasing. Established service quality frameworks such as SERVQUAL and…
Abstract
Purpose
As the retail banking institutions are becoming more customer centric, their focus on service quality is increasing. Established service quality frameworks such as SERVQUAL and SERVPERF have been applied in the banking sector. While these models are widely accepted, they are expensive because of the need for replication across bank branches. The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel, user friendly and cost effective approach by amalgamating the traditional concept of service quality in banks (marketing base) and sentiment analysis literature (information systems base).
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the main objective is to analyze user reviews to better understand the correlation between RATER dimension sentiment scores as independent variables and user overall rating (customer satisfaction) grouping in “good” and “bad” as dependent variable through development of authors’ own logistic regression model using lexicon-based sentiment analysis. The model has been developed for three largest private banks in India pertaining to three banking product categories of loans, savings and current accounts and credit cards.
Findings
The results show that the responsiveness and tangibles dimensions significantly impact the user evaluation rating. Even though the three largest private banks in India are concentrating on the tangibles dimension, not all of them are sufficiently focused on the responsiveness dimension. Additionally, customers looking for loan products are more susceptible to negative perceptions on service quality.
Originality/value
This study has highlighted two types of scores whereby user provided overall evaluation scores help provide validation to the sentiment scores. The developed model can be used to assess performance of a bank in comparison to its peers and to generate in depth insights on point of parity (POP) and point of difference (POD) fronts.
Details
Keywords
Deepak Trehan and Rajat Sharma
The purpose of this paper is to test relevance of the information quality (IQ) framework in understanding quality of advertisements (ads) posted by ordinary consumers.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test relevance of the information quality (IQ) framework in understanding quality of advertisements (ads) posted by ordinary consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
The main objective of this study is to assess quality ads posted on customer-to-customer (C2C) social commerce platforms from an IQ framework. The authors deployed innovative text mining techniques to generate features from the IQ framework and then used a machine learning (ML) algorithm to classify ads into three categories ‐ high quality, medium quality and low quality.
Findings
The results show that not all dimensions of IQ framework are important to assess quality of ads posted on the platforms. Potential buyers on these platforms look for appropriate amount of information, which is objective, concise and complete, to make a potential purchase decision.
Research limitations/implications
As the research focuses on specific product categories, it lacks generalisability. Therefore, it needs to be tested for other product categories.
Practical implications
The paper includes recommendation for C2C marketplaces on how to increase quality of ads posted by consumers on the platform.
Originality/value
This study has focused on the user-generated content posted by ordinary consumers on the C2C commerce platform to sell used goods. Though C2C model has been developed on ads posted on C2C platforms, it can be established for brands as it provides them with an insight into latent dimensions that a consumer shall look for in an ad on social commerce platforms.
Details
Keywords
Deepak Trehan and Rajat Sharma
This paper aims to investigate the consumer motivation to buy products on consumer-to-consumer (C2C) communities on social networking sites (SNSs). These transactions involve no…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the consumer motivation to buy products on consumer-to-consumer (C2C) communities on social networking sites (SNSs). These transactions involve no intermediation or payment of fees by any party. The phenomenon is in contrast with the traditional C2C transactions, on websites such as eBay, where the company website facilitates the transaction between consumers, charges a fee to sellers and provides limited information about buyers and sellers.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing from media richness theory and social capital theory, this paper thus proposes and empirically tests a theoretical model developed using data collected from people making transactions on these communities that synthesize the motivations behind consumers’ intention to buy.
Findings
The results indicate that the media richness of the Facebook platform increases the social capital and sense of virtual community among users, which further impacts the purchase intentions of users. Social capital alone does not lead to purchase intention and indirectly impacts purchase intentions through the trust dimension.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to theorizing the role of the platform, social capital and sense of virtual community in buying behavior on SNSs and provides valuable new insights into these constructs for the brand managers on social media sites.
Originality/value
Existing research on social commerce does not hold true for C2C communities on SNSs. This paper provides a new perspective into these communities through the lens of media richness and social capital constructs as antecedents of purchase intentions on these communities.
Details
Keywords
Ostensibly the case is about an employee resigning from the organization due to lack of support, job clarity, and information about reporting structure. It addresses issues of…
Abstract
Ostensibly the case is about an employee resigning from the organization due to lack of support, job clarity, and information about reporting structure. It addresses issues of socialization process, performance appraisal, and communication issue between colleagues in a consulting organization. The case serves as medium for diagnosis and action planning around integration of new employees into the organization, effective performance appraisal, and resolving communication barriers.
Details

Keywords
Vivek Moorthy and Shrikant Kolhar
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the implications of sharply rising food prices for monetary policy in India and similar emerging economies at present.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the implications of sharply rising food prices for monetary policy in India and similar emerging economies at present.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses analytical arguments from relevant macroeconomic literature and evidence from late 1960s US data to examine whether the 1970s stagflation was due to the OPEC price hike. It develops a two person (rich and poor), two commodity (food and non‐food) model to examine the impact of rising food prices on GDP, on measures of inflation, and on welfare, in the model.
Findings
Previously neglected evidence indicates that stagflation (simultaneously rising unemployment and inflation) preceded the OPEC price hike. The model results indicate that when food prices rise, the GDP deflator falls relative to the consumer price index (CPI).
Research limitations/implications
The impact of supply shocks should be investigated by carefully examining links between abnormal rainfall and weather and output and prices on commodity by commodity basis. Further, technical issues pertaining to construction of a composite CPI representative of the population need to be explored.
Practical implications
Monetary policy in India (and similar emerging economies) should focus upon a population weighted CPI or some variant thereof.
Social implications
High GDP growth should not lead to complacency, since when food prices are rising, the overall welfare impact may be negative.
Originality/value
The model presented in this paper explains the sustained divergence in India, in recent years, between the CPI versus the GDP deflator measures of inflation. It also highlights a possible similar divergence between GDP and overall welfare.
Details
Keywords
George Sainis, George Haritos, Thanos Kriemadis and Ioanna Papasolomou
This study aims to bridge the gap left by earlier studies regarding the issue of whether the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification is a stepping stone…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to bridge the gap left by earlier studies regarding the issue of whether the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification is a stepping stone that ultimately leads to instilling a total quality management (TQM) culture, or whether it is the end-point in their journey toward quality.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was primarily quantitative in nature supported from a qualitative survey following the triangulation approach, as the aim was to test a number of hypotheses related to TQM’s role in the operation of Greek ISO certified small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). A questionnaire was developed based on the critical success factors that were used in the self-assessment instrument developed by Hunt (1992) and Sashkin (1996) to assess the level of TQM implementation in approximately 400 Greek SMEs.
Findings
The study revealed that Greek ISO certified SMEs, emphasize performance appraisal, invest in quality elements that require minimum usage of their resources and prioritize their ISO certification.
Originality/value
TQM is one of the most powerful concepts available to businesses today. However, most of the literature focuses on the practice of TQM within large manufacturing organizations. This paper aims to readdress the situation by outlining a study on TQM in the SME sector in Greece.
Details
Keywords
Mingwei Tang, Jiangping Chen, Haihua Chen, Zhenyuan Xu, Yueyao Wang, Mengting Xie and Jiangwei Lin
The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrated semantic information retrieval (IR) solution based on an ontology-improved vector space model for situations where a digital…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrated semantic information retrieval (IR) solution based on an ontology-improved vector space model for situations where a digital collection is established or curated. It aims to create a retrieval approach which could return the results by meanings rather than by keywords.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the authors propose a semantic term frequency algorithm to create a semantic vector space model (SeVSM) based on ontology. To support the calculation, a multi-branches tree model is created to represent the ontology and a set of algorithms is developed to operate it. Then, a semantic ontology-based IR system based on the SeVSM model is designed and developed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model.
Findings
The experimental study using 30 queries from 15 different domains confirms the effectiveness of the SeVSM and the usability of the proposed system. The results demonstrate that the proposed model and system can be a significant exploration to enhance IR in specific domains, such as a digital library and e-commerce.
Originality/value
This research not only creates a semantic retrieval model, but also provides the application approach via designing and developing a semantic retrieval system based on the model. Comparing with most of the current related research, the proposed research studies the whole process of realizing a semantic retrieval.