Search results

The purpose of this paper is to understand what breaks trust in a customer supplier relationship and how to repair it.

The approach takes a single case study to test the established theories on trust. It captures the circumstances and conditions of everyday situation in business and it is a longitudinal study covering three years' experience of two organisations in business.

The important findings of this case study are that knowledge, level of risk and level of risk tolerance of customers/suppliers are the main causes of trust break down. Though the research on trust focus on partner's characteristics such as benevolence, honesty, reliability, credibility, integrity, contracts, agreements etc., in the context of B2B relationship these perspectives can only help the partners in evaluating the other partner as trust worthy. Once the partners engage in the relationship the orientation will change towards perspectives of rational risk. If the risk level exceeds their bearable limits, trust will break. Trust repair depends on the convincing power of the trustees, and how and why the trustor should bear the uncertainty or risk involved in the relationship.

With its focus on two business partners this case cannot be generalised to all business settings. However, the in‐depth analysis stimulates further research on how trust may break between partners and how and who (trustor/trustee) should initiate trust repair process.

Practicing managers and research scholars can use this case in trust building process in customer supplier relationship.

The paper presents a case that is original.

Performance of service desk is critical to an organization. The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance measurement system of a technical assistance center at one of the largest semi‐conductor manufacturers in the world. The study examines top performance issues faced by the service desk and provides recommendations to address these issues.

A case study approach has been adopted. An analysis is first carried out as to how the performance system has been developed in the organization. A number of employees associated with the service desk have been interviewed, to take into account the employees' views on the performance measurement and the appraisal and reward system of service desk agents. In addition, secondary data as available in public domain have been used. Data from the customer satisfaction survey were analyzed to determine performance issues faced by the service desk and to ascertain the root cause of the performance gap.

The top performance issues faced by the service desk of the case organization are in areas of poor communication, high time consumption in service delivery, poor trouble shooting, poor knowledge of the agents, and confusing phone menu. The top four areas that need focus and improvement are Resolution Rate (RR), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Total Utilization, and Tickets per Agent per Week (TAW). In addition, there are mismatches between the employees and the management of the service desk regarding the rewards and recognition system.

Both customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction are vital for the survival of an organization. Performance measures as suggested are effective tools to plan initiatives for improvement.

Satisfaction of employees is closely linked with a performance measurement system which determines appraisal and incentives. A wrong or inappropriate measurement system can bring down motivation levels, creating low productivity, low earnings, low customer satisfaction, and social tensions. There are larger social implications: ineffective performance measures will bring down employment levels because of attrition.

Performance measurement in service is comparatively new. The study described in the paper should prove to be a valuable addition and the paper offers methods to improve performance and action plans to close performance gaps, to enhance customers' experience in a service organizational setting.

The paper aims to establish structure of patient satisfaction construct in Indian health care settings.

The data were collected from 528 indoor patients who were seeking treatment from Government Medical College (GMC), Bakshi Nagar and Acharya Chandra Medical College and Hospital Sidra (ASCOMS), Sidhara, the two teaching and research hospitals operating in Jammu City, India. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses are used to verify the scale dimensions.

The results reveal that patient satisfaction is a multidimensional construct comprised of four dimensions, namely: physical maintenance, physician care, nursing care and internal facilities. Among the four hypothesized models, only model 2 depicting the impact of dimensions on satisfaction showed a good fit while the other three models showed either average (model 4) or poor (models 1 and 3) fit. The analysis of the models indicates that all patient satisfaction dimensions positively and significantly contribute to patient satisfaction and which also act as an important mediating factor between the satisfaction dimensions and patient loyalty.

The cross‐sectional design of the research is the limitation as all measures were collected at a single point‐of‐time. Because the findings of the study are based on overall satisfaction of the patients, no comparison is made between the degree of patient satisfaction achieved in public and private health care hospitals.

The paper measures patient satisfaction in the Indian context.

This paper aims to examine the three dynamics of customer relationship management (CRM), namely, service quality (SQ), customer satisfaction (CS) and customer loyalty (CL) (long‐term relationship) in the healthcare sector. It specifically investigates the effects of physical environment quality (PEQ) and interaction quality (IQ) and significant components of SQ on outcome SQ dimensions, namely, CS and CL.

A total of 400 indoor patients from departments such as, general medicine, pediatrics, general surgery, gynecology, ENT and orthopedics were selected using proportionate stratified random sampling from May‐August 2007. Personal contact approach was used for contacting the respondents. Data validity and reliability were duly assessed using exploratory factor analysis. The data were then analyzed using structural equation modeling through AMOS.

Based on data analysis, the direct effect of CRM dynamics, i.e. PEQ and IQ on SQ and their ultimate effect on CS and CL is found to be significant. However, the model fit values came out poor as p (CMIN) (0.000), CMIN/DF (2,605.41), RMSEA (0.263), NFI (0.076), RFI (−0.066), IFI (0.078), TLI (−0.069) and CFI (0.074).

The cross‐sectional research design of the study does not offer nearly the same insight into the dynamics of CR as a longitudinal design study. The study analysed overall CS and CL as the major focus of the study was on the PEQ and IQ to understand impact of SQ on CRM outcomes and has ignored some antecedents that could help and explain customer perception more concretely. Further future studies could consider broader organization image typologies and measures in understanding CRM dynamics such as organizational excellence and customer value. This could become the future agenda for the upcoming studies.

PEQ needs to be improved by focusing on cleanliness of wards and toilets, peaceful atmosphere, supportive and additional facilities, clean drinking water, clean beddings, special services to the needy. IQ hospitals should organize training programmes to inculcate better attitudinal and behavioural skills to understand patients, giving them proper care, listening to and answering their queries. For better process quality, hospitals need to focus on effective administration functioning. The study concludes that there is need to improve CRM dynamics (PEQ and IQ) in the public healthcare to accomplish CRM objectives (CS and CL).

This study provides some important insights for CRM theory and practice. An understanding of SQ, CS and loyalty dynamics is a first step toward effective service management and the retention of customers in the long term. Three‐way interactions between the main effects of SQ, CS and loyalty yield additional insight into the relative importance of physical environment and IQ in customers' decision to be loyal, and that can provide a pave way for accomplishing CRM objectives.

This paper seeks to identify the up‐stream supply chain member's (manufacturers, suppliers, supplier's service providers) characteristics, economics, dynamic capabilities, technology and institutional perspectives of risk in relationship to develop a trust building model through risk evaluation and to address the issue: should a supply chain member strive to build the trust or strive to reduce the risk with its members and from which perspectives?

A conceptual framework was developed considering five key perspectives (characteristics, economics, dynamic capabilities, technology and institutions) to evaluate the member's risk in relationship and derived the hypothesis from the framework. A survey was conducted in UAE packaged food industry upstream supply chain covering senior managers of 102 companies. Data were analysed using multiple regression analyses through SPSS. The selected supply chain members of this industry include packaged food products companies as manufacturers, packaging material converters as suppliers of packaging material to manufacturers and packaging raw material suppliers as supplier's suppliers of manufacturer.

From the survey results it is found that characteristic and institutional risk perspectives influence significantly to initiate a trustworthy relationship. Economics, dynamic capabilities and technology risk perspectives play a significant role to maintain trust in relationship. No perspective of members is found to be significantly risk‐free.

This study has identified the perspectives of risk that can initiate and build trust between supply chain members in the context of a global business environment with a strong institutional system. Further research is required to identify the supply chain member's risk‐worthy characteristics, threshold levels of risk bearing capacity and the extent to which the institutions can reduce the membership risk to build trust.

The study results suggest that the supply chain members should strive to reduce the membership risk levels to build trust rather than striving to build trust to reduce the risk. As long as a member's risk levels are within their bearable limits trust can be considered as a risk coping mechanism and when the risk levels exceed their bearable limits the subject of trust turns into risk management/security management.

This study may be one of the first to develop a trust building model through a risk evaluation process and also one of the first to study the trust in supply chain member's relationship in UAE. Findings from this research should prove useful to management researchers and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how the government, Lelija management and society realized the fact that being a global organization unethical labor practices will reflect badly on human resources management, the company, and the reputation of the country as a whole.

In the analysis of social facts, knowledge also consists of already existing ethical norms and values derived from practice, definitely designated, explicitly articulated and unambiguously evaluated. It especially applies to business, professional, and organizational practice. In case analyses, the authors usually deal with events that are presented from a certain viewpoint. However, it is essential to follow the objectivized knowledge and articulated standards. As it will be discussed later, the major parts of information sources for the Lelija's case are competing daily newspapers of Lithuania, their web sites.

Social realities associated with employment are relations between employers and employees, a labor agreement, working conditions, tasks and compensation for its fulfilment. Irrespective of contradictions of the subjective interests and opinions that accompanied the reality of poor working conditions at Lelija, media outlets have provided a verifiable information about violations of labor laws and payment of fines as restitution.

The present case is prepared for classroom teaching since resort to the journalist material is not very suitable for investigative analysis of cases. It is important to distinguish between facts, evaluation and real circumstances where the facts emerged. This factor is well taken care by the authors while preparing the case.