Kiran Karande and Mahesh Gopinath
Product failures can lead to customer dissatisfaction, negative brand attitudes and a loss of brand equity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether extended warranties…
Abstract
Purpose
Product failures can lead to customer dissatisfaction, negative brand attitudes and a loss of brand equity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether extended warranties offer a mechanism to mitigate the negative effects of product failure and the mediating role of positive and negative self-directed emotions.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses are tested using two 2 × 2 between-subjects experiments with product failure and warranty purchase as the two factors, attitude toward the brand as the dependent variable, positive and negative self-directed emotions as mediating variables and attitude toward warranties as a covariate.
Findings
It is found that the decline in attitude toward the brand due to product failure is greater among customers purchasing an extended warranty, than among those who do not. Moreover, positive and negative self-directed emotions mediate this relationship.
Originality/value
Manufacturers are for the most part not involved in distribution or administration of extended warranties, which are mainly sold through retailers and administered by companies that specialize in extended warranties. The study findings indicate that contrary to industry practice, consumer-durable manufacturers should consider more active management and promotion of extended warranties to protect their brand’s equity from the negative effects of product failure.
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Brand theory and practice have remained quite two-dimensional to this day and focus on logos, corporate design, website design, etc. As with atmospheres, it was the sales room…
Abstract
Brand theory and practice have remained quite two-dimensional to this day and focus on logos, corporate design, website design, etc. As with atmospheres, it was the sales room where the brand idea was spatialised early on. This chapter discusses how to spatialise brand theory and to connect it with the place atmosphere model. Moreover, the chapter works out how the bridge between the strategy of an organisation (company, hotel, destination, etc.), its brand personality and the strategy of spatial design can be built. The brand personality shows itself in the long-term handling of the eight W questions of the brand space strategy (Who, Where, Wherein, What, Whom, Way to, What for and Why).
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Jayashree Mahesh and Anil K. Bhat
The purpose of this paper is to document similarities and differences between management practices of different types of organizations in India’s IT sector through an empirical…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to document similarities and differences between management practices of different types of organizations in India’s IT sector through an empirical survey. The authors expected these differences to be significant enough for us to be able to group a priori this set of companies meaningfully through cluster analysis on the basis of the similarity of their management practices alone.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a mixed-methods approach, 73 senior-level executives of companies working in India’s IT sector were approached with a pretested questionnaire to find out differences on eighteen management practices in the areas of operations management, monitoring management, targets management and talent management. The different types of organizations surveyed were small and amp; medium global multinationals, large global multinationals, small and medium Indian multinationals, large Indian multinationals and small and medium local Indian companies. The differences and similarities found through statistical testing were further validated a priori through cluster analysis and qualitative interviews with senior-level executives.
Findings
The management practices of multinationals in India are moving toward Western management practices, indicating that management practices converge as the organizations grow in size. Though the practices of large Indian multinationals were not significantly different from those of global multinationals, the surprising finding was that large Indian multinationals scored better than global multinationals on a few practices. The practices of small and medium Indian companies differed significantly from those of other types of organizations and hence they formed a cluster.
Practical implications
The finding that large Indian IT multinationals have an edge over global multinationals in certain people management practices is a confirmation of the role of human resource practices in their current success and their continuing competitive advantage.
Originality/value
This is perhaps the first study of its kind to document state of specific management practices across different types of organizations in India’s IT sector and then use measures on these practices to group a priori these organizations for validation.
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The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between trade, foreign direct investment (FDI) and income inequality for Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), using…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between trade, foreign direct investment (FDI) and income inequality for Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), using annual data from 1990 to 2016. The study attempts to answer a critical question: does openness affect income distribution?
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis of the model involves the examination of likely non-linear effects of both trade and FDI on income distribution. Therefore, system-generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) estimator was applied to mitigate the problem of non-linearity and possible endogeneity. In the second stage, the model was extended to test the impact of education on income inequality. The hypothesis is that secondary school enrollment speeds up the process of adoption of contemporary technology and decreases inequality.
Findings
Trade and FDI have significant effects on income inequality when interacted with Gini-index; in case of trade, an inverted U-shaped curve holds as purposed by the trade theory. The components-wise effect of trade was held, except imports from advanced countries was found insignificant. Moreover, results were not found significant in case of human development index. Different results were found when trade and FDI interacted with education, which represents an important channel through which inequality is affected.
Research limitations/implications
The study implies that CIS needs to re-design trade and FDI policies by encouraging trade and FDI inflows into industries and sectors aligned with structural adjustments, domestic industries uplift and investment in social infrastructure.
Originality/value
This is the first study that has examined the impact of openness of income distribution in case of CIS.
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Mahesh Subramony, Karen Ehrhart, Markus Groth, Brooks C. Holtom, Danielle D. van Jaarsveld, Dana Yagil, Tiffany Darabi, David Walker, David E. Bowen, Raymond P. Fisk, Christian Grönroos and Jochen Wirtz
The purpose of this paper is to accelerate research related to the employee-facets of service management by summarizing current developments in multiple research streams…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to accelerate research related to the employee-facets of service management by summarizing current developments in multiple research streams, providing propositions, and articulating new directions for theory and empirical inquiry.
Design/methodology/approach
Seven scholars provide short reviews of the core topics and findings from four employee-related research streams – collective turnover, service climate, emotional labor, and occupational stress; and generate propositions to guide future theoretical and empirical work. Four distinguished service scholars – David Bowen, Ray Fisk, Christian Grönroos, and Jochen Wirtz comment upon these research streams and provide future directions for accelerating employee-related research in service management.
Findings
All four research-streams yield insights that have the potential to advance service management research. Commentaries from the distinguished scholars further integrate this work with key concerns within service management including technology-enablement, transformative services, and service strategy.
Originality/value
This paper is unique in its scope of coverage of management topics related to service and its aim to promote interdisciplinary dialog between service management scholars and researchers conducting employee-related research relevant to services.
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Mahesh S. Bhandari, Yelena Tsarenko and Michael Jay Polonsky
The purpose of this paper is to extend thinking on service recovery processes and satisfaction with service recovery, using multi‐dimensional consumer outcomes. The objective of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to extend thinking on service recovery processes and satisfaction with service recovery, using multi‐dimensional consumer outcomes. The objective of the work was to propose that satisfaction with service recovery should be based on customers' expectations of the recovery encounter, which would be shaped by their expectations of “non‐failed” encounters.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a theoretical approach. Using the existing service recovery literature as well as the traditional services literature, the conceptual framework and associated research propositions are developed.
Findings
The proposed framework suggests that service recovery is a service encounter it its own right. The effectiveness of recovery encounters will be based on how encounters operate relative to customer expectations and experiences with regard to the recovery activity.
Research limitations/implications
The research propositions and proposed framework need further empirical investigation.
Practical implications
The proposed framework suggests that managing service recovery should be undertaken in a similar fashion to managing any service, and thus managers need to understand customers' recovery expectations. Organisations also need to consider how a recovery action impacts on a range of customer outcomes, as focusing on one aspect will not capture consumers' full set of behaviours.
Originality/value
The proposed model identifies that service recovery should be evaluated with regard to consumers' recovery expectations and satisfaction is not based on expectations with regard to non‐failed encounters.
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Suhas Vijay Patil, K. Balakrishna Rao and Gopinatha Nayak
Recycling construction waste is a promising way towards sustainable development in construction. Recycled aggregate (RA) is obtained from demolished concrete structures…
Abstract
Purpose
Recycling construction waste is a promising way towards sustainable development in construction. Recycled aggregate (RA) is obtained from demolished concrete structures, laboratory crushed concrete, concrete waste at a ready mix concrete plant and the concrete made from RA is known as RA concrete. The purpose of this study is to apply multiple linear regressions (MLRs) and artificial neural network (ANN) to predict the mechanical properties, such as compressive strength (CS), flexural strength (FS) and split tensile strength (STS) of concrete at the age of 28 days curing made completely from the recycled coarse aggregate (RCA).
Design/methodology/approach
MLR and ANN are used to develop a prediction model. The model was developed in the training phase by using data from a previously published research study and a developed model was further tested by obtaining data from laboratory experiments.
Findings
ANN shows more accuracy than MLR with an R2-value of more than 0.8 in the training phase and 0.9 in a testing phase. The high R2-value indicates strong relation between the actual and predicted values of mechanical properties of RCA concrete. These models will help construction professionals to save their time and cost in predicting the mechanical properties of RCA concrete at 28 days of curing.
Originality/value
ANN with rectified linear unit transfer function and backpropagation algorithm for training is used to develop a prediction model. The outcome of this study is the prediction model for CS, FS and STS of concrete at 28 days of curing.