Jia Luo, Yongqiang Li and Yu Che
Regarding the interpersonal influence of customer anger on frontline employees (FLEs) in service encounters, existing findings remain mixed. Building on emotion as a social…
Abstract
Purpose
Regarding the interpersonal influence of customer anger on frontline employees (FLEs) in service encounters, existing findings remain mixed. Building on emotion as a social information model and appraisal theory, this study aims to focus on two dimensions of customer anger – intensity and relevance with FLEs and examined their divergent effects on FLEs’ immediate recovery performance.
Design/methodology/approach
This study conducted a questionnaire survey of 366 Chinese FLEs in the hospitality and tourism industries. Hierarchical regressions and bootstrap analysis for nonlinear mediated relationships were used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The results suggested a U-shaped curvilinear relationship between the intensity of customer anger and FLEs’ recovery performance and a positive linear relationship between relevance with FLEs of customer anger and FLEs’ recovery performance. Moreover, the mediating effects of FLEs’ emotional anger and cognitive perceived threat were confirmed.
Practical implications
Service managers should improve FLEs’ awareness of unconscious emotional contagion and encourage them to shoulder responsibility actively even if customer anger is not related to them. In addition, complaining customers can learn how to strategically express anger to get good remedies.
Originality/value
This paper examines the divergent effects of two dimensions of customer anger on FLEs, advancing the understanding of customer anger in the service interaction. It is also the first to suggest the U-shaped nonlinear effect of customer anger intensity on employees’ service outcomes and its underlying mechanisms, reconciling mixed findings.
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Yu Che, Yongqiang Li, Kim-Shyan Fam and Xuan Bai
This study aims to examine the underlying mechanism of buyer–seller ties and salespeople’s performance. Also examined was the moderating effects of the density of the customer…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the underlying mechanism of buyer–seller ties and salespeople’s performance. Also examined was the moderating effects of the density of the customer network in which the salesperson is embedded.
Design/methodology/approach
The study developed a framework incorporating five key variables: strength of ties, network benefits, network density, sales effectiveness and sales revenue. The framework was tested using data from insurance companies in China.
Findings
Process regression and stepwise regression results indicated that information, influence and solidarity benefit will mediate the effects of strength of ties on sales effectiveness both when taken as a set and separately. Information, influence and solidarity benefit will mediate the effects of strength of ties on sales revenue when taken as a set, but only influence will mediate the effect separately. In addition, the positive relationship between strength of ties and solidarity benefit is weaker when network density is high.
Practical implications
Sales managers should initiate trainings and workshops about how to obtain high-quality information from customers, improving influencing power and establishing solidarity with customers. Moreover, salespeople should avoid conducting business with a group of customers if they are densely connected to one another.
Originality/value
On the one hand, this study contributes to the underlying mechanism research on buyer–seller ties and sales performance. On the other hand, it contributes to the contingency research on sales performance and the development of social network theory.
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The purpose of this paper is to fill the research gap in online information and service adoption by small public organizations. According to the US Census, small municipalities…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to fill the research gap in online information and service adoption by small public organizations. According to the US Census, small municipalities with populations of 5,000 or less constitute 76 percent of all municipalities. Moreover, although these governments can benefit most from e-government adoption, their e-government activities are rarely studied.
Design/methodology/approach
The primary data collection is a state-wide survey of small municipalities along with collecting data on websites and other government documents. The data analysis utilized logistic regression for adoption decisions.
Findings
The findings suggest a distinct set of factors influencing e-government adoption by small municipalities as opposed to large ones. Moreover, management support for open access to government is critical for both e-government information and transaction services while transaction services are also driven by administrative capacity and citizen demand.
Originality/value
This study is original in several ways. First, it is comprehensive in incorporating capacity and network factors along with motivation for management support. Second, it focuses on small municipalities that are important but less studied. At last, it provides a rich understanding of the distinction between information and transaction e-government services.
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This chapter seeks to investigate the role of student emotional intelligence (EI) in countering in-class cyberloafing behaviour by students, by exploring the mediating role of…
Abstract
This chapter seeks to investigate the role of student emotional intelligence (EI) in countering in-class cyberloafing behaviour by students, by exploring the mediating role of boredom proneness through a quantitative approach. A sample of 163 postgraduate university students in India was selected. The authors assessed the mediation model using PROCESS macro. The authors found that students who are more aware of their emotions are better equipped to handle internal and external distractions and work towards a desired goal or outcome and therefore are less likely to experience boredom. Results from this study revealed a significant direct and indirect negative relationship between students’ EI and cyberloafing behaviour. This chapter contributes to the body of literature by highlighting the positive effects of EI as an important antidote to student cyberloafing behaviour. On the practical front, the findings of this study can be used by academicians who are charged with the responsibility of understanding and enhancing student learning by diminishing cyberloafing behaviour among them. The proposed framework could provide a foundation for countering cyberloafing behaviour in educational settings.
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David Forbes and Pornpit Wongthongtham
There is an increasing interest in using information and communication technologies to support health services. But the adoption and development of even basic ICT communications…
Abstract
Purpose
There is an increasing interest in using information and communication technologies to support health services. But the adoption and development of even basic ICT communications services in many health services is limited, leaving enormous gaps in the broad understanding of its role in health care delivery. The purpose of this paper is to address a specific (intercultural) area of healthcare communications consumer disadvantage; and it examines the potential for ICT exploitation through the lens of a conceptual framework. The opportunity to pursue a new solutions pathway has been amplified in recent times through the development of computer-based ontologies and the resultant knowledge from ontologist activity and consequential research publishing.
Design/methodology/approach
A specific intercultural area of patient disadvantage arises from variations in meaning and understanding of patient and clinician words, phrases and non-verbal expression. Collection and localization of data concepts, their attributes and individual instances were gathered from an Aboriginal trainee nurse focus group and from a qualitative gap analysis (QGA) of 130 criteria-selected sources of literature. These concepts, their relationships and semantic interpretations populate the computer ontology. The ontology mapping involves two domains, namely, Aboriginal English (AE) and Type II diabetes care guidelines. This is preparatory to development of the Patient Practitioner Assistive Communications (PPAC) system for Aboriginal rural and remote patient primary care.
Findings
The combined QGA and focus group output reported has served to illustrate the call for three important drivers of change. First, there is no evidence to contradict the hypothesis that patient-practitioner interview encounters for many Australian Aboriginal patients and wellbeing outcomes are unsatisfactory at best. Second, there is a potent need for cultural competence knowledge and practice uptake on the part of health care providers; and third, the key contributory component to determine success or failures within healthcare for ethnic minorities is communication. Communication, however, can only be of value in health care if in practice it supports shared cognition; and mutual cognition is rarely achievable when biopsychosocial and other cultural worldview differences go unchallenged.
Research limitations/implications
There has been no direct engagement with remote Aboriginal communities in this work to date. The authors have initially been able to rely upon a cohort of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people with relevant cultural expertise and extended family relationships. Among these advisers are health care practitioners, academics, trainers, Aboriginal education researchers and workshop attendees. It must therefore be acknowledged that as is the case with the QGA, the majority of the concept data is from third parties. The authors have also discovered that urban influences and cultural sensitivities tend to reduce the extent of, and opportunity to, witness AE usage, thereby limiting the ability to capture more examples of code-switching. Although the PPAC system concept is qualitatively well developed, pending future work planned for rural and remote community engagement the authors presently regard the work as mostly allied to a hypothesis on ontology-driven communications. The concept data population of the AE home talk/health talk ontology has not yet reached a quantitative critical mass to justify application design model engineering and real-world testing.
Originality/value
Computer ontologies avail us of the opportunity to use assistive communications technology applications as a dynamic support system to elevate the pragmatic experience of health care consultations for both patients and practitioners. The human-machine interactive development and use of such applications is required just to keep pace with increasing demand for healthcare and the growing health knowledge transfer environment. In an age when the worldwide web, communications devices and social media avail us of opportunities to confront the barriers described the authors have begun the first construction of a merged schema for two domains that already have a seemingly intractable negative connection. Through the ontology discipline of building syntactically and semantically robust and accessible concepts; explicit conceptual relationships; and annotative context-oriented guidance; the authors are working towards addressing health literacy and wellbeing outcome deficiencies of benefit to the broader communities of disadvantage patients.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of technology development to public organizations and related management issues.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of technology development to public organizations and related management issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reviews previous studies about technology development in the public sector and analyzes conceptual and managerial issues about their findings.
Findings
Three major lessons identified and analyzed are: the wide influence of technology to public management, the nature of public organizations and their environment, and the need for more research to test existing theories and develop new theories for future public management.
Originality/value
Discussions about theoretical and practical contributions and implications are suggested for future studies about technology application and public management.
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J. Lau, S. Leung, R. Subrahmanyan, D. Rice, S. Erasmus and C.Y. Li
In this study, the reliability of solder joints and plated‐through hole copper pads/barrels of pin grid array assemblies under rework condition has been determined by fatigue…
Abstract
In this study, the reliability of solder joints and plated‐through hole copper pads/barrels of pin grid array assemblies under rework condition has been determined by fatigue experiments. The cross‐sections of the re‐worked PGA assemblies (before and after fatigue tests) are also provided for a better understanding of the failure mechanisms of the composite structure. Furthermore, the load‐drop curves of the PGA interconnects for up to three reworks are provided for a better estimate of their fatigue life.
Malleswari Karanam, Lanka Krishnanand, Vijaya Kumar Manupati and Sai Sudhakar Nudurupati
The primary goal of this review is to identify emerging themes in the cold supply chain (CSC) and their future research directions, methodologies, and theories.
Abstract
Purpose
The primary goal of this review is to identify emerging themes in the cold supply chain (CSC) and their future research directions, methodologies, and theories.
Design/methodology/approach
The review looks at CSC related articles from Scopus database published in the years 2000–2020. Thereafter, bibliometric and co-citation analyses have been conducted to identify emerging themes, methodologies, and theoretical perspectives related to CSC management.
Findings
This study revealed a clear research gap in CSC literature with emerging themes relevant to diverse aspects. Primarily, the most prominent authors, methodologies, and theories were identified from bibliometric analysis. Next, we generated clusters to identify the insights of each cluster using co-citation analysis. Consequently, the significance of clusters concerning the number of articles, theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and themes was recognized. Finally, a few future research questions regarding emerging themes have been identified.
Practical implications
The importance of co-citation and bibliometric analyses in studying the evolution of research over a definite time is emphasized in this work. As per emerging themes, implementing digital technologies has increased the efficiency of traditional CSC and transformed it into digital CSC.
Originality/value
As per the authors' knowledge, this work is the first in literature to explore the significance of identifying emerging areas and future research directions in managing CSC through literature review based on bibliometric and co-citation analysis.