E-marketing : the impact of self-service technology on consumer satisfaction and consumer commitment

Traditionally, service encounters have included an interpersonal interaction between the service provider and the customer. The introduction ofself-service technologies to the service encounter, however, is reducing and in some cases, eliminating this interpersonal interaction. Self-se rvice technology is where the customer delivers the service themselves using a technological interface. This CIM funded research programme investigates the effect of self-service technology on the service encounter, and in turn on consumer satisfaction and consumer commitment. This paper reviews the literature relevant to the current study and outlines the constructs of interest in this study. The resear ch hypotheses and conceptual model are also introduced.Finally, the agenda for future research is presented.

Talking about watching : using the video card game and wiki-web technology to engage IT students in developing observational skills.

Designers need to develop good observational skills in order to conduct user studies that reveal the subtleties of human interactions and adequately inform design activity. In this paper we describe a game format that we have used in concert with wiki-web technology, to engage our IT and Information Environments students in developing much sharper observational skills. The Video Card Game is a method of video analysis that is suited to design practitioners as well as to researchers. It uses the familiar format of a card game similar to "Happy Families,, to help students develop themes of interactions from watching video clips. Students then post their interaction themes on wiki-web pages, which allows the teaching team and other students to edit and comment on them. We found that the tangible (cards), game, role playing and sharing aspects of this method led to a much larger amount of interaction and discussion between student groups and between students and the teaching team, than we have achieved using our traditional teaching methods, while taking no more time on the part of the teaching staff. The quality of the resulting interaction themes indicates that this method fosters development of observational skills.In the paper we describe the motivations, method and results in full. We also describe the research context in which we collected the videotape data, and how this method relates to state of the art research methods in interaction design for ubiquitous computing technology.

Mobile digital technology : emerging issues for marketing

The growth of direct marketing has been attributed to rapid advances in techn ology and the changing market context. The fundamental ability of direct marketers to communicate with consumers and to elicit a response, combined with the ubiquitous nature and power of mobile digital technology, provides a synergy that will increase the potential for the success of direct marketing. The aim of this paper is to provide an analytical framework identifying the developments in the digital environment from e-marketing to m-marketing, and to alert direct marketers to the enhanced capabilities available to them.

A collaborative digestion and design game for community and technology exploration

In this paper, we present interim results from the Communities and Place project, which is exploring methods for understanding communities in a variety of contexts, and how to inform the design of technology to support them. We report on our experience with adapting an existing game-based approach for working with video as a resource in participatory design processes. Our adaptations allow the approach to be used with diverse data arising out of the different communities we are engaged with, and different design traditions we approach the problem from, leading to the formation of common design themes to inform our future work on this project.

The development of a new four-year Construction Technology and Management Stream at QUT

This paper focuses on the development and delivery of a core construction management (CM) unit, which forms the capstone of a four-unit CM stream in an undergraduate programme in the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering at the Queensland University of Technology. UDB410 (Construction Management) is a final year unit that consolidates skills students have learned throughout their degree, hopefully graduating them as work-ready construction managers. It was developed in consultation with the Queensland Chapter of the Australian Institute of Building (AIB) and is a final year unit in the undergraduate Bachelor of Urban Development (CM) course. The unit uses various tools such as the OSIRIS business database (Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing, 2009), the AROUSAL (UK Version) construction business simulation (Lansley, 2009) and the Denison Organisational Culture Survey (Denison, 2000) to facilitate the development of skills in managing a construction company. The objectives of the paper are: • To track the rationale and development of the UDB410 unit sand describe the way in which this final year unit integrates learning from other parts of the course within which it is located as well as capping-off the CM stream of core units; • To highlight the difficulties of blending a balance of technology and management in a single unit; and • To explain how partnering with the construction industry benefited the learning quality of the unit.

Technology strategy : findings from adoption and adaptation of Japanese manufacturing management (JMM) to ASEAN and Australasian automotive manufacturers

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the appropriateness of “Japanese Manufacturing Management” (JMM) strategies in the Asian, ASEAN and Australasian automotive sectors. Secondly, the study assessed JMM as a prompt, effective and efficient global manufacturing management practice for automotive manufacturing companies to learn; benchmark for best practice; acquire product and process innovation, and enhance their capabilities and capacities. In this study, the philosophies, systems and tools that have been adopted in various automotive manufacturing assembly plants and their tier 1 suppliers in the three Regions were examined. A number of top to middle managers in these companies were located in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Viet Nam, and Australia and were interviewed by using a qualitative methodology. The results confirmed that the six pillars of JMM (culture change, quality at shop floor, consensus, incremental continual improvement, benchmarking, and backward-forward integration) are key enablers to success in adopting JMM in both automotive and other manufacturing sectors in the three Regions. The analysis and on-site interviews identified a number of recommendations that were validated by the automotive manufacturing company’s managers as the most functional JMM strategies.

The synthesis and application of novel profluorescent nitroxides as probes for polymer degradation

This PhD project has expanded the knowledge in the area of profluorescent nitroxides with regard to the synthesis and characterisations of novel profluorescent nitroxide probes as well as physical characterisation of the probe molecules in various polymer/physical environments. The synthesis of the first example of an azaphenalene-based fused aromatic nitroxide TMAO, [1,1,3,3-tetramethyl-2,3-dihydro-2-azaphenalen-2-yloxyl, was described. This novel nitroxide possesses some of the structural rigidity of the isoindoline class of nitroxides, as well as some properties akin to TEMPO nitroxides. Additionally, the integral aromatic ring imparts fluorescence that is switched on by radical scavenging reactions of the nitroxide, which makes it a sensitive probe for polymer degradation. In addition to the parent TMAO, 5 other azaphenalene derivatives were successfully synthesised. This new class of nitroxide was expected to have interesting redox properties when the structure was investigated by high-level ab initio molecular orbitals theory. This was expected to have implications with biological relevance as the calculated redox potentials for the azaphenalene ring class would make them potent antioxidant compounds. The redox potentials of 25 cyclic nitroxides from four different structural classes (pyrroline, piperidine, isoindoline and azaphenalene) were determined by cyclic voltammetry in acetonitrile. It was shown that potentials related to the one electron processes of the nitroxide were influenced by the type of ring system, ring substituents or groups surrounding the moiety. Favourable comparisons were found between theoretical and experimental potentials for pyrroline, piperidine and isoindoline ring classes. Substitution of these ring classes, were correctly calculated to have a small yet predictable effect on the potentials. The redox potentials of the azaphenalene ring class were underestimated by the calculations in all cases by at least a factor of two. This is believed to be due to another process influencing the redox potentials of the azaphenalene ring class which is not taken into account by the theoretical model. It was also possible to demonstrate the use of both azaphenalene and isoindoline nitroxides as additives for monitoring radical mediated damage that occurs in polypropylene as well as in more commercially relevant polyester resins. Polymer sample doped with nitroxide were exposed to both thermo-and photo-oxidative conditions with all nitroxides showing a protective effect. It was found that isoindoline nitroxides were able to indicate radical formation in polypropylene aged at elevated temperatures via fluorescence build-up. The azaphenalene nitroxide TMAO showed no such build-up of fluorescence. This was believed to be due to the more labile bond between the nitroxide and macromolecule and the protection may occur through a classical Denisov cycle, as is expected for commercially available HAS units. Finally, A new profluorescent dinitroxide, BTMIOA (9,10-bis(1,1,3,3- tetramethylisoindolin-2-yloxyl-5-yl)anthracene), was synthesised and shown to be a powerful probe for detecting changes during the initial stages of thermo-oxidative degradation of polypropylene. This probe, which contains a 9,10-diphenylanthracene core linked to two nitroxides, possesses strongly suppressed fluorescence due to quenching by the two nitroxide groups. This molecule also showed the greatest protective effect on thermo-oxidativly aged polypropylene. Most importantly, BTMIOA was found to be a valuable tool for imaging and mapping free-radical generation in polypropylene using fluorescence microscopy.

Technical support and professional development : using remote desktops to address bottlenecks in music technology

This paper presents research findings about the use of remote desktop applications to teach music sequencing software. It highlights the successes, shortcomings and interactive issues encountered during a pilot project with a theoretical focus on a specific interactive bottleneck. The paper proposes a new delivery and partnership model to widen this bottleneck, which currently hinders interactions between the technical support, education and professional development communities in music technology.

An innovative learning model for teaching architectural technology using building information modelling : a Queensland University of Technology perspective

In architecture courses, instilling a wider understanding of the industry specific representations practiced in the Building Industry is normally done under the auspices of Technology and Science subjects. Traditionally, building industry professionals communicated their design intentions using industry specific representations. Originally these mainly two dimensional representations such as plans, sections, elevations, schedules, etc. were produced manually, using a drawing board. Currently, this manual process has been digitised in the form of Computer Aided Design and Drafting (CADD) or ubiquitously simply CAD. While CAD has significant productivity and accuracy advantages over the earlier manual method, it still only produces industry specific representations of the design intent. Essentially, CAD is a digital version of the drawing board. The tool used for the production of these representations in industry is still mainly CAD. This is also the approach taken in most traditional university courses and mirrors the reality of the situation in the building industry. A successor to CAD, in the form of Building Information Modelling (BIM), is presently evolving in the Construction Industry. CAD is mostly a technical tool that conforms to existing industry practices. BIM on the other hand is revolutionary both as a technical tool and as an industry practice. Rather than producing representations of design intent, BIM produces an exact Virtual Prototype of any building that in an ideal situation is centrally stored and freely exchanged between the project team. Essentially, BIM builds any building twice: once in the virtual world, where any faults are resolved, and finally, in the real world. There is, however, no established model for learning through the use of this technology in Architecture courses. Queensland University of Technology (QUT), a tertiary institution that maintains close links with industry, recognises the importance of equipping their graduates with skills that are relevant to industry. BIM skills are currently in increasing demand throughout the construction industry through the evolution of construction industry practices. As such, during the second half of 2008, QUT 4th year architectural students were formally introduced for the first time to BIM, as both a technology and as an industry practice. This paper will outline the teaching team’s experiences and methodologies in offering a BIM unit (Architectural Technology and Science IV) at QUT for the first time and provide a description of the learning model. The paper will present the results of a survey on the learners’ perspectives of both BIM and their learning experiences as they learn about and through this technology.

A new educational technology for media and communication studies : mapping media in Australia and Sweden

This chapter reports on Australian and Swedish experiences in the iterative design, development, and ongoing use of interactive educational systems we call ‘Media Maps.’ Like maps in general, Media Maps are usefully understood as complex cultural technologies; that is, they are not only physical objects, tools and artefacts, but also information creation and distribution technologies, the use and development of which are embedded in systems of knowledge and social meaning. Drawing upon Australian and Swedish experiences with one Media Map technology, this paper illustrates this three-layered approach to the development of media mapping. It shows how media mapping is being used to create authentic learning experiences for students preparing for work in the rapidly evolving media and communication industries. We also contextualise media mapping as a response to various challenges for curriculum and learning design in Media and Communication Studies that arise from shifts in tertiary education policy in a global knowledge economy.

Geek goddesses go to school : A study of female pre-service teachers in information technology courses

Various reasons have been proffered for female under-representation in tertiary information technology (IT) courses and the IT industry with most relating to cultural moirés. The 2006 Geek Goddess calendar was designed to alter IT’s “geeky image” and the term is used here to represent young women enrolled in pre-service IT teaching courses. Their special mix of IT and teaching draws on conflicting stereotypes and represents a micro-climate which is typically lost in studies of IT occupations because of the aggregation of all IT roles. This paper will report on a small-scale investigation of female students (N=25) at a university in Queensland (Australia) studying to become teachers of secondary IT subjects. They are entering the IT industry, gendered as a “male” occupation, through the safe space of teaching a discipline allied to feminine qualities of nurturing. They are “geek goddesses” who – perhaps to balance the masculine and feminine of these occupations - have decided to go to school rather than into corporations or government.

An application of Keller’s brand equity model in a B2B context

Purpose – The importance of branding in industrial contexts has increased, yet a comprehensive model of business-to-business (B2B) branding does not exist, nor has there been a thoroughempirical study of the applicability of a full brand equitymodel in a B2B context. This paper aims to discuss the suitability and limitations of Keller’s customer-based brand equity model and tests its applicability in a B2B market. Design/methodology/approach – The study involved the use of semi-structured interviews with senior buyers of technology for electronic tracking of waste management. Findings – Findings suggest that amongst organisational buyers there is a much greater emphasis on the selling organisation, including its corporate brand, credibility and staff, than on individual brands and their associated dimensions. Research limitations/implications – The study investigates real brands with real potential buyers, so there is a risk that the results may represent industry-specific factors that are not representative of all B2B markets. Future research that validates the importance of the Keller elements in other industrial marketing contexts would be beneficial. Practical implications – The findings are relevant for marketing practitioners, researchers and managers as a starting-point for their B2B brand equity research. Originality/value – Detailed insights and key lessons from the field with regard to how B2B brand equity should be conceptualised and measured are offered. A revised brand equity model for B2B application is also presented.

The “Iranian ART Revolution”: infertility, assisted reproductive technology, and third-party donation in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Infertility is a social onus for women in Iran, who are expected to produce children early within marriage. With its estimated 1.5 million infertile couples, Iran is the only Muslim country in which assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) using donor gametes and embryos have been legitimized by religious authorities and passed into law. Th is has placed Iran, a Shia-dominant country, in a unique position vis-à-vis the Sunni Islamic world, where all forms of gamete donation are strictly prohibited. In this article, we first examine the “Iranian ART revolution” that has allowed donor technologies to be admitted as a form of assisted reproduction. Then we examine the response of Iranian women to their infertility and the profound social pressures they face. We argue that the experience of infertility and its treatment are mediated by women’s socioeconomic position within Iranian society. Many women lack economic access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) technologies and fear the moral consequences of gamete donation. Thus, the benefits of the Iranian ART revolution are mixed: although many Iranian women have been able to overcome their infertility through ARTs, not all women’s lives are improved by these technologies.