A model of service performance enhancement:the role of transactional and transformational leadership

This paper is concerned with the ways in which transactional and transformational leadership styles can improve the service performance of front-line staff. Past literature on services marketing has indicated the importance of leadership but has largely ignored the parallel literature in which leadership styles have been conceptualized and operationalized (e.g., sales management, organizational psychology). This paper seeks to build upon existing services marketing theory by introducing the role of leadership styles in enhancing service performance. Consequently, a conceptual framework of the effect of transactional and transformational leadership styles on service performance, anchored in a crossdisciplinary literature review, is developed. Managerial implications and future research directions are also discussed.

Outcomes of service encounter quality in a business-to-business context

Service encounter quality is an area of growing interest to researchers and managers alike, yet little is known about the effects of face-to-face service encounter quality within a business-to-business setting. In this paper, a psychometrically sound measure of such service encounter quality is proposed, and consequences of this construct are empirically assessed. Both a literature review and a dyadic in-depth interview approach were used to develop a conceptual framework and a pool of items to capture service encounter quality. A mail survey of customers was undertaken, and a response rate of 36% was obtained. Data analysis was conducted via confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Findings reveal a four-factor structure of service encounter quality, encompassing professionalism, civility, friendliness and competence dimensions. Service encounter quality was found to be directly related to customer satisfaction and service quality perceptions, and indirectly to loyalty. The importance of these findings for practitioners and for future research on service encounter quality is discussed.

Antecedents and consequences of service quality in consumer evaluation of self-service internet technologies

Advances in technology coupled with increasing labour costs have caused service firms to explore self-service delivery options. Although some studies have focused on self-service and use of technology in service delivery, few have explored the role of service quality in consumer evaluation of technology-based self-service options. By integrating and extending the self-service quality framework the service evaluation model and the Technology Acceptance Model the authors address this emerging issue by empirically testing a comprehensive model that captures the antecedents and consequences of perceived service quality to predict continued customer interaction in the technology-based self-service context of Internet banking. Important service evaluation constructs like perceived risk, perceived value and perceived satisfaction are modelled in this framework. The results show that perceived control has the strongest influence on service quality evaluations. Perceived speed of delivery, reliability and enjoyment also have a significant impact on service quality perceptions. The study also found that even though perceived service quality, perceived risk and satisfaction are important predictors of continued interaction, perceived customer value plays a pivotal role in influencing continued interaction.

Distributed control of computer communication systems

Flow control in Computer Communication systems is generally a multi-layered structure, consisting of several mechanisms operating independently at different levels. Evaluation of the performance of networks in which different flow control mechanisms act simultaneously is an important area of research, and is examined in depth in this thesis. This thesis presents the modelling of a finite resource computer communication network equipped with three levels of flow control, based on closed queueing network theory. The flow control mechanisms considered are: end-to-end control of virtual circuits, network access control of external messages at the entry nodes and the hop level control between nodes. The model is solved by a heuristic technique, based on an equivalent reduced network and the heuristic extensions to the mean value analysis algorithm. The method has significant computational advantages, and overcomes the limitations of the exact methods. It can be used to solve large network models with finite buffers and many virtual circuits. The model and its heuristic solution are validated by simulation. The interaction between the three levels of flow control are investigated. A queueing model is developed for the admission delay on virtual circuits with end-to-end control, in which messages arrive from independent Poisson sources. The selection of optimum window limit is considered. Several advanced network access schemes are postulated to improve the network performance as well as that of selected traffic streams, and numerical results are presented. A model for the dynamic control of input traffic is developed. Based on Markov decision theory, an optimal control policy is formulated. Numerical results are given and throughput-delay performance is shown to be better with dynamic control than with static control.