Customer Value in E-Service: Conceptual Foundation and Empirical Evidence

Customer value has been identified as “the reason” for customers to patronize a firm, and as one of the fundamental blocks that market exchanges build upon. Despite the importance of customer value, it is often poorly defined, or seems to refer to different phenomena. This dissertation contributes to current marketing literature by subjecting the value concept to a critical investigation, and by clarifying its conceptual foundation. Based on the literature review, it is proposed that customer value can be divided into two separate, but interrelated aspects: value creation processes, and value outcome determination. This means that on one hand, it is possible to examine those activities through which value is created, and on the other hand, investigate how customers determine the value outcomes they receive. The results further show that customers may determine value in four different ways: value as a benefit/sacrifice ratio, as experience outcomes, as means-end chains, and value as phenomenological. In value as benefit/sacrifice ratio, customers are expected to calculate the ratio between service benefits (e.g. ease of use) and sacrifices (e.g. price). In value as experience outcomes, customers are suggested to experience multiple value components, such as functional, emotional, or social value. Customer value as means-ends chains in turn models value in terms of the relationships between service characteristics, use value, and desirable ends (e.g. social acceptance). Finally, value as phenomenological proposes that value emerges from lived, holistic experiences. The empirical papers investigate customer value in e-services, including online health care and mobile services, and show how value in e-service stems from the process and content quality, use context, and the service combination that a customer uses. In conclusion, marketers should understand that different value definitions generate different types of understanding of customer value. In addition, it is clear that studying value from several perspectives is useful, as it enables a richer understanding of value for the different actors. Finally, the interconnectedness between value creation and determination is surprisingly little researched, and this dissertation proposes initial steps towards understanding the relationship between the two.

The Nature and Change of Bonds in Industrial Business Relationships

A focus on cooperative industrial business relationships has become increasingly important in studies of industrial relationships. If the relationships between companies are strong it is usually a sign that companies will cooperate for a longer time and that may affect companies’ competitive and financial strength positively. As a result the bonds between companies become more important. This is due to the fact that bonds are building blocks of relationships and thus affect the stability in the cooperation between companies. Bond strength affect relationship strength. A framework regarding how bonds develop and change in an industrial business relationship has been developed in the study. Episodes affect the bonds in the relationship strengthening or weakening the bonds in the relationship or preserving status quo. Routine or critical episodes may lead to the strengthening or weakening of bonds as well as the preservation of status quo. The method used for analyzing bond strength trying to grasp the nature and change of bonds was invented by systematically following the elements of the definitions of bonds. A system with tables was drawn up in order to find out if the bond was weak, of medium strength or strong. Bonds are important regulators of industrial business relationships. By influencing the bonds one may have possibilities to strengthen or weaken the business relationship. Strengthen the business relationship in order to increase business and revenue and weaken the relationship in order to terminate business where the revenue is low or where there may be other problems in the relationship. By measuring the strength of different bonds it can be possible to strengthen weak bonds in order to strengthen the relationship. By using bond management it is possible to strategically strengthen or weaken the bonds between the cooperating companies in order to strengthen the cooperation and tie the customer or supplier to the company or weaken the cooperation in order to terminate the relationship. The instrument for the management of bonds is to use the created bond audit in order to know which bonds resources should be focused on in order to increase or decrease their strength.

Shareholder/Stakeholder Value Management, Company Growth and

There has been considerable discussion in the literature about the relative merits of shareholder value management and stakeholder value management, but relatively little empirical research has been reported concerning the relationship between these types of management and financial performance. The present study puts forward a hypothesis that true shareholder value management also encompasses stakeholder value management. This combination of shareholder/stakeholder value management is hypothesised to be associated with superior financial performance and sales growth. Using a sample of chief financial officers' ratings of the contemporary management accounting techniques economic value added and the balanced scorecard to represent the two management types, the study found evidence in support of the hypothesis.

Silent Communication - A Challenge to Established Marketing Communication Practice

Purpose The paper examines the concept of silent communication and its implications in marketing communication. It defines silent communication and proposes an analytic framework enabling an expanded view of marketing communication. Design/methodology/approach By explicitly adopting a customer-oriented perspective, combined with insights from service marketing and relationship communication, the paper extends current models of marketing communication. Findings The paper identifies different types of silent communication and presents new perspectives on marketing communication. The authors outline a framework for understanding how the company can/cannot control different forms of marketing communication and discuss the implications of this. Research implications/limitations The paper concentrates on a conceptual analysis, offering a number of empirical illustrations. The conceptual development creates new research issues that should lead to a deeper understanding of customers’ meaning creation, actions and reactions. Practical implications Silent communication constitutes a managerial challenge as it is often invisible to the management. The paper points to the need to develop methods to reveal the effects of silent communication as well as create guidelines for managerially handling silent communication. Originality/value The customer-based perspective and the focus on silent communication provide a completely new approach to analysing and understanding marketing communication. The paper contributes to service marketing and marketing communication research by introducing conceptualisations of silent communication that have an interest for both academic research and practitioners.

Critical Incidents in Internal Relationships

Critical incidents have had an important role in service quality and service management research. The focus of critical-incident studies has gradually shifted from separate acts and episodes towards relationships, and even switching from one relationship to another. The Critical Incident Technique has mainly been used when studying the service sector, concentrating on the customer's perception of critical incidents. Although some studies have considered the perceptions of employees important, critical incidents have not been considered a tool for studying internal relationships to any larger extent. This paper takes a process approach and shifts the focus from an external to an internal setting. It puts forward a new technique for analysing internal relationships from a critical-incident perspective. The technique captures the dynamism in relationships through considering internal critical incidents as micro-processes affecting not only internal but also external relationships.

Rethinking Service Companies’ Business Logic: Do We Need a Customer-Dominant Logic as a Guideline?

Purpose –This paper explores and expands the roles of customers and companies in creating value by introducing a new a customer-based approach to service. The customer’s logic is examined as being the foundation of a customer-based marketing and business logic. Design/methodology/approach – The authors argue that both goods-dominant logics and service-dominant logics are provider-dominant. Contrasting the customer-dominant logic with provider-dominant logics, the paper examines the creation of service value from the perspectives of value-in-use, the customer’s own context, and the customer’s experience of service. Findings –Moving from a provider-dominant logic to a customer-dominant logic uncovered five major challenges to service marketers: Company involvement, company control in co-creation, visibility of value creation, locus of customer experience, and character of customer experience. Research limitations/implications – The paper is exploratory. It presents and discusses a conceptual model and suggests implications for research and practice. Practical implications –Awareness of the mechanisms of customer logic will provide businesses with new perspectives on the role of the company in their customer’s lives. We propose that understanding the customer’s logic should represent the starting-point for the marketer’s business logic. Originality/value – The paper increases the understanding of how the customer’s logic underpins the customer-dominant business logic. By exploring consequences of applying a customer-dominant logic, we suggest further directions for theoretical and empirical research.

Requirements for information management system in agricultural contracting

Menneinä vuosikymmeninä maatalouden työt ovat ensin koneellistuneet voimakkaasti ja sittemmin mukaan on tullut automaatio. Nykyään koneiden kokoa suurentamalla ei enää saada tuottavuutta nostettua merkittävästi, vaan työn tehostaminen täytyy tehdä olemassa olevien resurssien käyttöä tehostamalla. Tässä työssä tarkastelun kohteena on ajosilppuriketju nurmisäilörehun korjuussa. Säilörehun korjuun intensiivisyys ja koneyksiköiden runsas määrä ovat työnjohdon kannalta vaativa yhdistelmä. Työn tavoitteena oli selvittää vaatimuksia maatalouden urakoinnin tueksi kehitettävälle tiedonhallintajärjestelmälle. Tutkimusta varten haastateltiin yhteensä 12 urakoitsijaa tai yhteistyötä tekevää viljelijää. Tutkimuksen perusteella urakoitsijoilla on tarvetta tietojärjestelmille.Luonnollisesti urakoinnin laajuus ja järjestelyt vaikuttavat asiaan. Tutkimuksen perusteella keskeisimpiä vaatimuksia tiedonhallinnalle ovat: • mahdollisimman laaja, yksityiskohtainen ja automaattinen tiedon keruu tehtävästä työstä • karttapohjaisuus, kuljettajien opastus kohteisiin • asiakasrekisteri, työn tilaus sähköisesti • tarjouspyyntöpohjat, hintalaskurit • luotettavuus, tiedon säilyvyys • sovellettavuus monenlaisiin töihin • yhteensopivuus muiden järjestelmien kanssa Kehitettävän järjestelmän tulisi siis tutkimuksen perusteella sisältää seuraavia osia: helppokäyttöinen suunnittelu/asiakasrekisterityökalu, toimintoja koneiden seurantaan, opastukseen ja johtamiseen, työnaikainen tiedonkeruu sekä kerätyn tiedon käsittelytoimintoja. Kaikki käyttäjät eivät kuitenkaan tarvitse kaikkia toimintoja, joten urakoitsijan on voitava valita tarvitsemansa osat ja mahdollisesti lisätä toimintoja myöhemmin. Tiukoissa taloudellisissa ja ajallisissa raameissa toimivat urakoitsijat ovat vaativia asiakkaita, joiden käyttämän tekniikan tulee olla toimivaa ja luotettavaa. Toisaalta inhimillisiä virheitä sattuu kokeneillekin, joten hyvällä tietojärjestelmällä työstä tulee helpompaa ja tehokkaampaa.

Incentive mechanism to control customer buy-down behaviour

Airlines have successfully practiced revenue management over the past four decades and enhanced their revenue. Most of the traditional models that are applied assume that customers buying a high-fare class ticket will not purchase a low-fare class ticket even if it is available. This is not a very realistic assumption and has led to revenue leakage due to customers exhibiting buy-down behaviour. This paper aims at devising a suitable incentive mechanism that would incite the customer to reveal his nature. This helps in reducing revenue leakage. We show that the proposed incentive mechanism is profitable to both the buyer and seller and hence ensures the buyers participation in the mechanism. Journal of the Operational Research Society (2011) 62, 1566-1573. doi:10.1057/jors.2010.57 Published online 11 August 2010

Shape-function-relationship (SFR) framework for semantic interoperability of product model

The problem of semantic interoperability arises while integrating applications in different task domains across the product life cycle. A new shape-function-relationship (SFR) framework is proposed as a taxonomy based on which an ontology is developed. Ontology based on the SFR framework, that captures explicit definition of terminology and knowledge relationships in terms of shape, function and relationship descriptors, offers an attractive approach for solving semantic interoperability issue. Since all instances of terms are based on single taxonomy with a formal classification, mapping of terms requires a simple check on the attributes used in the classification. As a preliminary study, the framework is used to develop ontology of terms used in the aero-engine domain and the ontology is used to resolve the semantic interoperability problem in the integration of design and maintenance. Since the framework allows a single term to have multiple classifications, handling context dependent usage of terms becomes possible. Automating the classification of terms and establishing the completeness of the classification scheme are being addressed presently.

Relationship between water quality, watermilfoil frequency, and weevil distribution in the State of Washington

During the summer of 1997, we surveyed 50 waterbodies in Washington State to determine the distribution of the aquatic weevil Euhrychiopsis lecontei Dietz. We collected data on water quality and the frequency of occurrence of watermilfoil species within selected watermilfoil beds to compare the waterbodies and determine if they were related to the distribution E. lecontei . We found E. lecontei in 14 waterbodies, most of which were in eastern Washington. Only one lake with weevils was located in western Washington. Weevils were associated with both Eurasian ( Myriophyllum spicatum L.) and northern watermilfoil ( M. sibiricum K.). Waterbodies with E. lecontei had significantly higher ( P < 0.05) pH (8.7 ± 0.2) (mean ± 2SE), specific conductance (0.3 ± 0.08 mS cm -1 ) and total alkalinity (132.4 ± 30.8 mg CaCO 3 L -1 ). We also found that weevil presence was related to surface water temperature and waterbody location ( = 24.3, P ≤ 0.001) and of all the models tested, this model provided the best fit (Hosmer- Lemeshow goodness-of-fit = 4.0, P = 0.9). Our results suggest that in Washington State E. lecontei occurs primarily in eastern Washington in waterbodies with pH ≥ 8.2 and specific conductance ≥ 0.2 mS cm -1 . Furthermore, weevil distribution appears to be correlated with waterbody location (eastern versus western Washington) and surface water temperature.

Final report of the Support to Regional Aquatic Resources Management (STREAM): a NACA networking initiative

The governing council of Naca has resolved to effect a shift in emphasis from aquaculture development to aquaculture for development. This will require engaging partners from a broad spectrum of government and development agencies, the nature of the information that will need to be gathered and the strategies used for disseminating information and initiating action. The vehicle for operationalising this shift is STREAM - Support to Regional Aquatic Resources Management. This report outlines the nature of the STREAM network, its relationship to NACA's vision, mission, objectives and operating principles, and how STREAM differs from previous NACA's networks. Because STREAM is different, a theoretical basis for network communication is presented along with an outline of the preliminary steps in getting the network up and running. (Pdf contains 33 pages).

Integration of technologies for understanding the functional relationship between reef habitat and fish growth and production

Functional linkage between reef habitat quality and fish growth and production has remained elusive. Most current research is focused on correlative relationships between a general habitat type and presence/absence of a species, an index of species abundance, or species diversity. Such descriptive information largely ignores how reef attributes regulate reef fish abundance (density-dependent habitat selection), trophic interactions, and physiological performance (growth and condition). To determine the functional relationship between habitat quality, fish abundance, trophic interactions, and physiological performance, we are using an experimental reef system in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico where we apply advanced sensor and biochemical technologies. Our study site controls for reef attributes (size, cavity space, and reef mosaics) and focuses on the processes that regulate gag grouper (Mycteroperca microlepis) abundance, behavior and performance (growth and condition), and the availability of their pelagic prey. We combine mobile and fixed-active (fisheries) acoustics, passive acoustics, video cameras, and advanced biochemical techniques. Fisheries acoustics quantifies the abundance of pelagic prey fishes associated with the reefs and their behavior. Passive acoustics and video allow direct observation of gag and prey fish behavior and the acoustic environment, and provide a direct visual for the interpretation of fixed fisheries acoustics measurements. New application of biochemical techniques, such as Electron Transport System (ETS) assay, allow the in situ measurement of metabolic expenditure of gag and relates this back to reef attributes, gag behavior, and prey fish availability. Here, we provide an overview of our integrated technological approach for understanding and quantifying the functional relationship between reef habitat quality and one element of production – gag grouper growth on shallow coastal reefs.

Relationship between fish size and otolith length for 63 species of fishes from the Eastern North Pacific Ocean

Otoliths commonly are used to determine the taxon, age, and size of fishes. This information is useful for population management, predator-prey studies, and archaeological research. The relationship between the length of a fish and the length of its otoliths remains unknown for many species of marine fishes in the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, the relationships between fish length and fish weight, and between otolith length and fish length, were developed for 63 species of fishes caught in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. We also summarized similar relationships for 46 eastern North Pacific fish species reported in the literature. The relationship between fish length and otolith length was linear, and most of the variability was explained by a simple least-squares regression (r 2 > 0.700 for 45 of 63 species). The relationship between otolith length and fish length was not significantly different between left and right otoliths for all but one fish species. Images of otoliths from 77 taxa are included to assist in the identification of species. (PDF file contains 38 pages.)