An investigation into the antecedents of prosocial service behaviours : a travel service context

Frontline employee (FLE) attitudes and behaviours during service encounters influence customers’ perceptions of service quality and customer satisfaction. The identification of variables that influence FLEs service behaviours is, therefore, important. Much remains unknown about the factors affecting prosocial service behaviours (PSBs). This thesis answers the following questions: What are the antecedents of PSBs in a travel service setting? It is argued that managerial strategies indirectly influence PSBs via their direct influence on job attitudes. This thesis represents an attempt towards an increased knowledge about the antecedents of PSBs by seeking answers to the question. A conceptual model was developed from the literature. Briefly stated, the hypothesised model proposed that job attitudes mediate the relationship between managerial strategies and the PSBs. In-depth interviews provided initial support for the conceptual model. Structural equation modelling techniques were then used to test these relationships on data from 179 travel service employees. Partial support for the mediational role of job attitudes was found. More specifically, the relationship between professional development and extra-role customer service is mediated by job satisfaction and organisational commitment, but not in-role customer service and cooperation. The managerial strategies influence PSBs directly. Internal communication influences extra- and in-role customer service behaviours positively. The relationship between professional development and the three PSBs constructs is negative. Empowerment influences in-role customer service and cooperative behaviours positively.

Buyer-supplier relationships in advanced manufacturing technology acquisition and implementation : a study in Malaysia

This thesis reports the results of research into the connections between transaction attributes and buyer-supplier relationships (BSR) in advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) acquisitions and implementation. It also examines the impact of the different patterns of BSR on performance. Specifically, it addresses the issues of how the three transaction attributes; namely level of complexity, level of asset specificity, and level of uncertainty, can affect the relationships between the technology buyer and suppler in AMT acquisition and implementation, and then to see the impact of different patterns of BSR on the two aspect of performance; namely technology and implementation performance. In understanding the pohenomena, the study mainly draws on and integrates the literature of transaction cost economics theory,buyer-supplier relationships and advanced manufacturing technology as a basis of theoretical framework and hypotheses development.data were gathered through a questionnaire survey with 147 responses and seven semi-structured interviews of manufacturing firms in Malaysia. Quantitative data were analysed mainly using the AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structure) package for structural equation modeling and SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) for analysis of variance (ANOVA). Data from interview sessions were used to develop a case study with the intention of providing a richer and deeper understanding on the subject under investigation and to offer triangulation in the research process. he results of the questionnaire survey indicate that the higher the level of technological specificity and uncertainty, the more firms are likely to engage in a closer relationship with technology suppliers.However, the complexity of the technology being implemented is associated with BSR only because it is associated with the level of uncertainty that has direct impact upon BSR.The analysis also provides strong support for the premise that developing strong BSR could lead to an improved performance. However, with high levels of transaction attribute, implementation performance suffers more when firms have weak relationships with technology suppliers than with moderate and low levels of transaction attributes. The implications of the study are offered for both the academic and practitioner audience. The thesis closes with reports on its limitations and suggestions for further research that would address some of these limitations.

Antecedents and consequences of market orientation : an examination in the joint ventures' relational context

Market oriented behaviours have been found to be important predictors of business success across a wide array of studies. Despite their potential importance, research into market oriented behaviours in the joint venture (JV) context is very scarce. This study represents a novel attempt to address this gap by examining a set of antecedent factors which arises from sources outside a traditional firm’s boundary. An extensive review and synthesis of the market orientation and JV literature yielded a set of context-specific antecedent factors relevant to the JV’s relational context. In accordance with the perspective offered by the transaction cost theory, a system of hypotheses about the effects of these antecedent factors on JV’s market oriented behaviours was developed. In order to test these hypotheses, empirical evidence was collected by means of a mail survey to international joint ventures operating in the coastal regions of mainland China. A sample of 191 JV firms was collected as a result. Following well established procedures for scale development and purification as recommended in the methodology literature, the scales were critically trimmed and reviewed for their psychometric properties. The conceptual model was tested with a structural equation model. Results suggested that a number of context-specific antecedents are in fact important determinants of JVs’ level of market oriented behaviours. In addition, the linkage between market oriented behaviours and market performance was also successfully established.

The environmental impacts of technical change

The thesis is concerned with relationships between profit, technology and environmental change. Existing work has concentrated on only a few questions, treated at either micro or macro levels of analysis. And there has been something of an impasse since the neoclassical and neomarxist approaches are either in direct conflict (macro level), or hardly interact (micro level). The aim of the thesis was to bypass this impasse by starting to develop a meso level of analysis that focusses on issues largely ignored in the traditional approaches - on questions about distribution. The first questions looked at were descriptive - what were the patterns of distribution over time of the variability in types and rates of environmental change, and in particular, was there any evidence of periodization? Two case studies were used to examine these issues. The first looked at environmental change in the iron and steel industry since 1700, and the second studied pollution in five industries in the basic processing sector. It was established that environmental change has been markedly periodized, with an apparently fairly regular `cycle length' of about fifty years. The second questions considered were explanatory - whether and how this periodization could be accounted for by reference to variations in aspects of profitability and technical change. In the iron and steel industry, it was found that diffusion rates and the rate of nature of innovation were periodized on the same pattern as was environmental change. And the same sort of variation was also present in the realm of profits, as evidenced by cyclical changes in output growth. Simple theoretical accounts could be given for all the empirically demonstrable links, and it was suggested that the most useful models at this meso level of analysis are provided by structural change models of economic development.

Marketing resources of actively involved exporters

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact of the market orientation and market based resources of actively involved exporters and their distributors on export venture performance. Previous literature in marketing channels has examined the effect of the market orientation of suppliers and their distributors on supplier-distributor relationships, mainly in a domestic context, as well as the impact of the quality of their relationship on business performance in domestic and international contexts. Little or no research focuses on the interplay between the relevant marketing resources, such as market orientation, proactive market orientation, selling, pricing reputation, and market innovation, of an export venture and their distributor, and consequently on export venture performance. This dissertation is mainly a quantitative study using a mail survey among Greek exporting firms in various industries. The final sample comprised 190 exporting ventures. The survey was enhanced through open interviews with export venture managers and their respective distributors and was pre-tested with a small-scale dyadic survey. Survey data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The main research objective was to assess the impact of marketing support resources, namely market orientation and proactive market orientation, and market-based resources of an export venture and its distributor on export performance. In addition, the relationship of marketing support resources of the export venture and those of the distributor was examined. Some of the relationships examined are a migration of traditional domestic theory (Hooley et al. 2005), to an exporting context, testing whether there are differences in the relationships in a different context. This study contributes to the resource-based view, marketing, and export business literature, as findings indicate that high levels of export venture proactive market orientation lead to distributors with high levels of market orientation. In line with findings of domestic context research, the proactive market orientation of the venture renders its market orientation statistically not significant.

Relational diversity, social integration and individual effectiveness: a social self-regulation perspective

Relational demographers and dissimilarity researchers contend that group members who are dissimilar (vs. similar) to their peers in terms of a given diversity attribute (e.g. demographics, attitudes, values or traits) feel less attached to their work group, experience less satisfying and more conflicted relationships with their colleagues, and consequently are less effective. However, qualitative reviews suggest empirical findings tend to be weak and inconsistent (Chattopadhyay, Tluchowska and George, 2004; Riordan, 2000; Tsui and Gutek, 1999), and that it remains unclear when, how and to what extent such differences (i.e. relational diversity) affect group members social integration (i.e. attachment with their work group, satisfaction and conflicted relationships with their peers) and effectiveness (Riordan, 2000). This absence of meta-analytically derived effect size estimates and the lack of an integrative theoretical framework leave practitioners with inconclusive advice regarding whether the effects elicited by relational diversity are practically relevant, and if so how these should be managed. The current research develops an integrative theoretical framework, which it tests by using meta-analysis techniques and adding two further empirical studies to the literature. The first study reports a meta-analytic integration of the results of 129 tests of the relationship between relational diversity with social integration and individual effectiveness. Using meta-analytic and structural equation modelling techniques, it shows different effects of surface- and deep-level relational diversity on social integration Specifically, low levels of interdependence accentuated the negative effects of surface-level relational diversity on social integration, while high levels of interdependence accentuated the negative effects of deep-level relational diversity on social integration. The second study builds on a social self-regulation framework (Abrams, 1994) and suggests that under high levels of interdependence relational diversity is not one but two things: visibility and separation. Using ethnicity as a prominent example it was proposed that separation has a negative effect on group members effectiveness leading for those high in visibility and low in separation to overall positive additive effects, while to overall negative additive effects for those low in visibility and high in separation. These propositions were sustained in a sample of 621 business students working in 135 ethnically diverse work groups in a business simulation course over a period of 24 weeks. The third study suggests visibility has a positive effect on group members self-monitoring, while separation has a negative effect. The study proposed that high levels of visibility and low levels of separation lead to overall positive additive effects on self-monitoring but overall negative additive effects for those low in visibility and high in separation. Results from four waves of data on 261 business students working in 69 ethnically diverse work groups in a business simulation course held over a period of 24 weeks support these propositions.

Identification and analysis of moderator variables:investigating the customer satisfaction-loyalty link

Purpose – Research on the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty has advanced to a stage that requires a more thorough examination of moderator variables. Limited research shows how moderators influence the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in a service context; this article aims to present empirical evidence of the conditions in which the satisfaction-loyalty relationship becomes stronger or weaker. Design/methodology/approach – Using a sample of more than 700 customers of DIY retailers and multi-group structural equation modelling, the authors examine moderating effects of several firm-related variables, variables that result from firm/employee-customer interactions and individual-level variables (i.e. loyalty cards, critical incidents, customer age, gender, income, expertise). Findings – The empirical results suggest that not all of the moderators considered influence the satisfaction-loyalty link. Specifically, critical incidents and income are important moderators of the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Practical implications – Several of the moderator variables considered in this study are manageable variables. Originality/value – This study should prove valuable to academic researchers as well as service and retailing managers. It systematically analyses the moderating effect of firm-related and individual-level variables on the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. It shows the differential effect of different types of moderator variables on the satisfaction-loyalty link.

Effects of retail employees' behaviours on customers' service evaluation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test a conceptual model of the effects of customer and service orientation (SO) behaviours of individual retail employees on individual customers’ perceptions of service encounter quality (SEQ), service quality (SQ), value, satisfaction, and behavioural intentions (BI). Design/methodology/approach – The sample (n ¼ 271) was customers of a supermarket in central India, and they completed questionnaires following mall intercept. To test the hypotheses, structural equation modelling using LISREL 8.7 was employed. Findings – It was found that: service and customer orientation (CO) behaviours are positively related to SEQ and SQ; SEQ is positively related to SQ and customer satisfaction; SQ is positively related to value perceptions and customer satisfaction; and customer satisfaction is positively related to retail customers’ BI. However, value is not related to customer satisfaction. Research limitations/implications – More research is needed on customer perceptions of value in non-Western contexts and service evaluation frameworks in other cross-cultural contexts. Practical implications – Retail managers need to train or select retail personnel who are able to perform their roles in a service-oriented and customer-oriented way, and value does not appear to be as important to Indian retail customers as it is to Western retail customers. Originality/value – This paper extends current service evaluation frameworks by including SO and CO as antecedents, and it analyses an Indian retail context. Keywords India, Retailing, Customer satisfaction, Service levels, Employee behaviour.

Internet banking service quality:an investigation of interrelationships between construct dimensions

Service quality measurement in Internet banking services is an area of growing interest to researchers and managers. This research investigates the interrelationships between the dimensions comprising the Internet banking service quality construct through structural equation modelling. Five Internet service quality dimensions are identified: access, web interface, trust, attention and credibility. Credibility is modelled as an outcome of the causal variables of access, web interface, trust and attention. Trust and attention emerges as key dimensions in explaining the credibility dimension. Access is found to be a common antecedent of trust, attention and Web interface dimensions. Implications from the findings are offered.

The impact of employees' customer orientation and service orientation behaviours on customers' service evaluation

In this paper the authors conceptualize and test the effects of service employees’ customer orientation and service orientation behaviors within an extended service evaluation model encompassing service quality, service encounter quality, perceived value and customer satisfaction. The context is 271 Indian retail customers. Data analysis incorporates confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. We find that Findings indicate that: 1) customer orientation is positively related to service orientation, customers’ perceptions of service encounter quality and service quality; 2) service orientation influences customers’ perceptions of service encounter quality and service quality; 3) customers’ perceptions of service encounter quality influence customers’ perceptions of service quality and customer satisfaction; 4) customers’ perceptions of service quality influence value perceptions; 5) service quality influences customer satisfaction; and 6) customer satisfaction influences customers’ behavioral intentions. The importance of these findings for practitioners and academics, research limitations and future research avenues are subsequently discussed.

Overcoming network overload and redundancy in inter-organizational networks:the roles of potential and latent ties

This paper builds on Granovetter's distinction between strong and weak ties [Granovetter, M. S. 1973. The strength of weak ties. Amer. J. Sociol. 78(6) 1360–1380] in order to respond to recent calls for a more dynamic and processual understanding of networks. The concepts of potential and latent tie are deductively identified, and their implications for understanding how and why networks emerge, evolve, and change are explored. A longitudinal empirical study conducted with companies operating in the European motorsport industry reveals that firms take strategic actions to search for potential ties and reactivate latent ties in order to solve problems of network redundancy and overload. Examples are given, and their characteristics are examined to provide theoretical elaboration of the relationship between the types of tie and network evolution. These conceptual and empirical insights move understanding of the managerial challenge of building effective networks beyond static structural contingency models of optimal network forms to highlight the processes and capabilities of dynamic relationship building and network development. In so doing, this paper highlights the interrelationship between search and redundancy and the scope for strategic action alongside path dependence and structural influences on network processes.

Corporate governance, managers' independence, exporting, and performance of firms in transition economies

Using data on 157 large companies in Poland and Hungary, this paper employs Bayesian structural equation modeling to examine the relations among corporate governance, managers' independence from owners in terms of strategic decision making, exporting, and performance. Managers' independence is positively associated with firms' financial performance and exporting. In turn, the extent of managers' independence is negatively associated with ownership concentration, but positively associated with the percentage of foreign directors on the firm's board. We interpret these results as indicating that concentrated owners tend to constrain managerial autonomy at the cost of the firm's internationalization and performance, but board participation of foreign stakeholders enhances the firm's export orientation and performance by encouraging executives' decision-making autonomy.

Corporate governance, managers' independence, exporting and performance of firms in transition economies

Using data on 157 large companies in Poland and Hungary this paper employs Bayesian structural equation modeling to examine interrelationships between corporate governance, managers' independence from owners in terms of strategic decision-making, exporting and performance. It is found that managers' independence is positively associated with firms' financial performance and exporting. In turn, the extent of managers' independence is contingent on the firm's corporate governance parameters: it is negatively associated with ownership concentration, but positively associated with the percentage of foreign directors on the firm's board. We interpret these results as an indication that (i) risk averse, concentrated owners tend to constrain managerial autonomy at the cost of the firm's internationalization and performance, (ii) board participation of foreign stakeholders, on the other hand, enhances the firm's export orientation and performance by encouraging executives' decision-making autonomy.

The mediating role of discrete emotions in the relationship between injustice and counterproductive work behaviors:a study in Pakistan

Purpose: Our study explores the mediating role of discrete emotions in the relationships between employee perceptions of distributive and procedural injustice, regarding an annual salary raise, and counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). Design/Methodology/Approach: Survey data were provided by 508 individuals from telecom and IT companies in Pakistan. Confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping were used to test our hypothesized model. Findings: We found a good fit between the data and our tested model. As predicted, anger (and not sadness) was positively related to aggressive CWBs (abuse against others and production deviance) and fully mediated the relationship between perceived distributive injustice and these CWBs. Against predictions, however, neither sadness nor anger was significantly related to employee withdrawal. Implications: Our findings provide organizations with an insight into the emotional consequences of unfair HR policies, and the potential implications for CWBs. Such knowledge may help employers to develop training and counseling interventions that support the effective management of emotions at work. Our findings are particularly salient for national and multinational organizations in Pakistan. Originality/Value: This is one of the first studies to provide empirical support for the relationships between in/justice, discrete emotions and CWBs in a non-Western (Pakistani) context. Our study also provides new evidence for the differential effects of outward/inward emotions on aggressive/passive CWBs. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

The effects of transformational leadership behaviours on follower outcomes:an identity-based analysis

The aim of this study was to explore two of the mechanisms by which transformational leaders have a positive influence on followers. It examined the mediating role of follower's leader and group identification on the associations among different transformational leader behaviours and follower job satisfaction and supervisor-rated job performance. One hundred and seventy-nine healthcare employees and 44 supervisors participated in the study. The results from multilevel structural equation modelling provided results that partially supported the predicted model. Identification with the leader significantly mediated the positive associations between supportive leadership, intellectual stimulation, personal recognition, in the prediction of job satisfaction and job performance. Leader identification also mediated the relationship between supportive leadership, intellectual stimulation, personal recognition, and group identification. However, group identification did not mediate the associations between vision leadership and inspirational communication, in the prediction of job satisfaction and job performance. The results highlight the role of individualized forms of leadership and leader identification in enhancing follower outcomes.