Perceptions of visitor relationship marketing opportunities by destination marketers : an importance-performance analysis

Customer relationship marketing (CRM) initiatives are increasingly being adopted by businesses in the attempt to enhance brand loyalty and stimulate repeat purchases. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which destination marketing organisations (DMOs) around the world have developed a visitor relationship marketing (VRM) orientation. The proposition underpinning the study is that maintaining meaningful dialogue with previous visitors in some markets would represent a more efficient use of resources than above the line advertising to attract new visitors. Importance-performance analysis was utilised to measure destination marketers’ perceptions of the efficacy of CRM initiatives, and then rate their own organisation’s performance across the same range of initiatives. A key finding was that mean importance was higher than perceived performance for every item. While the small sample limits generalisability, in general there are appears to be a lack of strategic intent by DMOs to invest in VRM.

In pursuit of tourism destination brand loyalty : visitor relationship management orientation of destination marketing organisations

The proposition underpinning this study is engaging in meaningful dialogue with previous visitors represents an efficient and effective use of resources for a destination marketing organization (DMO), compared to above the line advertising in broadcast media. However there has been a lack of attention in the tourism literature relating to destination switching, loyalty and customer relationship management (CRM) to test such a proposition. This paper reports an investigation of visitor relationship marketing (VRM) orientation among DMOs. A model of CRM orientation, which was developed from the wider marketing literature and a prior qualitative study, was used to develop a scale to operationalise DMO visitor relationship orientation. Due to a small sample, the Partial Least Squares (PLS) method of structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data. Although the sample limits the ability to generalise, the results indicated the DMOs’ visitor orientation is generally responsive and reactive rather than proactive.

Riding a mile in their shoes : understanding Australian metropolitan rail passenger perceptions and experiences of crowdedness using mixed-methods research

Metrics such as passengers per square metre have been developed to define optimum or crowded rail passenger density. Whilst such metrics are important to operational procedures, service evaluation and reporting, they fail to fully capture and convey the ways in which passengers experience crowded situations. This paper reports findings from a two year study of rail passenger crowding in five Australian capital cities which involved a novel mixed-methodology including ethnography, focus groups and an online stated preference choice experiment. The resulting data address the following four fundamental research questions: 1) to what extent are Australian rail passengers concerned by crowding, 2) what conditions exacerbate feelings of crowdedness, 3) what conditions mitigate feelings of crowdedness, and 4) how can we usefully understand passengers’ experiences of crowdedness? It concludes with some observations on the significance and implications of these findings for customer service provision. The findings outlined in this paper demonstrate that the experience of crowdedness (including its tolerance) cannot be understood in isolation from other customer services issues such as interior design, quality of environment, safety and public health concerns. It is hypothesised that tolerance of crowding will increase alongside improvements to overall customer service. This was the first comprehensive study of crowding in the Australian rail industry.

Improving quality management system implementation in Indonesian construction companies

As the Indonesian construction industry is now promising to become the engine of national economic development, achieving quality and higher performance, not only domestically but also in the international market, are becoming crucial issues. Implementing quality management systems (QMSs) based on ISO 9001 are important in helping Indonesian construction companies become more competitive, for it is acknowledged that quality in construction is a major concern in the global construction industry. However, the possession of ISO 9001 certification does not reflect the presence of a well-operated QMS, which is capable of giving customer and project end-users satisfaction. The review of literature found that there is a significant correlation between a company.s organisational culture and the quality performance of contractors. While research into this area has involved many researchers, there is no critical mass of information specifically related to the Indonesian situation. Studies based on contemporary perspectives of the characteristics of the Indonesian construction organisational culture using Cameron and Quinn.s Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) and its relationship with the contractor.s ISO 9001 practices, have not been previously undertaken. This thesis research, therefore, investigated the culture profiles in Indonesian construction organisations, together with the current implementation of ISO 9001 and their performance during implementing QMSs, as information in these areas has a bearing on the poor performance and low levels of competitiveness of Indonesian construction companies. Questionnaire surveys were distributed to selected representative grade 7 civil engineering contractors located in the two provincial capitals of Makassar and Manado, and the national capital, Jakarta, in order to collect responses designed to examine the effectiveness of their QMSs implementation. The survey also aimed to identify current problems within the systems, and examine the performance of companies while implementing their QMSs. The questionnaire contained questions to assess the organisational culture profiles of Indonesian construction companies, adopting the OCAI. The survey results were then used to analyse the influence of different organisational culture profiles on QMSs implementation among respondent companies. The results from the questionnaire survey supported the development of a Culture-based Quality Management System Improvement Implementation Framework, designed to help Indonesian construction companies identify some typical barriers associated with impacting on effective QMSs implementation; to assist them to develop cultural values that can drive effective QMSs implementation; to undertake effective QMSs practices; and to recognise the potential results and longer-term benefits obtainable from implementing effective QMSs. A Focus Group Discussion was conducted with the assistance of a panel of professional construction practitioners, policy makers and academic experts, which further considered and validated the usefulness and applicability of the framework. Based on the outcome from this discussion and on the results of the earlier data analysis, a final version of the framework was developed to assist Indonesian construction companies in improving their capability of construction project delivery, and thereby contribute to providing or improving the competitive advantage of Indonesian construction companies in the local, national and global construction market.

Which cultural values matter to business process management? Results from a global Delphi study

Purpose – Business process management (BPM) requires a holistic perspective that includes managing the culture of an organization to achieve objectives of efficient and effective business processes. Still, the specifics of a BPM-supportive organizational culture have not been examined so far. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify the characteristics of a cultural setting supportive of BPM objectives. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines the constituent values of a BPM-supportive cultural setting through a global Delphi study with BPM experts from academia and practice and explore these values in a cultural value framework. Findings – The paper empirically identifies and defines four key cultural values supporting BPM, viz., customer orientation, excellence, responsibility, and teamwork. The paper discusses the relationships between these values and identifies a particular challenge in managing these seemingly competing values. Research limitations/implications – The identification and definition of these values represents a first step towards the operationalization (and empirical analysis) of what has been identified as the concept of BPM culture, i.e. a culture supportive of achieving BPM objectives. Practical implications – Identifying these cultural values provides the basis for developing an instrument that can measure how far an existing cultural context is supportive of BPM. This, in turn, is fundamental for identifying measures towards achieving a BPM culture as a necessary, yet not sufficient means to obtain BPM success. Originality/value – The paper examines which cultural values create an environment receptive for BPM and, thus, specifies the important theoretical construct BPM culture. In addition, the paper raises awareness for realizing these values in a BPM context.

Integrated configuration of enterprise systems for interoperability : towards process model and business document specification alignment

Enterprise Systems (ES) can be understood as the de facto standard for holistic operational and managerial support within an organization. Most commonly ES are offered as commercial off-the-shelf packages, requiring customization in the user organization. This process is a complex and resource-intensive task, which often prevents small and midsize enterprises (SME) from undertaking configuration projects. Especially in the SME market independent software vendors provide pre-configured ES for a small customer base. The problem of ES configuration is shifted from the customer to the vendor, but remains critical. We argue that the yet unexplored link between process configuration and business document configuration must be closer examined as both types of configuration are closely tied to one another.

Specifying information systems for business process integration : a management perspective

Supply chain management and customer relationship management are concepts for optimizing the provision of goods to customers. Information sharing and information estimation are key tools used to implement these two concepts. The reduction of delivery times and stock levels can be seen as the main managerial objectives of an integrative supply chain and customer relationship management. To achieve this objective, business processes need to be integrated along the entire supply chain including the end consumer. Information systems form the backbone of any business process integration. The relevant information system architectures are generally well-understood, but the conceptual specification of information systems for business process integration from a management perspective, remains an open methodological problem. To address this problem, we will show how customer relationship management and supply chain management information can be integrated at the conceptual level in order to provide supply chain managers with relevant information. We will further outline how the conceptual management perspective of business process integration can be supported by deriving specifications for enabling information system from business objectives.

Designing Innovative Business Models : A Design Catalyst Learning Resource

The term Design Led Innovation is emerging as a fundamental business process, which is rapidly being adopted by large as well as small to medium sized firms. The value that design brings to an organisation is a different way of thinking, of framing situations and possibilities, doing things and tackling problems: essentially a cultural transformation of the way the firm undertakes its business. Being Design Led is increasingly being seen by business as a driver of company growth, allowing firms to provide a strong point of difference to its stakeholders. Achieving this Design Led process, requires strong leadership to enable the organisation to develop a clear vision for top line growth. Specifically, based on deep customer insights and expanded through customer and stakeholder engagements, the outcomes of which are then adopted by all aspects of the business. To achieve this goal, several tools and processes are available, which need to be linked to new organisational capabilities within a business transformation context. The Design Led Innovation Team focuses on embedding tools and processes within an organisation and matching this with design leadership qualities to enable companies to create breakthrough innovation and achieve sustained growth, through ultimately transforming their business model. As all information for these case studies was derived from publicly accessed data, this resource is not intended to be used as reference material, but rather is a learning tool for designers to begin to consider and explore businesses at a strategic level. It is not the results that are key, but rather the process and philosophies that were used to create these case studies and disseminate this way of thinking amongst the design community. It is this process of unpacking a business guided by the framework of Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas* which provides an important tool for designers to gain a greater perspective of a company’s true innovation potential.

Barriers to the adoption of health information technology

Information Technology (IT) is successfully applied in a diverse range of fields. Though, the field of Medical Informatics is more than three decades old, it shows a very slow progress compared to many other fields in which the application of IT is growing rapidly. The spending on IT in health care is shooting up but the road to successful use of IT in health care has not been easy. This paper discusses about the barriers to the successful adoption of information technology in clinical environments and outlines the different approaches used by various countries and organisations to tackle the issues successfully. Investing financial and other resources to overcome the barriers for successful adoption of HIT is highly important to realise the dream of a future healthcare system with each customer having secure, private Electronic Health Record (EHR) that is available whenever and wherever needed, enabling the highest degree of coordinated medical care based on the latest medical knowledge and evidence. Arguably, the paper reviews barriers to HIT from organisations’ alignment in respect to the leadership; with their stated values when accepting or willingness to consider the HIT as a determinant factor on their decision-making processes. However, the review concludes that there are many aspects of the organisational accountability and readiness to agree to the technology implementation.

The effects of portal website attitude and e-services on branding of e-stores

Purpose –Increasingly the company websites, along with the intermediary websites such as portal sites have become an integral component of the firms brand strategy. This study emphasises the importance of website service elements within portal sites and the impact on e-retailer brand attitudes and brand identity in an ever more competitive digital market-space. Design/methodology/approach– The research employs structural equation modeling technique to capture the relationship among website attitude, e-service quality, brand attitude and brand identity. Findings–The results from the study indicate consumer attitude perceptions toward portal website and e-service elements combine to increase brand attitude and also brand identity for e-retailers. Originality/value –Although there has been a plethora of studies evaluating corporate websites and branding interactions there is limited comprehension of the impact of intermediary portal sites. Moreover, the literature is limited in validating the link between e-services with brand attitude and brand identity within a portal website context. This study develops a framework that highlights the important influence of e-services within portal websites and the impact on the firm’s brand.

From concept to capability : developing design thinking within a professional services firm

Corporate business and management are embracing design thinking for its potential to deliver competitive advantage through helping them be more innovative, differentiate their brands, and bring more customer centric products and services to market (Brown, 2008). As consumers continue to expect more personalisation and customisation from their service providers, the use of design thinking for innovation within organisations is a logical progression. To date however, there is little empirical literature discussing how organisations are setting about integrating design thinking into their culture and innovation practices. This paper is a first step in initiating a scholarly discussion on the integration of design thinking within organisational culture. Deloitte Australia is a large professional services firm employing over 5700 staff in 12 offices across Australia. The company provides a range of services to clients in the areas of audit, tax, financial advisory and consulting. In early 2011 the company made a strategic commitment to introducing design thinking into the organisation’s practices. While it already maintains a strong innovation culture, to date it had largely been operating within an analytical business environment. For Deloitte, design thinking is an opportunity to create better outcomes for the people they serve – both internal and external stakeholders (Brown and Wyatt, 2010). Research was conducted using case study methodology and ethnographic methods from June to September 2011 at the Melbourne Deloitte office. It involved three methods of data collection: semi structured interviews, participant observation and artifact analysis. This paper presents preliminary case study findings of Deloitte’s approach to building awareness and a consistent understanding of design thinking, as well as large scale capability, across the firm. Deloitte’s commitment to transforming its culture to one of design thinking poses significant potential for understanding how design thinking is comprehended, enabled and integrated within a complex organisational environment.

Designing the information architecture of governmental one-stop portals : on the application and analysis of card sorting

The latest paradigm shift in government, termed Transformational Government, puts the citizen in the centre of attention. Including citizens in the design of online one-stop portals can help governmental organisations to become more customer focussed. This study describes the initial efforts of an Australian state government to develop an information architecture to structure the content of their future one-stop portal. Hereby, card sorting exercises have been conducted and analysed, utilising contemporary approaches found in academic and non-scientific literature. This paper describes the findings of the card sorting exercises in this particular case and discusses the suitability of the applied approaches in general. These are distinguished into non-statistical, statistical, and hybrid approaches. Thus, on the one hand, this paper contributes to academia by describing the application of different card sorting approaches and discussing their strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, this paper contributes to practice by explaining the approach that has been taken by the authors’ research partner in order to develop a customer-focussed governmental one-stop portal. Thus, they provide decision support for practitioners with regard to different analysis methods that can be used to complement recent approaches in Transformational Government.

Emotionate : an emerging research agenda

The creation of value through emotion has been previously explored through product design, marketing and consumer hedonics. While the notion of value creation is an important driver in business model generation, understanding what the customer honestly values and why, also needs to be considered. However, the role of emotion as a source of innovation, spanning business model creation to customer experience is not yet well understood. This research investigates how the inclusion of emotion will impact the design of a business model and business operations. A brief overview of relevant literature, the research gap and question, along with the future direction of this research is discussed in this paper.

Urban transit quality of service : user perception and behaviour

Despite its potential multiple contributions to sustainable policy objectives, urban transit is generally not widely used by the public in terms of its market share compared to that of automobiles, particularly in affluent societies with low-density urban forms like Australia. Transit service providers need to attract more people to transit by improving transit quality of service. The key to cost-effective transit service improvements lies in accurate evaluation of policy proposals by taking into account their impacts on transit users. If transit providers knew what is more or less important to their customers, they could focus their efforts on optimising customer-oriented service. Policy interventions could also be specified to influence transit users’ travel decisions, with targets of customer satisfaction and broader community welfare. This significance motivates the research into the relationship between urban transit quality of service and its user perception as well as behaviour. This research focused on two dimensions of transit user’s travel behaviour: route choice and access arrival time choice. The study area chosen was a busy urban transit corridor linking Brisbane central business district (CBD) and the St. Lucia campus of The University of Queensland (UQ). This multi-system corridor provided a ‘natural experiment’ for transit users between the CBD and UQ, as they can choose between busway 109 (with grade-separate exclusive right-of-way), ordinary on-street bus 412, and linear fast ferry CityCat on the Brisbane River. The population of interest was set as the attendees to UQ, who travelled from the CBD or from a suburb via the CBD. Two waves of internet-based self-completion questionnaire surveys were conducted to collect data on sampled passengers’ perception of transit service quality and behaviour of using public transit in the study area. The first wave survey is to collect behaviour and attitude data on respondents’ daily transit usage and their direct rating of importance on factors of route-level transit quality of service. A series of statistical analyses is conducted to examine the relationships between transit users’ travel and personal characteristics and their transit usage characteristics. A factor-cluster segmentation procedure is applied to respodents’ importance ratings on service quality variables regarding transit route preference to explore users’ various perspectives to transit quality of service. Based on the perceptions of service quality collected from the second wave survey, a series of quality criteria of the transit routes under study was quantitatively measured, particularly, the travel time reliability in terms of schedule adherence. It was proved that mixed traffic conditions and peak-period effects can affect transit service reliability. Multinomial logit models of transit user’s route choice were estimated using route-level service quality perceptions collected in the second wave survey. Relative importance of service quality factors were derived from choice model’s significant parameter estimates, such as access and egress times, seat availability, and busway system. Interpretations of the parameter estimates were conducted, particularly the equivalent in-vehicle time of access and egress times, and busway in-vehicle time. Market segmentation by trip origin was applied to investigate the difference in magnitude between the parameter estimates of access and egress times. The significant costs of transfer in transit trips were highlighted. These importance ratios were applied back to quality perceptions collected as RP data to compare the satisfaction levels between the service attributes and to generate an action relevance matrix to prioritise attributes for quality improvement. An empirical study on the relationship between average passenger waiting time and transit service characteristics was performed using the service quality perceived. Passenger arrivals for services with long headways (over 15 minutes) were found to be obviously coordinated with scheduled departure times of transit vehicles in order to reduce waiting time. This drove further investigations and modelling innovations in passenger’ access arrival time choice and its relationships with transit service characteristics and average passenger waiting time. Specifically, original contributions were made in formulation of expected waiting time, analysis of the risk-aversion attitude to missing desired service run in the passengers’ access time arrivals’ choice, and extensions of the utility function specification for modelling passenger access arrival distribution, by using complicated expected utility forms and non-linear probability weighting to explicitly accommodate the risk of missing an intended service and passenger’s risk-aversion attitude. Discussions on this research’s contributions to knowledge, its limitations, and recommendations for future research are provided at the concluding section of this thesis.

Digital social signal processing - theorectical underpinning and research agenda

Organizations make increasingly use of social media in order to compete for customer awareness and improve the quality of their goods and services. Multiple techniques of social media analysis are already in use. Nevertheless, theoretical underpinnings and a sound research agenda are still unavailable in this field at the present time. In order to contribute to setting up such an agenda, we introduce digital social signal processing (DSSP) as a new research stream in IS that requires multi-facetted investigations. Our DSSP concept is founded upon a set of four sequential activities: sensing digital social signals that are emitted by individuals on social media; decoding online data of social media in order to reconstruct digital social signals; matching the signals with consumers’ life events; and configuring individualized goods and service offerings tailored to the individual needs of customers. We further contribute to tying loose ends of different research areas together, in order to frame DSSP as a field for further investigation. We conclude with developing a research agenda.