bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Measuring university service quality by means of SERVQUAL method
Authors: Abili Khodayar , Narenji Thani Fatemeh , Afarinandehbin Maryam 
Published: November 2012

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine university service quality in the International branch of Amirkabir University (Iran).Design/methodology/approachIn this study, a total of 102 students in five courses (Electronic engineering, Civil engineering, Mechanical engineering, Chemical engineering and MBA) in the international branch of Amirkabir University, were asked to complete a SERVQUAL questionnaire. This questionnaire measured students’ perceptions and expectations in five dimensions of service that consists of assurance, responsiveness, empathy, reliability and tangibles. The quality gap of university services was determined based on differences between students’ perceptions and expectations.FindingsThe results demonstrated that in all of the five SERVQUAL dimensions there was a negative quality gap (p<0.05). Also responsiveness is the most important dimension for the students but had the largest gap. So improvements are necessary and the university must pay more attention to the students’ requirements.Research limitations/implicationsThe current research was conducted among international branch of Amirkabir University, so the results are limited to those faculty, not to the whole of the university. Also, there were many questions in the questionnaire, which made the students tired and impatient.Originality/valueThere are limited researches that consider service quality in Iranian higher education. However, for the first time, the service quality of the international branch of Amirkabir University was measured in this research by SERVQUAL. Measuring education service via SERVQUAL in order to determine ways to improve quality is one of the major fields of application of the model. Continuous research in the field will benefit the welfare of the public society.
Exploring the impact of total quality service on bank employees’ organisational commitment
Authors: Kaur Gurjeet , Sharma Jyoti , Lamba Tejveer 
Published: November 2012

PurposeThe purpose of the present study is to evaluate total quality service (TQS) from employees’ perspective, as they have direct contact with both customers and management. The study is descriptive and exploratory in nature.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected from 195 frontline employees of a leading Indian private sector bank. The study is confined to that bank's branches operating in a northern city of India.FindingsThe study reveals that though employees have made serious contributions towards the success of TQS, bank policies do not leave much scope for their autonomy and management lags in its efforts in implementing TQS properly. SEM analysis indicates that TQS has a significant impact on employees’ organizational commitment.Originality/valueTQS is a systematic way of guaranteeing that all activities within an organization happen as per plan and meet the customers’ expectations. TQS aids the service marketers in the task of establishing and maintaining the customer base, which is the greatest challenge in today's competitive world. In this context, the present study seeks to evaluate the overall TQS prevalent in banking services.
Business excellence through total supply chain quality management
Authors: Rashid Kamran , Haris Aslam M.M. 
Published: November 2012

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to show how the quality practices such as leadership and strategic quality planning, supplier relationship management, customer focus, quality data and reporting, process management and human resource management are as relevant to supply chains as they are to an individual firm.Design/methodology/approachBased on the review of relevant literature, propositions have been framed to stimulate future research. In order to evaluate the quality management (QM) practices in Pakistani supply chains, three cases have been presented. These cases provide information about QM practices of the case companies with respect to the supply chains they represent. Based on the case comparisons, common themes regarding the state of QM in Pakistani supply chains have been identified.FindingsThe current study shows that the state of QM in the supply chain context is at a primitive level in Pakistan. Most organizations have instituted quality departments and devised quality policy and planning inspired by ISO 9000 standards. However, quality culture that promotes bottom‐up improvement throughout the organization is nonexistent. Compared with the proposed framework of total supply chain quality management (TSCQM), Pakistani organizations have a long way to go before any significant integration can be achieved in the quality functions at the supply chain level.Originality/valueBuilding upon the current literature in the field of supply chain and QM, the current study proposes a new, more comprehensive framework TSCQM.
Chinese hoteliers' take on hotel co‐branding in China
Authors: Denizci Guillet Basak , Tasci Asli D.A. 
Published: November 2012

PurposeThis paper aims to explore Chinese hoteliers' perspectives on co‐branding between hotels and products of other industries or sectors.Design/methodology/approachA survey with both structured and open‐ended questions was distributed to 300 Chinese hotel executive level hoteliers attending the 2009 International Forum on China Hotel Brand Development.FindingsThe results of the 72 surveys indicate benefits as well as drawbacks for both hotels and their potential co‐branding partners in the Chinese hospitality industry, the most important being the lack of brand awareness for both Chinese and Western brands.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the existing literature by adding the Chinese hospitality industry context into the much studied Western industry context: the research is timely given the position and significance of the Chinese market in the world tourism arena.
Sustainability, daily practices and vacation purchasing: are they related?
Authors: Pereira Ester M.V. , Mykletun Reidar J. , Hippolyte Camilla 
Published: November 2012

PurposeThis paper aims to explore relationships between consumers' sustainable purchasing practices and their related cognitions, evaluations, and beliefs when considering purchases of tourist products or general goods.Design/methodology/approach“Cognitions” refers to consumers' familiarity with the concept of “environmentally‐friendly”, their “evaluations” are considerations of the importance of responsible practices, and “beliefs” are convictions of the effects of buying environmentally‐friendly products. Data were collected by questionnaires distributed to convenience samples of 142 passers by on streets close to museums, parks, and other recreational facilities.FindingsThe cognitive, evaluative, and belief dimensions were interrelated and supposedly reflect positive attitudes and/or motivations towards sustainability. These “inclinations‐to‐act variables” were positively related to the appreciation of sustainability in daily purchases, vacation purchases, and tourism provider profiles. The importance of history and culture in relation to tourism purchases was also examined. Sustainability orientation in daily purchases also correlated to vacation purchases and appreciation of tourism providers with sustainability‐oriented profiles.Research limitations/implicationsThe study used a small convenience sample and did not measure actual purchasing behavior. Future research should explore the relation between the variables examined in this paper and actual purchasing behavior in a larger random sample of the general population.Originality/valuePrevious related research involved respondents on vacation travel or as non‐representative samples. This study demonstrates relationships between consumers' sustainable purchasing practices of tourist products or general goods and their related cognitions, evaluations, and beliefs when sampling from populations in general.
An evaluation of the synergic implementation of TQM and TPM paradigms on business performance
Authors: Kaur Mandeep , Singh Kanwarpreet , Singh Ahuja Inderpreet 
Published: November 2012

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the contributions of synergic implementation of total quality management (TQM) and total productive maintenance (TPM) paradigms towards improving business performance in the Indian manufacturing industry.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, a large number of manufacturing organisations have been extensively surveyed, to ascertain contributions made by TQM‐TPM paradigms in the Indian manufacturing organisations towards realizing business performance improvements. The correlations between various organisational initiatives towards TQM‐TPM implementation and business performance improvements have been evaluated and validated by employing various statistical tools.FindingsThe research focuses upon the significant contributions of TQM‐TPM organisational initiatives like quality related queries; top level support and level of total employee involvement; culture of continuous improvement; TQM and TPM core strategies; and transfusion of TQM and TPM, towards affecting improvements in business performance. The inter‐relationships between various TQM‐TPM organisational initiatives with the business performance improvement parameters have been evaluated, to efficiently manage the synergic TQM‐TPM paradigms to realize organisational objectives of growth and sustainability.Research limitations/implicationsThe study establishes that focused TQM‐TPM implementation over a reasonable time period can strategically contribute towards realization of significant manufacturing performance enhancements.Practical implicationsThe study stresses upon the need for improving the synergy between maintenance and quality functions in the organisations for meeting the challenges of highly competitive environments. The study highlights that significant achievements in manufacturing performance can be achieved through strategic synergic TQM‐TPM implementation over a considerable period of time.Social implicationsThe analysis of initiatives adopted by Indian entrepreneurs towards TQM‐TPM implementation has been presented in the study to demonstrate the commitment for quality and maintenance aspects of organisations to realize manufacturing excellence through TQM‐TPM paradigms.Originality/valueThe study highlights the strong potential of synergic TQM‐TPM implementation initiatives in affecting business performance improvements. The achievements of Indian manufacturing organisations through proactive TQM‐TPM initiatives have been evaluated and critical TPM success factors identified for enhancing the effectiveness of TQM‐TPM implementation programs in the Indian context.
Creating and maintaining Fair Trade
Authors: Le Mare Ann 
Published: November 2012

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the meanings and business practices of four Southern Fair Trade enterprises (SFTEs).Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on research with four SFTEs in Bangladesh, taking an ethnographic approach with qualitative methodologies such as semi‐structured interviews, recorded meetings, informal discussions, analysis of grey literature, and observation with managers, staff, field workers and artisans of the organisations.FindingsThe meanings of Fair Trade are located in personal, family, business and national understandings of fairness and development. Such meanings inform the business practices of the SFTEs, used to achieve both commercial success and social goals, confirming the role of SFTEs in creating and maintaining ideals of fairer trade.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a need for more research on Fair Trade from the perspective of SFTEs.Practical implicationsThe research draws attention to the key roles and business practices of the SFTE, increasing the understanding of what happens in the name of Fair Trade, and also provides lessons for other socially responsible enterprises.Social implicationsThe research highlights the importance of Southern meanings and practices, which should be included in the conceptualisation of Fair Trade, thus facilitating both informed debate and understanding the possibilities for the promotion and extension of fairer trade.Originality/valueThis research is unusual in concentrating on the central role played by the SFTE, particularly in the handicraft sector and with businesses rather than cooperatives. The business practices and decisions of SFTEs are often hidden in representations of Fair Trade.
QoS‐aware and autonomic‐oriented multi‐path TCP extensions for mobile and multimedia applications
Authors: Diop Codé , Dugué Guillaume , Chassot Christophe , Exposito Ernesto , Gomez Jorge 
Published: November 2012

PurposeThe goal of this paper is to provide contributions aimed at illustrating how the autonomic computing concept may be applied within a multi‐path transport protocol called multi‐path TCP (MPTCP) with the aim of providing as high as possible a quality of service (QoS) for mobile and multimedia applications.Design/methodology/approachThe paper's general vision is to define how to use the general IBM Autonomic framework for the design of a new and generic autonomous transport layer aimed at fitting as best as possible both QoS requirements and network constraints.FindingsSeveral QoS‐aware mechanisms are proposed and evaluated and an ontology‐based semantic model for the dynamic discovery of MPTCP mechanisms is also presented. This work was done within the A2NETS project funded by the ITEA 2 program, a strategic pan‐European program for advanced pre‐competitive research and development (R&D). A2NETS aims at developing a set of common services for M2M devices communicating within heterogeneous networks.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper is the study of the QoS benefits induced by the implementation of the “partial reliability” concept in MPTCP for interactive video applications based on the codec H.264. The second contribution of the paper is that it deals with the decision process that has to be enforced to provide such an adaptable MPTCP with self‐autonomic capabilities. Towards this goal, a semantic ontology‐based model has been proposed allowing to classify and to define clearly the semantic of the different QoS‐oriented mechanisms that have been proposed for MPTCP. This ontology is aimed at being used by the autonomic manager during the decision process step.
Towards mobile cloud applications
Authors: Flores Huber , Narayana Srirama Satish , Paniagua Carlos 
Published: November 2012

PurposeCloud computing becomes mobile when a mobile device tries to access the shared pool of computing resources provided by the cloud, on demand. Mobile applications may enrich their functionality by delegating heavy tasks to the clouds as the remote processing and storage have become possible by adding asynchronous behavior in the communication. However, developing mobile cloud applications involves working with services and APIs from different cloud vendors, which mostly are not interoperable across clouds. Moreover, by adding asynchronicity, mobile applications must rely on push mechanisms which are considered to be moderately reliable, and thus not recommended in scenarios that require high scalability and quality of service (QoS). To counter these problems, and the purpose of this paper, is to design a middleware framework, Mobile Cloud Middleware (MCM), which handles the interoperability issues and eases the use of process‐intensive services from smartphones by extending the concept of mobile host.Design/methodology/approachMCM is developed as an intermediary between the mobile and the cloud, which hides the complexity of dealing with multiple cloud services from mobiles. Several applications are presented to show the benefits of mobiles going cloud‐aware. Moreover, to verify the scalability of MCM, load tests are performed on the hybrid cloud resources using well known load balancing mechanisms like HAProxy and Tsung.FindingsFrom the study it was found that it is possible to handle hybrid cloud services from mobiles by using MCM. The analysis demonstrated that the MCM shows reasonable performance levels of interaction with the user, thus validating the proof of concept. Moreover, MCM decreases the effort in developing mobile cloud applications and helps in keeping soft‐real time responses by using its asynchronous approach.Originality/valueMCM fosters the utilization of different types of cloud services rather than the traditional mobile cloud services based on data synchronization. By offloading heavy tasks to the clouds, the framework extends the processing power and storage space capabilities of the constrained smart phones. The applications mentioned in the paper bring an added value by being success stories for mobile cloud computing domain in general.
Faceted navigation framework for XML data
Authors: Komamizu Takahiro , Amagasa Toshiyuki , Kitagawa Hiroyuki 
Published: November 2012

PurposeXML has become a standard data format for many applications and efficient retrieval methods are required. Typically, there are roughly two kinds of retrieval methods, namely path‐based method (e.g. XPath and XQuery) and keyword search, but these methods do not work when users do not have any concrete information need. To expand feasibility of XML data retrieval is an important task and this is the purpose of this paper.Design/methodology/approachThe paper's strategy is to apply faceted navigation for XML data. Faceted navigation is an exploratory search which enables the exploration of data making use of attributes, called facets. General faceted navigation methods are applied for attributed objects but XML data have no criteria because XML nodes are objects and facets. Thus, the paper's approach is to construct a framework to enable faceted navigation over XML data. It first extracts objects based on occurrence of nodes and facets. Then it constructs a faceted navigation interface for extracted objects and facets.FindingsThe framework achieves semi‐automatic construction of faceted navigation interface from an XML database. In the experiments, the show feasibility of the framework is shown by three faceted navigation interfaces using existing real XML data. On the other hand, the user study shows the retrieval method helps users to find required information.Originality/valueThere are only a few works which apply faceted navigation for XML data and these works are based on predefined objects and facets which need human effort. In contrast, this framework needs human decision making only when choosing objects and facets to be used in the faceted navigation interface.
Using Wikipedia for extracting hierarchy and building geo‐ontology
Authors: Ngo Quoc‐Hung , Doan Son , Winiwarter Werner 
Published: November 2012

PurposeThis paper aims to serves two main purposes: First, it seeks to provide an overview of the location hierarchy from the highest divisions (continents) to the lowest divisions (wards, villages) in reality and in the Wikipedia pages. Secondly, it aims to introduce an approach to building a geographical ontology from Wikipedia.Design/methodology/approachThe paper first reviews existing applications which extract information from Wikipedia and use it as a data resource to develop natural language processing tools. The paper also reviews the structure of Wikipedia pages which show the location's information. Based on the analysis, the paper then proposes an approach to extract location hierarchy as well as geographical characteristics for the geo‐ontology. The approach also rebuilds the relations between locations in the ontology.FindingsExisting location name systems are mainly based on probabilistic locations, which are mined from the data and they lack the administrative relations between locations for full levels and all countries and territories. The literature review in geographical hierarchy and using Wikipedia for natural language processing tasks offers an approach to build a geographical ontology from Wikipedia pages. The proposed approach is believed to be the first which provides a full geo‐ontology for all countries.Practical implicationsThe paper builds a geo‐ontology with full levels for all countries and territories. The administrative relations between locations are needed for real‐world applications.Originality/valueThe comprehensive overview on existing work on geo‐ontology provides a valuable reference for researchers and system developers in related research communities. The proposed approach to build a geographical ontology by using the Wikipedia offers a promising alternative to build a knowledge system from free online multi‐language encyclopedia.
Young consumers' views of infused soft drinks innovation
Authors: Yoon Kin Tong David , Fa Tong Xue , Yin Evon 
Published: November 2012

PurposeThis study has two aims: first, to develop a conceptual model for infused drinks innovation using the subjective norm and lifestyle as predictors; and second, to adapt the beverage science experimental variables and assess young consumers' experience of the taste, mood and health of infused drinks using the moderated mediation method.Design/methodology/approachUsing quota sampling, the data were collected from three faculties in a private university. The conceptual model was developed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The model was validated by the first‐ and second‐order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of SEM. The multi‐dimensional variables of the taste, mood and health of the infused drinks were computed by the moderated mediation process and the final mediation effects were confirmed using Aroian tests.FindingsThe subjective norm and lifestyle variables predict innovation in infused soft drinks. The results from the moderated mediation analyses indicate that both male and female young consumers prefer the innovation of drinks to suit local tastes and be produced locally; the drinks should also have health and well‐being benefits.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample size of 350 students was sufficient but the generalisability of the result was limited by the students being recruited from one university.Practical implicationsParents may influence their children to change their favourite drinks if they are expensive. For this reason, the pricing strategy is important to price‐sensitive consumers. Offering favourite infused drinks to friends is often part of the lifestyle in Malaysia. In practice, implied recommendation is possible. If this happens, there is the likelihood that it may be communicated through the social network. Marketers should use this platform for promoting new drinks. Beverage innovators should learn from the local popular infused drinks as the baseline for drinks innovation and should innovate to suit local tastes. In particular, beverage manufacturers should consider satisfying the market segmentations for flavour lovers and health seekers. Lastly, for effective soft drinks advertising, it is recommended that beverage marketers should use trendy components in promotions.Originality/valueThe study highlights the possibility of conducting social research by incorporating variables from experimental studies. By using this method, external validation is possible when the measures are applied in an uncontrived setting. In addition, it could provide a better assessment of consumers' needs for product innovation.