bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The effect of channel quality inconsistency on the association between e‐service quality and customer relationships
Authors: Liao Chien‐Hsiang , Rebecca Yen Hsiuju , Li Eldon Y. 
Published: August 2011

PurposeBased on prior studies, the performance of customer relationships depends highly on the characteristics of the e‐service. However, the strength of this association can be impacted when businesses employ multichannel services (e.g. offering online and offline services). With multichannel services, any inconsistency in perceived quality across channels may result in customer distrust toward a service provider. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of inconsistent quality on the association between e‐service quality and customer relationships in a university context.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducted a web survey and 318 respondents who have both physical and e‐service experiences were collected. The inconsistent quality across channels was divided into three groups by k‐means clustering approach. Next, the hypothesized associations were analyzed using regression analysis based on three groups.FindingsThe results show that inconsistent quality has different impacts on the association between e‐service quality and customer relationships across the three groups. Especially in the positive disconfirmation group, the investment in e‐services will be in vain because certain e‐service sub‐constructs lose their impact on customer relationships.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study provide implications for improving customer relationships under different cross‐channel quality inconsistency conditions for managers.Originality/valueThis study extends the concept of expectancy disconfirmation theory to the multichannel service context and pioneers the exploration of the moderating effect of cross‐channel quality inconsistency in customer relationships, contributing to the understanding of the literature about the impacts of inconsistent quality on customer relationships.
Understanding customers' satisfaction and repurchase intentions
Authors: Fang Yu‐Hui , Chiu Chao‐Min , Wang Eric T.G. 
Published: August 2011

PurposeThe aim of this study is to extend DeLone and McLean's IS success model by introducing justice – fair treatments received from the exchanging party – and trust into a theoretical model for studying customers' repurchase intentions in the context of online shopping.Design/methodology/approachThe research model was tested with data from 219 of PCHome's online shopping customers using a web survey. PLS (partial least squares) was used to analyze the measurement and structural models.FindingsData collected from 219 valid respondents provided support for all but one hypotheses (with a p‐value of less than 0.05). The unsupported hypothesis regards the relationship between service quality and satisfaction (H4). The study shows that trust, net benefits, and satisfaction are significant positive predictors of customers' repurchase intentions toward online shopping. Information quality, system quality, trust, and net benefits, are significant determinants of customer satisfaction. Besides, online trust is built through distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. Overall, the research model accounted for 79 percent of the variance of repurchase intention.Originality/valueAn endeavor to extend the updated IS success model in terms of the peculiar nature of e‐commerce is needed. The study complements the updated IS success model with justice trust perspectives, considering them a more comprehensive measure of online shopping satisfaction and repurchase intention in an e‐commerce context.
Museums and the future of education
Authors: Kratz Scott , Merritt Elizabeth 
Published: August 2011

PurposeThe US educational system is on the cusp of transformational change. Signals that the current educational structure has been destabilized include rising dissatisfaction with the formal educational system and the proliferation of non‐traditional forms of primary education. In the coming era, museums will play a key role in the new educational landscape. A broad and shared understanding among policy makers, reformers and practitioners of the unique capabilities of museums will ensure that the new educational infrastructure takes full advantage of these strengths. This paper seeks to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachThis paper provides an overview of educational innovation in a broad cross section of US museums, citing selected examples.FindingsThere is an emerging consensus that whatever the new educational era looks like, it will focus on the development of a core set of skills. This paper reviews some ways in which museums are helping learners develop the core skills of critical thinking, synthesizing information, ability to innovate and think creatively, and collaboration. The USA needs to scale up the educational resources and skills provided by its museums via online access, better indexing of online resources, physically incorporating museums into schools and schools into museums, and making museums central points for teacher training. This will ensure museums can provide equitable access to their unique resources and fulfill their potential in the new educational landscape.Originality/valueBy applying the techniques of forecasting to the field of education, this paper provides glimpses of potential futures as seen in the vibrant innovations in education currently taking place outside traditional schools.
A time‐based blended learning model
Authors: Norberg Anders , Dziuban Charles D. , Moskal Patsy D. 
Published: August 2011

PurposeThis paper seeks to outline a time‐based strategy for blended learning that illustrates course design and delivery by framing students' learning opportunities in synchronous and asynchronous modalities.Design/methodology/approachThis paper deconstructs the evolving components of blended learning in order to identify changes induced by digital technologies for enhancing teaching and learning environments.FindingsThis paper hypothesizes that blended learning may be traced back to early medieval times when printed material provided the first asynchronous learning opportunities. However, the digitalization of contemporary learning environments results in a de‐emphasis on teaching and learning spaces. When time becomes the primary organizing construct for education in a technology‐supported environment, blending possibilities emerge around five components: migration, support, location, learner empowerment, and flow.Research limitations/implicationsThis study enables the readers to conceptualize blended learning as a combination of modern media, communication modes, times and places in a new kind of learning synthesis in place of traditional classrooms and technology with the teacher serving as a facilitator of a collective learning process.Practical implicationsThe major implication of this paper is that modern learning technologies have freed students and educators from the lock in of classroom space as being the primary component of blended learning, thereby emphasizing learning rather than teaching in the planning process.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a new model of blended learning in which physical teaching environments give way to time. Time and synchronicity become the primary elements of the learning environments. In addition, the authors suggest that the time‐based model as an educational “new normal” results in technologies as enablers rather than disruptors of learning continuity.
Inter‐institutional collaboration for new integrative teaching programs
Authors: Dörner Nadin , Morhart Felicitas , Gassmann Oliver , Tomczak Torsten 
Published: August 2011

PurposeThis paper presents an inter‐institutional collaboration project. The project's goal was to develop a new teaching program that fosters pre‐university innovation and entrepreneurship education. The purpose of this paper is to derive implications for future inter‐institutional collaborations.Design/methodology/approachThe development and testing of the new teaching program corresponds to the design science paradigm.FindingsThe findings illustrate that inter‐institutional collaboration can generate completely new approaches that are able to deal with new challenges in education.Research limitations/implicationsThis research focuses only on one specific inter‐institutional collaboration project. The findings are limited to this project.Practical implicationsThe paper discusses implications for future educational collaboration projects to develop new teaching programs.Originality/valueThe paper presents a collaboration project between university, school and industry. It illustrates that new teaching approaches can be successfully realised in collaboration. The paper also reports the applicability of a new, namely transformational, teaching approach.
Ask, don't tell: can it work for K‐12?
Authors: Becker Stacy 
Published: August 2011

PurposeThis purpose of this paper is to review Marc Prensky's book Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning.Design/methodology/approachPrensky's book takes aim at classroom practices, arguing that there are more effective ways for students to acquire knowledge and skills. Specifically, teachers should move from “tell and explain” pedagogical techniques to those that “ask and challenge”. This paper considers Prensky's approach in light of today's K‐12 educational system, what K‐12 education needs to deliver for the future, and relevant research findings.FindingsOur education system faces two unprecedented challenges: all children must be educated, without exception; and for a future that is unknowable. Marc Prensky provides a simple answer to both: if education can't provide students the answers for negotiating the future, it must provide them the skills to figure it out for themselves. Prensky's advice for teachers is consistent with recent research about the importance of student engagement to learning. The practicality of his prescriptions is questioned, however, especially given the constructs of our educational system and No Child Left Behind.Originality/valueWhile Prensky's book was written primarily for an audience of K‐12 teachers, this paper will be of greatest interest to K‐12 administrators and reformers. The paper suggests that, while Prensky's approach may be valid, it is unrealistic to expect a wholesale change among teaching practices if the structure of school itself does not change to enable and support those new teaching practices.
Has post‐secondary education reached a tipping point?
Authors: Abeles Tom P. 
Published: August 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is as follows: this is a short excursion into the changing world of post‐secondary education through a review of two books: Reinventing Higher Education: The Promise of Innovation, by Ben Wildavsky, Andrew P Kelly and Kevin Carey; and DIY U, by Aya Kamenetz.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents reviews of two recently published books.FindingsThe economics and functions of post secondary education at the baccalaureate and post‐baccalaureate (research) levels are changing in a world where knowledge flows freely across geo‐political boundaries. The Ivory Tower no longer commands from a fixed location or as the center of knowledge, both the historic and the new.Originality/valueIndividuals as well as public and private sector entities have multiple sources for knowledge and new abilities of sharing and obtaining knowledge. “The Academy” as created in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as an independent home for scholarly endeavors has changed as new demands are placed upon the institutions and the faculty.
On the illusion of organizational commitment among finance professionals
Authors: Furtmueller Elfi , van Dick Rolf , Wilderom Celeste P.M. 
Published: August 2011

PurposeThis paper seeks to question and discuss the relevance of organizational, customer and professional commitment for effectively managing financial service firms. In particular, it aims to study differences between employed and self‐employed finance professionals.Design/methodology approachThe authors conducted in‐depth interviews with professionals in 30 finance firms in Austria. The interviews aimed to reveal professionals' notions of commitment as it pertains to each interviewee's specific work context, whether self‐employed or employed.FindingsAlthough the financial services sector requires professionals to routinely display both high customer and professional commitment, it appears that organizational commitment is unrelated to performance. While employed finance professionals experience conflicts between organizational and customer commitment (e.g. selling in‐house products that may not perfectly match customers' needs), self‐employed professionals tend to clash between customers' best interests and their own self‐interest (e.g. selling products and services for which they receive the highest commission). All professionals noted that they work in a competitive environment with a focus on individual sales. Individual performance ratings were found to prevent the development of strong branch or team commitment.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough qualitative methods are a starting‐point for identifying serious issues, quantitative studies across larger samples are needed to evaluate the scope of the findings.Practical implicationsThe findings imply that financial services may not benefit much from HRM efforts that strive to obtain firm‐wide or organizational commitment. In large financial service firms the routine turnover of good professionals can be curbed if management starts to pay attention to creating flexible work arrangements, and enabling professionals to commit to customers and their profession.Originality/valueWhile prior research suggests fostering the organizational commitment of employees, this study finds the concept of organization‐wide commitment to be of less importance for managing finance firms. This lack of importance of organizational commitment was found to be independent of finance professionals' contractual status (employed or self‐employed); whereas customer and professional commitment were associated with high performance motivation.
Production control of unreliable manufacturing systems producing defective items
Authors: Mhada F. , Hajji A. , Malhamé R. , Gharbi A. , Pellerin R. 
Published: August 2011

PurposeThis paper seeks to address the production control problem of a failure‐prone manufacturing system producing a random fraction of defective items.Design/methodology/approachA fluid model with perfectly mixed good and defective parts has been proposed. This approach combines the descriptive capacities of continuous/discrete event simulation models with analytical models, experimental design, and regression analysis. The main objective of the paper is to extend the Bielecki and Kumar theory, appearing under the title “Optimality of zero‐inventory policies for unreliable manufacturing systems”, under which the machine considered produced only good quality items, to the case where the items produced are systematically a mixture of good as well as defective items.FindingsThe paper first shows that for constant demand rates and exponential failure and repair time distributions of the machine, the Bielecki‐Kumar theory, adequately revisited, provides new and coherent results. For the more complex situation where the machine exhibits non‐exponential failure and repair time distributions, a simulation‐based approach is then considered. The usefulness of the proposed models is illustrated through numerical examples and sensitivity analysis.Originality/valueAlthough the decisions taken in response to demands for productivity have a direct impact on product quality, management quality and production management have been traditionally treated as independent research fields. In response to this need, this paper is considered as a preliminary work in the intersection between quality control and production control issues.
Simulation‐based approach to joint production and preventive maintenance scheduling on a failure‐prone machine
Authors: Benmansour Rachid , Allaoui Hamid , Artiba Abdelhakim , Iassinovski Serguei , Pellerin Robert 
Published: August 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to propose and model an integrated production‐maintenance strategy for a failure‐prone machine in a just‐in‐time context.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed integrated policy is defined and a simulation model is developed to investigate it.FindingsThe paper focuses on finding simultaneously two decision variables: the period (T) at which preventive maintenance actions have to be performed; and the sequence of jobs (S). These values minimize the maintenance costs (MC) and the expected total earliness and tardiness costs (ETC) away from a common due‐date D.Practical implicationsThe paper attempts to integrate in a single model the two main aspects of any manufacturing and production systems: production and maintenance. It focuses on a stochastic scheduling problem in which n immediately available jobs are to be scheduled jointly with the preventive maintenance. The effect of the period (T) and the sequence of job (S) on the expected total cost are shown through a numerical example.Originality/valueThe paper proposes an integrated model that links production, preventive maintenance and corrective maintenance. It is simultaneously focusing on the period (T) at which preventive maintenance actions have to be performed and the sequence of jobs (S) to reduce production and maintenance‐related costs.
On coordinating maintenance, production and subcontracting: insights from simulation models
Authors: Cormier Gilles , Rezg Nidhal 
Published: August 2011

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to gain some insights into the number of shortages resulting from two alternative demand allocation schemes between a contractor (machine M1) and subcontractor (machine M2), on the one hand, and from inventory accumulation, on the other hand. The shortages stem from random machine breakdowns, and each machine undergoes preventive maintenance. The motivation behind inventory accumulation is to allow demand to be fulfilled even when both machines are down.Design/methodology/approachThe number of shortages stemming from all scenarios under consideration was established via computer simulation with the Arena© language.FindingsFor demand allocation that remains unchanged for the duration of the planning horizon and constant reliability of M1, it was found that, the less reliable M2 is, the more biased in favour of M1 will be the optimal demand allocation and the greater will be the number of shortages. Moreover, both dynamic demand reallocation over the planning horizon and inventory accumulation result in a substantial reduction in shortages.Research limitations/implicationsThe results are representative of the specific data, which were assumed in the simulation models. Nevertheless, this methodology is recommended for this type of analysis, as it is highly flexible and can take into account many practical considerations, which an analytical approach cannot.Practical implicationsWithin the context of unreliable production machines, the most important practical implication of this study is that the dynamic reallocation of demand between a contractor and subcontractor, along with inventory accumulation, both have the potential to yield important reductions in the number of shortages.Originality/valueThe subject‐matter of this paper was not previously reported in the literature. Furthermore, the insights gained as a result of this study can yield substantial benefits to companies in terms of improving their service levels as measured by reduced shortages.
Maintenance/production planning with interactive feedback of product quality
Authors: Njike Achille N. , Pellerin Robert , Pierre Kenne Jean 
Published: August 2011

PurposeThis paper seeks to develop an optimal stochastic control model where interactive feedback consists of the quantity of flawless and defective products. The main objective of this study is to minimize the expected discounted overall cost due to maintenance activities, inventory holding and backlogs.Design/methodology/approachThe model differs from similar research projects in that, instead of age‐dependent machine failure, it considers only defective products as feedback into the optimal model for maintenance and production planning. In this paper a near optimal control policy of the system through numerical techniques is obtained.FindingsIn this paper, a new model in which the system's retroaction is the quantity of defective products is presented, considering that defective products are a consequence of global manufacturing system deterioration. Instead of taking into account machine failure and human error separately, it considers a defect in product as being the consequence of a combined failure; this consideration allows one to be more realistic by merging all failure parameters into a single one. A new stochastic control model, which focuses on defective products, inventory, and backlog, has been developed.Research limitations/implicationsThis approach extended the concept of hedging point policy to the quantity of defective products combined with preventive and corrective maintenance strategies. The control policy obtained has a bang bang structure and is completely known for given parameters.Originality/valueThe integration of maintenance and production strategies has been mainly focused on the machine. Many research projects have been focusing on the age when dealing with machine failure. It is considered as the main target of the cost reduction in maintenance engineering departments. The originality of this paper is the taking into account of all operational failures into the same optimization model. It brings a value added to high level of maintenance and for operation managers who need to consider all failure parameters before taking decisions related to cost.
Radical innovation from relations‐based knowledge: empirical evidence in Spanish technology‐intensive firms
Authors: Delgado‐Verde Miriam , Emilio Navas‐López José , Cruz‐González Jorge , Amores‐Salvadó Javier 
Published: August 2011

PurposeThe present paper seeks to provide a new insight into intellectual capital classification by theoretically and empirically differentiating relations‐based knowledge into social capital and relational capital. Additionally, taking into account the key role played by radical innovation to compete in the context defined by the “knowledge‐based economy”, the aim is to empirically investigate the possible effect of both relations‐based intellectual capital components on the development of this kind of innovation by firms.Design/methodology/approachData were obtained from a questionnaire responded to by 251 Spanish high and medium‐high tech firms. Based on their answers, exploratory factor analysis and regression analysis are carried out.FindingsAs theoretically proposed, relations‐based intellectual capital can be separated into social and relational capital, with social capital as the main component. Both elements have a significantly positive influence on radical innovation developed by firms in the sample, although those relationships maintained with external agents seem to have a higher impact.Originality/valueThe research contributes to the intellectual capital field by integrating the arguments provided by social capital literature and empirically separating relations‐based knowledge into two differentiated components. The paper also contributes to the knowledge management field by highlighting the important role played by knowledge emerging from relationships around the firm (both internal and external) in the development of radical innovation, whose antecedents have received little attention in the literature.