Service Spotlights

Pareto Improving Supply Chain Coordination Under a Money-Back Guarantee Service Program (p. 91)

The money-back guarantee is a well-established and important service offered by many retail companies. In this paper, motivated by the popularity of money-back guarantee services and the importance of supply chain coordination, the authors carry out an analytical study to examine whether several commonly seen supply contracts, such as the pure wholesale pricing contract and the buyback contract, can achieve Pareto-improving coordination in a supply chain with the retailer offering the money-back guarantee service. They consider the scenario where the retailer makes two decisions, namely the stocking quantity and the market coverage for the money-back guarantee service, and find that the pure wholesale pricing contract and the buyback contract both cannot achieve Pareto-improving supply chain coordination. To overcome this challenge, the authors propose the dual-buyback contract and illustrate how it can be used to successfully achieve Pareto-improving supply chain coordination. In addition, they find that properly applying the dual-buyback contract would yield an expansion of market coverage of the money-back guarantee service program.

Customer Satisfaction as Mediator Between Website Service Quality and Repurchase Intention: An Emerging Economy Case (p. 106)

What are the important dimensions of website service quality which lead to repurchase intention in online shopping? These issues are addressed in this paper through empirical analysis of the important dimensions of website service quality. The present study focuses on understanding assessment of website service quality on repurchase intention through customer satisfaction as a mediating variable. The study validates and provides new insights for cash-on-delivery payment and its relation to repurchase intention in online shopping. The results suggest that website quality can be conceptualized as a composite of navigation, ease of understanding, information usefulness, website design, ease of use, security and privacy, ease of ordering, and customization. Website service quality can affect repurchase intention by enhancing mediators such as customer satisfaction. The insight for management is as follows: understanding the specific factors affecting website quality is crucial for online retailers in India and emerging countries to gain high customer acceptance, but online retailers should also focus on customer satisfaction rather than merely on website service quality.

The Impact of a Discharge Holding Area on the Throughput of a Pediatric Unit (p. 121)

Pediatric patients who are medically ready to be discharged from the hospital often remain in their beds for some time because no parent or guardian is available to pick them up, and as minors, they cannot be released from the hospital on their own. What would be the impact on patient throughput if discharge-ready pediatric patients were sent to a discharge holding area where they could safely wait until being picked up? The authors examine this proposal based on data from a highly utilized quaternary inpatient pediatric hospital in Northern California. They find that, by freeing up inpatient beds sooner than under current procedures, a discharge holding area could allow the hospital to serve many more pediatric patients per year. Their analysis shows that revenue from treating these additional patients should easily outweigh the costs of operating the discharge holding area. The insight for hospital management is as follows: implementing a discharge holding area is not only a safe and effective way to treat more pediatric patients, it is also likely to raise net revenue for a single pediatric unit by hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

An Integrated Framework to Understand How Consumer-Perceived Ethicality Influences Consumer Hotel Brand Loyalty (p. 136)

An ethical brand is one that does not harm the public good, but rather contributes to the development of public goods and includes certain elements such as integrity, honesty, responsibility, respect, and accountability. In this paper the authors present a study that aims to examine the influence of consumer perceived ethicality of hotel brand on customer brand loyalty through customer identification with the brand, considering the mediating role of affective commitment and trust. Positive evaluation of a hotel brand results from determining customer long-term relationship with the brand (brand loyalty). Findings highlight the need to better understand the emotional aspects of brand experience, which may have an impact on customer affective attachment toward the brand. Customers with a high level of affective commitment toward a hotel brand are more likely to prefer that brand over others and are also more likely to promote it to their friends.

Service Technology: Definition and Characteristics Based on a Patent Database (p. 147)

Technological developments have played a central role in the rise of service innovation. However, the concept of “a service technology” has not been consistently defined and systematically investigated using a large set of databases. Analyzing patents, the authors found six different types of service technologies—equipment supporting technology, machinery technology, building technology, fluid technology, data processing technology, and communication technology—and examined both their general characteristics and their industry-specific characteristics. From the patent data, the concentration of service technologies is relatively high in finance, health, and professional industries, and relatively low in the hospitality industry. In general, the technological generality of service technologies is high especially in equipment-supporting, machinery, and fluid technologies. Finally, many service technologies, such as equipment, machinery, and fluid technologies, come from the manufacturing industries. The insight for management is as follows: service technologies show different characteristics in terms of technology concentration and technology generality, which needs to be considered in industry practice where technology plays a key role in shaping and restructuring industry innovations.

Why Can Some Service Employees Provide Service of a Consistently High Quality While Others Cannot? (p. 167)

Variation in service quality results in service failure and subsequent customer defection, and thus knowing how to manage such variation is critical to service managers. However, little is known about why, and at which workplaces, some service employees can provide service of a consistently high quality but others cannot. This study addresses this issue using the perspective of signal detection theory. Multiple-source and matched data from 160 nurses and 480 patients was used for the analysis. The authors found that job tenure was negatively related to variation in all dimensions of service quality. Moreover, control over practice interacts with job tenure and expertise to influence service variation and the average level of all dimensions of service quality. The findings provide insights for managers who want to ensure a consistently high level of service quality. For example, managers should appreciate employees having a high level of job tenure because they can provide a consistently high quality of service. Moreover, employees having a high level of expertise can provide consistent high-quality service when they have strong control over practice. Managers should evaluate their employees’ tenure, expertise, and control over practice to optimize their service quality consistency.