Aim: The objective of the study was to create knowledge on how supply chain management (SCM) can generate and impact satisfaction related to dealer - original equipment manufacturer (OEM) relationships. In this context, the after-sales market was investigated since it became the cash cow of the automotive industry after the financial crisis in 2008. The aims were to design comprehension of: Impact/importance of satisfaction Interrelations of SCM/relationship elements Recommendations for SCM strategies Method: The qualitative research focused on dealers and experts, who were questioned via structured interviews. Thereby relational content analysis was used to detect and categorize 15 codes, condensing the findings in a context model. Result & Conclusions: The research identified commitment, trust and communication to be substantial important within relationships. The OEM has to ensure a sustainable, transparent, adaptive and open relationship while guaranteeing satisfying experiences. The outcome is a “Relationship-Satisfaction Model”, where each element is placed in different importance groups, including adjustment recommendations. As a supporting concept for strategy adaptation, the “4S” model of SCM was deduced. Suggestions for future research: The limitations are related to the examination of a single industry sector and the derivation of theory from dealer experiences in one culture solely. Here diversification of the generated model will support and extend the findings. Contribution of the thesis: The model suggests different focus areas of SCM to improve future-orientated strategies for OEM’s. This conception can create competitive advantage in SCM, while contributing innovative knowledge to the current theories on satisfaction within dealer-OEM relationships.

This thesis argues that established models of student satisfaction in higher education fail to take into account the contribution that students make towards their own learning and satisfaction and postulates a holistic model of student satisfaction. This thesis also highlights that student satisfaction is a slow and incremental process spread over several semesters and thus can more appropriately be understood longitudinally. Based on the conceptual framework, a theoretical model is presented and empirically explored using two datasets: a cross-sectional dataset comprised of 147 students and a longitudinal dataset comprised of 66 students. Both datasets were collected from students at Oxford Brookes University. The longitudinal data is collected for 2 years (4 semesters). A theoretical model is presented and tested for empirical support using structural equation modelling (SEM) for the cross-sectional dataset while SEM growth curve modelling is employed to analyse the longitudinal dataset. The results provide overwhelming support for the proposed theoretical model and confirm that student satisfaction is indeed a multi-faceted concept and cannot be understood solely on aspects of student learning experiences like many established models. It can more appropriately be understood using other concepts that signify the contribution of students in their own learning and satisfaction such as student engagement and student participation. The results also point out the significance of understanding student satisfaction longitudinally and give an insight into students’ growth trajectories as well as their perceptions about student satisfaction at different times during their course.

This thesis aims to find out the job satisfaction level in large and small enterprises by founding on Locke&rsquo / s model and to compare job satisfaction levels. Although, Locke&rsquo / s job satisfaction model includes many dimensions, it is lack of some variables, which are very important for sociology. In order to fill this gap, demographical information and status in the work place have ben added within variables. Consequently, job satisfaction levels of workers who work in large and small size enterprises in different status (white collar, blue collar) and who comes from different demographical structures have been determined / additionally, their expectations from work and their point of views about the work have been tried to understand. In order to reach these findings, a field research, which took approximately 10 months, has been conducted in a large and a small enterprise. Field research has been conducted by applying questionnaire for 64 questions to 85 people. However, some of important information about the work place has been found as consequence of depth interviews done with respondents. While social rights in large enterprises and image of the enterprise effect the job satisfaction positively, in small enterprises social environment and behavior to the workers are important. To get homogeneous answers are easy in large enterprises / because, changes like promotion, increase of salaries are done within a system and formal / which is permanent is not people but the works. However, answers and results are heterogeneous in small enterprises because works are done within informal relations by attaching to people. Whatever the size of the enterprise, as qualifications of the work and educational level increase, as expectations increase and to get satisfaction from the work becomes difficult. On the other hand, most difficult part of conducting this research in Turkey is that workers pay attention to the workplaces where they can get their total salary at right time and where they feel secure, instead of job satisfaction and most of time they think that get satisfaction from work is luxury. Field research was not only of help to this research, but also provide workers who participated to the research to think about their job satisfactions.

Background: The strong growth of e-commerce and the connected last mile delivery problems as well as the increasing customer demands have driven forward delivery innovations in the past years. One of them, parcel locker networks, were developed and have been growing for several years. However, customers still seem to prefer the traditional home delivery, which is highly inefficient for last mile delivery actors. Thereby, it has to be evaluated whether customers are satisfied with the parcel locker technology and which factors determine the satisfaction.  Purpose: This study aims at evaluating the factors influencing customer satisfaction in regard to parcel lockers. Therefore, relevant constructs about satisfaction and acceptance models in the last mile context were derived from the literature. Method: In order to accomplish our purpose, a quantitative study was conducted using a questionnaire among end customers in Austria and Germany. The proposed framework and hypotheses were analysed by using structural equation modelling. Furthermore, a multigroup analysis was conducted to identify differences between sociodemographic categories.  Conclusion: The results show that perceived ease of use, perceived quality and convenience perception all have an influence on customer satisfaction in Germany and Austria. However, the direct influence of perceived ease of use and convenience perception cannot be confirmed, both constructs are entirely mediated by perceived quality. Furthermore, the multigroup analysis determined significant differences in the gender category for the path between perceived ease of use and convenience perception, in the living area category for the relationship between convenience perception and perceived quality and in the age category for perceived quality and customer satisfaction.

Submitted by Hugo de Andrade Lucatelli (h.lucatelli@hotmail.com) on 2017-06-10T00:54:14Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Hugo Lucatelli.pdf: 1969280 bytes, checksum: 7eca95ab0a82921b3b59ee3d58c073e0 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzinei Teles Garcia Garcia (suzinei.garcia@fgv.br) on 2017-06-12T12:08:05Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Hugo Lucatelli.pdf: 1969280 bytes, checksum: 7eca95ab0a82921b3b59ee3d58c073e0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-12T13:04:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Hugo Lucatelli.pdf: 1969280 bytes, checksum: 7eca95ab0a82921b3b59ee3d58c073e0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-05-23 / Paper I – The paper shows that in bundle markets, when a monopolist faces sizeable constraints on supply capacity, implementing a two-part tariff is the optimal strategy for the firm. This contractual design allows the firm setting the consumers’ consumption level at the firm’s desired point. In this scenario, it is expected the final tariff of the contract to be smaller than it would be in a fixed tariff contract, what lead to the entrance of more consumers in the market. This equilibrium improves the welfare of producers and consumers. Paper II – The aim of this work is to study the optimal pricing strategy of a firm that introduces a new product and competes by quality and price in a market. In this environment, prices are not only able to signal quality, but can also change the quality perceived by the consumers. This work analyzes the problem in a theoretical dimension in an environment where firms are aware of their ability to change the consumers experience with its pricing policy. The paper analyzes the model fit to the empirical literature. Paper III – The third essay of this thesis empirically analyzes the relationship between perceived quality and the elements which form the consumers’ satisfaction: prices, market competition and product/service intrinsic quality. Using Brazilian data on mobile telecommunications, this study estimated these relationships. We found a robust connection between prices and satisfaction, endorsing the results found to others markets by the literature. As was expected, competition also seems to promote better services supply, what translates into better consumers’ evaluations. Finally, services with better operational quality appear to have substantial better consumers' rating. These results are especially important for markets where consumers evaluate the whole experience of consuming the service, as we verified in the robustness test. The analysis also found some evidence of the existence of important infrastructure bottlenecks in the sector. In an environment where the telecommunication services tend to converge, with high probability of demand growth, network sizing problems could become relevant. / Ensaio I – O ensaio mostra que em mercados de pacotes, quando um monopolista enfrenta significativas restrições de capacidade de oferta, implementar contratos compostos por tarifas de duas partes é a estratégia ótima para a firma. Este desenho contratual permite a firma posicionar o nível de consumo dos consumidores no nível ótimo desejado. Neste cenário, espera-se que a tarifa final do contrato seja inferior à tarifa exercida em um contrato composto por uma tarifa fixa, o que implica na entrada de mais consumidores no mercado. Este equilíbrio melhora o bem-estar da firma e dos consumidores, de forma agregada. À luz do modelo apresentado, o trabalho discute o uso de franquias de consumo em contratos de provisão de internet fixa no Brasil. Ensaio II – O ensaio tem como objetivo estudar a estratégia ótima de preços de uma firma que introduz um produto novo em determinado mercado consumidor e compete em preços e qualidade em um ambiente onde os preços, não apenas sinalizam a qualidade do bem, mas também têm a possibilidade de alterar a percepção sensorial e a classificação de qualidade dos consumidores. Busca-se avaliar o problema em sua dimensão teórica, ao estudar o comportamento das firmas em um ambiente em que são conscientes quanto a sua capacidade de alterar a experiência dos consumidores e a sua reputação de mercado com a sua política de preços. O artigo avalia o ajuste do modelo a literatura empírica. Ensaio III – O terceiro ensaio da tese estuda, empiricamente, a relação entre qualidade percebida e os elementos formadores da satisfação do consumidor: preços, competição de mercado e qualidade intrínseca do produto ou serviço. Utilizando dados do mercado de telefonia móvel do Brasil, o trabalho estimou estas relações. Encontramos uma robusta associação entre preços e satisfação, em linha com os resultados estabelecidos pela literatura para outros mercados. Competição, como esperado, também parece promover a oferta de melhores serviços, o que se traduz em melhores avaliações dos consumidores. Por fim, serviços ofertados com melhor qualidade operacional apresentam sensíveis melhores notas dos usuários. Estes resultados são especialmente importantes em um mercado onde os consumidores avaliam toda a experiência de consumo com o serviço, conforme foi verificado no exercício de robustez deste artigo. O trabalho também encontrou evidências de que existem gargalos de infraestrutura importantes no setor. Em um ambiente onde há tendência de convergência de serviços de telecomunicações, com indicativo de crescente demanda, problemas de dimensionamento de rede podem se tornar relevantes.

Job satisfaction is one of the key antecedents to organizational performance, growth and survival. The attitude employees have towards their work significantly affects employees and organizational performance. The main objective of this study was to develop a job satisfaction model for organizational performance in armed conflict societies. The study examined how the effects of armed conflicts affect job satisfaction among workers working in armed conflict societies. A concurrent triangulation mixed approach, that is a mixture of qualitative and quantitative was employed to establish the relationship between the effects of armed conflicts and job satisfaction. The study population comprised 13 organisations drawn from Tete province. Quantitative data was collected using questionnaires from 200 respondents while qualitative data was gathered from 20 participants using an interview schedule. The Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) and thematic data analysis methods were used to analyse quantitative and qualitative data respectively. The hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analysis, correlational analysis and the t-tests. The study showed that there is a strong correlation between the effects of armed conflict and job satisfaction. The intensity of the war determines the level of job satisfaction among workers working for organisations in armed conflict societies. The study established that job satisfaction in armed conflict societies is also influenced by the destruction of the economic infrastructure, destruction of interpersonal relationships, intercommunity violence, political interference, killings and torture of civilians, deterioration of health and education systems, economic depression and displacement of people. The study further found out that job satisfaction in armed conflict societies negatively affects key organizational performance antecedents such as rate of absenteeism, labour turnover, employee loyalty and commitment, psychological status of employees and health of employees. Job satisfaction in armed conflict societies directly and indirectly affects organizational performance, profitability, value of shares, market share and organizational growth. To minimize the consequences of low job satisfaction on organizational performance, organizations should put in place measures that propel job satisfaction such as providing counselling services, social services and financial and non-financial support. The study concluded that job satisfaction can be increased by any or all of the following strategies:1) flexible work organisation and establishing an effective team, 2) provision of secure staff offices and residences, 3) compensating employees for war related injuries and deaths, 4) provision of better social services, 5) provision of leisure, recreational activities and infrastructure, and 6) provision of counselling platforms. The study contributed to the body of knowledge by developing a job satisfaction model for organizational performance in armed conflict societies. Furthermore, contrary to other researchers whose studies concentrated on job related factors of job satisfaction, this study focused on how the effects of armed conflict influence job satisfaction. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / D. B. L.