Li, Tsz Wai Gloria. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 34-40). / Abstracts in English and Chinese; appendix in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / 摘要 --- p.iii / Table of Content --- p.V / Lists of figures --- p.vii / Lists of tables --- p.viii / Chapter CHAPTER 1. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Background of Work Engagement --- p.2 / Work Engagement and JD-R Model --- p.2 / Personal Resources and JD-R Model --- p.4 / Buffering Effects of Job and Personal Resources --- p.6 / Work Engagement and Employee Performance --- p.7 / Chapter CHAPTER 2. --- METHOD --- p.10 / Sample and Procedure --- p.10 / Instruments --- p.11 / Analysis Strategies --- p.13 / Chapter CHAPTER 3. --- RESULTS --- p.15 / Descriptive Analyses --- p.15 / Confirmatory Factor Analyses --- p.17 / Hypotheses Testing --- p.17 / Chapter CHAPTER 4. --- DISCUSSION --- p.23 / Main Effects of Job Demands and Job Resources --- p.23 / Job Demands as Eustress --- p.24 / Resources as Enhancers --- p.26 / Linking Antecedents to Job Performance: The Role of Work Engagement --- p.27 / Chapter CHAPTER 5. --- PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS --- p.30 / Chapter CHAPTER 6. --- LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH --- p.32 / References --- p.34 / Appendix --- p.41

Call Centres employ frontline staff commonly known as service consultants who interact with customers within the service oganisation.In order for organizations to ensure that they derive satisfaction from interactions with frontline employees as part of their main objectives, they make use of a human resource practice widely known as performance appraisals or assessments in order to determine if employees’ performance during their interactions with customers produce organization’s desired outcomes i.e. satisfied customers. Organizations use performance appraisals for multiple purposes chiefly amongst them being developmental and administrative. This study sought to investigate perceptions held by employees towards the purposes or objectives of the system employed in their organization to assess their service interactions with customers, their perceptions of fairness of the system, and how such fairness relates to their satisfaction with the assessment outcomes. A survey approach was used to collect data and the instrument used was a self-administered questionnaire. There were 410 questionnaires distributed via email to employees working within service assurance call centres situated in Bloemfontein, Cape Town and Gauteng. A total of 117 questionnaires were returned by the respondents. Data collected was managed and analysed using the SPSS program. The findings of the study indicated that employees perceive the uses of assessing their service interactions with customers as both developmental and administrative, perceive fair outcomes and procedures used in determining the outcomes, they are satisfied with assessment outcomes, view the system used to assess their interactions as effective and trustworthy. The fairness of outcomes and procedural fairness variables were found to be strongly and positively related to satisfaction with assessment outcomes. Both fairness variables were found to have a unique contribution towards the prediction of the satisfaction with assessment outcomes variable. The main recommendation of the study is that management need to consider increasing fairness in the decisions involving employees’ performance as it has been found that such increase results in a positive increase on the employees’ satisfaction with outcomes generated from the assessment or evaluation of their service interactions with customers. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2010.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1991.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Yale University, 1989.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Economics))-University of Pretoria, 2005. / Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

This study has a twofold purpose. The first is to demonstrate the state of the art of corporate planning and forecasting activity, and the second is to determine the existence of any differences between the planning practices of the consumer service industry and the producer service industry. The study is organized into seven chapters. The introduction chapter contains background information, a description of the problem and opportunity followed by a definition of terms, the purpose of the research, hypothesis of the research. It also describes the scope of the research, methodology, significance and limitations of the study and provides a chapter bibliography. The study finds that though certain segments of the service industry have sophisticated planning capability, it is not generally widespread. The study concludes there is no significant difference in the planning methods between consumer services and producer services industries

Orientador: Orlando Fontes Lima Junior / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-11T05:51:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SantosJunior_JoseBeneditoSilva_M.pdf: 3774305 bytes, checksum: 6e28d5be77fa0d21a389e8901dfbed67 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003 / Resumo: O setor de serviços assumiu papel relevante na economia mundial. Este fato pode ser constatado através da sua participação no Produto Interno Bruto ¿ PIB de diversos países, bem como no aumento significativo da oferta de postos de trabalho e nos recursos financeiros investidos e gerados por este setor. É crescente a demanda por projeto e construção de instalações de serviços. Bons projetos implicam em uma melhor utilização do investimento na implantação das instalações, bem como em um menor custo de operação e em uma maior qualidade do serviço prestado. Para isso, os projetos devem ser adequados ao conceito do serviço, considerando os custos de implantação das instalações, os custos de operação e a capacidade dos componentes. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar um procedimento para concepção de sistemas de prestação de serviços, incorporando medidas de custos, de forma integrada à capacidade dos componentes constituintes. Buscou-se identificar um conjunto de parâmetros que permitam ao projetista selecionar a configuração mais adequada ao sistema de prestação de serviços, entre várias alternativas, integrando os custos de investimento nas instalações de apoio, os custos de operação e a capacidade dos componentes do sistema. A abordagem proposta utilizou simulação e planilhas de custos no seu desenvolvimento. Visando verificar a aplicabilidade do método proposto, foi desenvolvido um caso prático considerando um centro de serviços de atendimento ao público da Prefeitura do Campus da Unicam / Abstract: The service segment has assumed a relevant role in world economy. This fact may be proved through its participation in Internal Gross Product of several countries as well significantly increasing job offers and financial resources invested and generated by it. Project and construction demand for services installations has been increasing. Satisfactory project means a better use of investments as well smaller operational costs and better quality of offered services. For that, projects must be adequate to the service concept, considering installations costs, operational costs and components capacity. The goal of this work is to present a procedure to the conception of services systems, aggregating costs measures integrated to the capacity of constituting components. It has searched for a group of parameters that could allow the projectors to choose the most adequate configuration to the system among several alternatives, integrating investments costs to the support installations, operational costs and system components. The proposal approach used simulation and costs plans at its developing. Aiming to verify the applicability of the proposal method, a case was developed considering a public service center of attendance at the University of Campinas hall / Mestrado / Transportes / Mestre em Engenharia Civil

M.Comm. / Customer service quality is an important aspect in the process required to make an organisation successful. Research has shown that it is very expensive to acquire new customers and that the ideal is to keep existing customers, to satisfy their needs and give them value for money to ensure that they return to the organisation. Servicing existing customers will also ensure that profitability improves over time. Seven leading organisations in South Africa were selected to investigate what they define as good quality customer service. The investigation revealed that management plays an important role in creating and maintaining a culture of quality customer service. Customer contact, listening to the customer, determining what his needs and expectations are, is required to ensure that the customer is satisfied with the organisation. It is furthermore clear that the demands of customer service change over time and that organisations need to be flexible to meet these changing needs. The quality customer service was measured in Rand Air and the SERVQUAL model of Parasuraman was used as a basis. The study gives a summary of the background of the model. The model was further adjusted to be relevant to the compressor hire industry. Rand Air (Pty) Ltd was used as the basis on which to do the study, and the industry was used for comparison purposes. Rand Air's history and present position were described, as well as what Rand Air does as far as customer service is concerned. The study was done over a two year period. Certain recommendations were made as areas for improvement.

M.Com. (Business Management) / In the light of the ever increasing competition characterising today's global economy (Dale, 1995: 48) and the drastic changes brought about by the new South Africa, local businesses would have to make a conscious effort to prosper in future. Research organisations accustomed to being subsidised by the state have a particular challenge to face in the new South Africa where all subsidies are being shrunk. The reason for this is political pressure to redirect state spending towards social upliftment programmes. Quality and customer satisfaction are important topics that get attention world-wide. Well managed service organisations have the following common virtues [Kotler & Armstrong, 1991: 610]: • A history of top management commitment to quality; • High standards for service quality are set; • Service performance is well monitored - both their own and that of competitors; • Employees as well as customers are being satisfied. The distinction between service quality and customer satisfaction is that, perceived service quality is a global judgement relating to the superiority of the service, whereas satisfaction is related to a specific transaction [Parasuraman, et al., 1988: 16]. Incidents of satisfaction over time, result in perceptions of service quality. According to Cronin & Taylor [1992: 65] perceived quality may play a bigger role (in comparison with satisfaction) in customer-intimate companies who need to do more than simply meet customers' "minimum requirements". Customer-intimate companies (for example research organisations) continually tailor and shape products and services to fit an increasingly fine definition of the customer [Treacy &Wiersema, 1993: 87]...

In the new economy customers are becoming more demanding, therefore organizations should embrace services as excellent opportunities to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Internal marketing is a tool that service organizations can utilize to ensure that they build a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. Organizations who successfully want to improve and implement internal marketing need to identify employees’ perceptions and expectations on the concepts of services, organizational capital, and communication within the organization. The internal marketing challenge is not an easy one. It is an ongoing process through which organizations have to change operational procedures and convince management and employees to alter their behaviour and beliefs. Organizations which succeed internally will excel externally. / Prof. C.J. Jooste