The purpose of this DBA is to develop a Customisation Blueprint so that consultancies can provide a more tailored, responsive service to clients. This study seeks to find out what matters to clients when purchasing consultancy, how clients substantiate this and how it affects their decision-making. This study also seeks to establish if the factors influencing buyer’s evaluation of the consultant can be favourably influenced by the consultants. By fulfilling client requirements more precisely and effectively, consultants are able to better serve their clients. In this way they are also able to enhance both ongoing relationship and reputation. The history of consultancy is examined to establish the unfurling and growth of the industry and to understand the forces which have shaped its evolution. Relational and Operations literature is examined to establish what previous research is able to contribute to this quest for understanding what consultants need to do to better serve their clients. Financial Services and Utilities are the two largest private-sector buyers of consultancy. Managers involved in the purchase of consulting services from a selection of these companies were interviewed to capture how consultants are engaged and what selection criteria are the most important. A combination of guidance from the literature and an understanding of what matters to clients is used to develop a systematic approach for consultants to more clearly identify and articulate client needs and thereby serve them better. The outcome is the development of a Customisation Blueprint, a framework to personalise responsiveness and thus enhance customer satisfaction.

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Managers in organizations make investment decisions all the time. These decisions have an impact on the bottom-line profits and on the market penetration of the organization. Some decisions have more impact than others do and not all such decisions are evaluated for their impact. The Service-Profit Chain (SPC) framework brings together several components like operational attributes, customer perceptions, customer behavioral intentions and customer loyalty to evaluate the service operation. This research augments the SPC with another component — uncontrollable factors (environmental variables and competition) that are exogenous to the operation but definitely have an effect on the service delivery process. Further, this research develops a dynamic model to evaluate investments made in operational attributes (e.g. number of tellers in a bank, number of airline flight options to a particular city available to customers) and determine the behavior of customer perceptions, customer intentions, customer loyalty, profit, market penetration and marginal rate of return over time. The above is accomplished by incorporating a hill-climbing algorithm into the dynamic SPC model. This hill-climbing algorithm senses the current state of the system and compares it to a certain goal to determine the discrepancies and make additional interventions. The objective is to determine an optimal path to steady state and to evaluate if certain goals are realistic. Next, the Service Sustainability Chain is developed to be applicable to training services. This is accomplished by building key relationships specific to training services into separate modules. The Dynamic SPC module is based on the SPC framework. The Customer Base Growth module captures the structure for referrals and how this enables the growth of the customer base mimicking the infectious model for epidemic diseases in the literature. A methodology based on Chi-Square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) developed to explore, uncover and identify relationships and mathematical equations is used to determine the structural input-output representation of the SPC. Next, the model and the methodology developed are applied to a case study in a training services organization, simulated and validated. / Ph. D.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Hotel, Restaurant, Institution Management and Dietetics / Carol W. Shanklin / Protection motivation theory (PMT) was used in this study to investigate food service directors' food bioterrorism risk perception and their intentions to implement a food defense management plan in their operations. A cross sectional study using the self administered survey was conducted to test hypotheses. All measurement items for the construct of interests were assessed using a 7-point Likert type scales. Questionnaires were mailed in March 2007 to a national sample of 2,200 randomly selected on-site food service directors employed in school districts and healthcare operations. A total 449 usable completed questionnaires were received. Descriptive statistics were performed to investigate directors' perceptions, motivations and intentions independently. Before testing the actual hypotheses, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess reliability and construct validity of the measurement model. Food service directors perceived that the result of a food terrorist attack would be severe but the chances it would occur in their operations is limited. They agreed that implementation of a food defense management plan would be effective to address food terrorism issue in their operations. They were highly motivated to protect the operation from an attack and to avoid the risk of terrorism and intended to implement a food defense plan in their operation. Based on the hypotheses testing, results revealed that motivation to protect the operation against food bioterrorism is higher when directors perceived a higher level of risk (severity and vulnerability), rated the effectiveness of a food defense management plan in protecting the operation high, and perceived that their operations were able to implement it. In turn, high level of motivation to protect the operation led to higher level of implementation intention. Results of the study can be used to design communication resources developed to enhance food service directors' intention to implement a food defense management plan. Educational and informational resources related to intentional food contamination and its defense should emphasize response efficacy and possibility perception.

This thesis investigates customer-to-customer roles and impacts in the context of service encounters. This topic is studied from two angles: customer interactions during group service encounters and customer perceptions post service encounters. The first angle is a focus on group service encounters that addresses the lack of research on customer-to-customer interactions that occur in customer-to-customer interaction-intensive contexts. These are contexts where the interactions between customers are not peripheral to the service, where there can be an expectation to interact with the other customers, and are common in tourism and hospitality, recreation, and education. The second angle is a focus on service outcomes after the service encounter, including satisfaction, intention to recommend, and online word-of-mouth. Paper 1 explores how firms view and manage customer-to-customer interactions during group service encounters. It finds that the differences in attitude and conduct of firms create four possible stances toward customer-to-customer interaction. Paper 2 delves deeper into how customer-to-customer interactions impact the design and delivery of group service encounters, develops a typology of customer cohort climates (CCCs), and identifies how each CCC can be created through four elements of group service encounters. Paper 3  investigates how positive and negative customer-to-customer interactions impact service outcomes and finds that customer-to-customer interaction is a dissatisfier. Paper 4 examines how customers produce online hotel reviews and finds that content analysis of online reviews yields similar findings to more traditional quantitative research methods. This thesis advances research on the impact of customers on each other and provides evidence that other customers can and should be managed to achieve desired service outcomes. It further proposes how these interactions can be managed to further enhance service firm offerings. / <p>QC 20160516</p>

The information service sector e.g. utilities, telecommunications and banking has grown rapidly in recent years and is a significant contributor to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the world’s leading economies. Though, the information service sector has grown significantly, there have been relatively few attempts by researchers to explore this sector. The lack of research in this sector has motivated my PhD research that aims to explore the pre-established relationships between dependability, quality and customer satisfaction (RQ1) within the context of information service sector. Literature looking at the interrelationship between the dependability and quality (RQ2a), and their further impact on customer satisfaction (RQ2b) is also limited. With the understanding that Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Customer (B2C) businesses are different, exploring these relationships in these two different types of information firms will further add to existing literature. This thesis also attempts to investigate the relative significance of dependability and quality in both B2B and B2C information service firms (RQ3a and RQ3b). To address these issues, this PhD research follows a theory testing approach and uses multiple case studies to address the research questions. In total five cases from different B2B and B2C information service firms are being investigated. To explore the causality, the time series data set of over 24 to 60 months time and the ‘Path Analysis’ method has been used. For the generalization of the findings, Cumulative Meta Analysis method has been applied. The findings of this thesis indicate that dependability significantly affects customer satisfaction and an interrelationship exists between dependability and quality that further impacts customer satisfaction. The findings from B2C cases challenges the traditional priority afforded to relational aspect of quality by showing that dependability is the key driver of customer satisfaction. However, B2B cases findings shows that both dependability and quality are key drivers of customer satisfaction. Therefore, the findings of this thesis add considerably to literature in B2B and B2C information services context.

Esta tese aborda serviços cuja \"matéria-prima\" é o próprio cliente e que se diferenciam dos demais tipos de serviços por não apresentarem uma correspondência imediata entre produto e resultado. Ou seja, os resultados almejados - frutos de vários encontros entre o cliente e o seu fornecedor - ocorrem em um tempo posterior ao da ação efetuada. Em função dessas características e da ausência de uma terminologia própria, foram denominados de Serviços de Resultados Ulteriores (SRU). Considerando-se que os SRUs apresentam características específicas, que demandam práticas gerenciais diferenciadas, neste estudo procura-se compreender tal fenômeno sob o ponto de vista de gerenciamento de operações. Desse modo, o presente trabalho objetiva auxiliar as empresas de SRU - academias de ginástica, serviços sociais de inclusão no mundo do trabalho, cursos preparatórios para concursos, entre outros - a obterem um melhor desempenho. Para tanto, a pesquisa foi baseada na metodologia de estudo de múltiplos casos, e uma mostra de seis diferentes organizações pertencentes às categorias de serviços de massa ou lojas de serviços foi investigada. Os resultados da pesquisa de campo evidenciaram que estas empresas estruturaram um sistema de monitoramento e controle voltado para o relacionamento com os seus clientes, caracterizado por rotinas de acompanhamento dos resultados ulteriores almejados e das atividades realizadas pelo cliente, ao longo de um extenso ciclo de transações. Observou-se também a utilização de táticas que favorecem mais participação e envolvimento dos clientes nas atividades executadas. Verificou-se que aplicação de um sistema de monitoramento e controle bem estruturado afeta positivamente a eficácia dos SRUs, mas ela pode ser influenciada por fatores externos que fogem ao controle da empresa. Além disso, a pesquisa observou que a retenção de clientes é afetada pela capacidade desse sistema de monitoramento e controle apontar necessidades de ajustes e correções em seu processo de entrega de serviço, pois isso favorece benefícios de natureza psicológica e social, além de possibilitar a customização do serviço entregue aos clientes. / This thesis deals with services whose raw material is the customer itself and they differentiate from the others because they do not have an immediate correspondence between the output and the outcome. That is, the outcome is obtained after several service encounters. Due to the fact that this type of service has not been appropriately studied by the service operations management literature and due to the fact that they do not have a proper terminology, them they will be called Services of Posterior Outcomes (SPO). It is important to assert that SPOs presents specific characteristics that require differentiated management practices under the point of view of service operations management, so this thesis intends to help the SPOs companies by understanding how they can achieve better performances. The methodology of case research was used in multiple cases. Six different companies classified as service shop or mass services were analyzed. The field research pointed out that SPOs companies tend to implement a monitoring system oriented for customer relationship. This system is characterized by the presence of routines that monitors the outcomes and the activities carried by the customer on the service, throughout a cycle of transactions. Also, SPO companies use tactics for promoting customer participation and your interest in the services activities. It was verified that a greater presence of this system positively affects the effectiveness of these services, but it is necessary to weigh the influence of external factors that affects the accomplishment of this objective. Moreover, the research observed that the retention of customers is influenced by the capacity of this system to make adjustments and corrections in its process of service delivery, therefore this capacity promote the acquisition of relational benefits by the customers.

<p>This dissertation studies the optimal control of two different dynamic systems with learning: (i) diagnostic service systems, and (ii) green incentive policy design. In both cases, analytical models have been developed to improve our understanding of the system, and managerial insights are gained on its optimal management.</p><p>We first consider a diagnostic service system in a queueing framework, where the service is in the form of sequential hypothesis testing. The agent should dynamically weigh the benefit of performing an additional test on the current task to improve the accuracy of her judgment against the incurred delay cost for the accumulated workload. We analyze the accuracy/congestion tradeoff in this setting and fully characterize the structure of the optimal policy. Further, we allow for admission control (dismissing tasks from the queue without processing) in the system, and derive its implications on the structure of the optimal policy and system's performance.</p><p>We then study Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) policies, which are incentive mechanisms by governments to promote renewable energy technologies. We focus on two key network externalities that govern the evolution of a new technology in the market over time: (i) technological learning, and (ii) social learning. By developing an intertemporal model that captures these dynamics, we investigate how lawmakers should leverage on such effects to make FIT policies more efficient. We contrast our findings against the current practice of FIT-implementing jurisdictions, and also determine how the FIT regimes should depend on specific technology and market characteristics.</p> / Dissertation

Esta tese aborda serviços cuja \"matéria-prima\" é o próprio cliente e que se diferenciam dos demais tipos de serviços por não apresentarem uma correspondência imediata entre produto e resultado. Ou seja, os resultados almejados - frutos de vários encontros entre o cliente e o seu fornecedor - ocorrem em um tempo posterior ao da ação efetuada. Em função dessas características e da ausência de uma terminologia própria, foram denominados de Serviços de Resultados Ulteriores (SRU). Considerando-se que os SRUs apresentam características específicas, que demandam práticas gerenciais diferenciadas, neste estudo procura-se compreender tal fenômeno sob o ponto de vista de gerenciamento de operações. Desse modo, o presente trabalho objetiva auxiliar as empresas de SRU - academias de ginástica, serviços sociais de inclusão no mundo do trabalho, cursos preparatórios para concursos, entre outros - a obterem um melhor desempenho. Para tanto, a pesquisa foi baseada na metodologia de estudo de múltiplos casos, e uma mostra de seis diferentes organizações pertencentes às categorias de serviços de massa ou lojas de serviços foi investigada. Os resultados da pesquisa de campo evidenciaram que estas empresas estruturaram um sistema de monitoramento e controle voltado para o relacionamento com os seus clientes, caracterizado por rotinas de acompanhamento dos resultados ulteriores almejados e das atividades realizadas pelo cliente, ao longo de um extenso ciclo de transações. Observou-se também a utilização de táticas que favorecem mais participação e envolvimento dos clientes nas atividades executadas. Verificou-se que aplicação de um sistema de monitoramento e controle bem estruturado afeta positivamente a eficácia dos SRUs, mas ela pode ser influenciada por fatores externos que fogem ao controle da empresa. Além disso, a pesquisa observou que a retenção de clientes é afetada pela capacidade desse sistema de monitoramento e controle apontar necessidades de ajustes e correções em seu processo de entrega de serviço, pois isso favorece benefícios de natureza psicológica e social, além de possibilitar a customização do serviço entregue aos clientes. / This thesis deals with services whose raw material is the customer itself and they differentiate from the others because they do not have an immediate correspondence between the output and the outcome. That is, the outcome is obtained after several service encounters. Due to the fact that this type of service has not been appropriately studied by the service operations management literature and due to the fact that they do not have a proper terminology, them they will be called Services of Posterior Outcomes (SPO). It is important to assert that SPOs presents specific characteristics that require differentiated management practices under the point of view of service operations management, so this thesis intends to help the SPOs companies by understanding how they can achieve better performances. The methodology of case research was used in multiple cases. Six different companies classified as service shop or mass services were analyzed. The field research pointed out that SPOs companies tend to implement a monitoring system oriented for customer relationship. This system is characterized by the presence of routines that monitors the outcomes and the activities carried by the customer on the service, throughout a cycle of transactions. Also, SPO companies use tactics for promoting customer participation and your interest in the services activities. It was verified that a greater presence of this system positively affects the effectiveness of these services, but it is necessary to weigh the influence of external factors that affects the accomplishment of this objective. Moreover, the research observed that the retention of customers is influenced by the capacity of this system to make adjustments and corrections in its process of service delivery, therefore this capacity promote the acquisition of relational benefits by the customers.

Manufacturing support services, operating as call centres, are one of the fastest growing and preferred means of service delivery in today's ever-changing manufacturing environment. The call centre has a significant potential to provide support to manufacturing organizations with business intelligence captured during contacts with customers. Research has shown that affective commitment is of particular significance in the workplace since this has been found to have the greatest impact on individuals performance, on-work behaviour and ultimately organisational effectiveness (Porter, Steers & Boulian 1974, Sung 2007, Shum 2008, Herscovitch 2002, Gong 2009). Meyer and Allen (1991) define affective commitment as a measure of the employee's emotional attachment to the organisation, the strength of identification with the goals of the organisation and strength of commitment to its success and continuous improvement. However, call centres are mechanistic structure models represented by close monitoring of words, stressful working loads, emotional exhaustion and burnout, and minor empowerment of employees. As a result employees lack affective commitment which detrimentally influences the service quality and has consequences such as high employee turnover and low customer satisfaction. Mechanistic structures are inward oriented structures that must be shielded from the environment but call centres are outward-facing entities. This firmly implies that call centres must be given a certain form of organic structure that will stimulate affective commitment building among employees and improve work conditions. This study aims to identify that by the implementation of an organic structure, through a systems engineering approach, to the design of manufacturing support services, the affective commitment of front-line employees will significantly increase, and due to that significant, but often counter-intuitive, benefits can be created. Conducted on a multiple-case design, three organisations were selected in this research study to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. Results were analysed for each case individually before it was analysed on inter-case basis. This has been done to show differences and similarities in patterns of data across the case studies. Results from the research show that structuring call centres around the principles of systems thinking will produce an organically structured support services department that will improve employees working conditions, and will formally institute the integration of call centre with other business units in the manufacturing organisation. The cross-case comparison revealed significant improvement in employees affective commitment level using organic structure when contrasted with employees working under mechanistic structure designs. It was revealed that by leveraging employee s affective commitment that significant benefits can be created at different levels in the organisation; an employee s level, managerial level, customer level, and the overall business level. A novel methodology for organic structures implementation, as a value creating model, was formulated. The emerged methodology consists of six major tasks and a decision making criteria. Results from this research indicate that there is a need for manufacturing organisations to structure their support services departments following organic structures that could provide a rewarding working experience for their employees while achieving organisational goals. The study makes an explicit practical contribution for manufacturing organisations in the selection of proper support service design and contribute substantially to the theory about manufacturing support services structures and management.