<p>In the present society technological innovations are playing significant role in every phase of human life, human interaction with machines has become essential in service sector. In the past a number of efforts have been made in the literature of service marketing to understand how companies can better deliver their services with the help of self-service technology. In this present situation companies have many possibilities to realize service offerings with huge investments in self-service technologies, as the technology became the driving force to service the customers effectively and helpful in delivering the services.</p><p>Nowadays it become challenging for the companies to serve customers effectively with in a prescribed time providing the right products with lower cost. To get rid of this issue most of the organizations are showing interest to employ self-service technologies (Like ATMs, ticket vending machines, online auctions, etc..,). The purpose of the thesis can be traced to the fact that a large part of the service sector is changing from personnel-based delivery to technology-based self-service. The theoretical problem of the present study is to concentrate on service marketing and service quality in order to provide a better understanding of customers’ attitudes and preferences towards technology-based self-services (ATMs).</p><p>So far many researchers have addressed customers’ attitudes towards the technology-based self-service delivery from a service quality perspective. The present paper on service quality and self-service based on technology concerns of expected use rather than actual use and customers expectations about new self-service technologies. To reach the purpose we conducted a pilot case study to know the customers attitudes towards technology (speed, accuracy, ease of use, privacy) using ATMs and their perception towards self-service technologies. For date collection we did 26 open interviews and 150 interviews with the help of questionnaire and the data analysis is based on both qualitative and quantitative methods, supported by the qualitative information and literature reviews. Finally in terms of important findings: easy of use, speed, control and accuracy are the main attributes for service quality and customer satisfaction.</p>

This investigation was a synthesis of 35 research studies with a total sample size of 3,082 students selected on the basis of Witkin’s theory of Field Dependence-Independence. The Hunter-Schmidt approach to meta-analysis was used to determine if a difference in achievement exists between field dependent and field independent students within technology-based learning environments, and whether study, treatment or methodology variables influenced the effect size outcome. The results indicated an achievement difference in favor of field independent learners with a total mean weighted effect size of 0.426 and a pooled standard deviation of 0.311. However, a large proportion of population variance was not accounted for through statistical corrections. A subsequent moderator analysis indicated that the total heterogeneity for each moderator was significant; suggesting the variance among effect sizes was greater than could be expected by sampling error, and unidentified variables and study artifacts likely contributed to the overall effect size.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This thesis aims at analysing some aspects of Venture Capital (VC) and high-tech entrepreneurship. The focus is both at the macroeconomic level, comparing venture capital from an international point of view and Technology-Based Small Firms (TBSF) at company and founder’s level in Belgium. The approach is mainly empirical. This work is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on venture capital. First of all, we test the impact of VC on productivity. We then identify the determinants of VC and we test their impact on the relative level of VC for a panel of countries. The second part concerns the technology-based small firms in Belgium. The objective is twofold. It first aims at creating a database on Belgian TBSF to better understand the importance of entrepreneurship. In order to do this, a national survey was developed and the statistical results were analysed. Secondly, it provides an analysis of the role of universities in the employment performance of TBSF. A broad summary of each chapter is presented below. PART 1: VENTURE CAPITAL The Economic Impact of Venture Capital The objective of this chapter is to perform an evaluation of the macroeconomic impact of venture capital. The main assumption is that VC can be considered as being similar in several respects to business R&D performed by large firms. We test whether VC contributes to economic growth through two main channels. The first one is innovation, characterized by the introduction of new products, processes or services on the market. The second one is the development of an absorptive capacity. These hypotheses are tested quantitatively with a production function model for a panel data set of 16 OECD countries from 1990 to 2001. The results show that the accumulation of VC is a significant factor contributing directly to Multi-Factor Productivity (MFP) growth. The social rate of return to VC is significantly higher than the social rate of return to business or public R&D. VC has also an indirect impact on MFP in the sense that it improves the output elasticity of R&D. An increased VC intensity makes it easier to absorb the knowledge generated by universities and firms, and therefore improves aggregate economic performance. Technological Opportunity, Entrepreneurial Environment and Venture Capital Development The objective of this chapter is to identify the main determinants of venture capital. We develop a theoretical model where three main types of factors affect the demand and supply of VC: macroeconomic conditions, technological opportunity, and the entrepreneurial environment. The model is evaluated with a panel dataset of 16 OECD countries over the period 1990-2000. The estimates show that VC intensity is pro-cyclical - it reacts positively and significantly to GDP growth. Interest rates affect the VC intensity mainly because the entrepreneurs create a demand for this type of funding. Indicators of technological opportunity such as the stock of knowledge and the number of triadic patents affect positively and significantly the relative level of VC. Labour market rigidities reduce the impact of the GDP growth rate and of the stock of knowledge, whereas a minimum level of entrepreneurship is required in order to have a positive effect of the available stock of knowledge on VC intensity. PART 2: TECHNOLOGY-BASED SMALL FIRMS Survey in Belgium The first purpose of this chapter is to present the existing literature on the performance of companies. In order to get a quantitative insight into the entrepreneurial growth process, an original survey of TBSF in Belgium was launched in 2002. The second purpose is to describe the methodology of our national TBSF survey. This survey has two main merits. The first one lies in the quality of the information. Indeed, most of national and international surveys have been developed at firm-level. There exist only a few surveys at founder-level. In the TBSF database, information both at firm and at entrepreneur-level will be found. The second merit is about the subject covered. TBSF survey tackles the financing of firms (availability of public funds, role of venture capitalists, availability of business angels,…), the framework conditions (e.g. the quality and availability of infrastructures and communication channels, the level of academic and public research, the patenting process,…) and, finally, the socio-cultural factors associated with the entrepreneurs and their environment (e.g. level of education, their parents’education, gender,…). Statistical Evidence The main characteristics of companies in our sample are that employment and profits net of taxation do not follow the same trend. Indeed, employment may decrease while results after taxes may stay constant. Only a few companies enjoy a growth in both employment and results after taxes between 1998 and 2003. On the financing front, our findings suggest that internal finance in the form of personal funds, as well as the funds of family and friends are the primary source of capital to start-up a high-tech company in Belgium. Entrepreneurs rely on their own personal savings in 84 percent of the cases. Commercial bank loans are the secondary source of finance. This part of external financing (debt-finance) exceeds the combined angel funds and venture capital funds (equity-finance). On the entrepreneur front, the preliminary results show that 80 percent of entrepreneurs in this study have a university degree while 42 percent hold postgraduate degrees (i.e. master’s, and doctorate). In term of research activities, 88 percent of the entrepreneurs holding a Ph.D. or a post-doctorate collaborate with Belgian higher education institutes. Moreover, more than 90 percent of these entrepreneurs are working in a university spin-off. The Contribution of Universities to Employment Growth The objective of this chapter is to test whether universities play a role amongst the determinants of employment growth in Belgian TBSF. The empirical model is based on our original survey of 87 Belgian TBSF. The results suggest that both academic spin-offs and TBSF created on the basis of an idea originating from business R&D activities are associated with an above than average growth in employees. As most ‘high-tech’ entrepreneurs are at least graduated from universities, there is no significant impact of the level of education. Nevertheless, these results must be taken with caution, as they are highly sensitive to the presence of outliers. Young high-tech firms are by definition highly volatile, and might be therefore difficult to understand. CONCLUSION In this last chapter, recommendations for policy-makers are drawn from the results of the thesis. The possible interventions of governments are classified according to whether they influence the demand or the supply of entrepreneurship and/or VC. We present some possible actions such as direct intervention in the VC funds, interventions of public sector through labour market rigidities, pension system, patent and research policy, level of entrepreneurial activities, bankruptcy legislation, entrepreneurial education, development of university spin-offs, and creation of a national database of TBSF.

In the present society technological innovations are playing significant role in every phase of human life, human interaction with machines has become essential in service sector. In the past a number of efforts have been made in the literature of service marketing to understand how companies can better deliver their services with the help of self-service technology. In this present situation companies have many possibilities to realize service offerings with huge investments in self-service technologies, as the technology became the driving force to service the customers effectively and helpful in delivering the services. Nowadays it become challenging for the companies to serve customers effectively with in a prescribed time providing the right products with lower cost. To get rid of this issue most of the organizations are showing interest to employ self-service technologies (Like ATMs, ticket vending machines, online auctions, etc..,). The purpose of the thesis can be traced to the fact that a large part of the service sector is changing from personnel-based delivery to technology-based self-service. The theoretical problem of the present study is to concentrate on service marketing and service quality in order to provide a better understanding of customers’ attitudes and preferences towards technology-based self-services (ATMs). So far many researchers have addressed customers’ attitudes towards the technology-based self-service delivery from a service quality perspective. The present paper on service quality and self-service based on technology concerns of expected use rather than actual use and customers expectations about new self-service technologies. To reach the purpose we conducted a pilot case study to know the customers attitudes towards technology (speed, accuracy, ease of use, privacy) using ATMs and their perception towards self-service technologies. For date collection we did 26 open interviews and 150 interviews with the help of questionnaire and the data analysis is based on both qualitative and quantitative methods, supported by the qualitative information and literature reviews. Finally in terms of important findings: easy of use, speed, control and accuracy are the main attributes for service quality and customer satisfaction.

This study investigates variability in the importance of investment decision criteria used by venture capitalists in assessing new technology-based ventures and relates the criteria to the subsequent performance of the investment in the new venture. Variability was measured using interval and ordinal scale approaches for both criteria ratings and rankings. The analyses found that the criteria used by venture capitalists form a general hierarchy that is consistently ranked across ventures. However, there are some criteria that do not form part of this hierarchy and whose importance varies depending on the specific venture being evaluated. The criteria that are consistently considered important by venture capitalists can be thought of as necessary conditions for investment. The hypotheses concerning the relationship between the criteria and subsequent deal performance are that:· deal performance can be assessed by venture capitalists earlier for Internet-related ventures than for other-technology based ventures (H1);· Internet-related ventures have more extreme levels of deal performance (H2);· a small number of criteria will distinguish between successful and unsuccessful deal performance (H3);· criteria that do distinguish have above average variability (H4); and· criteria related to first-mover advantage distinguish between successful and unsuccessful deals (H5). The study was conducted in two parts. The original study (n=100) conducted by Bachher (2000) gathered information about the importance of the investment criteria using a web-based survey. The follow-up study (n=40) gathered information about the success of the investments by surveying the original participants and gathering information from the Internet. Limitations of the study include a nonrandom sample, a small sample size for the follow-up survey and the very small number (n=5) of unsuccessful investments identified. Evidence for hypotheses H1 and H2 was in the predicted direction but failed to achieve statistical significance. The evidence is supportive of H3. Evidence for H4 and H5 was not found. Additional analysis of the results suggests that venture capitalists whose investments were ultimately unsuccessful placed less importance on technology-related criteria than did venture capitalists investing in the other ventures. This finding implies that venture capitalists need to perform detailed assessments of the technology of new ventures.

This study investigates variability in the importance of investment decision criteria used by venture capitalists in assessing new technology-based ventures and relates the criteria to the subsequent performance of the investment in the new venture. Variability was measured using interval and ordinal scale approaches for both criteria ratings and rankings. The analyses found that the criteria used by venture capitalists form a general hierarchy that is consistently ranked across ventures. However, there are some criteria that do not form part of this hierarchy and whose importance varies depending on the specific venture being evaluated. The criteria that are consistently considered important by venture capitalists can be thought of as necessary conditions for investment. The hypotheses concerning the relationship between the criteria and subsequent deal performance are that:· deal performance can be assessed by venture capitalists earlier for Internet-related ventures than for other-technology based ventures (H1);· Internet-related ventures have more extreme levels of deal performance (H2);· a small number of criteria will distinguish between successful and unsuccessful deal performance (H3);· criteria that do distinguish have above average variability (H4); and· criteria related to first-mover advantage distinguish between successful and unsuccessful deals (H5). The study was conducted in two parts. The original study (n=100) conducted by Bachher (2000) gathered information about the importance of the investment criteria using a web-based survey. The follow-up study (n=40) gathered information about the success of the investments by surveying the original participants and gathering information from the Internet. Limitations of the study include a nonrandom sample, a small sample size for the follow-up survey and the very small number (n=5) of unsuccessful investments identified. Evidence for hypotheses H1 and H2 was in the predicted direction but failed to achieve statistical significance. The evidence is supportive of H3. Evidence for H4 and H5 was not found. Additional analysis of the results suggests that venture capitalists whose investments were ultimately unsuccessful placed less importance on technology-related criteria than did venture capitalists investing in the other ventures. This finding implies that venture capitalists need to perform detailed assessments of the technology of new ventures.

The underlying aim of this paper is to find out how the management and employees in a grocery store on a relatively small community in Sweden is experiencing Technology-Based Self-Service (TBSS), and self-scanning. And how store management and employees experience that the self-scanning ability is received by their respective consumers. Several open individual interviews were conducted with the administrative head of sales and various employees working at different departments at Coop Forum in Skara In offering self-scanning, we believe that the store provides consumers with an opportunity to perform their daily purchases by an easy and flexible approach, which we believe will have a positive impact on the entire store visit. A positive store visit, we believe play a major role in consumers choosing to do their shopping in the store. The issue to be elucidated in this paper is; How do management and employees in a grocery store perceive that self-scanning influence consumers' purchase and the service the shop offers? Why would a supermarket use self-scanning as part of the service they offer to their consumers? The report concludes the similarities and differences experienced by administrative sales manager and employees compared to previous research on the subject. Employees at Coop Forum possessed good knowledge of the subject area, sales manager realized current problems and difficulties, but as Coop Forum is one of many chain stores, the individual opportunities were limited. The idea behind the TBSS and self-scanning includes aspects such as cost savings, improved customer service with wider and better service to consumers.

No description available.

Female entrepreneurs establishing new firms in Jordan mostly do not have adequate internal resources to help support the successful emergence and growth of their enterprise. Agreement has emerged among scholars that network ties are an effective source or route through which entrepreneurs are able to reach and obtain the resources necessary to assist their firm through its various stages development. Understanding more about how Jordanian female entrepreneurs engage in networking in order to establish and grow their firms, might help inform policy intervention as well as inform theory by identifying the model of network development in a field where there is a lack of studies and literature that explores the networking behaviour of female entrepreneurs, particularly in Eastern societies. Thus, this research investigates the development of networks for resource acquisition by exploring the experiences of female entrepreneurs in 14 technology-based firms in Jordan. It explores the structural characteristics and the content of their networks and how they have developed over time to deliver advantage in resource acquisition during the venture formation and early development stages. Rich qualitative data were collected utilising a two-stage, in-depth interview approach. Evidence is presented as to how changes in aspects of network structure, including diversity, reachability, density, centrality and the presence of strong and weak ties, yield different types of resources available to the entrepreneurs. The network structure of female entrepreneurs at start-up was characterised by business ties established within male-dominated networks. There was evidence of these women building new strong ties and reaching out through a small number of indirect ties. Typically there was a high degree of interconnectedness between different parts of the women’s networks, which were characterised by their density. These structural characteristics of the network enabled these women to reach and obtain human capital, financial resources and achieve legitimacy. As the female entrepreneurs grew their businesses there were changes in the network structure as it became characterised by a higher level of diversity in terms of types of tie. The prominence of male-dominated network ties continued, but there was a growing presence of weak ties; a decline in the level of network density; and the appearance of centrality, where women started to act as a broker between two other actors in their networks. These changes saw the women benefitting mainly in building network ties, including gaining access to new contacts of different types. The research revealed that professional business ties and access through these ties play an important role in venture creation and growth. These business ties are used to act as the gateway to resources rather than the personal ties identified in previous research. Further, in support of network-based research suggesting that the entrepreneurs’ network ties and their structural characteristics change overtime as the resource needs change, this research provides empirical evidence of the changing content (resources) that these structural characteristics provide through the start-up and early development stages. Therefore, the findings of this exploratory research on female technology entrepreneurs in Jordan contribute to theory development at the intersection of work on network processes, network development and entrepreneurship in Middle Eastern societies. The findings also have a number of implications for policy and practice, which are considered in the conclusions to the thesis.

No description available.