Thesis (M.Com. (Information Systems)) - Rhodes University, 2006.

The Internet has changed the platform for how services are delivered. In the absence of one-to-one personal interactions between a service provider and a customer, failures unique to e-service are bound to occur. E-service failures are likely to result in unsatisfied customers. Therefore, a recovery system is important to tilt the balance of satisfaction/dissatisfaction to a more favorable condition. An e-service recovery process is an important operational process to affect this change. It is in a sense, a second chance to gain/retain loyal customers by rectifying e-service failures. Equity Theory and Exchange Theory were the theoretical bases for how customers’ perceptions transitioned from loss and unfairness to equity and satisfaction after an e-service recovery. This study investigated the relationships between e-service recovery processes attributes (compensation, respond speed, and apology) and perceived justice constructs (interactional, distributive, and procedural), and examined the relationship between perceived justice and e-service recovery satisfaction. Data from a community of students and knowledge workers in a Mid-western university was collected to analyze the effects of these constructs in service recovery processes for the purpose of designing recovery policy. The study used MANOVA and Multiple regressions for hypotheses testing. The results indicate that all service recovery process attributes had a significant main effect on all perceived justice variables. This suggests that the different levels of compensation, response speed, and apology will impact a customer’s perception of perceived justice. There is also a marginally significant interaction effect for compensation and apology. This significant interaction effect could indicate that the positive impact of an apology as part of a service recovery process could be intensified when accompanied by monetary compensation. Furthermore, the findings indicate that perceived justice (interactional justice, distributive justice, and procedural justice) are significant drivers of satisfaction in an e-service recovery. There was also a significant interaction effect with distributive justice and procedural justice in predicting e-service recovery satisfaction. The result suggests that when compensation is given, customers perceive that the e-service provider is following the rules and regulations in providing compensation in exchange for their losses.This helps transition the customer to a more equitable and satisfied state. The study also supports past research in traditional services by finding that all three perceived justice predictors were significant drivers of recovery satisfaction and that at least one interaction was significant in predicting e-service recovery satisfaction. In addition, another contribution from this study is the development of a new e-service recovery satisfaction scale. Lastly, this study contributes to the emerging stream of research on e-service recovery processes and satisfaction, and the empirical results further delineate the role of social justice in e-service recovery.

Cette thèse se situe dans le domaine de l’informatique orientée service. Elle propose un ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) autonomique, c’est-à-dire capable de s’autogérer sur un ensemble d’aspects. Cet ESB, nommé Cilia autonomique, permet de construire des applications de médiation sensibles au contexte.Précisément, la version autonomique de Cilia, que nous proposons, permet l’optimisation de l’utilisation des ressources de la plate-forme d’exécution et l’adaptation dynamique des chaînes de médiation au niveau de la configuration et de la topologie. Notre framework permet également de présenter à tout moment un modèle simplifié des phénomènes liés à l’exécution des chaînes et, ainsi, de faciliter le raisonnement et la prise de décisions d'adaptation.Les travaux de cette thèse ont été validés dans le cadre de l’informatique pervasive. En particulier, Cilia autonomique a été utilisé et instrumenté pour la mise en oeuvre d’applications de maintien à domicile et de suivi de la santé des usagers. Les résultats sont disponibles en open source. / This PhD work takes place within a broader context of service-oriented computing. Precisely, it defines an autonomic Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) with self-management ability regarding certain aspects. This ESB, named autonomic Cilia, allows the simplified development of context-aware mediation applications. Autonomic Cilia permits the runtime optimization of resources used by its execution machine and the dynamic adaptation of mediation chains, regarding configuration and topology. Our framework can also retrieve at any time a simplified model of the mediation chains execution. Such models enable reasoning and decision making easier to implement for mediation developers. The work presented in this thesis has been validated in the context of pervasive computing. In particular, autonomic Cilia has been used and instrumented to implement healthcare applications in smart homes. The autonomic Cilia framework is available in open source.

This is the report of four social work students engaged in the process of developing a longitudinal study. The original concerns guiding the enquiry involved two general concepts: (I) non-utilization of agency services and (II) lack of awareness re such services. It was felt that a large risk population are not aware of the services available to them and thus they were unable to utilize community resources. The public relations program has also felt to be a factor which should be examined. In order to study this problem in an actual setting, the Family and Children's Service's Fernwood-GIadstone neighbourhood team was chosen as the vehicle for the research project. This study is an attempt to design a data collection instrument which will measure the level of awareness about a particular agency team and Its program in a specific community. The instrument developed was a questionnaire designed to elicit responses concerning: (I) what people know about a particular agency team and its program. (II) what people know about the general services of an agency. (III) what people think of the method of publicity used by the agency. The questionnaire was administered to a population selected through utilizing the multiple phase sampling of the random sampling techniques. The responses to the questionnaire are precoded to facilitate the use of the MVTAB computer program in the analysis of the data obtained. The material obtained from the pretest sample indicates that the instrument will obtain the desired Information. The highly tentative findings (due to the small sample size) suggest that the members of the community studied have a general knowledge about the Family and Children's Service agency but are not as aware of the agency team operating out of an office in their community. The respondents stated a general willingness to utilize the services of this team when needed. This suggests that advertising is important that methods utilized thus far have not been too successful. Based on the findings of the pretest it is recommended that the data collection instrument be refined and a full study be conducted. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / [co-authors, John Farr, Robert Leach, George Phillon] / Graduate

The Thai automotive industry was the third largest industry in the country and contributed nearly 12% of Thai GDP in 2010. Thailand is projected to be in the world’s top ten vehicle production countries by 2015. In 2011, the country produced 1.8 million vehicles and 600,000 units were for domestic consumption. The luxury car industry in Thailand represents roughly 5% of the total automotive market in 2011. Luxury car consumption in Thailand reached its peak in 1995 with the domestic consumption of 23,265 units. In 1997, Thailand triggered the world economic meltdown by devaluing the Thai currency. Consequently, luxury car sale volume then dropped to 3,383 units in 1998. Since then Thailand’s automotive industry has gone through a series of changes through political unrest (military coup – 2007, red shirt protest - 2010), global economy (US sub-prime crisis - 2008), and natural disaster (Japan’s tsunami – 2011, Thailand’s mega flood – 2011). For the past decade, luxury car sales volume has stagnated at around 10,000 units, despite Thailand’s GDP averaging growth of 7%. The study of the Thai luxury car industry provides a unique opportunity to probe the industry led by international firms entering fierce competition to win local consumers. This study looks through consumers’ buying criteria and reasons why Thai consumers purchase highly priced luxury cars. The study explores the roles of innovations in the Thai luxury car industry. When services are packaged with core products, this package attempt is classified as ‘service encapsulation’. The study explores the role of service encapsulation in Thailand and the key players who deliver values of service encapsulation. A mixed research methodology approach was used, starting with 30 face-to-face interviews with executives who run Thai luxury car companies and other key stakeholders. Findings and outcomes are used to design the questionnaire of ‘Service Encapsulation in Thailand Luxury Car Industry’. The survey includes 206 survey participants. Outcomes from the qualitative and quantitative parts are integrated with the literature on innovation and service innovation to come up with a Service Encapsulation Commercialization Framework. The framework aims to provide insight on the interplay among four key elements: internal parties, external parties, social factors and service encapsulation enablers, based on the original work of Sundbo and Gallouj (2000). The study provides insights on how organizations can maximize returns on innovation through service encapsulation, by using the Thai luxury car market as a case study.

Trucking firms play a fundamental role in connecting supply chain elements inmany U.S. market channels, and firms of all kinds depend on trucks to pick up and deliver goods. Even though many products move almost entirely by way of ship, train, or airplane, almost everything is carried by a truck at some point during the delivery process (Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, 2009). Because of this, it is critical that managersin trucking firms continually strive to meet and exceed customer and shipper customer service requirements and expectations (Meixell & Norbis, 2008). While a review of the literature shows that many researchers addressed numerous aspects of transportation performance quality, few of these investigations addressed therole and impact that truck drivers have on service-quality perceptions (Vansickle, 2002). The purpose of this research was to examine whether cargo handling by truck drivers had aneffect on a company's service quality perceptions as perceived by the recipients ofcommercial cargo. The SERVQUAL instrument was used to measure the gap between truck drivers' determinants of service quality as perceived by the recipient of the goods fromthese truck drivers.The findings from the study suggest that it becomes necessary for managers to train these truck drivers in more than merely following a route or delivering goods. They needreal marketing and

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