[Abstract]: The combination of increased numbers of ageing consumers, decreased access to personal services, and reluctance to use self-service technologies (SSTs) among some mature consumers highlighted the need to identify the factors that influence the use of these technologies. In the Australian context, research investigating mature consumers is an emerging area with limited knowledge relating to their use of SSTs.Through extending the original technology acceptance model (TAM), a well-established model from the information technology domain, this thesis incorporated six external variables into the model and investigated the use of SSTs among mature consumers in the financial services context. The thesis also examined the moderating effects of demographic characteristics on the relationships within the extended TAM (ETAM).Using cross sectional data from a sample of 208 mature consumers in Study 1, the original TAM and ETAM were tested. Based on these findings, improvements were made for Study 2, where the modified models were tested on data from a national sample of 2,253 mature consumers. Path analysis indicated that self-efficacy, technology discomfort, perceived risk and personal contact made a significant unique contribution to predicting attitude and behaviour over and above the two belief variables in TAM, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. The four variables in the ETAM were significant predictors of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Results also suggested that age and education act as moderating variables in this model. These findings can serve as a basis for designing educational and communication strategies to foster greater use of SSTs in the financial context among mature consumers.A second aim of this thesis was to explore usage patterns of self-service banking technologies (SSBTs) among different segments of the mature consumer market in Australia. The diversity of the mature consumer market was reflected through establishing three behavioural segments, namely non-users, low users and medium-to-high users of SSBTs, providing a deeper understanding of mature consumers’ knowledge and patterns of behaviour towards using these technologies and personal services in the financial context.The findings contributed to the understanding of mature consumers’ behaviour towards SSBTs for academics, financial practice and policy formation by government and not-for-profit senior organisations responsible for improving financial literacy and productive ageing among mature consumers.

<p>Service recovery is about problems. What happens when customers experience problems? Well, sometimes customers complain to the one responsible for the service. Sometimes customers do not complain but instead tell somebody else about the problem, possibly leading to a bad reputation for the one responsible for the service. Sometimes it happens that customers never return to the same provider because of the problem experienced. To avoid the customer leaving, service recovery can be used. Service recovery is a set of actions a service pro-vider can take in order to repair a failure (Tax and Brown, 1998; Zemke, 1995; Scheuing and Christopher, 1993; Levesque and McDougall, 2000).</p><p>In addition, many services today are Internet-based, meaning that services are self-services enabled by information technology (IT). Self-services enabled by IT, referred to as self-service technology (SST), are characterized by an interac-tion between a user and a machine rather than between two humans. Conse-quently, service recovery is no longer between two people interacting in a face-to-face manner when solving problems, but between a user and a machine when taking place in an SST context.</p><p>This change of context has resulted in difficulties but also opportunities in the work of service recovery. Instead of turning to the one responsible for the service when problems occur, it is now possible to turn to other customers and users to receive help. SST has opened up new opportunities to learn with and from other individuals through the sharing of knowledge. The sharing of knowledge for the purpose of turning problems into solutions and improve-ments depends on the ability to create value for people involved.</p><p>Service recovery in a self-service technology context, i.e. self-service recovery (SSR) is defined as the capability, enabled by self-service technology, of turning user prob-lems into solutions and improvements by means of sharing knowledge between users in order to create value.</p><p>The aim of this doctoral thesis is to answer the question, “Why self-service recovery works?” The question is addressed by seven research studies and by evolving a framework for understanding why self-service recovery works.</p><p>The contributions of this dissertation reside from the framework, which en-hances our understanding of self-service recovery as a value creation activity through not only recovery, but also improvement of the service in question.</p>

Service recovery is about problems. What happens when customers experience problems? Well, sometimes customers complain to the one responsible for the service. Sometimes customers do not complain but instead tell somebody else about the problem, possibly leading to a bad reputation for the one responsible for the service. Sometimes it happens that customers never return to the same provider because of the problem experienced. To avoid the customer leaving, service recovery can be used. Service recovery is a set of actions a service pro-vider can take in order to repair a failure (Tax and Brown, 1998; Zemke, 1995; Scheuing and Christopher, 1993; Levesque and McDougall, 2000). In addition, many services today are Internet-based, meaning that services are self-services enabled by information technology (IT). Self-services enabled by IT, referred to as self-service technology (SST), are characterized by an interac-tion between a user and a machine rather than between two humans. Conse-quently, service recovery is no longer between two people interacting in a face-to-face manner when solving problems, but between a user and a machine when taking place in an SST context. This change of context has resulted in difficulties but also opportunities in the work of service recovery. Instead of turning to the one responsible for the service when problems occur, it is now possible to turn to other customers and users to receive help. SST has opened up new opportunities to learn with and from other individuals through the sharing of knowledge. The sharing of knowledge for the purpose of turning problems into solutions and improve-ments depends on the ability to create value for people involved. Service recovery in a self-service technology context, i.e. self-service recovery (SSR) is defined as the capability, enabled by self-service technology, of turning user prob-lems into solutions and improvements by means of sharing knowledge between users in order to create value. The aim of this doctoral thesis is to answer the question, “Why self-service recovery works?” The question is addressed by seven research studies and by evolving a framework for understanding why self-service recovery works. The contributions of this dissertation reside from the framework, which en-hances our understanding of self-service recovery as a value creation activity through not only recovery, but also improvement of the service in question.

In a time where information is ever present and in large quantities, it becomes of extreme importance to organisations to find a way to store and analyse all this information in order to maintain their position on the market. One way to deal with this, which has been adopted by large company groups as well as smaller organisation, is the use of business intelligence, BI. This feature helps organisations to store and analyse information and provide analytical reports to support decision making. Despite the fact that BI has been around for a couple of decades it is still a rather new phenomena with a couple of problem areas which has been highlighted by several international studies and articles. Sweden as a market has been considered as somewhat of a pioneer when it comes to IT-development in general and early usage of business intelligence as well as the emerging trend in the business intelligence market; self-service BI. This solution aims to make business intelligence more user friendly in order to increase the amount of users and ease the pressure on IT-departments within organisations. The purpose of this study is to identify these problems and investigate whether they can be applied to decision makers on the Swedish market and if self-service BI is affecting these problems. The study was done by using a survey with 46 respondents from different organisations located in Sweden. The result shows that the problem areas were not recognised by the majority of the respondents and there were correlations between user-friendliness and how often the respondents used self-service BI.

The first aim of this thesis is map the Microsoft development tools for business intelligence systems. This goal devide the tools for develop BI into two groups: tools for traditional BI systems and tools for self-service BI systems. The second aim of this thesis is a critical evaluation of approaches based on the criteria and scenarios focuse on selected business areas. This thesis answers the question if some of the approaches is a better solution for business intelligence systems, or whether one approach is more suitable for business intelligence solutions to some business areas.

The diploma thesis is focused on a specific area of self-service business intelligence. The advantage of this approach to the business intelligence is reduction of demands on IT development and using tools by end users. They can generate reports and outputs according to their requirements during the relevant time period. The theoretical part is dedicated to illustrate this concept with all benefits and risks. Furthermore, it describes trends occurring in the domain of business intelligence. These trends transcend outline the domain of business intelligence and are valid throughout IT. The practical part is dedicated to the analysis market of self-service business intelligence tools. On basis of established criteria are then compared these tools and deduced general conclusions regarding their functionality. Then, by using three selected tools is created comprehensive business intelligence task with the aim of clarifying a degree of self-service for these instruments. The main benefit of this thesis is based in the integrated analysis of market self-service business intelligence tools and determination of their functionality.

Corporations and government agencies that use Avatars claim there are substantial benefits for using them in their respective organizations; including 24/7 service availability, quick answers without a phone queue, and improved consistency in the responses provided. “There are also potential cost savings by having an Avatar answering questions compared to using personnel” (Lind and Salomonson, 2006). However, these benefits may not be great enough as the lack of possible human communication may lead to alienation between individuals and organisations. Furthermore, a robot may “miss out” on business opportunities that a human would act on. A robot will not hear and understand nuances in speech, with the risk that a potentially problematic situation may not be adequately resolved, leading to dissatisfaction with products and services delivered. Many companies measure the satisfaction with Avatars by analysing question and answer logs to see if the Avatar appears to give satisfactory answers. Few of these companies have actually asked their customers (e.g. IKEA and SAS until recently) what they really feel about the quality of the answers they receive. User Centered Design, Participatory Design and other methods are the preferred ways of developing such systems, but these do not include all stakeholders. This thesis addresses this exclusion of all stakeholders by applying a co-design research approach for developing avatars for e-Services.Case studies from Mark Municipality, Sweden and Scandinavian Airlines Systems (SAS) are presented in this thesis showing how improvements of service quality aspects with Avatars can be managed by applying a four-step Co-Design research approach. From the first step of Co-Design, through interviews, log analysis and a channel survey, findings show that the failed dialogues with Avatars Eva (SAS) and Elin (Mark) are mainly concerned with five factors: interactivity; dialogue capability; consistency; knowledge; and synonyms. In the second step of carrying out customer workshops, a number of ideal scenarios are suggested for the Avatars to perform better. In the third step, SAS decision makers decided to implement the first three scenarios: Eva’s synonyms, knowledge and consistency. Mark decision makers decided to shut down their Avatar Elin, as they did not believe they had the necessary resources. In the fourth step, another channel survey was carried out for SAS as well as a new log analysis in order to know the impact of the redevelopment of the above three scenarios. An important result of the study was that the company adopted the continuous use of Co-Design as an approach to continuous improvement of the service quality performed by the Avatar Eva. This, for example, led to an increase of 14 percentage points on the users overall satisfaction level. The results also open a new set of questions framing the relation and transformation between Co-Design as a research approach for knowledge creation and Co-Design as a method for innovation and service quality improvements. This thesis also presents an Extended Co-Design Model, which illustrates how Co-Design inspires SAS staff. In addition, the staff of the supplier of the Avatar use it for other functions within and without SAS.

<p>The communication of self-service within the ICA-sphere, 1945-1960, points tothe central role of communication in technological change. The study coversthe communication from ICAAB, ICA-Förbundet, AB Köpmannatjänst, threepurchasing centres (Hakon, Essve and Eol) and their respective councils oftrustees. The councils communicated their reservations early on, while theother actors spread knowledge (both economic and practical) of the innovation tothe retailers, and some also to the consumers. The communication of thepurchasing centres and Köpmannatjänst gave greater opportunity for learning,due to higher levels of interaction.</p>

I hospitalitybranschen arbetas det intensivt med att erbjuda sina gäster så bra upplevelser som möjligt. Nya teknologiska lösningar som påverkar gästers interaktion med branschen utvecklas ständigt, samtidigt som människors levnadsvanor blir allt mer integrerade med det teknologiska. Flera undersökningar visar att just teknologi inkorporerad i hospitalitybranschen är en bidragande faktor för en förhöjd gästupplevelse, men trots det är det få inom branschen som väljer att anamma den. Tron om att den typen av investeringar är allt för kostsamma, okunskap om att teknologin finns och en allt för konservativ syn är tänkbara förklaringar till att stora delar av branschen halkar efter. I uppsatsen redogörs för några i världen pågående trender och en litteraturstudie genomförs för att undersöka hur teknologi kan användas för att förhöja gästupplevelsen inom hospitalitybranschen med hänsyn till dessa trender. Uppsatsen diskuterar hur branschen är på väg att förändras och föreslår ett par exempel för hur ditt varumärke kan hänga med i utvecklingen redan idag. / B-uppsatser

<p>I denna uppsats diskuteras företagens self-service technology (SST) vilket innebär att kunderna själva får utföra sina tjänster med hjälp av företagens SST. Genom att låta kunderna göra detta kan företagen exempelvis spara pengar på att omorganisera personal eller rent av minska arbetsstyrkan eftersom mindre kunder kommer att kräva hjälp av personalen.</p><p>I denna uppsats har resebranschen och dess SST att studeras. Uppsatsens frågeställning lyder: ”Hur upplever resebranschens kunder bokningar över</p><p>Internet” där syfte är ”att undersöka och få förståelse för varför resebranschens kunder använder sig av SST när det finns andra möjligheter”.</p><p>En kvalitativ metod har genomförts där sex kunder har lagt grunden till uppsatsens resultat. De huvudteorier som använts i denna uppsats är SST, customer value och technology readiness, och Davis TAM modellen samt Sheths value teori har legat till grund för analysen i uppsatsen.</p><p>Teorin bakom SST är att det inte bara gynnar företagen utan även gynnar kunderna, då SST kan höja kundnyttan. Några exempel är att kunderna sparar tid, pengar och de får kontroll över sitt eget handlande vid användning av SST.</p><p>Ett problem som uppsatsen belyser är huruvida kunder är teknologiskt redo för att använda sig av tekniken.</p><p>Resultatet i denna studie visar att den primära orsaken till att kunder använder sig av SST är att det blir billigare, de kan göra det när som helst samt att kunderna i sin egen takt hitta den bästa resan utan att behöva förlita sig på reseföretagets försäljare. Kunderna upplever resebranschens SST som enkel att använda och ju säkrare de blir, dess mer använder de sig av den även om de anser att tekniken bör utvecklas.</p>