Find out more about which proposals won and why
Business-to-business marketing management
Understanding customer value: an action research-based study of contemporary marketing practice
Victoria J. Little
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Abstract
The study developed understanding of how managers create and deliver customer value, addressing the 2003 ISBM research priority of "developing better understanding relating to creating, measuring and delivering customer value in business markets".
Action research philosophy and practice was applied to a three-stage multi-method design, featuring a survey of 152 managers, 14 cases, and an in-depth study of an industrial small-medium size enterprise (SME). The study was grounded in the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm. A synthesising framework integrated strategic management and marketing views of value, contributing to current understanding of linkages between marketing practice and firm performance.
A new definition of customer value appropriate to a business-to-business context was developed. The definition was supported by a series of empirically based conceptual frameworks describing the customer value construct and the customer value development processes of the firm. Five value postures identifying various approaches to creating and delivering customer value were found: Traditional Transactional, Transitional (or Hybrid), Traditional Relational, Network and Systemic. The postures characterized firms' approaches to customer value creation and delivery in various contexts (e.g. for-profit and not-for-profit, consumer and industrial) and at various management levels (e.g. senior management, functional management and front-line). The findings suggested a contingency of marketing practice: e.g. if a firm (the buyer) has a particular strategic approach in a particular context, or if marketing activities are directed at particular levels of management, then a congruent value posture or marketing communications approach is indicated on the part of the seller.
Customer value creation and delivery processes were conceptualized as a triad, based on making, keeping, and enabling promises (Gronroos, 1996). A fourth dimension, realising promises, identified process outputs, i.e. the financial and non-financial value enjoyed by buyer and seller.
Finally, four types of customer value were proposed: notional, potential, kinetic and realized. Notional customer value describes the intellectual capital of managers, or ideas about how value could be created for customers. Potential customer value describes explicit knowledge, codified in documents such as strategic and relationship plans. Kinetic value describes the energetic, iterative process of value co-creation, engaged in by buyer and seller. Realized value describes customer value as an output: buyer satisfaction and loyalty, and seller financial returns and knowledge.
Overall, customer value and its associated processes were found to be complex, dynamic and multi-dimensional; and, in the context of contemporary marketing practice, knowledge-rich and relationship oriented.
Enterprise applications of internet technology
Design benchmarking, user behavior analysis and link-structure personalization in commercial web sites
Mamata Jenamani
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India
Abstract
The thesis addresses four pragmatic issues faced by the web teams of most enterprises:
- Finding important design features of the commercial websites
- Evaluating the design
- Understanding the user behaviour in the site
- Increasing the navigability of a site
An attempt has been made to evaluate overall design of a commercial website by comparing it with a benchmark. The benchmark is designed based on a survey of the websites of selected US Fortune 500 and top Indian companies. In the survey, the website features of the companies dealing with various categories of products have been analyzed to derive importance weights of the design features. These weights are used to
- provide design benchmarks for any corporate website
- compute its site evaluation index for comparison with the benchmark.
The features of the websites of a number of top performing Indian companies in each product category is analysed and compared with those of the US Fortune 500 group.
The thesis also describes a discrete-time semi-Markov process model to understand user behaviour in a commercial website. The model can help the web team to understand the navigational pattern of the website visitors. Effective use of the website can also be judged from this model. A customized index synthesis algorithm and a link-structure personalization system for commercial websites have been proposed based on the aforesaid user behaviour model. The proposed algorithm provides a unique navigation structure for individual user based on the navigation history of the past users, users' activities within the session, and the knowledge of the Webmaster about the structure, content and commercial objectives of the website. The model has been implemented in an e-marketplace hosted in the Intranet of IIT, Kharagpur. The site uses web technologies like Java Servlets/JSP and XML. This is a site to sell computer accessories to the IIT community by the local suppliers. The proposed user behavior model and the algorithm for link structure personalization system are tested using the real life data generated from this website.
Human resource management
Banking on the customer: customer relations, employment relations and worker identity in the Australian retail banking industry
Leanne Cutcher
University of Sydney, Australia
Abstract
This thesis explores how structural change and shifting discourses of the "customer" have influenced customer relations, employment relations, and worker identity in three areas of the Australian retail banking industry: traditional retail banks, the credit union movement, and community banks. Drawing on detailed qualitative case study evidence, the thesis highlights the range of customers, both "real" and 'constructed', that were found in the case study organisations. The thesis also shows that competing concepts of the "customer" and "customer service" influence not only the customer-service provider relationship, but also the way in which workers interact with one another and with management.
In Australia, most retail banking organizations are encouraging their employees, through the use of sales targets and other related human resource practices, to adopt a more instrumental approach to the majority of their customers. However, the evidence generated by this research indicates that many front-line customer service officers prefer a more empathic or relational approach in dealing with customers. These workers want to be able to relate to customers in ways that extend beyond the exchange of a business transaction and demonstrate their capacity to "care for" the customer. The thesis shows how being able to get to know and care for their customers gives their work added meaning and helps to reinforce a preferred sense of self that has been built up over many years working as customer service officers.
A key contribution of the research is the way in which it builds on existing research by highlighting the role of workers in shaping meanings of "the customer". The thesis also highlights the moral dimension of service work by examining the way in which management can overlay customer service work with an ethical component that increases employee commitment by appealing to workers' ethic of service.
The findings from the research will be of interest both to the academic research community and to managers of service organizations who want to better understand the inter-connections between customer and worker identity and how these connections can be used to improve customer service standards and the experience of work in service industries.
Information science
Understandings of relevance and topic as they evolve in the scholarly research process
Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson
University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Abstract
Exploring assessments of relevance within the complexity of computer-mediated information activities is the focus of this thesis. Drawing on two years of observation of academics in the process of locating and using information for their research, the thesis builds on portrayals of relevance as a complex interwoven activity to thoroughly examine the human and contextual dimensions of relevance. While the theoretical frameworks are grounded in information science, the thesis also builds on the literature and methods of education, cognitive science, communication and human-computer interaction about relevance and searcher behaviour. It also examines the challenge of creating an authentic depiction of multiple, shifting positions of all the actors in this investigation. The eight chapters provide a comprehensive development of parallel conceptual and methodological strands. Supporting material includes "roadmaps", text boxes to highlight central points in sections, and vignettes portraying the two informants.
An ethnographic approach resulted in two narratives portraying the research experiences of two academics and their evolving judgments of relevance over a two-year period. The creation and analysis of these narratives are at the heart of the thesis. A diverse range of material was analysed, including search histories, audio and video recordings of search and evaluation sessions, email correspondence and documents generated by the academics during their research. Chapters surrounding these stories provide critical examination of conceptual and methodological frameworks underpinning the approach taken to collect craft and analyse these texts.
The thesis contributes both to understandings about the ways relevance is assessed from a user's perspective and to the development of a framework for exploring relevance. Observing relevance judgments in the context of the multidimensional and dynamic nature of the research process exposed how the informants' views of topic "at the heart of any judgement of relevance" evolve during the course of searching and research practices. Results are discussed in five broad substantive themes:
- relevance dimensions in context
- interaction of relevance criteria
- role of intuition on judgments of relevance
- the impact of the academics' work context on decisions about relevance
- the use of information found throughout search and research activities.
The results offer a fuller understanding of the contrast between searcher and system depictions of documents and document representations. The thesis also argues that nuances of relevance judgements made during g a search relate to the creation of boundaries for a search as well as for the scholarly research project as a whole.
Interdisciplinary accounting research
Through the eyes of analysts: a content analysis of analyst report narratives*
Christian Nielsen
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Abstract
This paper contributes to the ongoing debate of developing corporate reporting practices by analysing the information content of fundamental analyst reports and comparing this with annual reporting practices. As there has been much critique of the lacking relevance of disclosures through corporate reporting, taking the point of departure in some of the capital market actors that follow companies the closest, namely the sell-side analysts, will reveal which types of information companies should be disclosing through their corporate reports. By focusing on the reports disclosed in connection with the analysts' fundamental analyses of a company, this paper constitutes an important contribution to business reporting but also to the study of the capital market actors' perceptions of relevant information. A medium-sized medico-tech company, internationally renowned for its state-of-the-art business reporting, was chosen as the basis for the study. An analysis of the latest fundamental analyst report on this company by each investment bank actively following it was conducted using a content analysis methodology. The results illustrate the extent to which analysts consider certain types of voluntary information as relevant to their analyses and recommendations. The paper shows that background information about the company, i.e. about products, markets and the industry, along with the analysts' own analysis of financial and operating data account for nearly 55 per cent of the total disclosure in fundamental analyst reports, and the amount of financial data supplied is not related to the other disclosures in the reports. In comparison to business reporting practices, the fundamental analyst reports put relatively less weight on social and sustainability information, intellectual capital and corporate governance information and considerably more emphasis on segment information, opportunities, value drivers and critical success factors.
(* The title and applied methodology of this article is greatly inspired by Beattie, McInnes & Fearnley's report for ICAEW entitled "Through the Eyes of Management" (2002). A special thanks go to Vivien Beattie and Bill McInnes for allocating time to discuss the applied methodology and implications. Furthermore, the author wishes to thank participants at the seminars at University of Glasgow and University of Stirling as well as Raf Orens for constructive comments on a previous version of this paper. The author also wishes to acknowledge that the data for this paper was gathered in connection with the project "Reporting on the Business Model: Understandings from the Management and Analyst Point of View" with financial support from KPMG and the University of Illinois Business Measurement Research Program under the coordination of BDO-professor Per Nikolaj Bukh, Aarhus School of Business.)
International service management
Perceived service quality: proximal antecedents and outcomes in the context of a high involvement, high contact, ongoing service
Tracey Dagger
University of Queensland, Australia
Abstract
This research challenges conventional wisdom that the outcomes of service evaluation are primarily economic and provides insights into the proximal antecedents that drive service quality perceptions. Specifically, the research examines the nature, content and structure of perceived service quality and the impact of service quality perceptions on both economic and social outcomes. Interest in examining these issues reflects a call for the development of comprehensive theories of service evaluation, the refinement of measurement models and for further consideration of the relationship between service quality and service outcomes. Given that service quality research has been described as "divergent", "unresolved" and "far from conclusive" this research was well justified. Indeed, few new models of service evaluation have been forwarded; despite theorists agreeing that service quality results in significant gains for the organization. Likewise, interest in examining the social and economic outcomes of service evaluation reflects a broadening of the discipline's orientation to understand the contribution of marketing to both organizational performance and societal welfare. Although marketing seeks to deliver desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than competitors in a way that contributes to quality of life, examination of the economic outcomes of marketing prevails in the literature. Thus, a service-centred view of marketing, which comprises a series of economic and social process, is forwarded in this research. These issues are examined within the context of a high involvement, high contact, ongoing service. Specifically, the research investigates customers' service quality perceptions and integrates the impact of service quality and two aspects of customer service satisfaction on both economic and social outcomes, namely behavioural intentions and quality-of-life. The research model was validated using two random samples involving 1118 customers of intensive health services. The results indicate that customers evaluate service quality at multiple levels of abstraction and that quality conforms to a multidimensional hierarchical structure. It was found that the dimensions, when modelled as proximal antecedents to service quality, had a differential impact on service quality perceptions. Moreover, service quality and service satisfaction each contributed differently to economic and social outcomes. By examining these issues, this research contributes to advancing the science and practice of marketing. It adds to what we know and changes how we should practise marketing.
Leadership and organizational development
Perceptions of innovations: exploring and developing innovation classification
Richard Adams
Cranfield School of Management, UK
Abstract
The capacity to innovate is regarded as a critical organizational competence for success, even survival, for organizations operating in turbulent conditions.Understanding how innovation works, therefore, continues to be a significant agenda item for researchers. Innovation is generally recognised to be a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon and classificatory approaches are used to provide conceptual frameworks for descriptive purposes and to aid better understanding. Extant classificatory approaches are arguably limited and can be demonstrated to under-specify innovations and have permeable boundaries. Predicated on the notion that innovations can be differentiated according to configurations of bundles of attributes, and in the context of the UK National Health Service, this exploratory research takes preliminary steps towards theoretically deriving and empirically developing an alternative classification of innovation underpinned by the question "Based on a multidimensional conceptualisation, construed in terms of perceived attributes, do innovations configure into discrete identifiable types?".
In a three-phase mixed-method study, a taxonomy of innovations is developed and its utility tested. Phase I is characterized by an iterative process, in which data from four case studies are synthesised with those drawn from an extensive thematic interrogation of the literature to develop a formal framework consisting of 13 attributes. This is operationalized as a 56 item survey instrument in Phase II and administered to an extreme sample of 310 innovators. Following cluster analysis on 171 usable returns, three distinct clusters emerge: "readily adopted", "problematic" and "under cover" innovations. Finally, the utility of the taxonomy is explored with an investigation of process factors underpinning the emergent types.
Results suggest moderate differentiation in terms of underpinning processes, and confirm previous findings that variance in process patterns can be understood in terms of "types'" Particularly, they provide empirical support for attributes as a basis for classification and reiterate the importance of group factors for successful innovation. Further, whilst none of the attributes in the framework is new, the attempt to deal with them simultaneously is original and so extends previous research. Three important contributions to practice are noted. First, 'problematic' and 'under cover' innovations are characterized by limited top management support. Second, the taxonomy may represent a heuristic aid to clinicians engaged in the relatively novel task (at least in the UK) of managing innovation. Finally, results challenge the tradition in the NHS of homophilitic organizational learning on a functional basis by suggesting that non-similar functions may have previously unconsidered areas of commonality.
Management and governance
Strategic use of announcement options
Anna M. Dempster
Judge Institute of Management, University of Cambridge, UK
Abstract
Firms communicate with the external marketplace in a substantive and influential way through the disclosure of information released by means of corporate announcements. These announcements send desired signals that both inform marketplace perceptions and guide expectations. Although such announcements are a commonplace characteristic of modern markets and their significance is widely recognized by practitioners, to date, we do not have a strategic management theory which places them at the centre of the management process. However, because these announcements are of key importance in the provision and acquisition of information between firms and markets, they are of substantial strategic value and are investigated in depth throughout this thesis. To accomplish this, a number of divergent strands of literature are reviewed including theories of signalling – originating in evolutionary biology and latterly applied in finance, economics and marketing.
In the thesis, the importance of corporate announcements is first established empirically using event study methodology. Secondly, they are investigated in their various forms using detailed historical case studies that illustrate the ways in which announcements are actually used by managers. Thirdly, a new theory is developed which conceptualizes announcements as key strategic options, that play a central role in the overall decision-making and planning process, which contribute to strategic flexibility and therefore has substantial value. Finally, to get at the illusive value of strategic announcements this research uses decision tree analyses and real options methods to value announcements as strategic options.These techniques are illustrated with a real life case study of the announcements used by Prudential plc from launch through development to break even of its internet venture Egg. The research is based on an extensive database collected during the PhD that covers all UK financial service Internet ventures announced in the British press from 1995 to 2003, augmented by interviews with leading industry practitioners.
An entirely novel contribution of this thesis is the use of real options for the evaluation of the signalling value of strategic announcements. This research also bridges corporate disclosure literature and theories of signaling. Future research will continue the development of more complex models suitable for cases with diverse sources of uncertainty (multiple-risk factors) and the consideration of optimal timing of announcement options under various conditions and constraints.
Operations and supply chain management
Empirical evidence of outsourcing effects on a firm's performance and values in the short-term
Bin Jiang
DePaul University, USA
Abstract
Within the last decade, most outsourcing-related studies have focused on understanding outsourcing decision determinants and outsourcing process control. While contracting out is now broadly understood to be an attractive option, its specific impact on firm's performance and value, i.e., outsourcing result, has not yet been well confirmed by research. When researchers look to measure the financial impact, they have usually been forced to rely on managers' estimates in place of tangible metrics. As a result, much of the evidence that we have come across is anecdotal and case study oriented, and often based on non-financial metrics.
These anecdotal accounts of outsourcing effects raise some fundamental questions for empirical research. Because the impact of outsourcing on operational performance metrics and value of the contract-granting firm has not been investigated, this study is concerned with empirically examining the impact of outsourcing on firm's performance and value. The results are based on a sample of 51 publicly traded firms that outsourced parts of their operations between 1990 and 2002. We use publicly available accounting data to test for changes in operating performance and abnormal return rates of stock that result from outsourcing decisions. Operating performance and value are examined over a 4-quarter period after the outsourcing announcement.
This research makes several contributions to both practice and theory. First, it is one of the first empirical studies to examine the outsourcing impact on firms' performance and value by audited financial data rather than subjective perceptual measures. Second, we offer the first empirical study to compare the differences between outsourcing firms and their most closely matched non-outsourcing firms. Very few studies have focused on testing outsourcing impact on firms' performance and value by employing one-by-one control pairs. Third, this is the first study about the influence of outsourcing contract value and term.
Organizational change and development
Managing merger integration: a social constructionist perspective
Sally E. Riad
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Abstract
This research argues for the utility of a social constructionist perspective in examining merger integration. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, it examines two salient topics in merger integration: planning and organizational culture. Each of these two topics becomes the subject of four categories of critical analysis: language, context, power and pragmatism.
In considering integration planning, the research critically examines its teleological and temporal assumptions. It discusses aspects that render planning salient in merger integration while depicting the negotiative complexity of planning practice in merger management. It also offers a reading of planning as a relational and generative practice that is part and parcel of the context in which it is undertaken. It illustrates how integration planning is shaped by relational power dynamics that enable certain activities and constrain others. Finally, it demonstrates how people in a merger formulate positions on particular planning features, specifically the pace of integration, based on an assessment of pragmatic consequences.
In examining "organizational culture", the research develops two themes. The first theme argues that "organizational culture" is not simply a variable or a metaphor; it is a discourse, a regime of ideas and practices that conditions both the way in which people relate to merger integration and the way in which merging organizations relate to one another. This argument differs from efforts in the merger literature to validate the role of "organizational culture" in integration: rather, it illustrates its generation and reproduction in discourse. It examines the organizing power of discourse on "organizational culture" and its power effects. It illustrates the political appropriation of "organizational culture", how people resist it, and then how that resistance is overcome. The second theme illustrates the role of context in defining perspectives of acculturation in mergers. This position offers a "bicultural" reading of merger integration as the last analytical component in the research.
The research concludes by posing the notion of "merging as redefinition" and discussing its implications for academics and practitioners.
Public sector management
Perceptions of leadership in the public library: a transnational study
John Mullins
National University of Ireland
Abstract
This study explores the topic of leadership as perceived and practised by public library leaders. The answer to the question of what constitutes leadership is particularly important in public governance, an area increasingly faced with frequent turnover in upper management. The study investigates library leaders' perceptions of leadership, and critically explores if head librarians distinguish classic leadership from management practices, both conceptually and in their work lives. In addition to exploring core leadership issues, the study also investigates the perceptions of library leaders on matters closely connected with their careers, such as: concerns over professional constraints, varying leadership styles, career choice, networking, followers, and the society they serve. The research addresses the core issues of
- the paucity of studies on public library leadership
- an apparent paucity of leadership practice in libraries.
Along with examining theories of leadership, the application of leadership at the hierarchical top, in the public library service, forms the essential focus of this study.
Thirty top-level public librarians were selected for inclusion in this study: ten from Britain; five from the east coast of the United States, and fifteen from Ireland. Thirty structured questions, based on a review of the relevant research literature, were asked of each of the participating leaders. All interviews were recorded on tape and subsequently transcribed to a word processor for analysis. A grounded theory approach to categorizing the data was used for analysing the responses. The findings were subsequently collated into the following nine broad thematic areas:
- Overview of leadership in librarianship
- Central role of the library leader
- Career narratives (individual contributions, career choice, if mentored, etc.)
- Leadership and communication
- Developing new leaders, role modelling, mentoring, nurturing successors
- People-centred leadership styles
- Difficulties associated with leading
- Library leaders looking to the future.
The results of the study show that leadership is a relatively scarce quality in public libraries in Britain, Ireland, and America. Many public library leaders focus on management and administration issues rather than leadership. The study also illustrates that varying leadership styles are practised by the interviewed librarians, and that library leaders do not share common traits, even within national boundaries, for effective public library leadership. The overall findings in the study provide an insight to a professional leadership that portrays a largely positive outlook on their current and projected future profession. The participants placed a strong emphasis on communication, people-centred leadership, interpersonal relationships, encouraging staff commitment, eliciting cooperative work practices, and on commitment to the ideals of public librarianship – most of which are concerned with both management and leadership.