Exploring quality management for business services from a buyer's perspective using multiple case study evidence

Expectations of manufacturing companies regarding future priorities of improvement actions taken by their suppliers

Purpose

The paper concerns supply chains. It aims to identify the essential improvement actions that manufacturing companies expect their suppliers to take in the future rather than selection requirements already used in the assessment process. Within those improvement actions, the goal is to determine whether the size and management methods used in assessing companies affect these future expectations.

Design/methodology/approach:

Hypotheses were developed regarding the expectations of manufacturing companies and the factors influencing these expectations. Data collected from 118 companies from the Polish automotive, metal and chemical sectors were used to verify them. For this purpose, the U-Mann Whitney test was applied.

Findings

Manufacturing companies expect their suppliers to improve: (1) products, (2) processes, (3) organization management, (4) communication and (5) relationship, with the most important thing for them is the improvement of products and processes. It was found that the expectations regarding the contributors are influenced by whether the manufacturing company is a large or small enterprise or it uses or not the Toyota Production System. Lean Management and the ISO 14,001 Environmental Management System do not translate into these expectations.

Originality/value

: The article gives a new look at shaping relations between suppliers and customers in supply chains. Unlike most of the research to date, it does not concern the requirements that suppliers should meet at a given moment but focuses on the improvement actions they should undertake in the future. This paper adds important detail to understanding cooperation in B2B relations.

Quality management for high-contact professional service firms: a multiple-case evidence from Indian law firms

Purpose

This paper presents an exploratory study to understand the distinctive quality dimensions of high-contact Professional Service Firms (PSFs) and develop a conceptual model for Quality Management (QM). The paper is based on empirical evidences from multiple cases in leading Indian law firms.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper adopted an exploratory, multiple, embedded and comparative case study design. The empirical evidence from multiple case studies in 10 law firms (data includes 42 individual interviews, archival records, field notes) was used to explore the QM dimensions for PSFs.

Findings

The results showed that QM in PSFs is a multifaceted and continuous process rather than a straightforward and episodic one. The findings reveal three distinctive dimensions of QM for PSFs: managing the firm's image; managing the client-firm interaction and support processes and; managing the perceived value of service outcome. Further, the results showed a significant variation in the design of QM practices in a relatively homogenous group of PSFs (law firms). This reflected the influence of personnel and organizational characteristics on the QM.

Research limitations/implications

The research is based on evidences collected from 10 Indian law firms and the research design is exploratory in nature. The future research is suggested in terms of extending the scope and research design.

Practical implications

The insights obtained from the paper have implications for managers working on the design of service operations and particularly service quality in high-contact PSFs similar to law firms. While the study does not prescribe a standard design of QM systems for PSFs, it seeks to foster the thinking of managers by helping them conceptualize the broad quality-control checkpoints and quality attributes specific to PSF settings

Originality/value

The academic research in the management of professional service quality is dominated by conceptual/theoretical models for customer evaluation of service provider's performance and the issue of operationalization of QM in PSFs is still needs further investigation. This paper contributes to the theory of service operations management (SOM) by focusing on the structure of QM systems in PSFs.