Service production process: implications for service productivity

Student readiness for e-learning co-production in developing countries higher education institutions

This study set out to conceptualize and empirically establish the determinants and consequences of student readiness for e-learning co-production in the context of higher education institutions in developing countries. Using an online systematized questionnaire and structural equation modeling, data were collected and analyzed from 317 university students in Ghana. The analysis of the findings identified firm resource commitment, student resource commitment, task socialization, self-efficacy, motivation, and effective communication as the determinants of student readiness for e-learning co-production and student satisfaction as its consequence. The findings provide higher education managers with the critical factors for enhancing students' readiness for e-learning co-production. It also provides higher education policymakers with the strategic factors when assessing institutions as well as developing and implementing national policies on higher education e-learning. For academic researchers, this study was limited to the Ghanaian context, thus, limiting the robustness of the conceptual model and the ability to generalize the findings to another cultural context. Thus, future studies should undertake a cross-national comparison between developed and developing countries.

Exploring factors influencing service trade-offs in the higher education sector: evidence from Malaysia

Purpose

Trade-offs are unavoidable in a competitive and difficult economic environment, causing a challenge for those wanting to provide consistently high-quality service across all touchpoints in the service delivery ecosystem, included in which is the higher education (HE) sector. This study aims to explore the key factors influencing service trade-offs related to the efforts of academics in Malaysia’s HE sector.

Design/methodology/approach

A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 400 full-time academics from several higher learning institutions in Malaysia. Data were analysed using the partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach.

Findings

The results reveal that service trade-offs in the HE sector were heavily influenced by service priorities. Customisation of services, meeting individual student needs, working under immense pressure within tight timeframes and focusing on teaching and research jointly contribute to academics’ service trade-offs in the HE sector. Indeed, the nature of the job necessitates such trade-offs by default, as academics are unable to cancel or postpone classes due to scheduling constraints and the requirement to be physically present during class sessions.

Practical implications

HE administrators and managers should provide academics with adequate resources, effective work allocation and optimal timeframes for task completion, as service priorities are the key factors influencing service trade-offs in Malaysia’s HE sector. The satisfaction of these needs would enable academics’ service priorities and trade-offs to be better balanced, thereby contributing to better operational efficiency, boosting organisational performance and maintaining business sustainability.

Originality/value

The empirical results serve to clarify the key factors influencing service trade-offs in the HE sector, thus expanding the extant literature, which has mostly concentrated on describing the same phenomena in the manufacturing sector. The proposed service trade-offs model would serve as a guideline for operational efficiencies in the HE sector to prevent future recurrence and reduce the potential risk of service disruption, thus mitigating the risk of dissatisfaction.

Green service production and environmental performance in healthcare emergencies: role of big-data management and green HRM practices

Purpose

This study aims to examine the impact of big data management on green service production (GSP) and environmental performance (ENPr) while considering green HRM practices (GHRM) in healthcare emergencies.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collected primary data from major healthcare organizations in India by surveying healthcare professionals. The data analysis through structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) reveals several significant relationships to extricate the underlying dynamics.

Findings

Grounded in the theories of service production and natural resource-based view (NRBV), this study conceptualizes GSP with its three dimensions of green procurement (GP), green service design (GSD) and green service practices (GSPr). The study conducted in India's healthcare sector with a sample size limited to healthcare professionals serving in COVID-19 identifies the positive and significant impact of big data management on GSP and ENPr that organizations seek to deploy in such emergencies. The findings of the study explain the moderating effects of GHRM on GSP-ENPr relationships.

Research limitations/implications

The study was conducted in the healthcare sector in India, and its sample size was limited to healthcare professionals serving in COVID-19. The practical ramifications for healthcare administrators and policymakers are suggested, and future avenues of research are discussed.

Originality/value

This paper develops a holistic model of big data analytics, GP, GSD, GSPr, GHRM and ENPr. This study is a first step in investigating how big data management contributes to ENPr in an emergency and establishing the facets of GSP as a missing link in this relationship, which is currently void in the literature. This study contributes to the theory and fills the knowledge gap in this area.

Customer readiness to co-production of mobile banking services: a customer-only co-production perspective

This paper aimed to identify the antecedents and corollary of customer readiness for co-production in customer-only co-production services using mobile banking services as a context. Using a structured questionnaire, data were gathered from a sample of mobile banking customers in Ghana and the UK and the data analysis was facilitated by structural equation modelling. From the findings, the antecedents were customer socialisation, customer self-efficacy and customer motivation and the corollary was service productivity. The findings provide managers of customer-only co-production or technology-based services particularly mobile banking services with the specific factors that can be managed strategically and tactically to enhance customer readiness for co-production and service productivity. This study is one of a kind to conceptualise and empirically identify the antecedents and corollary of customer readiness for co-production within the customer-only co-production context. However, as the study was limited to mobile banking services, future studies might test the research model in other customer-only technology-based services.

DESERV IT: A Method for Devolving Service Tasks in IT Services

Nowadays, IT operations devolve many tasks in IT services to internal customers (i.e., IT self-service). The rationale for this service task devolvement is often to reduce the IT personnel’s workload. However, prior research has shown that IT operations often fail to achieve this goal. Existing methods for modeling and analyzing services fall short of supporting service providers in identifying and specifying service tasks suitable to be devolved to (internal) customers. This paper presents, therefore, the first method for devolving service tasks in IT services (DESERV IT). DESERV IT is a compound of four method components encompassing a joint meta-model, a visual notation for modeling IT services, and procedural recommendations. The DESERV IT meta-model extends the meta-model of service blueprinting by means of concepts required to analyze service task devolvement. DESERV IT is evaluated in four evaluation episodes. The results of the evaluation episodes show that DESERV IT is perceived as effective, useful, complete, and generalizable by experts in the IT service management and enterprise architecture discipline. This paper contributes to enterprise modeling by demonstrating the feasibility of DESERV IT in an example case and describing DESERV IT’s evolution during the evaluation episodes. DESERV IT supports practitioners (e.g., request fulfillment managers) in modeling and analyzing IT services.

Overview and classification of approaches to productivity measurement

Purpose

Productivity is a multidimensional and context-dependent concept. Therefore, many different definitions and consequently, many different approaches to productivity measurement (PM) exist in the literature. As a result, the understanding of productivity and the appropriate use of PM approaches are at a low level. The literature provides some overviews, but these overviews consider only a few selected individual aspects. Therefore, the overviews do not allow a comprehensive comparison and evaluation of existing approaches. This paper aims to give an overview of existing approaches to PM and to classify them according to elaborated criteria based on the main characteristics of productivity.

Design/methodology/approach

Literature review for existing approaches to PM using the following keywords: productivity, PM, productivity measure, labour productivity and labor productivity.

Findings

A total of 38 approaches are identified and listed between 1955 and 2020. The main result is a systematic overview and classification of existing approaches to PM.

Research limitations/implications

Researchers can use the overview to determine the development over time, the current state of research in the field of PM and identify research gaps. The classification can also be used to classify new approaches.

Practical implications

Companies can use the classification as a guide to identifying appropriate approaches to measuring productivity in corporate practice.

Originality/value

This paper enables a comprehensive comparison and evaluation of existing approaches to PM. Also, the understanding of the multidimensional character of the productivity concept is enhanced.

The Links between Proactive Environmental Strategy, Competitive Advantages and Firm Performance: An Empirical Study in Vietnam

The acceleration of environmental problems has put firms under high pressure to assume their social and environmental responsibility. This study aims to investigate the links between proactive environmental strategy, competitive advantages and firm performance. It also explores the control effects of firm size and industry type on the adoption of such a strategy. Data were obtained from 232 firms that participated in the program on benchmarking and announcing sustainable companies in Vietnam. Findings from structural equation modelling reveal that the adoption of a proactive environmental strategy generates both differentiation and cost leadership competitive advantages. Furthermore, differentiation competitive advantages enhance firm performance in both the short term (i.e., product, financial and production performance) and long term (i.e., strategic performance). Interestingly, a proactive environmental strategy is more prevalent among larger firms and those in service industries. This study’s findings provide support for firms to pursue a proactive environmental strategy and have several implications for policymakers in developing policies that aim at promoting environmental practices in firms.

Organizational enablers of business process reengineering implementation

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the main organizational factors that contribute to the successful implementation of business process reengineering (BPR) in the Egyptian banking sector. These factors include management commitment, information technology (IT) infrastructure, people management, change readiness, centralization and formalization.

Design/methodology/approach

The key organizational enablers were identified through an extensive literature review. Then, statistical analysis was carried out based on data collected, using a questionnaire instrument, from 184 managers employed in 38 banks operating in Egypt.

Findings

The results of the study indicate that management commitment, IT infrastructure, people management, change readiness and organizational structure with a low degree of formalization are critical enablers for implementing a successful BPR program within the Egyptian banking sector.

Practical implications

The results may support managers of banks in identifying and assessing the influence of integrating organizational factors that facilitate or hinder the successful implementation of BPR.

Originality/value

Since 2004, the Egyptian banking system has involved in major reform programs and many BPR efforts. Much research effort is required to investigate the BPR projects within the Egyptian banks in order to develop a concrete base of knowledge and understanding of the nature of BPR and factors that support its successful implementation. Moreover, there is an insufficiency of empirical studies regarding the implementation of BPR within the Egyptian service sector. The current study fills this gap by exploring and examining the main organizational factors affecting BPR implementation in a developing country.

Service productivity as mutual learning

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to analyse the mutual learning implications for service productivity of the characteristics of service and service production.

Design/methodology/approach

– This is a conceptual paper. The starting point is, first of all, that productivity as a management concept should help a firm to manage its economic profit, and secondly, that service organizations are open systems, where the customers participate as co-producers and are exposed to the firm’s production resources and processes. Unlike in manufacturing, to understand productivity in service organizations as a means of managing profit, cost effects and revenue effects of changes in the productions system cannot be separated. Due to the interaction between customers and the firm’s resources during service production, dialogical collaboration between them develops. This enables mutual learning.

Findings

– Given the social dynamics in service production processes, four learning processes that influence service productivity are identified. Two processes enhance the organizations’s internal efficiency (cost savings), and two enhance its external effectiveness (perceived quality, revenue generation); two are organization-driven, two are customer-driven.

Research limitations/implications

– The mutual learning model demonstrates how the service provider by learning from the dynamics of service encounters in many ways can manage the productivity of the organizations’s processes. It shows that learning enables improvement of service productivity through effects enhancing both internal efficiency and external effectiveness.

Originality/value

– In a productivity context, learning has not earlier been studied as a mutual learning phenomenon.