The service encounter frequently is the service from the customer's point of view. Using the critical incident method, the authors collected 700 incidents from customers of airlines, hotels, and re...
For consumers, evaluation of a service firm often depends on evaluation of the "service encounter" or the period of time when the customer interacts directly with the firm. Knowledge of the factors that influence customer evaluations in service encounters is therefore critical, particularly at a time when general perceptions of service quality are declining. The author presents a model for understanding service encounter evaluation that synthesizes consumer satisfaction, services marketing, and attribution theories. A portion of the model is tested experimentally to assess the effects of physical surroundings and employee responses (explanations and offers to compensate) on attributions and satisfaction in a service failure context.
Marketing academicians and practitioners have been observing for more than three decades that business performance is affected by market orientation, yet to date there has been no valid measure of a market orientation and hence no systematic analysis of its effect on a business's performance. The authors report the development of a valid measure of market orientation and analyze its effect on a business's profitability. Using a sample of 140 business units consisting of commodity products businesses and noncommodity businesses, they find a substantial positive effect of a market orientation on the profitability of both types of businesses.
A model of distributor firm and manufacturer firm working partnerships is presented and is assessed empirically on a sample of distributor firms and a sample of manufacturer firms. A multiple-informant research method is employed. Support is found for a number of the hypothesized construct relations and, in both manufacturer firm and distributor firm models, for the respecification of cooperation as an antecedent rather than a consequence of trust. Some implications for marketing practice are discussed briefly.
The literature reflects remarkably little effort to develop a framework for understanding the implementation of the marketing concept. The authors synthesize extant knowledge on the subject and provide a foundation for future research by clarifying the construct's domain, developing research propositions, and constructing an integrating framework that includes antecedents and consequences of a market orientation. They draw on the occasional writings on the subject over the last 35 years in the marketing literature, work in related disciplines, and 62 field interviews with managers in diverse functions and organizations. Managerial implications of this research are discussed.
The service encounter frequently is the service from the customer's point of view. Using the critical incident method, the authors collected 700 incidents from customers of airlines, hotels, and restaurants. The incidents were categorized to isolate the particular events and related behaviors of contact employees that cause customers to distinguish very satisfactory service encounters from very dissatisfactory ones. Key implications for managers and researchers are highlighted.
The literature reflects remarkably little effort to develop a framework for understanding the implementation of the marketing concept. The authors synthesize extant knowledge on the subject and provide a foundation for future research by clarifying the construct's domain, developing research propositions, and constructing an integrating framework that includes antecedents and consequences of a market orientation. They draw on the occasional writings on the subject over the last 35 years in the marketing literature, work in related disciplines, and 62 field interviews with managers in diverse functions and organizations. Managerial implications of this research are discussed.
The authors update and extend their 1978 review of conjoint analysis. In addition to discussing several new developments, they consider alternative approaches for measuring preference structures in the presence of a large number of attributes. They also discuss other topics such as reliability, validity, and choice simulators.
Previous research on coupon proneness has measured the construct only in behavioral terms (i.e., consumers who are more responsive to coupon promotions are coupon prone). On the basis of the study premise that at least one other psychological construct, value consciousness, underlies the behavior of redeeming coupons, the authors argue that coupon proneness should be conceptualized and measured at a psychological level and treated as one construct that affects coupon-responsive behavior rather than as isomorphic with the behavior. They offer conceptual definitions of both coupon proneness and value consciousness and make a theoretical distinction based on acquisition-transaction utility theory. Eight hypotheses that reflect theoretical differences between the two constructs are proposed and tested. Results support the study premise that coupon-responsive behavior is a manifestation of both value consciousness and coupon proneness.
Since the publication of the Bass model in 1969, research on the modeling of the diffusion of innovations has resulted in a body of literature consisting of several dozen articles, books, and assorted other publications. Attempts have been made to reexamine the structural and conceptual assumptions and estimation issues underlying the diffusion models of new product acceptance. The authors evaluate these developments for the past two decades. They conclude with a research agenda to make diffusion models theoretically more sound and practically more effective and realistic.