Gavin L. Fox

Supply management ethical responsibility: reputation and performance impacts

Purpose – There is a lack of extensive research related to the immediate consequences of supply management ethical responsibility (SMER) and the moderating and/or mediating factors that strengthen or weaken its consequences. Although the underlying presumption is that companies no longer have the luxury of ignoring the importance of SMER, the lack of empirical research of SMERs impact on supply management performance (SMP) reflects the need for research that draws on and empirically tests established theories concerning the role of corporate ethics within the context of supply management (SM). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine the impact of SMER and strategic supply management skills on SM perceived reputation and performance.Design/methodology/approach – Structural equation modeling is employed to investigate the hypothesized relationships. A sample of 162 purchasing managers provided the data via survey.Findings – Strategic supply management skills and perceived reputation have a pos...

Service customer commitment and response

– This paper aims to examine the role of three forms of customer commitment (normative, affective, and continuance) on a variety of loyalty‐related customer responses., – Data were collected from two distinct sampling frames, which yielded a combined metrically invariant sample of 348 consumers. A three‐dimensional conceptualization of commitment is used to analyze impacts on one focal (i.e. repurchase intentions) and two discretionary customer responses., – Results of structural equation modeling analyses indicate that affective commitment is the primary driver of the customer responses and mediates the effects of normative and continuance commitments. These effects are contingent upon the type of service., – This research emphasizes the primacy of affective commitment in predicting loyalty‐like customer responses., – Managers need to focus primarily on generating affective commitment, but be mindful that normative and continuance commitment also play a role in generating desirable consumer responses., – The paper builds on and overcomes several deficiencies in prior commitment research. A more accurate and useful representation of affective, normative, and continuance commitment roles in generating focal and discretionary behaviors is provided.

Cautionary Remarks on the Use of Clusterwise Regression.

Clusterwise linear regression is a multivariate statistical procedure that attempts to cluster objects with the objective of minimizing the sum of the error sums of squares for the within-cluster regression models. In this article, we show that the minimization of this criterion makes no effort to distinguish the error explained by the within-cluster regression models from the error explained by the clustering process. In some cases, most of the variation in the response variable is explained by clustering the objects, with little additional benefit provided by the within-cluster regression models. Accordingly, there is tremendous potential for overfitting with clusterwise regression, which is demonstrated with numerical examples and simulation experiments. To guard against the misuse of clusterwise regression, we recommend a benchmarking procedure that compares the results for the observed empirical data with those obtained across a set of random permutations of the response measures. We also demonstrate the potential for overfitting via an empirical application related to the prediction of reflective judgment using high school and college performance measures.

An Integrated Perspective of Service Recovery: A Sociotechnical Systems Approach

This study examines service recovery from an internal, operations-oriented perspective. Specifically, a model grounded in sociotechnical systems (STS) theory is developed and tested to investigate the relationships between service recovery systems, recovery climates, employee abilities and actions, and recovery performance. A sample of 221 general service employees is used to empirically test the proposed model. Results support the STS perspective and suggest that an integrated recovery system is essential in establishing a recovery climate, which in turn enables employee efficacy and reduces avoidance behaviors. Additionally, employee efficacy has a positive effect on performance, while avoidance leads to ineffective failure correction. The results presented herein highlight the need for service practitioners to consider designing and implementing integrated recovery systems in order to enhance the abilities of employees, while heightening the likelihood of failure correction. Furthermore, this study provides an initial step in moving the recovery literature into a more theory-driven direction.

Institutional antecedents to research productivity in operations: the US perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the institutional factors that affect the productivity of individuals in the field of operations.Design/methodology/approach – This study identifies a sample of graduates from PhD programs in operations and utilizes a partial least squares analysis to examine the effect of academic origin, academic affiliation, and advisor productivity on each individuals research productivity.Findings – The results of the analysis indicate that the productivity of an individual is directly influenced by the aggregate prestige of the institutions where the individual was employed during article publication and indirectly influenced by the prestige of the institution where the individual received the terminal degree. Additionally, differences were found between groups when the sample was divided by focus (operations management (OM) versus operations research (OR). The OM model held the same relationships as the combined model, while the OR model included significant direct...

The Implications of Third-Party Customer Complaining for Advertising Efforts

This paper critically assesses the impacts of third-party customer complaining and responsiveness on the efficiency and effectiveness of advertising. A sample of 180 businesses is analyzed using COMPUSTAT and Better Business Bureau (BBB) data. The results suggest that third-party customer complaining is associated with lower advertising efficiency and effectiveness in both goods and service industries. The results further indicate that responsiveness to third-party customer complaining by goods firms is negatively related to advertising effectiveness but does not lead to lower overall advertising efficiency in either goods or services industries. These findings suggest that practitioners consider the impacts of, and trade-offs involved with, third-party customer complaining and organizational responsiveness to third-party customer complaining when evaluating advertising strategies.

Weaving webs of innovation

Purpose – This research aims to utilize a social network analysis approach to examine the effect of organizational position within a network of strategic partnerships on innovation as measured by perceptions of industry analysts. Specifically, the purpose of the paper is to examine how network characteristics such as degree centrality (being centrally located in a network), between centrality (being positioned as an intermediary), and closeness centrality (having a short average distance to all other firms in the network) affect the innovation ranking of the focal firm.Design/methodology/approach – Data for 563 firms are generated from three distinct data sources (SDC Platinum: Alliances and Joint Ventures, COMPUSTAT, and Fortunes Americas Most Admired Companies) and analyzed via social network analysis and linear regression.Findings – The network characteristics of degree centrality and between centrality positively relate to industry perceptions or innovativeness whereas closeness centrality had no si...

A quality system’s impact on the service experience

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the interplay between technical and social systems within an organization that potentially affect the service experience, as perceived by end customers. Design/methodology/approach The paper explores the potential impact of an integrated service quality system on the service experience. A conceptual model is presented, accompanied by a detailed development of the hypotheses. Two samples (Study 1: n=474, Study 2: n=225) of consumers are used to empirically test the proposed model. Findings The analysis reveals the impact a technical system has on employees’ inherent abilities (i.e. the social system), which, in turn, affect the overall assessment by customers. Additionally, the situation in which an employee works (i.e. operating environmental conditions) results in differences in the model. Research limitations/implications This paper’s main implication is this paper employs established theory to develop a model that is empirically tested to show that implementing and maintaining a quality-oriented service system can positively influence the overall customer experience. The limitations are based primarily on the methodology in which individual employees assessed all aspects of both the social and technical systems. Practical implications Managers should be diligent in their design and implementation of the quality components as these affect the work setting in which employees operate. Originality/value Prior research has neither explored an integrated service quality system’s impact on the service experience nor employed an established theoretical framework. This work accomplishes both with the results providing contributions to both theory and practice.

The Marketing Ripple in Supply Chains

This research employs spatial econometrics to extend supply chain analysis beyond dyads. The impacts of advertising, company size, and inventory of multiple supply tiers on focal firm inventory levels are investigated. The results indicate that firms should look beyond a single tier of buyers or suppliers when assessing channel members.

Do Complaining Customers Signal Manufacturing Success

This paper synthesizes Better Business Bureau and COMPUSTAT data to examine how customer complaining and organizational responsiveness impact performance. The results provided by a sample of 344 US manufacturing firms suggests that complaints about service are positively related to performance, as is general responsiveness to complaints of any form.