Halil Nadiri

Perceptions of service quality in North Cyprus hotels

Purpose – Defining and measuring quality service is of importance to providers of hotel services. This study aims to diagnose the applicability of the perceived service quality measurement scale to European customers in a new emerging market which is North Cyprus – because tourism industry in Cyprus has been significantly influenced owing to political instability of the island since 1963 and the year 2004 has been of great importance owing to the 24 April referendum for a peace solution between South and North on the island Cyprus.Design/methodology/approach – The sample of the study consists of the European tourists visiting Northern Cyprus hotels. Non‐probability convenience sampling technique is used to collect the data of survey instruments adopted from Parasuraman et al. SPSS 10.0 for windows was employed for the scale measurement. Descriptive analysis such as means, standard deviation and frequencies are calculated. Regression analysis was employed to observe the causal effect of independent variabl...

Diagnosing the zone of tolerance for hotel services

Purpose – Aims to address the concept of the “zone of tolerance” in judgments of hotel service quality. The present study describes the zone of tolerance for customers’ service expectations and determines the customer satisfaction level in Northern Cyprus hotels – which is a new emerging market as an island destination.Design/methodology/approach – The sample of the study consisted of customers visiting four‐star, five‐star, and resort hotels located in the Gazimagusa and Kyrenia regions of Northern Cyprus in June and July 2004. The questionnaire was based on service expectations and perceptions. As a result of the pilot study with 50 customers, the instrument was reworded for measuring service quality and the zone of tolerance for hotels. This modified instrument became the “HOTELZOT” instrument, which was used to measure customers’ service expectations and service perceptions. Psychometric properties of the scale (such as reliability) were tested, and the dimensionality of the scale was confirmed throug...

Recruitment and Training Policies and Practices: The Case of Turkey as an EU Candidate.

Purpose – To provide information on differences between recruitment methods and training practices used in SMEs and large organizations in Turkey, as a representative of a developing country.Design/methodology/approach – A survey as designed by the Cranfield Network on International Human Resource Management (CRANET‐G) was used for this study. The survey aims to obtain data that is based on facts and it does not ask for information based on respondents’ opinions, attitudes or perceptions.Findings – It provides information about recruitment methods and training practices used in organizations in Turkey. It suggests that, in Turkey, small businesses are more likely to rely on employment agencies, which are considered formal recruitment sources in order to fill managerial positions, contrary to the existing literature and theoretical propositions. Additionally, with regard to training practices, it shows that large organizations use more formal training methods compared with small‐and medium‐sized enterprise...

An empirical study to diagnose the outcomes of customers’ experiences in trendy coffee shops

The purpose of this study is to analyse the influence of experiential marketing on young customers’ experiential values and respectively on their satisfaction and word of mouth and revisit intentions. An instrument was developed to measure how the strategic experiential module (Schmitt 1999) and service quality perceptions of customers influence their experiential values. Data were gathered through questionnaires conducted with 450 respondents to diagnose young customers’ experiences in Gloria Jeans Coffees shops in North Cyprus. The structural equation modelling through partial least square (PLS) method results were acceptable in terms of reliability and validity. The empirical results revealed that, some of the strategic experiential modules and service quality perceptions have positive influences on customer experiences (functional and emotional). Results also show that customers’ satisfaction can induce positive post purchase behaviour. The results, managerial implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed in detail.

The role of cultural context in direct communication

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to examine how the cultural context and other institutional factors may influence the amount of direct communication with employees in nine European countries.Design/methodology/approach – Nine countries were selected from the Cranfield Network on Comparative Human Resource Management database varying from high to low context. The dependent or criterion variable, was direct communication, independent variables were organization size age and industry, strategic role of human resource management (HRM), union presence and communication culture context. Data were analysed using one‐way analysis of variance and hierarchical regression.Findings – The results show that cultural communication context, union presence and strategic role of HRM all have an influence on direct communication. The authors also see that union presence and cultural context interact.Research limitations/implications – The paper relied on data collected from the human resource managers of the organization...

Strategic Issue in Higher Education Marketing: How University Students’ Perceive Higher Education Services

One of the most important service industries that emerged in the last decade is “Higher Education”. The most of the higher education institutes involve in marketing efforts to build up a good image, to improve the level of satisfaction of students and the stakeholders, to gain competitive advantage with respect to competitors and as well as to increase their market share. Within this intense competition universities should identify and meet the expectations of students to attract more and to retain the existing students. This study is to gain more insights into the dimensions of satisfaction of the university students and factors that affecting their judgments. SSI educational experience questionnaire is used to identify the importance and performance perceptions of students’ in Eastern Mediterranean University among different dimensions and also study find out the difference between importance and performance scores of eleven educational experience dimensions. Results show that “Academic Advising”, “Instruction Effectiveness”, “Recruitment and Financial Aid” and “Student Centeredness” was very important to students. Study also provides managerial implications as well.

An Empirical Study of Some Demographic and Work-Related Variables on Job Satisfaction of Academics in a Turkish University

The Job Satisfaction Survey was administered to 610 faculty in a university in North Cyprus. As expected, job satisfaction increased with rank, and those who held administrative positions were more satisfied than staff who did not. The longer the participants had served in the current university, the higher their rated job satisfaction. Job satisfaction of women in higher academic positions was higher than that of their male peers. Age was not correlated with increases in job satisfaction.