Md. Maruf Hossan Chowdhury

Ethical issues as competitive advantage for bank management

Purpose - Ethics have always played a crucial role in the realm of business and commerce. This paper aims to extract the principle factors of ethical practices to develop a model for competitive advantage in banking and to show the relation between ethical practice and customer satisfaction and the linked reason for satisfaction as a tool for competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach - Based on the literature review, ethical issues in banking have been identified as a foundation work. Then an empirical study using survey research has been completed. The survey questionnaire has been designed using the literature and pilot survey input. Factor analysis has been conducted to derive ethical factors for competitive advantage from the survey data, which included 186 responses. Findings - From the analysis, two principle factors have been extracted: the cost leveraging factor; and the value leveraging factor which lead to competitive advantage. More over, it also revealed that high ethical practice results in high customer satisfaction and performance. Practical implications - This study develops a guideline of competitive advantage for bank management through ethical practice. Originality/value - The paper extracts how ethical factors create competitive advantage in banking and the linked reason of ethical practice and performance of banks which has not often received much focus from previous studies.

Information integration in a dyadic relationship between producer and supplier: A case study on Holtab and its supplier

Information integration enables firms to get real time information to cater the needs of customers, reduce order cycle time, accelerate response times and reduce cost in the supply chain. The paper aims at analyzing the present state of information flow between producer and its supplier, focuses on the ways and means of information integration between producer supplier dyad to ensure on time delivery of a critical component. A case study has been carried out using a qualitative research approach. Primary Data have been collected by observation and semi structured interview with the logistics manager and production manager of both producer and supplier. From the analysis and findings it is revealed that information flow both intra and inter-company is not smooth which creates the problem of uncertainty in the supply of critical component. To solve this problem both short term and long term solutions have been suggested based on the degree of integration required between the producer supplier dyad.

Resistance to Integrate Information Systems in Healthcare Service: A Study on Developing Country

Information systems are vital for meeting the service expectations of customers and stakeholders. However, integration of information systems in health service is inhibited due to numerous resistance factors which need to be addressed in order to ensure a quality healthcare service. Despite its significance, there is a paucity of research in addressing the resistance to information technology adoption in the healthcare industry. This relates to two domains: (i) factors contributing to resistance to health information systems (HIS) in developing country contexts and (ii) strategies to mitigate the resistances. This chapter sets out to develop a methodology to address the aforementioned gaps in the literature using an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) integrated quality function deployment (QFD) approach. The developed methodology will be used in a healthcare service providing organization in Bangladesh to identify the factors contributing to resistance to health information systems (HIS) and to determine the most significant strategies to mitigate those resistance factors. This research has significant theoretical, methodological and managerial implications.

Three Dimensional Components of e-Business Sustainability

e-Business modelling is a prevalent term now days as it converts technology into economic value. The sustainability of the business is another global contemporary issue. Although e-business modelling and sustainability are the two major global trends now but still there is no common understanding about the elements that need to be used for a sustainable e-business model. Surprisingly, none of the e-business modelling approaches even consider sustainability as a major element. In this paper, therefore, after extensive literature review on e-business modelling and sustainability of the business we carefully identify and determine the required elements for a sustainable e-business model. The elements are three dimensional and selected from customer value area, business value area, and process value area so that the modelling elements safeguard the interests of all stakeholders (customer, business, society, and environment) while maintaining the sustainability.