Robert D. Winsor

Service quality perspectives and satisfaction in private banking

Examines the effects of service quality on customer satisfaction from two distinct methodological perspectives. Specifically, a study utilizing a sample of international private banking customers is conducted wherein service quality is operationalized via two distinct and well‐known measures – SERVQUAL and Technical/Functional Quality. These two service quality measures are subsequently compared and contrasted as to their ability to predict customer satisfaction. To further assess the validity of these findings, two moderators of the service‐quality/customer‐satisfaction relationship are introduced and evaluated. Finally, this research examines the potential utility of employing separate measures for customer satisfaction from the perspectives of both technical and functional aspects of the service delivery process. Overall, our findings are of importance to service managers as they strive to identify efficient and effective approaches for improving quality. The paper explores the theoretical and practical insights of the findings, including potential strengths and limitations of current service quality models with regard to their ability to define and explain the quality/satisfaction relationship.

The Resurrection of Taylorism: Total Quality Management’s Hidden Agenda

Looks at the historical roots of TQM. Finds that TQM, while popularly attributed to W. Edwards Deming, can be linked in Japan to 1920s industrialization and to the importation of Taylor’s philosophy. Posits that TQM’s neo‐modernism. Concludes with post‐TQM ideas for managing change.

The effects of organizational culture and market orientation on the effectiveness of strategic marketing alliances

Recent research illuminates the important contribution of organizational culture and market orientation to organizational effectiveness. In an attempt to increase the conceptual and empirical body of knowledge, explores the links between organizational culture, market orientation, and marketing effectiveness in the context of strategic marketing alliances. Analyzes responses to self‐administered questionnaires returned by 128 such organizations. The findings suggest that organizational culture significantly affects marketing effectiveness, although the individual dimensions of organizational culture have varying degrees of influence upon the dimensions of marketing effectiveness. Among mechanistic or non‐adaptive cultural dimensions, increased internal culture enhances an internal market effectiveness dimension, whereas increased external culture enhances an external market effectiveness dimension. This internal/external alignment is not found for the organic or adaptive cultural dimensions. This same internal/external alignment is found, however, when examining the relationship between market orientation and market effectiveness. Internal aspects of market orientation enhance an internal market effectiveness dimension, whereas increased external orientation enhances an external market effectiveness dimension. Discusses managerial implications.

Partial Employees and Consumers A Postmodern, Meta-Theoretical Perspective for services Marketing

This analysis aims to highlight the impact of both ‘partial employees’ and ‘partial consumers’ on the service delivery process. Effective service delivery often requires the participation of the customer. Accordingly, the customer may be conceptualized as a partial employee. Further, service employees may ‘consume’ their roles and duties as providers of service. Although the services literature has developed the notion of the partial employee to some extent, the concept is not developed within a comprehensive, theoretical framework. And, the portrayal of service employees as consumers (i.e. partial consumers) is largely undeveloped. As an emergent cultural philosophy, postmodernism offers a basis for developing a framework incorporating the notion of the partial employee, as well as an understanding of the effects and contributions of other service participants (i.e. service providers) as partial consumers. The implications of treating the consumer as partial employee and the employee as partial consumer in the delivery of the service experience are many. For instance, this notion inspires an expanded view of service exchange as a productive (consumptive) moment, which, in turn, requires a shift in orientation from an emphasis that considers only managing the functional benefits that the service provides to managing both employees and consumer alike.

Marketing under conditions of chaos: Percolation metaphors and models

Abstract A new concept for the study of marketing phenomena is introduced. Derived from the area of statistical topology and central to the emerging theory of “chaos,” percolation describes a process of deterministic flow through a stochastic medium. Contrasted to diffusion, in which a random flow progresses through a deterministic medium, percolation is suggested as a useful metaphor for marketing management and as a more appropriate source of models for the study of consumer adoption processes. Examples and potential applications are given, and areas for future research are suggested .

Military perspectives of organizations

As the most common metaphor in organizational literature, the military perspective has greatly influenced business thought and practice. Delineates the various forms taken by the military metaphor in business, and discusses potential explanations for its increasing popularity. Considers the ethical and structural effects of military thinking on the organization.

Knowledge and skills transfer between MBA and workplace

Purpose – This paper aims to use goal-setting theory to explain the transfer of knowledge and skills between master of business administration (MBA) and the workplace. Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained by an online survey of MBA students enrolled in at four US graduate business schools. These were a public and private institution in the Northeast region, a private sectarian institution in the Midwest region and a private institution in the Pacific region. All students worked while attending the university. The sampling frame consisted of each school’s MBA enrollees. Questionnaires were distributed to a random cross-section of part-time students at each graduate school of business representative of returned by 144 students. The profiles of responders were consistent with parameters for the entire MBA student population. Findings – The research shows that multiple goals of reciprocal knowledge and skills transfer may be in harmony and mutually reinforcing. In principle, each goal is more like...

Corporate and Brand Web Sites as Customer Relationship Management Tools

ABSTRACT The explosive proliferation of Internet technologies, combined with the rapid acceptance of these technologies by consumers, has enticed nearly every organization to construct and implement a corporate and/or brand Web site. These Web sites allow businesses to communicate and transact with customers in new ways and with dramatically improved efficiency. Further, the marriage of Customer Relationship Management software with these Internet technologies is yielding unparalleled benefits to both organizations and consumers. Yet many of the efforts to implement either simple or complex relationship management systems have proceeded without a fundamental understanding of the specific benefits available to individual firms. While Internet-based relationship management technologies can provide powerful competitive and operational opportunities to nearly all organizations, only some forms of these approaches are appropriate for any unique firm. The goal of this paper is to provide a general overview and framework of the opportunities provided by each form of Internet relationship-building approach, a suggested implementation process for exploiting these opportunities, and the specific business, product, and market conditions that facilitate these potential advantages.

Corporate America's Search for the “Right” Direction: Outlook and Opportunities for Family Firms:

The recent accounting scandals and corporate misdeeds of several high-profile Fortune 500 companies have left the investing public reeling. This paper highlights the attributes and characteristics of family firms that confer operational and financial performance advantages on them vis-à-vis nonfamily, or publicly controlled, firms. As a result, family firms have a unique opportunity to model the way regarding corporate reform.

Talking the Post‐Fordist Talk,...but Walking the Post‐industrial Walk

Recent innovations applied to the design and management of production in the United States have been termed “post‐Fordist”, in an effort to distinguish these methods from those of large‐scale mass‐production characteristic of earlier decades. These efforts, however, may be vulnerable to criticism from both a conceptual and also a practical position. Specifically, suggests that post‐Fordist methods not only fail to live up to their ideological promise, but are inappropriate to our current “post‐industrial” state of diminishing manufacturing output.