Sergios Dimitriadis

Managing the new service development process: towards a systemic model

Purpose – When compared with the field of new product development, research on new services has seen fewer developments and offers less comprehensive insights. This paper tries to fill this gap by providing empirical findings from two qualitative longitudinal case studies of new service development. Knowledge on the management issues for developing new bank offerings efficiently is limited. Furthermore, recent research suggests that organisational learning can contribute greatly to the success of innovation projects. The aims of this paper are to provide a detailed description of the development process of a new financial product and to identify learning actions that may contribute to its effectiveness.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports findings from a qualitative, longitudinal case study of a well‐known French bank, and of a retailer. The research focuses on the description of the process, the organisational issues involved and the decision making during the development process.Findings – Th...

Assessing service quality on the Web: evidence from business-to-consumer portals

The article explores the quality dimensions that the visitors of national and foreign business‐to‐consumer portals use to assess the performance of their service offering. Based on the SERVQUAL model and previous research on Web site evaluation and quality, the paper identified three quality dimensions that proved to be stable across sites’ nationality and user profiles. Several implications are drawn from these results for both Web site marketers and future academic research.

An examination of the effects of service quality and satisfaction on customers' behavioral intentions in e‐shopping

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of service quality and satisfaction on three consumer behavioral intentions, namely word‐of‐mouth, site revisit, and purchase intentions in the context of internet shopping.Design/methodology/approach – To achieve this objective 240 online interviews were carried out (response rate 24 percent) from a randomly generated sample of 1,052 online shoppers using the database of a leading Internet provider in Greece as the sample frame.Findings – Data analysis involved the comparison of three rival models using structural equations modeling. The prevailed model reveals that e‐service quality has a positive effect on e‐satisfaction, while it also influences, both directly and indirectly through e‐satisfaction, the consumers behavioral intentions, namely site revisit, word‐of‐mouth communication and repeat purchase.Research limitations/implications – The results confirm that cognitive evaluations precede emotional responses and that quality is a strong...

Brand strategies in social media

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to: first, examine why companies create brand pages in social media, how they use them, what policies and strategies they follow, and what outcomes do they expect; and second – from firms’ point of view – how users are benefited from such pages. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative study approach was employed for this study. Data were collected from personal interviews with 14 marketing managers responsible for the social media activity of their company, providing preliminary evidence about the actions firms take, the motivations that led them to getting involved, and the derived outcomes. Findings – The main actions of the firm are making prize competitions, announcing new products/services, interacting with fans, providing advice and useful information, and handling customer service issues. The basic motivations are the increasing popularity of social media, competitors’ presence, headquarters’ strategy, and cost reduction pressure. Interact with customers, ...

Antecedents of perceived quality in the context of internet retail stores

This study investigates specific antecedents of perceived service quality in the Internet environment for trust to a retail store, experience with e-commerce, Internet familiarity, excitement with e-commerce, extent of using e-commerce, frequency of purchases from a company, in addition to exploring the reasons for shopping on line: such as price discounts, convenience, product availability, and purchase conditions. The results indicate that perceived e-service quality is comprised of four key dimensions: information, user friendliness, interaction / adaptation and aesthetics. Moreover, the study reveals that different dimensions of perceived e-service quality are influenced by diverse antecedents. For instance, whilst customer trust to a company influences all four dimensions, Internet familiarity has an impact solely on user friendliness. This picture remained when the type of store, either pure dot. com versus hybrid retailer, was tested as a moderator variable. Implications for practice, the limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed.

New service development through the lens of organisational learning: evidence from longitudinal case studies

Abstract The paper examines the interest and limits of an organisational learning (OL) model for better understanding the new service development process. Based on the literature linking new service development and OL, the opportunity to use Crossan et al.s [Acad. Manage. Rev. 24 (1999) 3.] 4I multilevel learning model in studying new service development process is discussed. In order to test the interest and limits of the model, a longitudinal and comparative case study methodology is described, using two cases of new service development process, the restructuring of the nonfood department of a supermarket and the launch of a new retail bank service package. The empirical findings support the overall interest of the 4I OL model, since several actions and loops of learning were observed, such as intuition, interpretation, integration and institutionalisation. These exploratory results encourage further research to study new service development through an OL lens and provide managers with insights for facilitating learning during the new service development process.

Testing perceived relational benefits as satisfaction and behavioral outcomes drivers

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the different types of perceived relational benefits in the bank‐retail customer relationship. It further seeks to assess the influence of these benefits on satisfaction with the bank and on three behavioral outcomes, word‐of‐mouth, intention to continue the relationship and cross‐buying.Design/methodology/approach – Three focus groups with retail bank customers were conducted to identify perceived relational benefits. Then exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were run on survey data to confirm the structure of relational benefits. Finally, a structural equation model was estimated in order to test the relationships between relational benefits, satisfaction with the bank and behavioral outcomes. The country of study was Greece.Findings – Five types of perceived relational benefits were identified: two trust‐related (competence and benevolence), special treatment, social and convenience. Only competence and convenience significantly affect satisfaction with ...

Exploring consumer‐brand relationship quality and identification

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine alternative constructs that are used in parallel to describe the strength of consumer‐brand relationships. First, the two main conceptualisations of relationship quality (RQ), as developed by relationship marketing and branding literature, are analysed to highlight their common elements. Then, the recently applied in branding context concept of consumer‐brand identification (CBI) is analysed, and issues regarding its nature and link to RQ are raised.Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws upon existing literature on the streams of branding and relationship marketing, to propose a conceptualisation of consumer‐brand RQ and examine the link of CBI to RQ. To investigate the research questions, an exploratory qualitative paper is undertaken involving four focus groups with consumers who have developed relationships with cosmetic brands.Findings – Responses provide evidence for the concepts of satisfaction, trust, commitment, intimacy and love in describi...

Trust‐based segmentation

Purpose – Trust has proven to be a key variable in understanding and predicting consumer behavior in the self‐service technology and e‐commerce contexts. However, it has never been examined as a segmentation variable. This study seeks to investigate the possibility of using trust in two self‐service bank channels: internet, and phone banking, to segment potential users of these channels.Design/methodology/approach – Using data from a survey of 762 real bank customers discriminant analysis is used to test variables differentiating two groups of customers having, respectively, “high” and “low” trust in internet and phone banking.Findings – Results show that the groups of “high” and “low” channel‐trustors are different in a number of attitudinal, behavioral and psychographic criteria. In addition, the two groups react differently in terms of intention to use internet, and phone banking.Research limitations/implications – This work contributes to existing literature on trust by opening an additional use of an...

Transformational leadership as a mediator of the relationship between behavior‐based control and salespeople's key outcomes

Purpose – Two rather distinct lines of theory/research have emerged in the study of sales managers effectiveness. The first focuses on the notion of sales force control systems (SFCS) while the second focuses on transformational leadership (TL) behaviors. To date, however, no theoretical or empirical attempt has been made to integrate these two mostly unconnected streams of research in a sales management context. The present study aims to attempt such integration by conceptualizing TL as a mediator of the relationship between behavior‐based control (BBC) and key salesperson outcomes.Design/methodology/approach – Responses were gathered via a mail survey from a sample of 128 salespeople working in various industries. Structural equation modeling was employed.Findings – The results provide evidence for the mediating effect of TL on the relationships between BBC and key salesperson outcomes. Moreover, it was found that BBC positively affects TL behaviors, which, in turn, enhance salesperson performance, sat...