Uolevi Lehtinen

Two Approaches to Service Quality Dimensions

The purpose of the article is to determine two approaches to the analysis of service quality and its dimensions. In the first approach three quality dimensions are used; physical quality, interactive quality and corporate quality. The other approach is to utilize two dimensions; process quality and output quality. In order to illustrate the existence and explicitness of the dimensions, two empirical studies of restaurants were carried out. Quality dimensions seemed to be fairly suitable for analysing restaurant services.

Content and measurement of productivity in the service sector

The purpose of this article is to elucidate the concept and measurement of productivity in the service sector. The concept of service productivity is divided into quantity and quality dimensions, and further into output and input elements. Moreover, the issue of measurement is analysed to show the problems related to the elaborated concept of productivity. The content and measurement of the dimensions of service productivity are illustrated through a case study focusing on the second largest insurance group in Finland. The various elements of quantity and quality dimensions were distinguished in the target firm, but especially the quality elements seem to require more serious attention in the future. The article ends with a plea for more interdisciplinary research between scholars on service productivity.

Strategic Types of Services and International Marketing

Introduces a strategic typology of services (generic, specialized and customized services). Discusses their implications for international marketing strategies. Presented as tools for strategic thinking, the strategic types of services are developed in the process of differentiating a service from its competitors and focusing it on the particular market segment(s). The typology is not mutually exclusive but can be used to combine elements in order to achieve a differential advantage in service competition. Discusses the core competences of a service firm and the choices in international marketing strategies in the case of each type of service.

Our Present State of Ignorance in Relationship Marketing

Abstract In this paper I generate a number of questions and problematic issues that reveal our state of ignorance regarding relationship marketing. At the same time many suggestions for future research concerning relationship marketing arise. The questions vary from the total contribution of relationship marketing to the detailed practices of relationship marketing. The discussion raises some general issues concerning many of the questions presented. These general issues are conceptualisation, level of analysis, modelling, measurement, time contextuality and contribution to theory and practice.

Options of strategic decision making in services

Service‐marketing literature has traditionally built upon the combination of low technology and high interaction between service providers and customers in service delivery. However, many service organisations have started to utilise high‐tech in their operations. More specifically, they are considering how to make their services available to a wide range of customers with the aid of technology. So far, only few empirically oriented studies on this trend can be found in service literature. In this article the topic is approached on the basis of both services marketing literature and an in‐depth analysis of two case studies. The empirical evidence was gathered from two Finnish financial organisations, an insurance company and a bank, both having utilised technology in their service production and delivery. The consequences of these choices are evaluated and compared with each other. We conclude with a framework for strategic decision making, which ties together the dimensions of service type, technology and encounter. On the basis of our empirical cases, we suggest that there are numerous strategic options between the ends of each continuum of the framework, and in addition to advanced technology, service providers need to pay explicit attention to social aspects. The lesson we learned calls for more customer orientation when planning high‐tech solutions in service operations, and taking a new attitude to segmentation.

A New Structural Method for Analysing Linguistic Significance in Marketing Communication: An Application to Export Advertising

A new structural method for analysing linguistic significance is developed in relation to advertising in international markets. The method analyses problems of practical importance such as when the message is too vague or when the readers ‘identified’ by the advertisement are different from those aimed at by the advertiser. It is argued that such cases employ linguistically insignificant structures. Such advertising cannot be effective in practice. The analysis is based on a survey of 416 advertisements in English placed in Finnish export publications. While all linguistic structures would identify some readers, many are claimed not to produce good results because they are ‘we’ oriented and do not identify the desired reader. It is hoped that the method developed and the application described will advance understanding of the origins of linguistic significance and hence the basic nature of marketing communication.

MULTIDISCIPLINARITY IN THEORY BUILDING: POSSIBILITIES OF COMBINING

The National Academic Depository of India is a crystallized vision. The depository was conceptualized to digitalize academic awards offered by educational institutions at one place. The depository can eliminate the need to store awards in physical form. It can verify the awards issued by different organizations to different individuals. The secure digital depository is a good remedy to fake and forged certificates. The concept of academic depository is very similar to the concept of financial securities. The concept of depository was tried out with the help of academic awards of one examination body in India. The pilot was completed successfully. In order to become fully functional, the depository has to overcome a few challenges with respect to academic diversities in terms of duration of courses and equivalence. The Legislation on academic depository is being drafted to take care of these challenges. Besides that, the NAD is begetting with many other new kinds of uses and possibilities. The NAD may open up new roles for the educational institutions as well such as to prepare reports for teachers from examination data on teaching learning gaps rather than just labeling students. Academic Depository is a pioneering effort of its kind in the world.The Annual Report is a good mean of describing the situation of a company to all the stakeholders although it is difficult to compare Annual Reports coming from different entities. A process of harmonization of European accounting standards was started in order to bring Annual Reports into line and it is currently being carried out through the adoption of IFRS standards. Once Annual Reports have been created adopting a common accounting standard, the very next step is to code them using the same IT language. If a common computer language is selected, Annual Reports or other documents can easily be compared without recoding and retyping them. The starting point of this process is the definition of an appropriate taxonomy to be used by both those drafting and reading the documents. The process of adopting an appropriate set of accounting standards, selecting the related taxonomy and, finally, drawing up documents using a new business language, called eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) leads companies to produce sound, meaningful and clear documents that greatly improve sharing of useful information. Moreover, the adoption of IFRS standards and XBRL encoded statements provides a set of measures for building sound and widely accepted models. The aim of the present paper is to analyze the changes to income statement presentation and the new concept of financial performance that emerges as a result of the adoption of IFRS and XBRL language. The drawing up of the Income Statement by XBRL may improve the financial performance measurement and disclosure with many benefits for all the stakeholders.The low quality of primary and secondary education in most Latin America countries is a well-known problem. As a response to this reality, the private educational market has been steadily growing in those countries. These private schools, in general, offer a higher quality and personalized education for the students that can afford it. The main selling point of these institutions is access to better resources: better teachers, technologies, materials and pedagogical methods. This difference in education quality creates a problem once students from public schools reach university. This IGUAL project will generate learning solutions (combination of e-learning software, pedagogical methodologies and learning materials) to facilitate the assimilation of new knowledge and the development of new skills even when the student has deficient background knowledge and/or underdeveloped required skills. The solutions that this project will provide have the potential to be used by all students in the Latin AmericanThe relationship between teacher and student is of extreme importance, especially as the latter is going through a delicate period in his life require planned to meet the requirements of the positive relationship in education and influence the psyche and personality and then impact in the community beyond. The most important characteristic of human from other organisms other being a social being by nature it affects and is affected at the same time by culture, traditions and customs of the society, and in this context says sociologist (role Chaim): * it when he speaks of human society is the one who speaks.The author in her article focuses on the issue of long-term unemployment and poverty, which often results in interdisciplinary problems. It is a problem of the whole society, which needs to be constantly looked into and it also constantly needs the elimination of the outside world´s effects on it. The aim of this work is to highlight the seriousness of this problem, the need for its elimination, with emphasis on the confrontation between scientific disciplines and their connections.

Strategies of Firms in the Era of Integration

The objective of the study is to examine the changes of international strategies of firms, especially the changes of so-called “Eurostrategies”. This research is a follow up study to the two earlier investigations. In all three studies Porter’s strategy frameworks were utilized.

Service Characteristics in Transition: Influence of Transition from Traditional Health Services to e-Health Services in Service Characteristics

The main objective of this article is to study the influence of transition in service characteristics. The transition occurs from traditional health services to e-health services. The theoretical roots of the article rely on service characteristics and new service development NSD. Four empirical case examples serve as an exploratory examination of service characteristics in transition. In this examination, interpretative analysis and comparative methodology were used. The case examples show that the level of manifestation of service characteristics varies from service to service regardless of them being e-services or traditional services. In both traditional services and e-services process nature and non-ownership seem to be the most representative characteristics, but all the studied characteristics are important. Interaction and perishability seem to materialise much less in the connection of e-services than in the context of traditional services.