Yoshinori Hara

KM Approach for Improving the Labor Productivity of Vietnamese Enterprise

In knowledge society, knowledge management KM is considered the best strategy for improving the labor productivity of an enterprise. However, the effectiveness of KM on labor productivity is not known exactly, especially since it depends on the development level of a country. To find a solution based on KM approach for improving the labor productivity of Vietnamese enterprise, a new model is proposed, which includes knowledge capability, technology capability, KM, employee satisfaction, and labor productivity. By analyzing data from Vietnamese enterprises, the model is tested and suggestions for improving the labor productivity of Vietnamese enterprises are made. Some results of data analysis are: employee satisfaction positively affects the labor productivity and that KM has a strong effect on employee satisfaction. Further, some suggestions for improving the labor productivity of Vietnamese enterprises are: organizing frequent meetings for shortening cultural gap between managers and employees, replacing old machines combined with improving employees self learning skill, improving innovation capability by creating an open culture for encouraging employees to voice their opinions.

Risks and performance in supply chain: the push effect

A risk, when it occurs, causes negative effects on outputs. Typically risks are not independent, as multiple risks occur simultaneously. These risks have links, creating a ‘push’ effect, thus increasing the severity of each and all risk(s) on outputs. This paper aims to verify the mechanism of the push effect that is a new approach in the supply chain risk management literature. In this study, two models were compared: (1) only exists in direct effects of risks on supply chain performance, i.e. the competitive model. The other, (2), contains relationships among risks that show the mechanism of the push effect, i.e. the hypothesised model. Empirical evidence found in the Vietnam construction sector proved that the hypothesised model is better suited and has greater effect on supply chain performance in terms of each and all risk(s). Comparing 55% variance of the competitive model, the hypothesised one can explain up to 73% variance of supply chain performance. These results confirm our hypotheses of the push effect. Furthermore, findings achieved from this research can be used as ‘a guideline’ for reducing the impact of this mechanism.

A Dynamic Evaluation Model Based on Customer Expectation and Satisfaction

In the servicizing economy, service evaluation is a serious issue for enterprises and customers. Applying evaluation criteria for products would not fit to service due to its unique characteristics. For example, customers evaluation for service highly depends on an individual literacy, expectation, situation, etc. that are basically time-variable. However, existing evaluation models for service do not consider such dynamic aspects. In this paper, we propose a new dynamic evaluation model of customer expectation and satisfaction. The proposed model has two features to come up with the problem. One feature is to introduce learning process of customer expectation, e.g. overestimation, underestimation, etc. The other feature is to analyze changing behaviors of customer satisfaction, with the concepts of novelty and familiarity. With the analysis of questionnaires, we found that the dynamic model can distinguish the satisfaction that comes from the match to customers expectation, with the satisfaction that comes beyond the expectation. As a consequence, we will be able to provide more detailed strategy to increase service productivity and service quality.

Context-Free and Context-Dependent Service Models Based on ”Role Model” Concept for Utilizing Cultural Aspects

Today’s service economy experiences a bi-polarization: a few large organizations are capable to offer services that scale and are applicable on a global market (as context-free services) while a plethora of small organizations provide their services locally due to the contextual dependencies of their offerings (as context-dependent services). As a future challenge and next generation of service offerings we investigate in this paper how context-dependent services can scale-up to a global market while maintaining the domestic and cultural aspects they embody. We propose the ”role-model” concept to overcome the limitation in integrating aspects from both types. The concept is evaluated by analysing the actual service workflows of two representative cases using a common modelling approach realized on the ADOxx meta-modelling platform.

How Japanese Traditional "Omonpakari" Services are Delivered - A Multidisciplinary Approach

In high-quality Japanese services, providers are often said to sense what their customers want from subtle cues and deliver a customized service without explicitly advertising the effort. To understand this subtle service, often called Omonpakari, we studied a high-end Sushi restaurant using multidisciplinary approach--using neuroscience to analyze the cognitive characteristic, ethno methodology to analyze the interactive structure, and computer science to analyze the social evaluations. The study based on neuroscience showed that the service brain model could explain the cognition of Omonpakari service regardless of customers gender, knowledge and the social context. The ethno methodological analysis revealed that customers performed a role, complying with cultural norms and behaving like a culturally appropriate customer even if they might not be. The analysis using computer science techniques showed that expertise was the key factor of evaluation of the services. These findings suggest an alternative model of service in which there is a productive tension, or dialectic, between the provider and the customer.

User-friendly digital watermark extraction using semi-transparent image

A user-friendly digital watermark extraction method is proposed in this paper. Watermark in analog paper such as paper currency can be extracted by simply transmitting the light through the paper. On the other hand, most existing digital watermarking methods require an extraction program. However, ordinary people cannot verify the validity of an extraction program. Moreover, most of them are black-box in order to protect formerly embedded images which may be analyzed by reverse engineering. The proposed digital watermarking can be extracted by any people with no special skill, knowledge, nor tools. Only a web browser without JavaScript or Flash, and a filtering image are needed. We have evaluated robustness and perceptual evaluation of the proposed method which provide an effective result.

Global Service Enhancement for Japanese Creative Services Based on the Early/Late Binding Concepts

Japanese Creative Services (JCS) are defined as high context services affected by contextual factors such as nature, culture, history, and/or lifestyle. They have remarkable aspects of sustainability and scalability because of their strong dependency on the local Japanese context. When considering global service enhancement of such high context services while keeping their unique characteristics, it is important to clarify how communications between a variety of service providers and consumers are supported. The core competence of JCSs is derived from an “Omotenashi” mindset, as the essence of Japanese hospitality that emphasizes utilization of implicit contexts as deliberate preparations. In this chapter, we propose more general characteristics of JCS explicitly, a modeling method where we explicitly distinguish types of service communications as regular and exceptional handling ones and utilize early/late binding concepts in programming. We describe the modeling tool and the application case of a traditional Japanese sushi service (Edomae-Sushi). Analyzing service communication based on this concept, we discuss which part of communication should be supported/trained or replaced by IT/machines more systematically as a value-adding, scalability concept in the global service economy.

Development of an Evaluation Approach for Customer Service Interaction Models

In today’s service economy, the evaluation of interaction between service providers and different consumer segments/target groups is an important topic. In context-sensitive settings, the service provider adapts the interaction with the consumer by selecting a fitting design pattern, also including mechanisms for validation and evaluation. In current service evaluation models, the extraction of dynamic characteristics of consumers poses a challenge, as simplification of methods for externalization of patterns is needed to enable an improved understanding of consumer types. The paper at hand aims for a contribution on visualization of the service interaction for each consumer type/pattern supported. A prototypical visualization approach has been implemented using meta-modelling concepts and technologies as an realization environment, validated in case studies from the food service industry.

An Online Service Branding Method with Neuroscience Technology

A key of brand development is the building relations of long-term trust with the customers. Trust formation is considered to be intimately linked with historical traits and/or subconscious feelings. In this study, by applying the knowledge of neuroscience, we experimentally examined the effects of customers cognitive characteristics and context cognition on trust formed in an online environment. As a result, we found that there are methods of providing online information suited to different types of cognitive characteristics, and that there are online media expressions inducing different types of context cognition. By combining these findings, we will be able to build on a powerful technique for brand development by applying to trust formation. This method will achieve a form of service innovation in an online world by co-evolving with the progress of neuroscience research.

Combination of Two KM Strategies by Web 2.0

The previous approaches for KM focused on either of two main strategies: Codification or Personalization (which focused on explicit or tacit knowledge, respectively). Those approaches lead to serious problems, such as: difficulty for integration, inconvenience in knowledge accessibility, limitation of participation, disjunction of knowledge... The approach for solving those problems of this paper is to set up a new integrated platform for combining both strategies. That platform is based on web 2.0, a set of advanced technologies and a new approach to knowledge management. Using web 2.0 for knowledge management, both kinds of knowledge can be supported at the same time and knowledge creating cycle is also facilitated. In this paper, a KMS based on web 2.0 is specified and a demo system is implemented for testing this solution, which shows many advantages in comparison with previous KMS.