Journal of Services Research

How Do Consumers Evaluate Brand Extensions - Research Findings From India

In today's intense competitive environment, companies launch new products to satisfy constantly changing consumers' preferences. The new products are prone to failures due to many factors. Companies take efforts to reduce new product failure rates to maximize their returns for their stakeholders. A brand extension, leveraging existing brand names to new product categories is one such strategy to reduce the risk of new product failures. Despite two decades of research in branding, many vagarie...

Using Psychographic Dimensions to Discriminate Between Men and Women Executives: An Empirical Analysis

Around the globe, there seems to be a male dominated managerial model in organisations. In spite of tremendous improvement in the status of women in society in the last several decades, most middle and top management positions are still held by men, even though qualified women exist to occupy them. Managing gender differences and expectations is an important issue in India. The present research has been designed to assess the strength of psychographic dimensions in discriminating between men ...

Do Loyal and More Involved Customers Reciprocate Retailer's Relationship Efforts?

This study develops and empirically tests a model for examination of the impact of different relationship efforts made by a retailer (financial bonding, social bonding, and structural bonding) on key relationship marketing outcomes (trust, relationship commitment, and behavioral loyalty) as relationship duration and product involvement are used as controllable variables in a relationship marketing system. A study in information education services industry was conducted based on samples drawn ...

Citizen Surveys Impact On Decisions in Local Government

The new 'customer oriented' approach in local government significantly relies on the use of citizens surveys. Anyway, it is not clear how satisfaction ratings should be incorporated into the decision-making activity. This is mainly due to the fact that citizens' views on services are not statistically associated with service levels as indicated by objective measures. Moreover public administrators' decisions are characterised by a high degree of complexity since they have to combine 'service'...

The Case for Organised Agri-Retail - the Indian Imperative

This paper looks into the antecedents of farm produce distribution and consumption in India, the evolving organized retailing and the ensuing movement against such moves in various states of India. For the purposes of this paper the term farm produce includes agricultural and horticultural produce and its retailing is referred to as agri-retail. The paper, based on socio-economic parameters, critically looks at the arguments for and against organized farm produce retail and builds a case for ...

Client-Vendor-End User Triad: A Service Quality Model for Is/Ites Outsourcing

The paper positions service quality in IS/ITES outsourcing with respect to the service operations/ service marketing literature. It identifies unique features of IS/ ITES outsourcing service quality, and makes a case for a new paradigm to understand it. It is argued that service delivery has both B2B and B2C service components, and there is a need to balance these sometimes competing dimensions. These ideas are depicted in the proposed conceptual model comprising the Client- Vendor-Consumer T...

Indian Entrepreneurs: An Empirical Investigation of Entrepreneur's Age and Firm Entry, Type of Ownership and Risk Behavior

The main purpose of this paper is to present an empirical analysis of the sequence relating the firm entry, type of ownership and risk behavior which in turn depends upon the age of the entrepreneurs. The data is drawn from 70 entrepreneurs engaged in Small Scale Industries (SSIs) in the industrial clusters of Varanasi district. Entrepreneurs are examined in terms of personal characteristics. Owner's age is a major determinant of the form of organization and the financial capital structure of...

The Paradox of a Service-Oriented Economy for Sustainability: Co-Evolution Between Innovation and Resources Effectuation by a Global Complement

A service-oriented economy is expected to play a significant role in relieving the constraints on an economy by means of information substitution for constrained production factors such as energy. However, contrary to such an expectation, the dramatic increase in crude oil prices that emerged in the beginning of the 2000s has revealed the paradox of a service-oriented economy. Japan has been recognized for its notable energy efficiency improvement by means of technology substitution for energ...

The Utilization of E-Commerce by Traditional Supermarkets in the Uk Through Strategic Alliances with Internet Based Companies

The objective of this paper is to examine the strategic utilization of electronic commerce by traditional supermarkets through strategic alliance with Internet based companies. The paper explores how a clicks and bricks alliance can transform the traditional marketplace; from re-engineering their business processes, to enhancing the bricks and mortar retailers business models, and further contributing to changes in the market structure. Thus by re-engineering their business process to allow e...

Institutional Structure Leading to the Similarity and Disparity in Innovation Inducement in Eu 15 Countries-Finnish Conspicuous Achievement Triggered by Nokia's It Driven Global Business

The EU is composed of the European countries with many different traditions and languages, but also with shared values and cultures. There are many similarities and disparities in institutions among the EU member countries. In recent years, the EU has made efforts harmonise the innovation policies to enhance its competitiveness. However, innovation capabilities among the EU member countries are still widely different. Therefore, identifying innovation generation mechanism and the role of inst...