Using the Service Encounter Model to Enhance Our Understanding of Business-To-Consumer Transactions in an eEnvironment
Nelson Massad and Kevin Crowston
What the article is about:
Internet plays a progressively greater role in human life. Currently it is complicated to think about a person who is not aware of the terms “search engine”, “site” or “Web Page”. It was noted that the number of Internet users increases annually, so the number of customers, who wish to have the access to a huge amount of information on different products and services through service providers, also increases. Today the number of online start-ups and complement companies is magnifical, so consumers can do business with such providers, but they should realize the whole picture of having such relations via Internet, how transactions are influenced. Service encounter is crucial stage because during this period consumer’s size the services provided to them. Thus, provided in the article service encounter conceptual framework determines prerequisites of customer enjoyment with electronic service encounters. Any ‘gaps’ in the literature or criticisms of the literature which are mentioned by the author(s):
The research method(s) used by the authors of the article to collect data:
The critical incident technique was used for collecting data for service encounter studies. This research method is an organized process for gathering facts and actions that will lead to the triumph or fiasco of a specific project. Precarious incident surveillanceis doubtfully the single most vital kind of information associated with task performance in usability-oriented context. Critical incident collection is made through face-to-face interviews, which require much time and costs. So self-administered Web survey is another way of getting 500-700 critical incidents, but its disadvantage is in failure of the investigator to ask supplementary questions to receive detailed reports of respondents' stories.
The main conclusions are the following:
- As customer enjoyment is one of the companies’ objectives, its feedback gives service providers an opportunity to adapt their products and services to satisfy their customers’ preferences and desires. This concept is vital not only for the bricks-and-mortar organizations, but for online too.
- Service encounter conceptual framework has the ability to change the customer relationship management while specifying the prerequisites of customer enjoyment with electronic service encounters, online service providers will be able to systematically meet their customers’ preferences and desires to set up and sustain permanent relationships.
- Online service providers can develop suitable procedures and policies for handling with a number of particular events, thus employees will be free in acting in order to change disappointed encounters into contented ones.
- Online service providers should modify their member of staff education programs.
A Roadmap to Adopting Emerging Technology in E-Business – An Empirical Study
Hsin-Lu Chang and Michael J. Shaw
Executive summary of the article:
The paper examines that in order to support the integration among process, technology, and the supply chain companies (including main partners, suppliers, and consumers) managing and acting upon them, there should be available an emerging e-business technology as a new paradigm. It is related to the consideration of “on-demand business” as a new paradigm. Such a new kind of IT infrastructure can be applied at some various levels: enterprise, process, business modeling and application, capability and enabling technology. Also, the roadmap of emerging on-demand business was described via three-stage approach. There were made several hypotheseson companies’ readiness to e-business, environment readiness technology readiness on e-business performance. Finally, conclusions were presented on the basis of empirical results.
Any ‘gaps’ in the literature or criticisms of the literature which are mentioned by the author(s):
The research method(s) used by the authors of the article to collect data:
The paper was written based on the conducted general survey in Taiwan PC industry. Six companies were selected and each company’s purchasing and/or engineering senior manager at the central division was asked to complete several actions. After data collection authors used factor analysis with the purpose to determine crucial elements of stated hypotheses. Subsequently, item-total correlation and optimal reliability coefficients were used to further improve the reliability. At last, the convergent and discriminant validity of each item was examined to ensure that the items included in the model measure the construct.
The main conclusions are the following:
- Firms’ own technology and organization resources are more important to e-business triumph as companies are under low technology level, representing that a high technology level and managerial keenness is a fundamental factor for co-developers of simple e-business technology.
- Supply chain keenness and power simplify e-business importance only when companiesfollow low technology level, which makes a point of the significance of partner readiness, competence, and control at the preliminary adoption stage.
- Companies with bettercooperationwillingness are more able to have improvedoperation of emerging e-business IT, which recommends that relationship quality is more vital than company’s and partner’s individual capability on facilitating the adoption of emerging e-business technology.
- Managerial implications were provided: so in order to be aware of e-business advantages companies should assess their readiness using systematic framework and then to elaborate a roadmap for adopting the emerging e-business technology; companies should focus on their technological, financial, and human capability for enhancement of e-business performance and, finally, partner’s willingness, capability, and power are significant drivers for e-business adoption, suggesting that business managers can offerupgrade programs to strengthen partner readiness, subsidies such as training, on-site support, and commercialfunds to increase partner capability, as these are basicopportunities to advance supply chain willingness for e-business.
The Impact of Emerging Technologies on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
Wei Dai
What the article is about:
The paper is devoted to the consideration of the role of emerging technologies for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which due to their nature do not apply advantages of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and e-Business solutions in operation. Such technologies as Services Oriented Architecture (SOA), Software as a Service (SaaS), cloud computing and innovative application environment developed through the Phoenix research program at Victoria University were studied. It was also analyzed that there are barriers for SMEs’ implementation of emerging technologies, so author paid attention to the microeconomic aspects of barriers. To engage SME users with the modern services oriented framework, two styles of interactions i.e. demand-driven and event-driven are recommended.
Any ‘gaps’ in the literature or criticisms of the literature which are mentioned by the author(s):
Dr. Dai examined almost all literature after 2000 related to the information technologies, SMEs and e-Business. According to Chopra and Meindl, Kukalis, Lambert and Cooper many studies of SCM focus on the practices of large companies, while small companies are treated mostly from the viewpoint of larger companies. When analyzing section on Supply Chain Management (SCM) from SME perspectivesit was grounded that more investigation effort is necessary to direct to the researchof SMEsimpacts in the context of SCM.
The research method(s) used by the authors of the article to collect data:
Information collection was made via desk research that is research, collection and analysis of existing secondary information. The main advantages of working with secondary information are: a lowprice of the work,there is no need for a new data collection; speed of information gathering; availability of several sources of information; relative accuracy of the information from independent sources; possibility of a preliminary analysis of the problem. Therefore, Arendt’s article of 2008, “Sectoral e-Business Watch” study, Maguire’s paper, the Phoenix research program, National Australia Bank SME survey, etc. were used while article preparation.
The main conclusions are the following:
- Microeconomic barriers for SMEs are lack of awareness, knowledge and skills within the SME environment that increase complexities for SMEs to choose appropriate technologies due to their prompt modification; noncompliance of SMEs requirements with existing ICT products; and lack of time and internal information, thus, SMEs try to use familiar business models in order to avoid risks of transferring into ICTs based.
- SOA offers integration infrastructure and support among services on behalf of various business entities. It is an architecture style that supports service orientation. Under this paradigm a service is basically a well-encapsulated business function or process with a clear identity and programmatic accessible interfaces.
- Pursuant to the users’ requirements relevant services shall be applied. They divided into two categories as system services and business services and are explored in service management study.
BYOD and Beyond: How To Turn BYOD into Productivity
AerohiveNetworks, Inc.
What the article is about:
Active dissemination of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD, use of personal devices for business purposes)strategy in all sectors of the economy significantly accelerates the “mobilization” of business processes.There is no doubt that the concept of BYOD will soon make “mobile” a significant part of workers, when they are actively using personal devices – and especially mobile devices (smartphones and tablets), for mailing and company information sharing. It is not only impossible tostop this process, but also counterproductive for business – the use of personal devices usually increases the efficiency and productivity of employees, facilitates their mobility andsimplifies the possibility of practical use of corporate data in various situations. Thus, Aerochive Networks gave the guidelines related to the required access, authentication and security options in the same time focusing on the equally crucial peculiarities necessary to ensure network is arranged to make all devices close to it dynamic and corresponding.
Criticisms of the literature or some deficiencies in the literature which are mentioned by the author(s):
Some reports were referenced while preparation of the work. For example, Dimensional Research “Consumerization of IT: A Survey of IT Professionals” published in 2011. At large, it was found that while administrators are looking at implementing a BYOD solution, the detection of precise devices BYOD is referring to is reasonablydisputed. Often BYOD is distorted to refer to any consumer-grade device joined the corporate network. In point of fact BYOD refers to devices introduced by end-users to join the network rather than being spread by IT department.
The research method(s) used by the authors of the article to collect data:
As the company develops IT solutions, the whitepaper was based on its observations and conclusions.
The main conclusions are the following:
- BYOD effective strategy is not only to manage, track and destroy data on the devices, if necessary, but also in preventing data leakage from mobile devices. It should be used as a context and content-data control methods.
- Aerochive has focused particularly closely on intelligent infrastructure built for the mobile devices explosion, and has many features to ensure devices are connected suitably to the network. HiveOS, the network operating system that controls all Aerochive devices, includes structures like Mobile Device Management (MDM) agent registrationisolation and enforcement, Network-based MDM, built-in stateful firewalls in each access point, and GRE tunneling, which in conjunction with each other supportgaining success in implementing a BYOD strategy.
- All in all, the success of BYOD program implementation depends on the preparedness of the IT infrastructure, which should support social, cloud services and crucial business-applications and have wireless capabilitiesdeveloped. Before implementing BYOD program widespread virtualization of jobs and applications shall be elaborated. And then, the employees will be able to decide by themselves where and how to work and what devices to use.
References:
Massad, N. and Crowston, K. (2003).Using the Service Encounter Model to Enhance Our Understanding of Business-To-Consumer Transactions in an eEnvironment.[pdf]. [Online]. Available at: <http://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/15Massad_0.pdf>
Chang, H.-L. and Shaw M. J. (2005). A Roadmap to Adopting Emerging Technology in E-Business – An Empirical Study. [pdf]. [Online].Available at: <http://business.illinois.edu/working_papers/papers/05-0125.pdf>
Dai W. (2010).The Impact of Emerging Technologies on Small and Medium Enterprises, Journal of Business Systems, Governance and Ethics, vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 53-60.
Aerohive Networks, Inc. (2012). BYOD and Beyond: How To Turn BYOD into Productivity. [pdf]. [Online].Available at: <http://www.aerohive.com/pdfs/Aerohive-Whitepaper-BYOD-and-Beyond.pdf>
