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Customer involvement in Service production, delivery and quality: the challenges and opportunities
Linköping University, Department of Management and Engineering, Industrial Marketing and Industrial Economics. Linköping University, The Institute of Technology. (Internationalization)
Linköping University, Department of Management and Engineering, Industrial Marketing and Industrial Economics. Linköping University, The Institute of Technology.
Linköping University, Department of Management and Engineering, Industrial Economics. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.
2013 (English)In: International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, ISSN 1756-669X, E-ISSN 1756-6703, Vol. 5, no 1, p. 46-65Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore the role of customer involvement in service production and its possible effects on the quality of service delivery as well as customer satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach – Since the nature of the study is exploratory, the case study approach was adopted. The paper focusses on customer involvement in the context of service production and delivery system in service organization rather than in the context of customer organization. The authors looked at supplier involvement as well, due to the fact that a lack of sufficient information from a supplier or lack of proper training may inhibit customers' successful involvement. A detailed case study was carried out on a sample of four service providers: a general contractor, a chemical process engineer, a software developer and a language institute as well as a service buyer case – a Petrochemical Holding Company. In total the paper includes five cases.

Findings – The study reveals that even though co-production of the customers with the service provider is a must, however, it has different effects on the quality of service produced depending on the situation and the nature of services offered. In the cases of the complex engineering services – general contractor and chemical engineering – that service requirements and technical specifications were provided by the customers, and service providers were chosen by open bidding process, there were instances where the co-production could lead to malfunction of the service. This was evident in the cases when the inappropriate technical specifications and requirements were provided by the customer hindering the service provider to deliver services smoothly. On the other hand, in the cases of new software development process and language institute, it had been evident that the involvement of customers – with a sound customer involvement management – has tremendous positive effects and lead to greater productivity and customer satisfaction. In the case of the petrochemical company and international service providers, educating the suppliers/service providers by the buyer, to a large extent, could solve the service quality problems in terms of on time delivery, costs and technical conformity as stressed by buyers.

Originality/value – The study provides empirical evidence regarding customer involvement in the service production and its possible effects on the quality of service delivery as well as customer satisfaction and sheds light on the situations that customer involvement is a success or a threat. The research also contributes to the understanding of how the nature of services, the level and scope of customer involvement as well as building relationship and trust amongst the customer and the service provider affect the outcome of customer-service provider co-production.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2013. Vol. 5, no 1, p. 46-65
Keywords [en]
Customer involvement, Customer roles, Service specification selection, Dimensions of customer-suplier relationship, Service quality, Customer satisfction, Iran
National Category
Economics and Business
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-92766DOI: 10.1108/17566691311316248OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-92766DiVA, id: diva2:622339
Projects
Internationalization, MBA ProMAAvailable from: 2013-05-21 Created: 2013-05-21 Last updated: 2017-12-06Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Trust in Different Types of Organizational Relationships: A Social Capital Perspective
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Trust in Different Types of Organizational Relationships: A Social Capital Perspective
2016 (English)Licentiate thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The purpose of this thesis is to expand the understanding about the concepts of trust and social capital, and to explore their role in achieving desired organizational outcomes. The research followed a multiple case study approach, focusing on Iranian service providers. The reason for this focus is the insufficient scholarly contribution about social capital in developing countries. Moreover, considering the significant role of trust in social capital generation according to many scholars, this study seeks to understand how the issue of lack of trust in developing countries can influence social capital generation in these nations. In order to address the criticisms in the literature, this research first attempts to study the concepts of trust and social capital in different types of organizational relationships separately. There are, therefore, different levels of analysis in this study. The three types of organizational relationships which are the focus of this research are intra-organizational, organization-customer and business cluster.

An intensive literature review was carried out on trust and social capital to build an overall theoretical picture of the problem at hand. The next step was to analyse the findings of this study by engaging both empirical and theoretical findings simultaneously. This was carried out with the aim of achieving answers to the research questions through theory matching and elaboration.

The result of this study, in general, supports both the positive role of trust and social capital in achieving desired organizational outcomes. The empirical data and literature, therefore, seem to be in line with one another to a large extent. However, in several cases of this study the issue of lack of trust at the Iranian companies did in fact hinder the achievement of their desired outcomes. Moreover, the findings from the organization-customer and business cluster relationships showed that several of these Iranian companies are indeed already benefiting from social capital. However, they mostly benefit from the type of social capital arising from information flows. What they are missing, and are in fact in great need of, is the type of social capital associated with the benefits of trust. In other words, they were unsuccessful in bringing forward the benefits of the relational dimension of social capital. The study has also contributed towards refining the literature by showing that there are differences in the connotation of both “trust” and “social capital” when they are studied under different types of organizational relationships. Simply using these terms without specifying the type of relationship, or level of analysis, does not bring forward a clear understanding. Furthermore, the findings had pointed out the important difference between a contributing factor to a phenomenon and the phenomenon itself, which in this case were trust and social capital, respectively.

Last but not least, the results of the cross-case analysis identified certain patterns and differences in the role of trust and social capital in different relationship types. These findings were summarized in the form of  a proposed model and a matrix. The proposed model started with the development of trust in organizational interpersonal relationships, and ended with the creation of two different types of social capital that can benefit both the organization and its customers. The matrix, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of keeping a balance between different types of social capital, depending on the organizational requirement, in order to achieve the best desired outcomes.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press, 2016. p. 98
Series
Linköping Studies in Science and Technology. Thesis, ISSN 0280-7971 ; 1751
National Category
Economics and Business Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-128705 (URN)978-91-7685-754-0 (ISBN)
Presentation
2016-06-08, A1, A-huset, Campus Valla, Linköpings universitet, Linköping, 10:15 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2016-05-30 Created: 2016-05-30 Last updated: 2018-01-10Bibliographically approved

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Dadfar, HosseinBrege, StaffanEbadzadeh Semnani, Sedigheh Sarah

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