This paper reports a study that was carried out to obtain comprehensive performance ratings to gauge the productive and service quality performance of a public transit company using a recent performance measurement method called operational competitiveness rating (OCRA) analysis. The computed...

Effective measurement and analysis of service quality are an essential first step in its improvement. This paper discusses the development of neural network models for this purpose. A valid neural network model for service quality is initially developed. Customer data from a SERVQUAL survey at...

It is now possible to deliver service in a virtual environment with little or no human interaction. This environment offers the opportunity of new ways of delivering service. This paper examines some of the existing theories of service quality and service management in the context of new...

Geographically‐dispersed, global service organisations must find cost‐effective ways of delivering consistent service quality while recognising local differences in service culture. For such organisations, the management of operations cannot be separated from issues of training, corporate...

This paper presents a holistic model of customer retention incorporating service quality perceptions, price perceptions, customer indifference and inertia. Data from a large‐scale postal survey of telephone users in England showed that perceptions of service quality have a direct linear...

Quality is increasingly becoming the key determinant of demand for goods and services. Managerial philosophy and perceptions shape the overall corporate attitude towards quality and define the parameters for its role as a determinant of competitiveness and performance. Quality of services is...

The service sector of the American economy is expanding very rapidly at a greater than 6 per cent annual growth rate during the 1984‐88 period. The extraordinary growth of the service sector in the last two decades has focused attention on the challenges of effective management of service...

The general practice in implementing an appointment scheduling rule (ASR) is to enforce a certain rule, such as “block appointment”, to schedule customer arrivals in service systems. There are several commonly used ASRs that have been used in such service systems as public and private...

Over the last few years data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been gaining increasing popularity as a performance assessment methodology. DEA has been successfully applied to bank branch performance evaluation. However, most DEA models which have been developed for bank branch performance...

Purpose – Using arguments from the knowledge-based view and resource-based view of the firm, the purpose of this paper is to propose that external knowledge (as measured by a firm’s customer orientation) and internal knowledge management (through human capital development techniques of...