Studies On Value, Satisfaction And Uncertainty In Service Management

This dissertation investigates issues of value, competition, satisfaction, and uncertainty in service management regarding both employees and customers. By introducing the concepts of value and value exchange, the internal mechanism of service-profit chain and its impact factors are examined. Utilizing qualitative and quantitative methods, this dissertation investigates the core elements of service-profit chain - employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction, and studies the impacts of expectation and competition on satisfaction and loyalty of managers in Chinese firms, and the uncertainty effect of customer satisfaction on the evaluation of service quality.Considering managers at middle and high levels, this dissertation investigates their constructs and differences of value though an empirical study. This study provides the basis for retaining, attracting, and motivating managerial talents, and offers the guidance for improving the internal service quality of firms, the design of motivation systems, and the optimal allocation of limited resources. Considering today's competitive business environment, this dissertation introduces the concepts of expectation and competition, develops a new model based on these concepts and tests the model using some survey data. This model allows us to analyze the joint impacts of expectation and competition on the satisfaction and loyalty of employees in our firms.In the customer-centered times of competition, improving customer satisfaction and service quality is the basic way to increase the competitive advantage of firms. Surveys of customer satisfaction are used extensively in service industry and others as the unique criterion for the evaluation of service quality. Since survey results come from a number of customers who usually have different opinions and assessments, especially when a firm has variation in service delivery, customer satisfaction is typically described as a distribution of survey results. In practice, the average of survey results is typically used as a measure for customer satisfaction. This over simplified approach may lead to some unfair evaluation of service quality due to the loss of information. This dissertation investigates the uncertainty effect of customer satisfaction on the evaluation of service quality based on two surveys from managers. According to...