Suchergebnisse

Purpose
Business-to-business (B2B) relations will become more prevalent in many areas such as delivery services, based on current trends supporting e-commerce proliferation. In addition, hyperlocal e-commerce, which focuses on customers in a small geographic region, relies heavily on another business to handle the supply chain. Emerging trends in business to business to customer (B2B2C) experiences provide retailers with opportunities to develop strategies for better customer service. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a scale for measuring business customer experience in the B2B2C aggregator business model.


Design/methodology/approach
Using the psychometric scale development procedure, the researchers devised a 29-item, six-dimensional scale measuring business customer experience with the help of two cross-sectional studies. Restaurant managers who rely on delivery partners to serve their customers were surveyed twice. The authors validated a scale for assessing business customer experience using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.


Findings
Based on fit criteria, a higher-order formative structure was best suited to the scale. The dimensions identified were shared vision, interaction experience, end-customer focus, relationship experience, service experience and outcome focus. According to the study, business customer experience is more objective and utilitarian than existing paradigms on customer experience.


Research limitations/implications
Theoretically, this research helps to understand the underpinnings behind the formation of business customer experience and attempt to bring transformative service research focus in the B2B2C trilogy as better experiences predict the well-being of members of the business centre in the B2B.


Practical implications
Practically, this research helps businesses to revisit their strategies for a better relationship with business partners for jointly offering an improved experience to the end customers.


Originality/value
This study explains a pioneer attempt to develop a scale for business customer experience in the context of B2B2C aggregator business models.

PurposeConsumer behavior, in the context of general insurance, is worth exploring to formulate growth strategies for insurance sector in India in light of the proposed structural changes. Indian consumers attract global players due to untapped potential and favorable policy measures initiated for higher foreign direct investments. The purpose of this paper is to understand the prevailing level of service quality as perceived by insurance customers in India in the presence of certain contextual antecedents and moderators.Design/methodology/approachPerceptions about constructs like customer risk dispositions, awareness, past experiences, customer involvement, choice overload, service quality and satisfaction of 256 customers were collected using a questionnaire survey. A variance-based structural equation modeling helped to identify significant linkages among the constructs.FindingsIn order to assess service quality levels, a 15-item scale having the infrastructure, employees, agents and product dimensions was found valid and reliable. Choice overload and customer involvement were found to moderate the influence of antecedents and service quality, respectively. The influence of choice overload on quality perceptions is insignificant. The study concludes that the existing risk beliefs are insufficient, and experiences have less predictive contribution to quality perceptions.Research limitations/implicationsTheoretically, this study examined the process of satisfaction development from service quality perceptions. This study offers insights for developing theories to portray future consumer behavior where more dependence of self-service technologies is expected to dominate service delivery mechanisms in insurance. The study informs that general insurance customers in India prefer more diversified products, more customer-centric employees/agents and better technical quality.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study contribute to the understanding of the prevailing insurance consumer behavior in the general insurance sector of India and help insurance service providers in streamlining their strategies for better insurance penetration and reduced lapse rate.Originality/valueThis study helps in understanding the emerging trends in general insurance buying behavior in India.

The B-school scenario in India is vast; with institutions in thousands, and hundreds of thousands in annual intake. Despite availability of ranking metrics, these portray only a partial picture of the top institutes alone, leaving the majority of Indian B-schools unmapped. The competitive arena for institutes is asymmetric, creating a problem with existing indexes as they do not aid aspirants or major stakeholders to make accurate estimates of institutional performance. Using secondary data from a statutory body (AICTE), the paper studies how this asymmetry is played out in aspects of graduate outcome performance- namely outturn and placement, as well as institutional financial performances within the context of a single state. Publicly available information from media and other intelligence reports have been further leveraged to augment facts. The study clusters institutes based on graduate outturn and placements into a vulnerability-risk grid, allowing accurate assessments of how B-schools are performing across a selected time-period. Financial risk assessment also helps in identifying the problem hotspots which require direct intervention. The paper is unique in its contribution to classifying risks among management institutes using a method which is scalable and adaptable. It identifies key imperatives to establish academic parity, by clustering deficit aspects based on the level of the b-schools performance.