Abstract
To understand the mechanism of how loyalty programs can work effectively, this paper reviews relevant factors which affect the effectiveness of this loyalty tool and then categorizes them into five groups: Program Design, Customer-related Factors, Market and Environmental Factors, Program Implementation, and Post-participation Customer Behavior. In addition, this present research has empirically investigated the relationships among design, implementation, and consequences of instrument, especially in terms of customer loyalty.  The quality or effectiveness of design and implementation stages were assessed by customer’s perceived value and their satisfaction of loyalty programs, respectively.  The findings indicated that the design effectiveness was positively related to the customer loyalty both toward the programs themselves and the stores.  The effectiveness of the implementation stage also plays an important role as it fully mediated the relationship between program perceived value (design stage) and customer loyalty.  The findings emphasize the importance of the consideration of all related factors together to ensure the effectiveness of loyalty schemes.

Authors: Boonying Kongarchapatara, Randall Shannon.

Keywords: loyalty program, program design, program implementation, customer loyalty.

This paper will be presented in the ANZMAC2012, Adelaide, Australia

Abstract
Health care industry is rapidly growing sector in most countries in the world. Hospitals strive to find efficient approaches to improve their service operations. Lean management has been widely recognized from manufacturing and service organizations as managerial philosophy to reduce wastes and increase values to customers. Recently, lean management was adopted in many health care organizations. To promote the success of lean implementation, it is crucial to understand the extent to which lean practices are implemented and their impacts in organizations. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to review lean management, lean practices, and their impact with respect to health care service system context. After reviewing literature, lean practices in health care, important service operations, were determined. In addition, this paper identifies five dimensions of operational performance in health care service organization. These five dimensions are speed, cost, productivity, quality, and customer satisfactions. For the next step of this research project, an empirical study investigating the relationship between lean practices and their impact on operational performance will be carried out.
Keywords – Lean thinking, Lean, Healthcare, Hospitals, Lean Management.

Author: Prattana Punnakitikashem

Presented at the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (IEEE IE&EM 2012), China. October 2012

Abstract
Corporate leaders are exhorted to espouse vision, but little is known about how vision is realized by leaders at different levels in Southeast Asian service sector. The present study tests relationships between perceived vision communication, motivation of employees and organizational alignment among supervisors, and satisfaction of their immediate subordinates at a headquarters branch of one of Southeast Asia's leading hotel and resort groups. Motivation of employees directly predicts improvements in employee satisfaction. Aligning organizational systems is negatively correlated to perceived motivating behavior among hotel supervisors. Surprisingly, vision communication has no significant relationship with employee satisfaction. Future research directions and managerial implications are discussed.

Author: Sooksan Kantabutra

Published in  Journal of applied business research, 28(5), pp.837-850 (2012)

indexed in SCOPUS

Abstract:

Abstract - This paper aims to explore the impact of customer relationship management (CRM) implementation on service operations management (SOM). The comprehensive review of marketing, sales, information technology as well as service operations literatures have been conducted by focusing on CRM implementation and SOM. The impacted components of SOM are identified. Moreover, the conceptual model of the impact of CRM on SOM is proposed. The model suggests that CRM implementation impacts SOM in three areas which are service process, service personnel and service package. In each area, impacted sub-components are also identified in order to facilitate the understanding to both academics and practitioners. For service process, CRM implementation results in muti-channel integration, service process automation and front- and back- office integration. In terms of service personnel, CRM impacts the change in customer orientation, measurement and reward system as well as level of empowerment. With regards to service package, the impact of CRM will be on customer knowledge, level of personalization and customization as well as product and service offering. The proposed model related to CRM impact on SOM is developed in order to be the base model for future research both in form of research proposition, empirical study, and construct and measurement development.

Keywords – CRM, customer relationship management, service operations, service encounter, operations management.

Authors: P. Tongmee and P. Punnakitikashem

Presented in 2012 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, Hong Kong

10-13 Dec 2012