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Earlier research alludes to the fact that enhanced information and systems (IS/IT) functionalities coupled with a lower degree of interaction with customers, the so-called zero- touch, real- time, self-service enhance services engagement. In this article, utilising a series of thematic elements drawn from two exploratory case studies, the authors s...
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... theory of management control emphasises procedures that organisations employ in an attempt to influence staff and customer behaviour. The critical element of the theory of management control is expectations theory which we have diagrammatically shown in Figure 2. Tacit knowledge developed over years in managing service expectations in high-contact public service encounters becomes one of the most important key competencies of public sector organisations (Brown and Brudney 2003). ...
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In order to remain competitive in today's technologically driven world, companies try to determine the optimal settings of design attribute of new products from which the best customer satisfaction can be obtained. Identification of customer requirements is the starting point of design process. Most of design approaches focus on technical domains t...
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... The reality however is that although the RBV is difficult to test, a number of studies have been undertaken, which measure resource heterogeneity and performance (see Ketchen and Bergh 2004;Molloy et al. 2011). Other criticisms of RBV theory is that its fundamental constructs are generally applied without any clear distinction between resources and capabilities (Leiblein 2011) and that its focus is almost exclusively internal (Priem and Butler 2001a), despite the reality that understanding operations requires examining not only its internal environment, but also its external environment and the customer context (Bitran and Lojo 1993;Ojiako et al. 2013). ...
... We show in Figure 1, a roadmap of the research method employed in the study. The roadmap is adapted from Ojiako et al. (2013). The purpose of the research has been established as to explore to explore how strategic resources are to be best managed and exploited in order deliver enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness; and the Research Question as " What are the strategic resources available in projects and how do these strategic resources provide for enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness? ...
This paper seeks to explore how strategic resources in petroleum industry projects are to be best managed and exploited in order to deliver enhanced project performance and sustained business competitiveness. Framed upon the Resource-Based View (‘RBV’) theory, these resources should be ‘Valuable’, ‘Inimitable’, ‘Rare’ and be able to draw on ‘Organisational support’ (‘VIRO’). Qualitative data were collected from petroleum industry organizations operating in the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman between 2017 and 2019. The analysis shows that at the project level, ‘Value’ and ‘Organisational support’ attributes of resources were positively related to competitive advantage and both impacted by dynamic capabilities and innovative environment. However, the ‘Rareness’ and ‘Inimitability’ attributes showed less evolution. We also find that at the project level, the main characteristics of organizational resources were that they are ‘Valuable’, ‘Organizationally supported’, and that they could be ‘Uniquely exploited’ while being ‘Readily available’. The results suggest a desire by project-oriented organizations to replace the ‘Rareness’ and ‘Inimitability’ attributes within VIRO with two alternative attributes, namely ‘ Unique exploitation’ and ‘Timely availability’ of resources.
... However, traditionally, frontline employees have often been denied basic independence to make key decisions (Peccei and Rosenthal 2001). Empowering employees can mean that such staff does not need to request and wait for managerial approval before making the most basic of decisions (Ojiako, Maguire, and Chipulu 2013;Marinova et al. 2017;Venkatachalam et al. 2020). Moreover, employees are able to make real-time decisions and, in the process, respond more quickly to customer needs (Al-Mudimigh, Zairi, and Ahmed 2004). ...
... The notion that frontline employees play a crucial role in organizational decision-making, service engagement and strategic implementation appears widely shared (Coelho and Augusto 2010;Cadwallader et al. 2010;Ojiako, Maguire, and Chipulu 2013;Zimmermann, Raisch, and Cardinal 2018). For example, Coelho and Augusto (2010) posit that frontline employees play a critical decision-making role in that they are the ones most likely to discover, communicate, respond to and deliver latent customer needs. ...
The purpose of this study is to assess the extent to which the anchoring heuristic and overconfidence bias can lead to inaccurate judgments in operational settings among frontline employees of complex multi-stakeholder supply chain organisations. Data is obtained from an experiment-based questionnaire of frontline employees in a United Kingdom based freight forward and materials handling company. Analysis is undertaken using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results suggest that frontline employees within this complex multi-stakeholder supply chain organisations, consistently overestimated probabilities when framed in a conjunctive manner. They also consistently underestimated probabilities when framed in a disjunctive manner and exhibited considerable overconfidence in their judgements. Mixed evidence was found regarding susceptibility to anchoring and overconfidence in terms of level of expertise and geographical location. Overall, the study elucidates the specific dimensions of anchoring and overconfidence that may lead to judgmental biases in complex multi-stakeholder supply chain decisions. The findings highlight the critical role of communication in establishing reflective monitoring of, and improvements to, heuristics usage by frontline employees involved in daily supply chain decisions. It also suggests that practitioners should be encouraged to reflect on whether, when and how anchoring and overconfidence should be employed as key judgmental aids in statistical estimations.
... It is proposed that adequate and appropriate infusion of technology into SM could enhance processes in these areas. Technology infusion, in the study, implies the "bringing in" or "steeping" of construction SM processes with technology; drawing from Bitner, Brown and Meuter (2000), Suh et al. (2010), Ojiako, Maguire and Chipulu (2012) and Ojiako et al. (2013) with perceived needs as a major driver. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that identifying process weakness may trigger enhanced infusion of technology. ...
The study explores the areas of process need in construction site management and technology utilisation to address those needs within the construction industry. An exploratory case study was used, with a focus on process need areas that could be impacted by technology infusion. Results highlight the impact of human limitations on management performance and poor utilisation of available relevant technology in the presence of managerial lapses. Inherent limitations of case study strategy were experienced in the form of number of cases and achieving uniformity of features. Nevertheless, the cases provided rich cross-validating data. The article provides empirical insights about the possibility of construction site management benefiting from increased exploitation of technology to address management shortcomings. The article highlights the need to understand individual projects in terms of site management process needs and opportunities in recent information and communication technology (ICT) to address such need areas, by linking potential utility in technology to lapses in the management process of construction sites. The study provides a baseline understanding of relevant concepts of ICT adoption in site management. While considerable interest exists regarding technology use in construction, studies explicitly contextualised within process need areas in site management and with management-centred view remain sparse.
... Interestingly, this concern has attracted the attention of scholars. Ojiako, Maguire, and Chipulu (2013) had observed that the infusion of technology into service offerings did not necessarily lead to service enhancement. ...
The aim of this study is to assess the ability of project portfolio management practices to support the pursuit of ambidexterity at the project level through engagement with specific dimensions and mechanisms. The focus is on examining the operating/business model and challenges that are imposed on the firms, but deemed resolvable through the simultaneous pursuit of multiple projects emphasizing contradictory strategic goals. Data are obtained from multiple exploratory interviews of senior executives involved in project-level activities who were drawn from 12 case organizations in the Middle East. The study finds evidence of four forms of ambidexterity dimensions and mechanisms. Analysis undertaken against operating/business model and challenges of these dimensions and mechanisms of ambidexterity suggests that they are not only inter-related, but do so at various organizational levels.
... However, the choice of the mode of delivery is determined by state parties who choose the best mechanisms that yield the highest benefits, with lower cost implications. Hence, efficiency and effectiveness are vital considerations in public service delivery ( Ojjako et al. 2013, p. 538). Public services are expected-under most country's legal frameworks-to be delivered by the public sector, which although often perceived as a single entity, is not a homogenous body but a series of sub-sectors and levels varying from one country to another (Oh and Bush 2015). ...
Since the dawn of humanity, people have migrated, seeking new opportunities or fleeing from economic, social or political distress. Not all migrants, however, possess official documentation, nor do they possess the South African Identity Document (ID) that gives them access to basic social services, housing or land. Consequently, such ‘illegal’ immigrants are forced to rent backyard shacks or set up shanties in informal settlements, such as those in Grasland, Mangaung (Bloemfontein). The perceived ‘illegality’ of migrants generates contestations around the right to ‘belong’, expressed as the right to access to basic services. This chapter demonstrates how belonging is contested in Mangaung, through the application of the criteria of ‘belonging’, but also that the construction of those criteria produces other forms of contested belonging. The chapter also asks what alternative interpretations of belonging or merit should be applied and how? This chapter therefore situates social justice—defined in terms of values, processes and practices for empowerment to disallow oneself to be oppressed, the promotion of values that disincline one to oppress others and practices that enable equality and justice—as a useful concept or way to explain the contestation of belonging as lived experiences for the Lesotho immigrants (Basotho) in Grasland.
... Generally, decisions within service operations, such as termination decisions or decisions on whether service operations activities and project outcomes are successful or not, are highly dependent on managers, practitioners and other stakeholders (Dilts and Pence 2006;McComb et al. 2008;Gattiker and Carter 2010;Moritz, Siemsen, and Kremer 2014). Furthermore, because service encounters often represent 'critical moments' (see Smith and Bolton 2002;Ojiako, Maguire, and Chipulu 2013), they are often highly emotional and perception driven, which renders them dependent on demographic variables (i.e. age, gender, and roles (Bae and Lee 2011;Wei, Donthu, and Bernhardt 2013). ...
... Such arguments, initially articulated in theories of perception by Allport (1955), have served as a primary driver for a number of studies (see Kleijnen, De Ruyter, and Andreassen 2005;Grougiou and Pettigrew 2011) that sought to examine how two or more individuals possibly share similar perceptions of service events. Studies (Grougiou and Pettigrew 2011;Ojiako, Maguire, and Chipulu 2013;Benlian 2014) also show that individual factors have a considerable impact upon perceptions, shaping the cognitive frames through which service experiences are interpreted. The reality is that although service operations literature has largely examined how individual perception congruence impacts upon service behaviour, the notion of perception congruence within and between key service delivery stakeholders has to the best of the authors knowledge received very little attention to date. ...
... For this reason, lower level managers tend to be more critical of their decisions and also more willing to change their expectations about events than more senior managers (Barnett and Karson 1989). Thus, noting the often highly emotionally charged nature of service operations encounters (Ojiako, Maguire, and Chipulu 2013), outcomes of complex decision processes in service operations projects may be moderated by the motivation to reflect over a longer period on initial decisions. Another possible reason underlying the findings of the study can be drawn from cognitive studies which discuss the relationship between age and cognition. ...
This study examines the impact of project manager and practitioner heterogeneity on congruent perceptions of the outcome of service operations projects. More specifically, the study focuses on congruence in the formation and subsequently revision of project outcome perceptions of service operations. Data were obtained from 1413 project management practitioners and subsequently analysed using multi-layered and combined statistical methods. The results suggest that perception congruence, that is relationships or agreements between different stakeholders, may be impacted by age and role heterogeneity of project managers and practitioners, but not gender.
Driven by the inherent tensions that exist within the ‘sense’, ‘seize’, ‘shift’, and ‘liaise’ paradigm of dynamic capabilities, we set out in this study to explore the interstices that exist between two key theoretical traditions—‘Complexity’ and ‘Dynamic capabilities’. We frame the study in the context of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), particularly Micro Enterprises operating in the UK construction industry. Emergent themes were gleaned from the interview of 21 construction enterprise owner-managers based in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Findings suggest not only that SME owner-managers operating within the construction sector interpret their own role as pivotal to the success of the firm and that they assumed responsibility for identifying opportunities and operational threats to the business, but also that aspects of complexity were at play in the thinking and action implied by owner-managers when dealing with both internal and external tensions. Our main contribution is to propose a capabilities framework framed within a complexity lens that enhances the explanatory power of dynamic capabilities.
We set out in this study to examine the mechanisms (specific knowledge management practices) required to operationalize service innovation readiness within public sector service delivery. Data is obtained from 150 service delivery managers drawn from public sector service organizations within the emirate of Sharjah. Sampling is undertaking utilizing a 38 factor knowledge management-focused service innovation readiness questionnaire developed from the literature. Analysis of the data is via variable ranking and multidimensional scaling (MDS). The findings of the study suggest the existence of four knowledge management-based imperatives which are construed as managerial mechanisms for public sector service innovation readiness. These are (i) ‘Knowledge core competence’ (knowledge as a key strategic asset) (ii) ‘Organizational structure’ (internal patterns of organizational communication, authority and relationships) (iii) ‘Responsiveness to change’ (propensity to engage in both purposeful and timely behavioral change in response to modulating stimuli), and (iv) ‘Innovativeness’ (relative earliness in adopting innovation). The findings lead to a service innovation readiness typology which is oriented towards ensuring that public sector entities are able to effectively and efficiently deliver innovative services that meet both operational mandates and national visions of service expectations.
The relationship between product flow times and manufacturing system status is complex. This limits use of simple analytical functions for job shop manufacturing due date assigning, especially when dealing with orders involving multiple resource manufacturing systems in receipt of random orders of different process plans. Our approach involves developing a Support Vector Machine classifier to articulate job shop manufacturing due date assigning in heterogeneous manufacturing environments. The emergent model allows not only for the complex relationships between flowtimes and manufacturing system status, but also for the prediction of random order flowtime of manufacturing systems with multiple resources. Our findings also suggest that service levels play a major role in negotiated due dates and eventual customer propensity to place manufacturing orders. In emphasizing negotiated due dates as against exogenous assigned due dates, the study focuses scholarly attention towards the need for participative, open and inclusive due date assignments.
Rapid national infrastructure growth, as witnessed today in many countries such as the United Arab Emirates, commonly makes fast-tracking demands of what are already highly complex multi-stakeholder projects. Considering the long history of airport project failures in a number of fast-growing cities, the chapter explores risk management enhancements for addressing the challenges associated with transitions from project completion to commencement of operations. The proposed solution in the pages that follow is to have in place dedicated risk management teams spanning the transitions. These teams should provide a locus for stakeholder collaboration based on a shared concern to build excellence into the customer experience from commencement of operations onwards.
