How coaching services help early stage entrepreneurs: an exploration of gender differences

PurposeEntrepreneurial support organizations, such as business incubators and accelerators (BIAs), provide coaching as a core element of their service offering for startups. Yet little is known about how coaching creates value from the entrepreneur's perspective. This is an important issue given that entrepreneurship is recognized as a gendered phenomenon. The purpose of this article is to explore how the coaching services provided during incubation create value for men and women entrepreneurs.Design/methodology/approachFocusing on university business incubators, our comparative qualitative study of 18 men and women entrepreneurs takes a grounded theorizing approach, and draws abductively on entrepreneurial learning theory, to explore the dimensions of coaching services that support venture development and explain gender differences.FindingsThe emergent explanatory model suggests that venture development is supported by coaching service design (at the incubator level) and by coaching content and rapport (at the entrepreneur-coach dyad level). Gender differences were observed in the emphasis placed on accessibility of coaching services provided by the incubator and the guidance provided by the coaches. We theorize that these findings reflect differences in entrepreneurial learning.Practical implicationsTo better support entrepreneurial learning, gender differences should be considered in both the design and delivery of coaching services.Originality/valueOur findings provide deeper insight about how coaching services create value for entrepreneurs by revealing explanatory dimensions at two levels of analysis and theorizing the interrelationship between entrepreneurial learning, gender and venture development.

Acupuncture In The Real World: Evaluating a 15-Year NADA Auricular Acupuncture Service For Breast Cancer Survivors Experiencing Hot Flushes And Night Sweats As a Consequence of Adjuvant Hormonal Therapies

PurposeWhile clinical trials provide valuable data about efficacy of interventions, findings often do not translate into clinical settings. We report real world clinical outcomes of a 15-year service offering breast cancer survivors auricular acupuncture to manage hot flushes and night sweats (HFNS) associated with adjuvant hormonal treatments. This service evaluation aims to 1) assess whether usual practice alleviates symptoms in a clinically meaningful way and 2) compare these results with scientific evidence. MethodsData were analysed from 415 referrals to a service offering women eight standardised treatments using the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) protocol. Outcome measures administered at baseline, end of treatment (EOT), and four- and 18- weeks after EOT included Hot Flush Diaries, Hot Flush Rating Scale (HFRS) and Women’s Health Questionnaire (WHQ).Results2285 treatments were given to 300 women; 275 (92.3%) completed all eight treatments. Median daily frequency of HFNS reduced from 9.6 (IQR 7.3) to 5.7 (IQR 5.8) at EOT and 6.3 (IQR 6.5) 18 weeks after EOT. HFRS problem rating showed a clinically meaningful reduction of ≥2 points at all measurement points. WHQ showed improvements in several symptoms associated with the menopause. Two adverse events were reported, neither were serious. Results are comparable to published research.ConclusionThis first analysis of a long-term auricular acupuncture service compares favourably with outcomes of other studies for reducing HFNS frequency and associated menopausal symptoms. In day-to-day clinical practice, NADA appears to be a safe effective intervention for breast cancer survivors.

Platform Service Offering to Business Customers: Strategic Considerations in Engendering Seller Use of Marketing Tools

Strategic consideration of competitor and consumer reactions in third-party sellers’ use of marketing tools on e-commerce platforms.

Self­-service for public transport payments: A business case for conversational artificial intelligence

<p>Although self-service (i.e. mobile top-ups) is at the heart of Snapper’s customer service offering, customers have a disjointed experience managing their public transport payment cards across a range of customer service touchpoints, including more traditional support channels such as helpdesks and in-person support centres. Customer feedback indicates that some Snapper users perceive the process of resolving support issues through these traditional support channels to be inconvenient and time-consuming. Activity through these traditional channels still forms a large proportion of Snapper’s customer service, despite Snapper’s ongoing investment in their self-service channels; including mobile applications, the website, the MySnapper desktop application, and kiosks. Just as Snapper innovated to meet customer demand for self-service through a mobile app (Snapper Services Ltd., 2017a), the evolution of conversational artificial intelligence (AI), or chatbot technology, presents an opportunity for Snapper to lead the way in meeting customer demand for a faster, more accessible way to resolve common support issues. The successful development of such a solution will further position Snapper as a market-leader in customer-centric innovation. In order to understand the commercial potential of such an automated customer service offering, the research aims to understand customer use and perceptions of Snapper’s support channels; to identify barriers to the adoption of self-service, and understand how these can be addressed; and to understand customer attitudes towards automated customer service. Using a mixed methods approach, research began with analysis of secondary data accessed from Snapper’s internal customer service reporting. Findings validated customer demand for additional self-service options, as well as the repetitive nature of Snapper’s customer service queries, indicating that these are ripe for automation. In-depth interviews were conducted with Snapper cardholders, giving further insight into how they select and interact with Snapper’s customer service channels. The avoidance of perceived effort was identified as a key theme when explaining how customers navigate service channels, supporting the role of “ease of use” in explaining customer adoption of self-service technologies (Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw, 1989). Types of perceived effort were identified as social, cognitive and logistical effort. These categories are proposed as an extension to the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis et al., 1989), giving additional insight into what constitutes “ease of use”. Following the in-depth interviews, market analysis and discussions with AI and chatbot service providers explored best practice in automated customer service, to understand the adoption of conversational AI technology in the New Zealand context, as well as how other companies have successfully implemented a chatbot product. The project report concludes with a stand-alone business case for applying conversational AI technology to Snapper’s customer service offering. The business case summarises the business model and delivery methodologies recommended for the project development (see Section 6.1), including LEAN startup methods. The market validation phase (Section 6.2) then addresses the strategic business case, assessing the case for change and incorporating key findings from the customer and market research conducted earlier in the research. Building on the opportunities identified in the PESTEL analysis, the product validation phase (Section 6.3) utilises a SWOT analysis, before providing clear recommendations around the required feature-set of the proposed solution, and a possible roadmap for implementing these features. Finally, the economic, financial and commercial cases are addressed; including a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed solution, a recommended development methodology, and high-level resources and requirements required for implementation. By validating that delivering such an enhanced self-service offering is commercially viable, the project aims to deliver a more delightful experience to Snapper users, driving better uptake of Snapper’s self-service channels.</p>

Self­-service for public transport payments: A business case for conversational artificial intelligence

<p>Although self-service (i.e. mobile top-ups) is at the heart of Snapper’s customer service offering, customers have a disjointed experience managing their public transport payment cards across a range of customer service touchpoints, including more traditional support channels such as helpdesks and in-person support centres. Customer feedback indicates that some Snapper users perceive the process of resolving support issues through these traditional support channels to be inconvenient and time-consuming. Activity through these traditional channels still forms a large proportion of Snapper’s customer service, despite Snapper’s ongoing investment in their self-service channels; including mobile applications, the website, the MySnapper desktop application, and kiosks. Just as Snapper innovated to meet customer demand for self-service through a mobile app (Snapper Services Ltd., 2017a), the evolution of conversational artificial intelligence (AI), or chatbot technology, presents an opportunity for Snapper to lead the way in meeting customer demand for a faster, more accessible way to resolve common support issues. The successful development of such a solution will further position Snapper as a market-leader in customer-centric innovation. In order to understand the commercial potential of such an automated customer service offering, the research aims to understand customer use and perceptions of Snapper’s support channels; to identify barriers to the adoption of self-service, and understand how these can be addressed; and to understand customer attitudes towards automated customer service. Using a mixed methods approach, research began with analysis of secondary data accessed from Snapper’s internal customer service reporting. Findings validated customer demand for additional self-service options, as well as the repetitive nature of Snapper’s customer service queries, indicating that these are ripe for automation. In-depth interviews were conducted with Snapper cardholders, giving further insight into how they select and interact with Snapper’s customer service channels. The avoidance of perceived effort was identified as a key theme when explaining how customers navigate service channels, supporting the role of “ease of use” in explaining customer adoption of self-service technologies (Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw, 1989). Types of perceived effort were identified as social, cognitive and logistical effort. These categories are proposed as an extension to the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis et al., 1989), giving additional insight into what constitutes “ease of use”. Following the in-depth interviews, market analysis and discussions with AI and chatbot service providers explored best practice in automated customer service, to understand the adoption of conversational AI technology in the New Zealand context, as well as how other companies have successfully implemented a chatbot product. The project report concludes with a stand-alone business case for applying conversational AI technology to Snapper’s customer service offering. The business case summarises the business model and delivery methodologies recommended for the project development (see Section 6.1), including LEAN startup methods. The market validation phase (Section 6.2) then addresses the strategic business case, assessing the case for change and incorporating key findings from the customer and market research conducted earlier in the research. Building on the opportunities identified in the PESTEL analysis, the product validation phase (Section 6.3) utilises a SWOT analysis, before providing clear recommendations around the required feature-set of the proposed solution, and a possible roadmap for implementing these features. Finally, the economic, financial and commercial cases are addressed; including a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed solution, a recommended development methodology, and high-level resources and requirements required for implementation. By validating that delivering such an enhanced self-service offering is commercially viable, the project aims to deliver a more delightful experience to Snapper users, driving better uptake of Snapper’s self-service channels.</p>

The transformative outcomes of frontline employee adaptability for service value co-creation: a study of the banking sector

PurposeThis study aims to address two relatively unexplored issues in banking service literature. The first relates to the impact of co-creation behaviors of frontline employees (FLEs) on their well-being. The second is the impact of FLEs' adaptability on their performance of co-creation behaviors and their well-being in the workplace.Design/methodology/approachA structural model was built and tested using survey data collected from 366 FLEs offering financial consulting services to customers at banks.FindingsFLE co-creation behaviors have positive impacts on FLEs’ well-being, including well-being in the workplace (job satisfaction) and general well-being (quality of life). Moreover, FLEs with a high level of interpersonal and service-offering adaptability perform co-creation behaviors better than those with lower adaptability and have higher job satisfaction. Between service-offering adaptability and interpersonal adaptability, the former has stronger effects than the latter.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that banks develop and enhance FLEs’ adaptability and co-creation behaviors to enhance their well-being and customer value.Originality/valuePrior research on FLEs' co-creation mainly focuses on customer-related transformative outcomes, leaving their own well-being less examined. This study fills this gap by providing evidence to suggest that although active co-creation behaviors require FLEs to have more skills and put in more effort, they do bring about transformative impacts in terms of better job satisfaction and quality of life. Additionally, a high level of adaptability helps FLEs to comfortably perform their co-creation behavior, thereby reducing stress and improving well-being.

Exploring the benefits of service productisation: support for business processes

PurposeThe study aims to explore the benefits of service productisation to provide further understanding on the productisation concept as support for business processes and service management. The concept has been deficiently discussed regardless of the potential significance to the whole formed by service products, business processes, information technology (IT), people and data.Design/methodology/approachIn the study, the exploratory empirical evidence is presented from 16 cases, 4 of which are from companies that are globally well-known.FindingsThe key findings of the paper include an overview of the benefits of service productisation and the relation to service offering, service processes and related resources. The concept links to the management of the whole formed by service products, business processes, IT, people and data. The noted benefits seem to be applicable to productisation of different service types, whilst some service characteristics may affect the specific emphasis.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations involve using secondary data, which, however, makes the cases less biased regarding the aims. Primary data are required to gain further insights into the phenomena and the identified benefits.Practical implicationsThe findings provide support for issues that are commonly discussed by practitioners on a concept that is less studied by the scientific literature. Practitioners can work towards organisational efficiency and effectiveness by understanding the benefits of productisation. Understanding service productisation can support the effective management of business processes and work towards prosperity in the service business.Originality/valueThe study is the first one to analyse the benefits of service productisation by exploring the issue through multiple cases and attempting to identify aspects for further attention by the academic community.

Responding to Reality: Evolving Curation Practices and Infrastructure at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Objective: The Illinois Data Bank provides Illinois researchers with the infrastructure to publish research data publicly. During a five-year review of the Research Data Service at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, it was recognized as the most useful service offering in the unit. Internal metrics are captured and used to monitor the growth, document curation workflows, and surface technical challenges faced as we assist our researchers. Here we present examples of these curation challenges and the solutions chosen to address them. Methods: Some Illinois Data Bank metrics are collected internally by within the system, but most of the curation metrics reported here are tracked separately in a Google spreadsheet. The curator logs required information after curation is complete for each dataset. While the data is sometimes ambiguous (e.g., depending on researcher uptake of suggested actions), our curation data provide a general understanding about our data repository and have been useful in assessing our workflows and services. These metrics also help prioritize development needs for the Illinois Data Bank. Results and Conclusions: The curatorial services polish and improve the datasets, which contributes to the spirit of data reuse. Although we continue to see challenges in our processes, curation makes a positive impact on datasets. Continued development and adaptation of the technical infrastructure allows for an ever-better experience for the curators and users. These improvements have helped our repository more effectively support the data sharing process by successfully fostering depositor engagement with curators to improve datasets and facilitating easy transfer of very large files.

Doing Less to Do More? Optimal Service Portfolio of Non-profits That Serve Distressed Individuals

Problem definition: Many nonprofit organizations (NPOs) serve distressed individuals who seek relief from hardships such as domestic abuse or homelessness. These NPOs aim to maximize social impact by allocating their limited amount of resources to various activities. Academic/practical relevance: NPOs that serve distressed individuals face a complex task because their clients are often unable to articulate their specific needs. As a result, NPOs are driven to not only offer a variety of services to fulfill different needs, but also engage in advisory activities to minimize mismatches between services clients receive and their true needs. Methodology: We develop a model to study an NPO’s service portfolio and effort allocation decisions under resource constraint. Clients’ progress from distress to resolution is stochastic and depends on the NPO’s efforts in different stages of the service offering. Results: We show that it is optimal for resource-constrained NPOs to offer fewer services and invest more in advisory activities when different types of clients are not evenly mixed in the population, when delays in achieving resolution can significantly blunt the social impact created, when the loss of impact due to not serving a fraction of clients is low, or when there is a limited amount of earmarked funds. Otherwise, it is optimal for NPOs to diversify their service offerings and invest less in advisory activities. Managerial implications: Many NPOs are drawn to maximize the number of clients they serve by increasing the number of services they offer. However, we show that, depending on the characteristics of clients and services, NPOs might be able to generate higher social impact by prioritizing the speed of resolution rather than focusing on the number of clients who achieve resolution. We also present a practical application of our model in the context of domestic abuse.