E-fulfillment across product type: a review of literature (2000–2020)

Purpose This paper aims to review the literature on “E-fulfillment” with respect to marketing and operations issues in the current dynamic and complex e-tailing environment and thereby generate significant insights. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on a systematic literature review on e-fulfillment focusing on marketing and operations issues therein. This systematic literature review consists of a critical review on e-fulfillment under planning (review question initialisation), searching (literature search), screening (literature evaluation), extraction and synthesis and reporting phases to conceptualise e-fulfillment. A total of 122 research articles have been reviewed to explore e-fulfillment and to develop key constructs and propositions. Findings This review provides the following three outcomes. First, the varied-fulfillment definitions have been critically reviewed, leading to synthesis, and thereby, an e-fulfillment definition is provided. Further, the variations for e-fulfillment across product types, which have been identified as a key variable for e-fulfillment, have been explored. Second, authors find five e-fulfillment components at the marketing and operations interface: website quality, customisation strategy, distribution strategy, last mile delivery and return management. Continuing with the e-fulfillment interface with marketing, the linkages between e-fulfillment and select post-purchase consumer behaviours measures across different product types have been reviewed. The paper thus with a focus on synthesising e-fulfillment literature from a process perspective emphasises the consumer behaviour metric for measuring e-fulfillment performance. Practical implications This study would help academicians, researchers, e-tailers and practitioners to understand e-fulfillment from a process perspective. For the researcher, it presents areas for future research by giving possible research directions in this emerging area. This study also brings out the impact of e-fulfillment according to product type on the post-purchase consumer behaviour measures, which will help e-tailers to link e-fulfillment to consumer behaviour metrics. Originality/value The paper classifies the fragmented literature to develop constructs and propositions for e-fulfillment. This is the first kind of study on e-fulfillment process and its impact on select post-purchase consumer behaviour measures across product types.

VALUE STREAM MAPPING OF OCEAN IMPORT CONTAINERS: A PROCESS CYCLE EFFICIENCY PERSPECTIVE

International cargo transportation is majorly dependent on marine transport, which moves 80% of the international cargo. With the increase in vessel size and the same yard area available for container transportation, it is important to study the processes and understand the efficiency of the container operations process. This research paper aims to review the import container transportation process and understand the process cycle efficiency through lean six sigma concepts. The process is evaluated from the operations process perspective and documentation process at one of the ports of India. The research has been designed by conducting an industry expert review on the process of container transportation from vessel berthing to gate out for import containers, utilising lean six sigma principles such as value stream mapping (VSM) and process cycle efficiency. The results have contributed to the existing knowledge in identifying the waste in the container handling process and demonstrated the inefficiency in the system from the perspective of waiting time of containers due to customs examination, scanning, and inter-terminal handling and movement. The process cycle efficiency of 40% is calculated by analysing the detailed time of handling containers from vessel berthing to gate out. A new future value stream mapping is proposed considering the process cycle efficiency. Future studies will focus on studying this process for export containers and benchmarking the results with the top-performing ocean ports globally.

Patterns of business model innovation for advancing IoT platforms

PurposeThe emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) platforms in product companies opens up new data-driven business opportunities. This paper looks at the emergence of these IoT platforms from a business-model perspective.Design/methodology/approachThe study applies a mixed method with two research studies: Study I–a cluster analysis based on a quantitative survey, and Study II–case studies based on qualitative interviews.FindingsThe findings reveal that there is no gradual shift in a company's business model, but in fact three distinct and sequential patterns of business model innovations: (1) platform skimming, (2) platform revenue generation and (3) platform orchestration.Research limitations/implicationsThe results are subject to the typical limitations of both quantitative and qualitative studies.Practical implicationsThe results provide guidance to managers on how to modify the components of the business model (value proposition, value creation and/or delivery and profit equation) in order to enable platforms to advance.Social implicationsAs IoT platforms continue to advance, product companies achieve better performance in terms of productivity and profitability, and more easily secure competitive advantages and jobs.Originality/valueThe paper makes three original contributions: (1) it is the first quantitative study on IoT platforms in product companies, (2) identifies three patterns of business model innovations and (3) offers a first process perspective for understanding the sequence of these patterns as IoT platforms advance.

Digital servitization strategies for SME internationalization: the interplay between digital service maturity and ecosystem involvement

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to understand how digital servitization enables the process of internationalization for industrial SMEs.Design/methodology/approachThe present study has adopted an exploratory multiple case study, conducting a total of 40 interviews in a two-phased approach to data collection. The first phase consisted of exploratory interviews with twenty-six industrial SMEs connected to the manufacturing industry in Sweden and Finland. Then, six SMEs were selected in the second phase to participate in additional in-depth interviews.FindingsFirst, this study identifies three gradual enabling phases concerned with the digital service maturity of SMEs consisting of digital awareness, digital service innovation and digital service mass customization. Second, the three interdependent phases of ecosystem knowledge synergy, ecosystem integration and ecosystem value co-creation were identified to improve ecosystem involvement. Finally, a process framework has been developed for SME internationalization consisting of a digital servitization innovation strategy, a digital servitization ecosystem strategy and a digital servitization scaling strategy.Originality/valueThe present research contributes to how digital servitization enables SME internationalization by demonstrating how the development of digital service offerings and ecosystem partnerships supports the internationalization process. This research extends the literature by proposing a process framework for the digital-servitization-enabled internationalization of SMEs. This process perspective provides a richer explanation of the complex interplay between servitization, digitalization and ecosystems choices, which supports the expansion into international markets.

Characterising users’ task completion process in learning-related tasks:A search pace model

This study investigated users’ searching, reading and writing interactions and their activity transitions during task completion process when users were collecting information for learning-related search tasks. Task completion process was defined as the process users started to search till the time when they have collected enough information to accomplish the search tasks. The data analysis was conducted from a new process perspective through synthesising macro- and micro-process levels. Four evenly distributed stages were divided according to the total task completion time in each search session. Our results demonstrated that users generally experienced three sub-processes during task completion process: exploration, accumulation and composition/reporting. Exploration sub-process is basically the first quarter of the total task completion time, during which users often issue more queries and visit more search engine result pages (SERPs) to collect information, and the dominant activity transition is switching between searching and reading; accumulation sub-process is mainly the second and third quarters of the total task completion time, during which they visit more unique content pages, have more revisits per content page, and they switch between reading and writing activities frequently; the last stage is composition/reporting sub-process, which is dominated by writing, and users often switch between writing and reading, and between writing and searching. Based on these findings, we propose a search pace model to describe how users proceed from the beginning to the end of task completion process in these three sub-processes. The methodology applied has been proved to be effective to examine users’ interaction behaviours from the process perspective on both the micro- and macro-levels. The findings of this article help us understand how users proceed their dynamic searching, reading and writing behaviours for learning-related tasks, and also have implications for the design of search systems that support learning-related tasks.

Employee Performance Measurements at ‘Aisyiyah Klaten Hospital using the Human Resources Scorecard approach

Background: The rapid development of health services is a challenge for hospitals in facing the increasingly open and accessible competition. Good human resource management is needed to increase the productivity of an organization. One of the strategies to increase productivity and improve human resource management is to use an integrated and comprehensive employee performance measurement. This research measured employee performance using the Human Resources Scorecard (HRSC) approach based on several conditions. HRSC is a Balanced Scorecard with a Human Resources (HR) approach where Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are based on 4 (four) perspectives: Financial Perspective, Customer Perspective, Internal Business Process Perspective, and Learning and Growth Perspective. Method: This study used a quantitative approach with a cross-sectional survey research design. Data collection methods included questionnaires, document review, and Consensus Decision Making Group (CDMG). The research population was 256 employees of the ‘Aisyiyah Hospital Klaten. Samples were determined using non-probability sampling technique with a purposive sampling method of 100 respondents. Results: The results showed that overall employee performance was good, with a score of 4.03. Based on Key Performance Indicators for each perspective, the internal business process perspective of employee performance was very good, with a score of 1.24. The financial perspective of employee performance was good with a score of 0.8, while the customer perspective of employee performance was good, with a score of 1.19. Finally, the learning and growth perspective of employee performance was good, with a score of 0.8. Conclusion: With the HRSC approach, the overall performance results of the ‘Aisyiyah Klaten Hospital employees were good.

Mindful words: How do our stories change when we read about mindfulness? A narrative inquiry

<p>This narrative inquiry tells the stories of four women who read an online blog about mindfulness for three weeks and shared their reflections of the experience. It investigates the role that reading plays in the development of mindfulness—a process that has not featured previously in the research literature. The women in this study were recruited via social media, and all were motivated to learn more about mindfulness and how it could have a positive effect on their daily lives. Data was collected via questionnaires on their understanding of mindfulness and their state of mind prior to, and following the completion of, the project. The women also submitted written reflections, based on their reading and experience of each blog post. Analysis involved coding the data and forming it into individual narratives, written in their own words. The narratives were then deconstructed to investigate their association to the transformative learning process—perspective, experience, reflection, meaning making, and interpretation. The results showed that the women did, indeed, have transformative learning experiences, although the sustainability of such change needs further investigation. Despite limitations, these stories suggest that reading about mindfulness deserves a higher profile—and that the use of a digital platform to host written mindfulness content has the potential to positively affect a wide audience.</p>