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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a model to measure maturity in value co-creation practices and to evaluate its relationship with the market performance of textile companies. Design/methodology/approach The data were obtained through quantitative research with 100 companies of the Brazilian textile sector. A structural equation modeling was performed to verify the relationship between the constructs of the proposed model. Findings The results confirm the proposed model and show that, in addition to a direct impact, the relationship between the maturity of value co-creation practices and market performance also occurs indirectly, by meeting customer expectations. Value co-creation processes can meet customer expectations, leading the company to better market performance. Originality/value A model for assessing the maturity of value co-creation practices enables companies to diagnose their current situation, thereby supporting them in managing these practices and leading to better market performance.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the nonlinear impact of users’ memories on their general evaluation of outpatient healthcare services by the integration of two methodologies: critical incidents technique (CIT) and penalty-reward contrast analysis (PRCA). Design/methodology/approach The authors carried out a survey with 356 respondents, users of seven outpatient clinics located in the city of Blumenau/SC, Brazil, during 2016. The participants were asked about their perceptions of positive and negative aspects of the service; and, using CIT, the answers were categorized according to the following dimensions: empathy, communication, facilities, access, promptness, medicines availability, complementary services, safety/confidentiality and service performance. Then, the authors evaluated the nonlinear impact of critical incidents on users’ general evaluation of the service using the identified incidents as input variables in a PRCA. Findings The findings show that users of healthcare services tend to remember emotion and health aspects positively, while technical and formal aspects tend to be more negatively than positively remembered. On the other hand, PRCA identifies that incidents of three dimensions positively influence the overall perception of the service (empathy, complementary services and privacy) and five negatively (empathy, facilities, speed, drugs/pharmacy and health performance), explaining 26.3 percent of the variation in clients’ general satisfaction. Originality/value The present paper explores the integration of two methodologies, showing how we can use open listening to healthcare service users to identify the nonlinear impact of different incidents on their general evaluation of the service. The results show that what customers remember does not necessarily influence overall customer satisfaction. The present approach allows companies to improve the process of listening to customers. There are no other papers exploring this approach, particularly in relation to healthcare services.

Purpose This paper aims to present a methodology for the prioritization of innovations and improvements in services and products that integrates penalty–reward contrast analysis (PRCA) and improvement gap analysis (IGA). Design/methodology/approach The presented method is theoretically developed and simulated. It uses a case study with 290 clients of supermarkets, evaluating 16 attributes of this service, to demonstrate the advantages of integrating PRCA and IGA. Findings The integration of PRCA and IGA provides benefits that outweigh the use of each method individually. The joint use of these methods allows the identification of possible nonlinear impact of attributes on customers’ overall satisfaction, allowing managerial recommendations to be made with greater discriminatory power, in addition to qualifying the identification of innovative attributes. Originality/value Managers must be aware of the effect of the interaction of innovative attributes with attributes already used by the company. At the same time, it is appropriate to verify whether there is potential to improve the existing attributes. The literature shows that PRCA identifies the nonlinear influence of customers’ satisfaction with individual attributes on overall satisfaction, but it fails to identify the possible impact of innovative attributes. In turn, IGA identifies innovative attributes but does not identify how the attributes influence overall satisfaction. Thus, the benefits of integrating PRCA and IGA outweigh the individual limitations of each method, thereby increasing the quality of managerial recommendations. Moreover, a limitation of PRCA makes this method useful for identifying innovative attributes in relation to attractive attributes identified by the IGA method.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the nonlinear impact of quality dimensions of third-party logistics (3PL) services on customer satisfaction and loyalty.Design/methodology/approachBy interviewing 167 small-size companies, and using penalty and reward contrast analysis, the paper explores the nonlinear impact of seven dimensions of 3PL services (safety, fault’s recovery, reliability, speed, flexibility, communication, and friendliness) on customer satisfaction and loyalty.FindingsThe results confirm the existence of the dimensions’ nonlinear impact on customer satisfaction. It also shows that some quality dimensions have a direct and nonlinear impact on loyalty. The dimension “friendliness” has a direct impact on loyalty if the company has a below market average performance, which may lead customers to switch service providers. “Flexibility on collection and delivery” has a direct impact if the company has a higher performance, contributing to customers’ intention to continue using the service. Another finding is that, if the company delivers good service recovery after the customer found faults in the service, and if customers trust the company service, they say they intend to continue to work with the company.Research limitations/implicationsThe present research focused only on small companies in one country (Brazil). Further studies should be carried out to explore different countries, with different realities, and different size of companies.Practical implications3PL companies should not only deal with customers’ satisfaction, but also with other quality aspects that directly affect customer intention to continue doing business with the 3PL service provider. These are friendliness, flexibility regarding time and frequency of collection and delivery and faults’ recovery.Originality/valueThe present research confirms that the personal relationship is a crucial aspect to be managed in order to keep customers in the long term. In addition, as opposed to most research looking for the antecedents of satisfaction and loyalty of 3PL customers, the present research shows that there is a direct nonlinear impact of the dimensions’ performance on customers’ loyalty, what should be taken in consideration by 3PL managers. It also shows how penalty-reward contrast analysis may reveal nonlinear antecedents that could be used for better understandings companies’ success in the long term.

Purpose – This paper aims to present and compare a new method, improvement gap analysis (IGA), with two different versions of importance-performance analysis (IPA) – original IPA and diagonal IPA – focusing on how each method evaluates the possible impact of incremental innovations on customer satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – Two studies were carried out, one with users of mobile phones and another with users of a fitness centre. Mobile phone users answered questions about 24 attributes, of which six were incremental innovations at the time of the research. Users of the fitness centre answered questions about 16 attributes, of which three were incremental innovations. Findings – Both case studies show that diagonal IPA overcomes two limitations of original IPA, in terms of IPA's failure to address: the high correlation between stated importance and customer satisfaction and the non-linear relationship between attribute performance and customers’ satisfaction. However, diagonal IPA is unable to identify the possible impact of incremental innovations on customer satisfaction. Thus, IGA is formulated to overcome both the problems with original IPA and the limitation of diagonal IPA. Research limitations/implications – The new method, IGA, uses expected customer dissatisfaction as a measure of attribute relevance. Its relationship with other methods used to evaluate attribute importance should be studied in the future. Originality/value – The paper presents a new method (IGA) that is able to overcome problems of original and diagonal IPA methods and is also able to identify the possible impact of incremental innovations on customer satisfaction.

This paper shows in theory how a knowledge management system can be built as a human resource management (HRM) function. The solution builds on the notion of innovation benchmarking. A case study from the company ST Ericsson illustrates the discrepancy between what the company needs to do and what the HRM function is able to support when it comes to innovation. The study shows the ability of employees in the company to innovate within key success factors. More worryingly, it also shows key areas where the company is not able to compete and where it is not getting any support from the HRM function. At the end, we identify a number of directions for future research in the field of innovation benchmarking as it relates to HRM policies.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the improvement gap analysis (IGA), a simple method to direct improvement opportunities in services that overcomes limitations of the traditional IPA regarding excitement and basic attributes.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed method is theoretically developed and simulated. The theoretical simulation explains why IGA overcomes limitations of the traditional importance performance analysis (IPA) and how it could identify the impact of excitement innovative attributes. A case study with 287 customers of supermarkets was used to empirically test IGA and compare it to IPA.FindingsThe case study confirmed that the traditional IPA may lead to wrong improvement decisions for basic and excitement attributes. It happens because IPA is based on current attributes' performance and considers the relationship between attribute performance and customer satisfaction as a linear one. Also, it cannot identify the impact of excitement innovative attributes on customer satisfaction. Using only information about the company's customers, IGA could differentiate neutral from excitement attributes in the case study and, differently from IPA, it correctly identified improvement decisions for basic and excitement attributes.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough IGA can theoretically distinguish between excitement innovative and neutral attributes, the case study presented in the paper did not test any innovative attribute. All attributes were already experimented or known by the subjects. Future research should empirically test IGA's real capability to identify excitement innovative attributes.Practical implicationsManagers should be aware that IPA may lead to wrong improvement decisions. It may leave excitement attributes unnoticed or direct the company to the improvement of basic attributes that already have adequate performance. IGA can be a good substitute for IPA with the additional advantage that it does not need information about competitors in the analysis. Also, since service quality evaluation depends heavily on customer perception, IGA is particularly suitable to this industry, but it could also be used for product improvement.Originality/valueThe literature presents several papers discussing IPA's problems. Some papers present the possible decision errors of IPA when dealing with excitement and basic attributes. Fewer have tried to propose methods to overcome these problems. This paper confirms the problems of IPA and presents a simple method that overcomes these limitations, distinguishing between excitement and neutral attributes. Also, because it does not use information about competitors, it can be easily used by companies that have difficulties in gathering such information.

PurposeTo analyze the limitations of two methods used in the identification of satisfaction attributes in products and services – importance performance analysis (IPA) and Kano method – and to propose a new method for identification of improvement opportunities based on the competitive analysis of the improvement gap.Design/methodology/approachA case analyzing attributes of the service “rodizio de pizzas” a kind of pizzeria found in Brazil, was used to illustrate the proposed method. Resulting from a focus group, four attributes, one of them being an innovation, were specifically chosen to include the different categories of the Kano model: basic, performance and excitement attributes. A survey was conducted with a random sample of 110 undergraduate students that eat regularly at pizzerias.FindingsAs a major limitation, IPA leads to different conclusions depending on how an attribute's importance is figured. Also, it does not take into consideration the non‐linear relationship between the performance of the attributes and customer satisfaction, possibly misleading improvement decisions and hindering the introduction of innovations. The Kano method identifies the non‐linear relationship between performance and satisfaction, but it does not take into consideration the current level of attributes' performance in the analysis. The proposed method successfully identified improvement opportunities in a service case, including the possible impact of including a new attribute, i.e. an innovative attribute, overcoming limitations of the IPA and of the Kano method.Originality/valueThe paper provides an intuitive and simple method that correctly identified improvement decisions in the case studied, including the introduction of an incremental innovation.