Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Extant literature in marketing and communications has long recognized the importance of effective communication as the essential link for sustainable relationship between organizations and their customers. In spite of its importance, many studies have revealed that practices of communication in relationship marketing in some service firms are fraught with problems, which influence the perceptions of customers about the commitment of those organizations to service quality and customer value. This exploratory study was undertaken to analyze how insurance customers perceive their relationships with insurers through received messages. The study also sought to identify the inherent differences in the perception of relational messages received from insurers by the customers based on gender. A simple random sample of 145 insurance customers were drawn for the study from three insurance agencies. Useful responses were received from 120 automobile insurance policyholders, which represented 82.76% of the sample. Four hypotheses were tested with Pearson Correlation, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and multiple regression analysis. The results of the study suggested significant relationship between relational messages, service quality, and customer satisfaction. In terms of differences in the perceptions of male and female respondents, the study indicated significant differences in the perception of personal values and perceived quality through received messages. Similarly, significant differences were recorded in the perception of message credibility by the female participants as compared with those of the males.  The study also revealed the need for insurance companies to fully imbibe relationship communication with their customers, through assessment of the internal and external situations which surround the information needs of individual customers.

The study assessed the performance of public sector funded infrastructure in Nigeria, with a special focus on airports. It utilized secondary data obtained from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) covering the period 2004 to 2016.  A simple regression analyses of the data were carried out using total number of employees as the predictor variable and the total aircraft movement, total passenger movement, and total cargo movement as the dependent variables. The results of the analyses show that the p values calculated were < 0.05 alpha value, implying existence of a statistical relationship among the dependent variables (aircraft movement, passenger throughput, and cargo throughput) and independent variable (number of employees). Furthermore, the time series graphs show fluctuations in growth of the outputs (passenger throughput, aircraft movement and cargo throughput) for the Nigerian air transport system at various periods. This study has shown that there is a need for the government and stakeholders to take immediate actions in tackling factors responsible for the decline and fluctuations in the air transport industry.

The current market, becoming more rigid, forces companies to search continuously for innovation and improvement of their processes and products as a way to keep competitive and gain strategic advantages. Due to the global economic crisis, more and more companies try an approach through new management methodologies that allow better performances in terms of earning, profit and cost reduction. The present article proposes an integrated TOC (Theory of Constraints), Lean and Six-Sigma (TLS) model, with the objective of improving continuously a productive system, although it shows flexibility to be applied in other kinds of systems. The model synergistically integrate the best practices found in existing TOC, Lean and Six-Sigma models. The proposed model derivatives mainly from Eliyahu Goldratt’s TOC model of the “5 focus steps” and TLS model “Ultimate Improvement Cycle”, developed by Bob Sproull. The proposed TLS model was tested on an important Portuguese Manufacture. The implementation of a first continuous improvement cycle was completed and a second cycle began. The main results obtained by the implementation of the TLS model were extremely satisfactory.

This study puts forward the implementation of Multi-Criteria Decision Aid, through the PROMÉTHÉE V method, to support a decision on prioritizing a modification project portfolio on offshore oil and gas platforms. The chosen method supports, in a structured manner, the prioritization of a project portfolio which is necessary to leverage the oil production in offshore facilities, especially when they have already surpassed the plateau phase and presents production decline. Although the most relevant issues for investors are related to return on investments and the risks involved, the study suggests that other criteria are considered in specific settings. The research used data from 12 main projects of an oil and gas company and the criteria evaluations were made based on documents retrieved from the organization's database. This implementation represents a very important improvement for a well-known problem, in which the result is found based on criteria and their respective weights selected through a consensus. The results reinforce that any organization, with a constraint similar to the one presented in this study, may obtain relevant gains with the use of methods that clearly reflect the decision process and its criteria, assisting the decision maker's job significantly.

This work presents a review of motion and time made in the most performed service in a small beauty salon in Mossoró - RN - Brazil. Thus, this research aims to use the knowledge derived from the engineering of methods, precisely, the studies movements and times and to associate such studies, which were developed mainly within the manufacturing process, to bring to a service delivery environment. To have specific objectives, to prepare a flowchart of the operation of the manicure service, to find the standard time of this service through the chronoanalysis of the stages of the task and to carry out the study of the methods developed during the execution of the service in question. In this sense, it can conclude that employing the chrono-analysis tool, the default time for the chosen operation is approximately 36 minutes. This finding means that this is the period required to provide a unit of the manicure service, considering the skills, efforts, conditions, and consistencies of the operator, the physical environment, the materials, and equipment analyzed. This work presents a study of motion and time in the most performed service in a small beauty salon in the city of Mossoró/RN, in Brazil.

The purpose of this study is to predict the effect of buyers’ bargaining power (customers’ price sensitivity, knowledge level, union, ability to integrate backward, switching costs and resale buying) on incomes of small food manufacturers. A survey of perceptions of 132 sampled small food processors in Nairobi and Busia Counties was done. From the gradation of the perceptions on seven-point likert scale, inferences were made on buyers bargaining power influence on the larger population of small food manufacturers in Kenya. On one hand, the study revealed that every unit of buyer’s sensitivity to prices, not unionized, integrated backwards and bought for goods for resale accounted for a positive change small food processors’ income by 0.011, 0.013, 0.005 and 0.010, respectively. On the other hand, the study showed a negative change of 0.006 and 0.008 in incomes of small agro-food processors with every unit change in the level of buyer’s knowledge and shifted to alternative product, respectively.  Using Ordinary Least Square (OLS) linear regression statistical inference, there was no single standalone buyers’-bargaining-power-factor that significant influenced incomes of small food manufacturers in Kenya. However, the amalgam of the buyers bargaining power cues actually did influence the incomes (t=8.294, p= 0.00, sig <0.05, 2 tailed). Given the findings, the study recommends that marketers of food products should treat buyers bargaining powers factors as a whole and not as individual components. Further studies should consider structural equation modeling to determine a model with critical buyers-bargaining-powers factors.

This paper deals with the to the supply chain strategic management of organic products. The objective of this study is to propose a model that integrates the concepts of supply chain management (SCM), transaction costs theory (TTC) and bullwhip effect in supply chain of organic products generating propositions that will direct future empirical research. Therefore, this paper proposes that the SCM and TTC can contribute in reducing the distortion of perception of demand along the supply chain of organic products. A conceptual model relating the three variables studied was elaborated and three theoretical future empirical investigations to propositions in order to solve the problem of the bullwhip effect, namely the distortion of perception of demand along the supply chain of organic products.

This paper studies the rescheduling problem of a single machine facing unexpected disruptions in order to determine which parameters can help reducing the negative impacts of these disruptions on schedule performance. A Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used to generate the initial schedule and the updated ones according to a reactive strategy. The performance of event-driven rescheduling and periodic rescheduling policies are compared in terms of total tardiness and total cost of rescheduling. Other factors that may affect rescheduling such as disruption time, disruption duration and number of disruptions are investigated. The sensitivity of results to both due date tightness and cost factor variation is tested. The results showed that the timing of the occurrence of disruption as related to scheduling horizon has a major effect on determining the best rescheduling policy. Event-driven policy is superior to other policies for short infrequent disruptions. It was found that the periodic policy is more appropriate for long and frequent disruptions.