Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

1199

Date

2014

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Business Administration

Concentration

Management Information Systems

Committee Chair

William Kettinger

Committee Member

Euntae Ted Lee

Committee Member

Robin Poston

Committee Member

Chen Zhang

Abstract

Serving and satisfying customers are everlasting goals for organizations. This two-essay dissertation delves into two innovative ways in which a company and its information systems (IS) service providers can better serve internal and external customers. The first essay examines the concept of Data Monetization, whereby a company sells its customer data to upstream suppliers to ensure that the source company receives optimized inventory levels and unique consumer insights. In today’s era of big data, business analytics, and cloud computing, this case demonstrates that the elusive goal of data monetization has become achievable. In a second essay, we build on service marketing and social capital literature to understand factors that influence IS service recovery satisfaction following an IS service failure. This empirical study advances our theoretical understanding of internal customer satisfaction by theorizing that the success of IS service recovery depends on the way the IS Function (ISF) responds to an IS service failure and the ISF’s investment in building social capital with its internal customers. Essay 1 is a case study of a Fortune 500 drug store chain that has been successfully monetizing its data by selling it to its upstream suppliers. We present a four-stage model that illustrates the stages the retailer went through on its data monetization journey. We identify the characteristics of each stage that differ in the technical and analytical capabilities required, the type of trust built, the focus of the retailer’s information strategy, governance mechanisms, and the costs incurred and benefits achieved by various stakeholders. It was shown that a company could gain new revenue streams by selling its customer data while exploiting its suppliers’ technical and business analytical resources to ultimately serve the retailer’s customers. In Essay 2, we recognize that when IS service failures are encountered, IS service providers have to respond with an IS service recovery. Internal customers’ (employees) satisfaction with a recovery after a failure is important to restore an employee’s overall satisfaction with the ISF. We empirically examine the effect of the social capital shared between the ISF and employees as well as the dimensions of recovery procedures, interactions, and outcomes on IS service recovery satisfaction and overall satisfaction. Our results indicate that following a service failure, the recovery satisfaction has a direct effect on overall satisfaction with the ISF. We find that recovery procedures (effort and fairness) and the recovery outcomes (speed and level of recovery) influence recovery satisfaction. We do not find support that social capital dimensions affect recovery satisfaction; however social capital has a direct effect on overall satisfaction with the ISF. Moreover, we find that recovery interaction (apology and explanation) does not affect recovery satisfaction. These findings paint the picture whereby the ISF must continually build social capital to sustain overall satisfaction among employees but in the case of a IS service failure, employees are mainly concerned with being treated fairly and earnestly in getting their problem fixed fast and reliably, and they do not consider social capital or recovery interaction as factors that will make them more satisfied with the failure’s recovery.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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