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A mixed method study for examining customer participation in value co creation: applying service dominant logic to the provision of living support services to day care oncology patients in Pakistan
No full textBackground: Quality of life (QOL) is a concern that extends to various specialist areas, such as the provision of oncology and associated ancillary services, and the living support services (LSS) provided to patients. Bringing together healthcare and marketing research, this study develops a new way of thinking about marketing associated with the service-dominant logic (S-D L), or more broadly, service logic (S-L), which generally contends that all value is created by the customer alone, yet this new logic emphasizes the concept of value co-creation. As the oncology healthcare delivery system changes, and new scientific discoveries are integrated into non-clinical oncology care, the role of customer participation in value creation processes involving LSS provision to day-care oncology patients will continue to evolve. It is suggested that patient participation can play a key role in the outcome of the value creation process, effectively contributing to improvements in LSS provision, leading to an improvement or enhancement of the day-care oncology patients’ overall QOL. While co-production and value co-creation imply customer and supplier participation, participation has received relatively little attention in the specialist literature. This research disentangles the notions of the production and co-production of goods and services, from both the creation and co-creation of value propositions, and the assumptions underlying value-in-use. The focus of the analysis is on participation in exchange, and in the value creation process, by customers and suppliers. The project responds to Grönroos and Ravald (2011)’s call for research: Adopting a service logic means that in a value creation context, during the simultaneous consumption and production processes, a supplier makes active use of existing interactions with its customers. These interactions are part of the customers’ practices and consumption processes and hence also part of their value creation. However, understanding the nature of suppliers’ value co-creation opportunities and the customers’ role in this process requires an in-depth understanding of the interaction concept and the role of interactions in value creation (Grönroos & Ravald, 2011, p. 10). Aims of the Study: 1) To study the significance of QOL, in terms of value outcome; and the patient participation in S-L in the context of non-clinical service provision in oncology health care. 2) To explore patient participation determinants in oncology health care. 3) To identify the positive and negative factors, encouraging or discouraging patient participation in LSS provision. 4) To explore the QOL determinants in oncology health care. 5) To identify positive and negative factors, for improving or diminishing QOL of day-care oncology patients. 6) To develop a proposed model of customer participation in service exchange, and to examine its implementation in oncology health care. 7) To explore the relationship between patient participation determinants, patient participation in LSS, and the QOL of day-care oncology patients. Methods and Procedures: A mixed methods approach guided by a pragmatist worldview was adopted in this thesis. Based on the nature of the objectives of the study, the exploratory sequential design, involving an inductive approach (qualitative) leading to a deductive approach (quantitative), was used to explore the perceptions, attitudes and experiences of participants. The participants (both medical experts and patients) for the qualitative and quantitative studies were selected by the researcher’s medico-supervisor, a medical oncologist at SKMCH & RC, using a ‘convenience sampling’ technique. The number of participants for the qualitative study was determined by the rate of new knowledge acquisition, consistent with diminishing returns principles (Lewis, 1994). That is, interviews proceeded until saturation was apparent. The number of participants for the quantitative study was determined in order to achieve sufficient statistical power (McQuitty, 2004). Findings: The findings of this research project suggest that patient participation in LSS provision is a very important element of value co-creation, and is required during all phases of the service exchange production and delivery process. The research findings are meaningful and interesting as this research highlighted many issues related to patient participation in LSS provision and patients’ QOL at SKMCH & RC. More specifically, the qualitative study of the thesis explored seven themes which formed the ‘Patient participation determinants’ in the provision of LSS to day-care oncology patients. These seven themes were: ‘Communication’, ‘Hospital resources’, ‘Doctors and staff’s attitudes’, ‘Relatives’ attitudes’, ‘Religion and culture’, ‘Patients’ attitudes and interest’ and ‘Patient demographics’. In relation to these themes, positive and negative factors were identified, which encouraged or discouraged patient participation in LSS. The qualitative study of the thesis also explored five themes which formed the ‘QOL determinants’ of the day-care oncology patients. These five themes were: ‘Access to appropriate LSS’, ‘Building self-efficacy’, ‘Patients’ education and awareness’, ‘Social engagements’, and ‘Communication’. Similarly, positive and negative factors were identified for improving or diminishing QOL of day-care oncology patients. A proposed model of customer participation in service exchange was developed and its implementation was examined in oncology health care, and finally, the relationship between patient participation determinants, patient participation in LSS, and the QOL of day-care oncology patients was explored through a quantitative study. Contributions: Theoretical Contributions: This project is believed to be the first research which has merged marketing and health theories. It has shown that it is possible to involve cancer patients in the provision of a hospital’s LSS, and based on the S-L philosophy, the project has given importance to the much overlooked concept of value-in-use. Clearly, the thesis discusses customer participation as an aspect unduly overlooked by S-L theory. The main contribution of this research is that it has led to an enhancement of the S-L theory engendered by Grönroos (2009), and has introduced a new ‘Integrated process model for customer participation in service exchange’. It has explained and tested the concept of customer participation in the service exchange, specifically related to the non-clinical day-care oncology health services. Managerial Implications: The ‘Integrated process model for customer participation in service exchange’ provides a useful tool for the managers of SKMCH & RC in order to benefit from patient participation based strategies. Day-care oncology patients can benefit from participating at the different points in time in the LSS provision by the hospital, as indicated in the ‘Integrated process model of customer participation’. Patient participation will allow the patients to inform the hospital about their desired specific needs, and in this way, benefit from customised non-clinical services. One of the advantages of patient participation for the firms is that when patients act as a resource in the process, some responsibility for the outcome will be transferred to them (Chan,Yim & Lam, 2010; Sweeney, 2007). In this manner, there should be fewer complaints received regarding service delivery. The study indicates that, regrettably, there are no clearly defined practical implications of the concept of S-L theory involving co-creation, when applied to the context of the LSS provision to day-care oncology services in a developing nation like Pakistan. However, the implications of the integrated process model of customer participation, when applied to the context of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre (SKMCH & RC) are meaningful for practitioners
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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