Search results

This paper addresses the issue of the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions within the information and communication technology (ICT) and engineering fields. The study examines the complex issue of vertical segregation and gender equality by exploring the barriers that women encounter and the potential coping strategies they adopt to advance in their careers.

The study employs a qualitative approach, conducting semi-structured interviews with 17 women at middle and upper management levels in the ICT and engineering sectors. This approach aims to better understand women's workplace experiences and gain deeper insights into the nature of the barriers they face.

The study identifies four main factors hindering women's progression toward senior management positions, namely working hours, work-family conflict, social role stereotypes and second-generation bias. The results also offer useful insights into the coping strategies adopted by women to overcome these barriers.

The study highlights the persisting underrepresentation of women in senior positions, indicating a societal and organizational lag in terms of inclusion and equity. It underscores the importance of developing effective policies to address the challenges faced by employees striving to balance their work and family commitments. Training is recognized as an important tool for raising awareness about gender stereotypes among employees and reducing second-generation bias.

This study provides valuable lessons derived from its findings, including potential strategies that organizations can implement to help women navigate and overcome workplace barriers in the ICT and engineering fields.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and evaluate a service quality measurement scale for a secondary school setting in Mauritius.

Research was conducted in two stages. First, a focus group method with the educators was used to identify the service quality dimensions and scale items. Study 2 used the exploratory factor analysis to group the service dimensions into latent “service factors”. The sample data were collected through a survey among educators from secondary schools.

Factor analysis was used to develop a valid and reliable service quality measurement scale. The results of this study indicated that secondary education service quality is a multidimensional construct made up of five dimensions, namely school facilities, reliability, responsiveness, empathy and assurance-discipline.

Since, the study took place in only one of the four secondary educational zones in Mauritius, increasing the sample base in terms of zones, number of schools and respondents could provide safer generalisations of findings.

This study provided insights for school administrators. The five dimensions clarified how educators form their quality perceptions toward the secondary schools. The study provides a useful tool for regular monitoring of quality in order to identify strengths and areas of improvement in the secondary education setting.

This paper extends the service quality scale into the secondary school context. The proposed new scale expresses main service quality parameters that secondary schools could cater for to evaluate service delivery.

This study explores customers’ reactions to waiting experiences in service encounters. It seeks to explore the key driving features determining customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction with waiting experiences during service encounters. The main challenge for service organisation is to understand the satisfactory and dissatisfactory features of the waiting experiences so as to design and deliver a memorable experience leading to positive post-consumption reactions.

The critical incident technique (CIT) was used to explore the salient factors on which customers forged their evaluation and based their satisfaction while waiting in lines in the context of various service encounters. To elicit incidents, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 customers in Mauritius and a total of 297 critical incidents involving customers’ waiting experiences in service encounters were identified.

Based on the CIT analysis, four distinctive features associated with the satisfying and dissatisfying waiting experiences emerged: social justice, servicescapes, affective response and service outcome. The customers exhibited mostly dissatisfying reactions to waiting experiences during the service encounters.

While CIT has been used extensively in services management, it has not been used to explore customers’ reactions to waiting experiences. Therefore, this study extended the waiting experience literature in service encounters to explain customers’ reactions to waiting.

The aim of this paper is to examine educators' perceptions of service quality in secondary schools. Research into service quality in a secondary educational context is somewhat scant, and where investigations have been undertaken, very little has been conducted from the educators' perspectives.

A focus group was conducted to elicit attributes of service quality that were deemed important by educators of state secondary schools. The study utilises focus group findings and modifies the SERVQUAL to develop a research instrument, EDUSERV, which measures educators' expectations and perceptions of service quality in secondary schools in Mauritius.

Exploratory factor analysis was used to group the service attributes into latent “service factors” and the statements loaded on five factors. Consequently, the EDUSERV instrument was found to be reliable and valid to measure service quality in a secondary education environment. Regression analysis was also used to examine the relationship between quality dimensions and overall satisfaction.

This is the first stage of a comprehensive study, the model was tested only with educators in Mauritius, and this is the major limitation. Future research direction is desired for conducting the study using the same instrument on students and school management.

The research has important managerial implications as the findings will assist secondary school management and policy makers in identifying areas which require attention so as to improve the level of service quality in secondary education.

The paper presents a model which can be used to evaluate service quality in secondary education.

In recent years, the number of small independent tourism social enterprises has soared globally due to the rise of the Internet and tourists’ search for unique local experiences. These organizations are driven by a social purpose and have emerged as a reaction to conventional tourism development. They adopt a social justice approach with the aim to enhance community well-being. Importantly, they now exist as an accompaniment to the experiences provided by mainstream tourism that may not adequately satisfy the tourists’ quests for local, authentic, and high involvement experiences. This chapter reviews this independent operator context in Mauritius and examines the factors which contribute to meaningful local experiences.

Destination and resort managers have little knowledge regarding the Chinese outbound tourist market, yet its enormous potential cannot be overlooked. Providing services to this often unfamiliar segment can be difficult and may result in poor service delivery which can be detrimental to both enclave resorts and small island destinations, such as Mauritius. This study uses in-depth interviews among key informants from three- to five-star enclave resorts targeting Chinese tourists. The main challenges experienced by the resorts are cultural behavior, language barriers, different food habits, and the need to improve the service facilities and experience. Based on insights from industry practitioners, the study identifies service modifications provided by enclave resorts to provide Chinese tourists with a positive experience.

The purpose of this paper is to assess service quality of a call centre as perceived by its employees using the SERVQUAL model. It also aims to explore factors predicting front‐line employee satisfaction and behavioural intentions in a call centre. Behavioural intentions are to be measured in terms of employees' willingness to recommend the call centre and their intentions to stay.

Data were collected by field study in a particular call centre in Mauritius using a modified SERVQUAL questionnaire. The study explored both perception and expectation levels of front‐line employees. Using confirmatory factor analysis, the gap scores (performance minus expectation‐based model) were examined. Regression models were used to test the influence of the service quality dimensions on satisfaction and behavioural intentions.

Exploratory factor analysis uncovered three composite dimensions of call centre service quality: Assurance‐Empathy, Reliability‐Responsiveness, and Tangibles. The results for the regression model indicate that satisfaction is best predicted by tangibles, and intentions to stay and willingness to recommend are best predicted by reliability‐responsiveness.

Based on the results, service managers may consider measures in order to improve and diagnose service features in call centres.

The paper examines the structure and validity of the SERVQUAL model, given its wide use and criticism, and applies the model to an important set of related, yet distinct service organisations such as call centres.