Architects' ranking of professional design services Waters, Bryan Lyndon; Dixit, Manish Kumar; Pariafsai, Fatemeh
Architectural engineering and design management,
11/2023, Letnik:
19, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The architectural profession in the United States is seeing a growing divide between practitioners and their clients, potentially affecting designers' ability to shape the built environment as part ...of design and construction teams. Likely due to designers' lack in understanding of client priorities, and clients' misunderstanding of design processes and services, client valuations of architectural design services may differ from those of architects. As part of an effort to discover the differences in architectural design service valuations between these parties, this study uses descriptive and inferential analysis to explore how American architects rank established design services in order of importance, and how they believe their clients rank design services. The design services in this study were extracted from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Documents B101 and B132, standard project agreement forms for owners and architects that include Basic and Supplemental services. Participants were also asked to identify architectural services they believed should be added to the list of services currently included in the AIA documents, and what design services should be excluded. A total of 435 architects responded to the survey, with 85 licensed architects completing the survey. Results show that architects believe their prioritized design services differ slightly from their clients' probable rankings. Most services mentioned by participants as being qualified to be added to the lists of AIA documents services were related to management and design, while participants tended to recommend services related to telecommunications and data design be excluded. More in-depth research may be needed.
Introduction
Malnutrition continues to pose a major challenge to human well-being around the world. In Ethiopia, 39% of children <5 years are stunted, with peaks in northern regions of the country ...such as Amhara (54.8%). Very few (2%) children in the region achieve the minimum dietary diversity and only a minority (27%) belong to households that can afford a nutritious diet. To tackle the high stunting rate, diets high in fruits and vegetables are widely recommended to improve dietary diversity. Programmes leveraging fresh food vouchers can be used to support vulnerable groups with malnutrition and limited affordability. Cash-based transfer (CBT) programmes have repeatedly been shown to improve child growth and increase household food security and dietary diversity. This study is part of the World Food Programme (WFP) intervention regarding a stunting reduction rural programme of restricted CBT for improving dietary diversity in households with children under 2 years of age and pregnant and lactating women.
Methods
A community- based pilot study to assess the itemised foods purchased by beneficiaries was conducted in the four most accessible woredas of the Amhara region of Ethiopia. A total of 556 beneficiaries and 12 active retailers were selected randomly from 10 rural markets in the targeted woredas. A point of sale (POS) system was used to collect the itemised food prices and amounts of food procured by the beneficiaries.
Results and Discussion
Approximately 51, 35, and 15% of the beneficiaries purchased vegetables, fruits, and eggs, respectively. Prices, taste preferences of children, and shelf life determine the purchase of certain food items. The average food expenditure was 49 Ethiopian Birr (ETB; US$ 0.94), representing the 63 and 37% daily and monthly requirements, respectively, for affordability. The higher increase in prices of some food items might be due to their seasonality. Almost half of the Fresh Food Voucher (FFV) beneficiaries were purchasing and consuming vegetables. The finding indicates that the WFP fresh food voucher programme contributes 63% (49 ETB, US$ 0.94) and 37% (837 ETB, US$ 16.1) of the daily and monthly needs of affordability, respectively, for a diversified nutritious diet. The use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) technology in the WFP digital voucher under the Fresh Food Voucher (FFV) project was effective at collecting itemised prices of foods purchased by the beneficiaries. The point of sale (POS)
1
system can be scaled up under the Fresh Food Voucher (FFV) programme so that the digital voucher can contain the itemised food prices. Timely data from the point of sale could be used for timely Social Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) development to improve dietary diversity.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumers’ responses to unsolicited cross-selling of supplementary paid-for services made during delivery of a core service, and the contextual and ...personal variables moderating those responses.
Design/methodology/approach
Three formal experiments test the effect on participants’ responses of the perceived relevance of the supplementary service to the core service, personal psychological reactance, in the case of a high-relevance supplementary service, and self-monitoring, in scenarios in which a low-relevance supplementary service is proposed either in public or privately.
Findings
The experiments found that participants’ satisfaction ratings were reduced in response to cross-selling of a supplementary service that was of low relevance to the core service, and that satisfaction ratings if it was perceived to be of high relevance compared were not reduced despite the unsolicited attempt at cross-selling. However, the non-negative response to a high-relevance offer was limited to participants with a lower tendency to reactance. Furthermore, a high predisposition to self-monitoring evoked more positive judgments if a low-relevance supplementary service was proposed in public rather than privately. That of low self-monitors was no different in either case.
Originality/value
This paper examines the trade-off faced by a service provider between customer satisfaction and extra revenue from supplementary services, and explores conditions under which a provider can propose unsolicited supplementary services without offending customers.
Since the publication of Levitt's (1980) 'total product concept', there has been an increasing recognition that additional supplementary elements, beyond the core product, can have a profound impact ...on customer value. Lovelock's (1995) supplementary services model further develops this concept by providing more specific guidelines regarding where to seek value enhancement. However, there is little empirical validation of his theoretical model across the services sector. Our paper addresses this gap in three ways. First, we assess the soundness of Lovelock's model across different service businesses by adopting a form of interaction research. Second, drawing upon findings from this process, we then develop a revised model of supplementary services. Finally, we propose an implementation framework for our revised model of supplementary services.
Government funding and delivery of social services increasingly fails to meet citizens’ demands. One theory is that charities alleviate this pressure by delivering services to supplement those that ...governments provide (Weisbrod, 1988). When the government and market fail to meet social needs, these services are funded by donations and service charges. A second theory is that charities partner with government to fund and deliver complementary services (Salamon, 1987). This article analyses the historical choices made by New Zealand’s government and charities relating to social services funding and delivery. Charities have not responded solely to what Weisbrod (1988) calls government failure, nor have they entered into continuous partnerships with government as Salamon (1987) would suggest. Instead, funding choices appear to be mutable, placing charities and beneficiaries in precarious positions when social services funding reduces. This article encourages debate about how social services should be funded: by government, charities or the marketplace.
This study aims to describe how the Italian hotel industry is improving its competitiveness in the globalized economy in terms of innovation and supplementary services delivered to the customers. ...Innovation (as implementation of new technologies) and supplementary services represent the driver for the Italian hotel industry to increase the creation of value and to become more competitive in the international arena. This study serves as an initial first step as a pilot for a more comprehensive and larger study of the Italian hotel industry down the road.
Service products being intangible and experiential in nature are different to evaluate prior to purchase and consumption. Consumers perceive risk while purchasing services and rely on various ...information sources to make a purchase decision. In services, personal sources of information are considered more than non-personal sources of information. The present study focuses on understanding the significance of supplementary services as nonpersonal source of information to consumers for pre-purchase evaluation of credit card services. In other words, whether information regarding supplementary services can help consumers make pre-purchase evaluation of credit cards. In addition to pre-purchase evaluation, the impact of supplementary services is studied towards post-purchase evaluation of credit card services. Supplementary services being a part of full service product offer by marketers can be utilised as a beneficial tool to create interest and developing awareness among consumers.
Although some studies have been done on supplementary services in the service industry, very little has been explicitly done in the travel and tourism industry. This paper focuses on adding value to ...core services in the travel and tourism industry, which Lovelock (1996) referred to as "supplementary services." Supplementary services can be used as differentiation points in a highly competitive industry such as tourism. Some researchers have developed models in an effort to demonstrate how supplementary services can enhance the core services. Shostack (1977) and Lovelock (1996) have developed models specifically designed for the service industry. This research is based on Lovelock's (1996) "Flower of Service" model, focussing on the "Hospitality: Taking Care of the Customer" cluster. This paper contends that supplementary services add value to core services, which gives firms competitive advantage over their competition. In the dynamic and challenging environment of the travel and tourism industry, operators need to differentiate themselves in order to be successful and continue to offer superior performance. One of the strategies to differentiate from the competition is to enhance the core services with supplementary services. A major Midwestern City was selected to test Lovelock's model. Two conventions held in mid-February were chosen for this study. Attendees of the first convention were provided specially trained greeters at selected key locations. The second convention that was held the following week did not have any greeters. Attendees of both the conventions were asked to complete a one page pre-tested questionnaire. They were to rate the host-city on several criteria including overall satisfaction, meeting their expectations, and satisfaction with the hospitality and non-hospitality services. Obtained findings suggest that attendees who were exposed to greeters rated the host-city more favorably in overall impression, and quality of hospitality services, and non-hospitality services, while the convention attendees that were not exposed rated the host-city less favorably. Based on the results from this study, firms in the travel and tourism industry, especially the convention centers, may want to consider providing their customers with supplementary services such as greeters as a differentiation strategy.
Internet Protocol (IP) based communication is fast becoming a viable alternative for voice communications. The Intelligent Network (IN) represents the world wide accepted basis for the uniform ...provision of advanced telecom services. Mobile Agents offer unique opportunities for structuring and implementing open distributed service architectures, facilitated by the dynamic downloading and movement of service code to specific network nodes. In this paper, a new service architecture for IP telephony, based on the ITU-T standard H.323, is proposed. The implementation uses Mobile Agents as an enabling technology and existing architectural concepts taken from IN. This IP service architecture enables telecom services deployed through mobile service agents on a per user basis, which results in several advantages when compared to centralized service architectures.
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