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Services Sciences, Management and Engineering
Rogelio Oliva
Services delivery processes differ from product manufacturing as the servers (employees) and the elements being processed (customers) are human—with psychological attributes, perceptions, and expectations. Furthermore, services are produced in front of customers and often with direct collaboration from them, thus bringing employees and customers physically and psychologically close. Customers’ perception of the service experience is not only affected by the conditions under which the service is delivered, but also by the employees’ attitudes towards the customer. Similarly, employees’ attitudes towards and perceptions of their job are influenced by customers’ attitudes towards the service. This co-evolution of perceptions and expectations is further confounded by the fact that services are intangible, thus making it difficult to assess customer requirements and to fix an objective service standard. Clearly, the study of services requires an interdisciplinary approach; an integrated understanding of the organizational and behavioral components of the social systems that produce and consume the service, as well as the physical and technological characteristics of the service delivery system.
My research explores how boundedly rational policies interact with characteristics of operational processes to determine long-term productivity, quality, and profitability of service operations. Methodologically, my research is phenomenon driven, thus I spend a great deal of time working with managers, doing fieldwork, and collecting data. I use simulation models to formalize the representation of the behavioral and technological complexity of the situations I study and to capture the benefits of formal analysis.
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