Examples on Introduction section

Examples on Introduction section in dissertation report – a study note

Compiled by Joseph, K.K. Ho        Dated: January 5, 2017

Example 1

Roses, L.K., N. Hoppen and J.L. Henrique. 2009. “Management of perceptions of information technology service quality” Journal of Business Research 62, Elsevier: 879-882.

“1. Introduction Analyzing the effectiveness of IT service components is becoming increasingly important (Jiang et al., 2000). To meet growing user demands organizations allocate high investments toward IT. However, the measures generally analyze IT effectiveness based on products rather than on services. Thus, they provide inconsistent information for decision-making (Pitt et al., 1995; DeLone and McLean, 2003). IT products like hardware, software, and information system (IS) applications are part of a process of services (development and maintenance of IS applications, management of operational systems, and maintenance of hardware and software), which determine client perceptions about quality (Gronroos, 2000). Quality may result in a competitive advantage for organizations (Porter, 1980), due to differentiation characteristics. Nevertheless, the competitive advantage of an organization starts in its internal processes, which are also the management of intraorganizational demands (Greenhalgh, 2001; Bhatt and Grover, 2005), such as those of IT services. Therefore, an effective service analysis of the services produced by IT division for other organizational divisions, or IT client divisions, should take into consideration how these clients perceive IT services. According to Gronroos (1988, p. 10), “when the service provider understands how the clients evaluate its services, it can identify how to manage these evaluations and how to influence them in a desired direction.” This situation requires “a model of how the customers perceive the service quality” (p. 10).

SERVQUAL is a model that serves this purpose in that SERVQUAL evaluates service quality using a questionnaire containing 22 items divided into five dimensions, namely tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. These elements evaluate both the expectations for agreed services and the perceptions of services previously provided. Both clients and suppliers respond this questionnaire (Parasuraman et al., 1991). The applicability of the SERVQUAL model to the Brazilian banking sector as an instrument for IT service quality improvement is especially interesting, considering the intensive use of IT and the large amounts invested in technology. In 2004, Brazilian banks invested approximately $1.44 billion in IT, or in other words, 30% of their total investments (FEBRABAN, 2006). In 2006, the number of accounts in Brazilian banks totaled 102.6 million, with clients independentlyoperatingover12billion electronic transactions using devices like Internet Banking and Automated Teller Machines (FEBRABAN, 2008). The site of this research is one of the top five Brazilian banks that invest in IT. This investment is partly responsible for the bank achieving one of the largest net profits of the sector in 2004, besides being one of the 10 largest American banks in terms of assets. Consequently, its IT Division (ITD) receives, on average, over 250 IT service requests per month from its client divisions, which requires a complex infrastructure of physical and human assets. Based on this situation, managing the relationship between ITD and its clients raises the following question: How is the alignment of IT service quality perceptions between the ITD and its client divisions?

To answer this question, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the different perceptions of IT service quality by questioning ITD employees, here also identified as suppliers, and the employees of its client divisions, here also identified as clients, using the SERVQUAL model during a specific period of time. As secondary objectives, this research aims to analyze the perception gaps in the five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model and identify opportunities for the management improvement of the client supplier relationship in IT services. Because the model is not a common sense, the findings add new ways to continue the validity discussion of SERVQUAL, this time based on a sample characterized by intense and strategic IT development, and exploring conceptual elements unpredicted in the original instrument. Four main sections develop the objectives of this study. The first section briefly reviews previous research about service quality emphasizing IT context, followed by the presentation of the SERVQUAL model, including gap analysis and considerations about factor stability for IT services. The second section presents the method of the research. The third section develops the empirical results, through quantitative and qualitative data analysis. The last section highlights managerial implications and suggestions for future research.”

Example 2

Sandulli, F.D., P.M.A. Baker and J. López-Sáachez. 2013. “Can small and medium enterprises benefits from skill-biased technological change?” Journal of Business Research 66, Elsevier: 1976-1982.

“1. Introduction

The most recent technological transformation of modern economies is the adoption of information technology (IT). A central question in management theory is how to deal with organizational adaptation to IT-led technological change. A growing body of empirical evidence shows that proper adaptation to this technological change has a positive impact on firms' efficiency (Dedrick, Gurbaxani, & Kraemer, 2003). However, heterogeneity in organizational characteristics can explain the differences in the outcomes of this adaptation process (Bresnahan, Brynjolfsson, & Hitt, 2002; Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 2000). Starting with the paper by Milgrom and Roberts (1990), a large body of literature supports the complementarity hypothesis between technology, skills and organization, and suggests that modern technological and organizational changes are complementary with skilled workers. The main aim of this study is to understand the nature of the skill-biased technological change (SBTC) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).While several studies explain the complementarities between technological change, organizational innovation and skills for large organizations, few studies address the role of these complementarities in SMEs. SMEs are enterprises which employ fewer than 250 persons and whose annual turnover does not exceed EUR 50 million, or whose annual balance-sheet total does not exceed EUR 43 million (European Commission, 2003). These small businesses make a significant contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) and employment in many economies of the world. The differences between SMEs and large corporations in terms of resources and organizational sophistication cast some doubts on the applicability of previous SBTC research on SMEs. Compared to large firms, small businesses tend to have simple and centralized structures, lower levels of specialization, less standardized procedures, less financial resources and less managerial and professional expertise (Thong, Yap, & Raman, 1996). These limitations suggest that SMEs do not have the same skills and capabilities to profit from SBTC. The main contribution of this paper is the study of the impact on SMEs' efficiency of the complementarities between skills and technological change. The main hypothesis of this research is that technology adoption and the skill composition of the workforce of SMEs are complementary factors in the production function. More specifically, this study proposes that technological change in SMEs causes a shift in the demand for both cognitive and technical skills. Technological change reduces the costs of communication and supervision, fosters organizational innovations, and flattens organizational structures (Bertschek & Kaiser, 2004; Bresnahan et al., 2002; Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 1998; Garicano & Rossi-Hansberg, 2006). In these flattened organizations, workers are less likely to perform repetitive, specialized tasks, but rather are responsible for a wider range of tasks within teams. Further, the decentralization of organizational decision-making increases the tasks' variability and complexity. Following technological change, the redefinition of tasks and responsibilities fosters firms' demand for cognitive and technical skills (Bartel, Ichniowski, & Shaw, 2007; Black & Lynch, 2001; Bresnahan et al., 2002; Nielsen & Lassen, 2012). More advanced technical skills facilitate the absorption of new technology, while cognitive abilities help workers to make better decisions through more accurate mental models. Consequently, these new skills affect the impact of technological change on firm's performance (Acemoglu, 2002; Autor, Levy, & Murnane, 2003; Garicano & Rossi-Hansberg, 2006). However, previous literature provides little evidence of the effect of technological change, and cognitive and technical skills on the efficiency of SMEs. To close this gap in the literature, the main contribution of this paper is to explore the interactions between cognitive and technical skills and IT-led technological change in SMEs.

The next section reviews the key literature dealing with the fit between skills and technological change with a special focus on SMEs. Section 3 describes the data and the empirical methodology. Section 4 presents the results obtained and Section 5 discusses the results. Finally, Section 6 presents the main conclusions of this research”.