Hospitable Non-verbal Staff Behaviour as a Means to Create Value to Customers

Background and aim: Service providers need to be competent in the provision of hospitality. However, the question is, how to operationalize the experience of hospitality? Existing literature shows limited concrete service characteristics that lead to a hospitable experience in service environments. This article presents user-centred research into human-related aspects that influence the hospitality experience of guests. Methods/methodology: Four case studies were performed in a public swimming pool and a catering setting. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, in three of the four cases, regular customers of the organizations were approached by email and asked to rate the importance of behaviours related to hospitable service. In the case of the public swimming pool, part of the data was collected prior to closing of the pool, allowing data collection via survey, on site or via email, depending on visitors’ preferences. Results: The results show which non-verbal employee characteristics contribute to the distinctive factors of hospitality, especially observable behaviour. The factors ‘modest appearance’ and ‘representative appearance’ seem to be of medium importance, and the factor ‘paralanguage’ seems to be the least important factor. Practical implications: This article shows that it is possible to identify concrete characteristics of employee behaviour that people associate with hospitality.

SPIRITUALITAS IMAMAT DALAM BAYANG-BAYANG TANTANGAN PASTORAL (IMAM SEBAGAI PELAYAN DALAM TANTANGAN PASTORAL DI KEUSKUPAN TIMIKA)

This article focuses on reflections of the priestly vocation as a minister in the context and pastoral situation in the Diocese of Timika. The approach is studying on ecclesiastical documents in regarding on the priesthood spirituality in serving of God's people. The purpose of this paper is to discover the high spirit of ministry of a priest who is based on the example of Jesus Christ as Teacher and Chief Pastor in the pastoral ministry of the Timika Diocese. Total service in dedicative involvement, a soothing presence, entering into the struggles of family life, and having the courage of dialoguing with anyone are a concrete service to realize the spirit of the ministry of Jesus Christ in the challenges of the pastoral field in the Timika Diocese. Artikel ini berfokus pada refleksi mengenai panggilan hidup imamat sebagai pelayan di tengah konteks dan situasi pastoral di Keuskupan Timika. Pendekatan yang digunakan adalah studi dokumen gerejani mengenai spiritualitas imamat dalam pelayanan bagi umat Allah. Tujuan dari tulisan ini adalah untuk menemukan semangat pelayanan yang luhur dari seorang imam yang bertolak pada teladan Yesus Kristus sebagai guru dan gembala utama dalam pelayanan pastoral di keuskupan Timika. Pelayanan yang total dalam keterlibatan yang dedikatif, kehadiran yang menyejukkan, masuk dalam pergumulan hidup keluarga, dan berani untuk berdialog dengan siapa pun merupakan pelayanan konkret demi mewujudkan spirit pelayanan Yesus Kristus di tengah tantangan medan pastoral di Keuskupan Timika.

A new handbook on structural concrete service life assignment taking into account the operating environment impact in their life cycle

В статье систематизированы основные критерии, необходимые для определения нормативных сроков эксплуатации бетонных и железобетонных конструкций, проведен анализ состояния отечественной и зарубежной нормативной базы в отношении требований к срокам службы железобетонных конструкций, рассмотрены основные нормативно-технические документы в области проектирования железобетонных конструкций зданий и сооружений по их жизнен-ному циклу. Описаны виды коррозионных повреждений железобетонных конструкций и определяющие их факторы, приведены согласованные на международном уровне модели долговечности для некоторых деградационных процессов. На основе проведенных работ подготовлены предложения по оценке коррозионного состояния эксплуатировавшихся железобетонных конструкций, их остаточной несущей способности, эксплуатационной пригодности, ожидаемого срока службы в заданных агрессивных условиях и методов определения нормативных сроков службы железобетонных конструкций. Даны предложения по разработке и актуализации ряда релевантных нормативных, технических и организационно-методических документов.

Future service technologies: is service research on track with business reality?

Purpose Service technologies are transforming the business landscape rapidly. This paper aims to explore the current scope of research in regard to emerging service technologies by comparing the content of articles in academic journals with practitioner-oriented publication outlets. Design/methodology/approach A total of 5,118 technology-related articles from service journals, service conferences, business journals and business magazines are analyzed. Text-mining on abstracts is used for the thematic and semantic analysis. Common research themes and their relationships are depicted in a two-dimensional structured network. Further, the sample is analyzed regarding various technologies mentioned in the Gartner Hype Cycle. Findings The paper reveals differences in academic and business perspectives in regard to service technologies. In comparison to business journals, scientific service research is more focused on customer-related aspects of technology. Service research has a less concrete focus on technology than in business publications. Still, service conference articles show a broader scope of emerging service technologies than academic journal articles. Research limitations/implications Scientific research should focus on more concrete service technologies. Business magazines serve as a good source for that and the paper identifies several promising new technology fields. Practical implications Although business magazines cover significantly more concrete service technologies, they miss the integrated perspective that academic articles usually offer. Academia can help business to better align concrete technologies with different internal and external perspectives. Originality/value This paper serves as an introduction to the special issue Future Service Technologies. Additionally, a quantitative study of recent service technology research serves as a reality check for academic researchers on business reality and provides research and practical recommendations.

Discerning the Spirit

In this chapter, Neal DeRoo argues that the primary task of Christian philosophy is discerning the “spirit” of the age and not merely offering rational defenses of theism. It begins by articulating the notion of “spirit” (drawn from the later Husserl) that is at work in this chapter. Then it articulates a philosophical anthropology that makes clear how such “spirit” is pre-theoretically operative as a dynamic, religious force in all human action. Next, it argues that discerning, articulating, and clarifying the nature of this “spirit” as it functions in a particular culture or community is the task of Christian philosophy. It ends by showing how diagnosing these spirits of the age is not only an intellectual project, but enables the Christian philosopher to provide a concrete service to the broader Christian community.

An Agent Architecture for Qos-Based Web Service Composition Using the Skyline Algorithm

<p>Web service composition is a concept based on the built of an abstract process, by combining multiple existing class instances, where during the execution, each service class is replaced by a concrete service, selected from several web service candidates. This approach has as an advantage generating flexible and low coupling applications, based on its conception on many elementary modules available on the web. The process of service selection during the composition is based on several axes, one of these axes is the QoS-based web service selection. The Qos or Quality of Service represent a set of parameters that characterize the non-functional web service aspect (execution time, cost, etc...). The composition of web services based on Qos, is the process which allows the selection of the web services that fulfill the user need, based on its qualities. Selected services should optimize the global QoS of the composed process, while satisfying all the constraints specified by the client in all QoS parameters. In this paper, we propose an approach based on the concept of agent system and Skyline approach to effectively select services for composition, and reducing the number of candidate services to be generated and considered in treatment. To evaluate our approach experimentally, we use a several random datasets of services with random values of qualities.</p>