S TRUCTURE OF THE S TUDY

This dissertation consists of five articles and this summary. The introductory chapter of this summary continues with a section about the research approach. The research approach outlines the ontological, epistemological, teleological and logical foundations (Hirsijärvi &

al. 1998) of this dissertation. After this the research strategy is outlined. The research strategy tells how the research questions are answered. Thereafter, there is a section about the research process of this study.

Chapter two describes the theoretical framework of this study. A model of customer experience is outlined. This model stems from the relationship quality paradigm and modifies it to suit the customer experience context. This model includes the theoretical dimensions that are later utilised in the empirical part. Even though this dissertation is mainly interested in the dimensionality of the customer experience, the model is also described, as the constructs of customer perceived quality and customer satisfaction and their relationships need to be understood before it is possible to understand the dimensional elements of the customer experience.

The empirical part of this dissertation introduces the case study findings by utilizing the model and dimensions created in the theoretical part. In the beginning of the chapter the case study setting and cases are introduced. Further, the methodologies of gathering and analysing the data are presented. After that there are the case study findings before going into the concluding chapter. The conclusions summarize the findings, make critical considerations of the findings and finally propose some directions for further research.

The structure of this research report is illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The structure of the study

The articles are included as attachments 1,2,3,4 and 5. The theoretical model is introduced in article 1:

Article 1: Rasila H. (2009) From B-to-B Service Quality to Customer Experience.

This article was published in the Journal of Service Sciences (Vol. 2, No. 1, pp.

35-45). This is later referred to as article 1.

This article introduces a theoretical model for customer perceived service quality and satisfaction in long term business-to-business relationships. Seeing service quality and customer satisfaction just as a result of one individual service process offers too narrow understanding. The model suggested in thias article adds service outcome quality and relationship quality aspects to traditional quality models. This allows us to understand the total customer experience instead of just concentrating on individual aspects of the constructs.

The empirical findings from the cases are then presented in three individual sections. Each section has a corresponding article. These are articles 2-4:

Article 2: Rasila H. & Gersberg N. (2007) Service Quality in Outsources Facilities Maintenance Services. This article was published in the Journal of Corporate Real Estate (Vol. 9, Iss. 1, pp.39-49). This is later referred to as article 2.

The purpose of this article is to assess service quality of outsourced facility maintenance services (FMS) from end-user perspective. For this purpose, a two-dimensional model for service quality in a FMS context is presented. This paper is based on interviews in case study organizations. The findings suggest that FMS quality may be divided into two industry-specific dimensions – service recovery (response to a service failure) and observed maintenance quality (technical outcome). It seems that the main quality problems are linked to service recovery quality. These problems are caused by personalities of service personnel and lack of communication between end-users and the service provider.

Article 3: Rasila H. (2010) Customer Relationship in Tenant-Landlord Relationship. This paper was published in Property Management (28(2), pp.80-92). This is later referred to as article 3.

In long-term business relationships the customer experience is affected by how the customer perceives the quality of the customer relationship. The purpose of this article is to understand the customer relationship quality construct in landlord-tenant relationships in a business-to-business environment. The theoretical framework is adapted from relationship marketing literature and this framework is then applied in case study settings to five customer companies in a tenant-landlord relationship. The article introduces a framework of 13 relationship quality attributes and applies these to the case companies. The results suggest that some of the suggested relationship quality attributes have an importance in a tenant-landlord relationship while some suggested attributes have less value.

Article 4: Rasila H.; Rothe P. & Kerosuo H. (2010) Usability Dimensions as Quality Attributes in Working Environments. This paper was published in Journal of Facilities Management (Vol. 8, Iss. 2, pp. 143-153). This is later referred to as article 4.

This article studies the usability dimensions that end-users utilize when they assess the usability of built environments. The study is carried out by utilizing directed content analysis. A directed content analysis starts by creating (theoretical) pre-understanding of possible categories and then goes on to test this pre-understanding with empirical evidence. The findings suggest that the users use 12 different dimensions when they assess the usability of built environments.

Methodological considerations are introduced in article 5:

Article 5: Rasila H., Rothe P. & Nenonen S. (2009) Workplace Experience – A Journey through a Business Park. This was published in Facilities (Vol. 27, Iss.

13/14., pp. 486-496; this is later referred to as article 5)

This article presents a methodology for assessing end-user experiences of workplace environments and proposes an

“experience sheet” as a way to illustrate the findings. In the theoretical part, the article combines understanding from post occupancy evaluations in the facilities management field with service process audits in the hospitability sector. This methodology is then tested in a case environment. The findings suggest that the methodology and the experience sheet provide a usable and interesting way of assessing user experience in the workplace environment.

A summarizing overview of the articles is presented in Table 1. The table introduces the methods applied in each paper, the units of investigation, case study materials and the nature of the results.

Table 1: Summary of the articles.

Article 1 2 3 4 5

Method Literature

review

Interviews Interviews Usability walkthrough

Usability walkthrough Unit of investigation Elements of

user

Nature of results Framework Empiric Empiric Empiric Methodological

The structure of this study and the links between the summarizing part and the articles are presented in figure 2 above. The introduction and conclusions are independent of the articles, whereas the content of chapters 2. Theoretical framework and 3. Findings may also be found from the articles.