PurposeTo analyze the limitations of two methods used in the identification of satisfaction attributes in products and services – importance performance analysis (IPA) and Kano method – and to propose a new method for identification of improvement opportunities based on the competitive analysis of the improvement gap.Design/methodology/approachA case analyzing attributes of the service “rodizio de pizzas” a kind of pizzeria found in Brazil, was used to illustrate the proposed method. Resulting from a focus group, four attributes, one of them being an innovation, were specifically chosen to include the different categories of the Kano model: basic, performance and excitement attributes. A survey was conducted with a random sample of 110 undergraduate students that eat regularly at pizzerias.FindingsAs a major limitation, IPA leads to different conclusions depending on how an attribute's importance is figured. Also, it does not take into consideration the non‐linear relationship between the performance of the attributes and customer satisfaction, possibly misleading improvement decisions and hindering the introduction of innovations. The Kano method identifies the non‐linear relationship between performance and satisfaction, but it does not take into consideration the current level of attributes' performance in the analysis. The proposed method successfully identified improvement opportunities in a service case, including the possible impact of including a new attribute, i.e. an innovative attribute, overcoming limitations of the IPA and of the Kano method.Originality/valueThe paper provides an intuitive and simple method that correctly identified improvement decisions in the case studied, including the introduction of an incremental innovation.

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Literature review studies on Entrepreneurial Intention (EI) point to a future of high standardization (Liñán & Fayolle, 2015) and potential impoverishment of the current research (Terjesen, Hessels, & Li, 2013). There is an over-standardization in studies on EI, and a focus on potential dogmatism in the area -that is, theoretical and methodological inflexibility with replication based on alteration only in substantive domain of EI. The objective of this study is to broaden the focus of the literature review on EI. The research design is descriptive, with the use of quantitative data. We adopt the bibliometric technique in the field of research, based on the Principle of Least Effort (Zipf, 1949). We consider the Reinert (1993) method. Four classes emerged in the analysis. The relation between these classes indicated the concern of the studies on EI in replicating methods, techniques and analyses to the new profiles and roles of the entrepreneur. These results enabled the proposition of a preliminary model that increases the future opportunities for studies on EI.

This paper compares how two different versions of Importance-performance analysis (IPA) and Improvement-gaps analysis (IGA), which is a fusion of the Kano model with IPA, assess the possible impact of incremental innovations on customer satisfaction. A total of 303 users of a health diagnosis service answered questions regarding 21 service attributes, of which three were incremental innovations at the time of research. The results confirm that diagonal IPA overcomes the limitations of the original IPA due to the high correlation of the stated importance with customer satisfaction. However, it also shows that diagonal IPA and traditional IPA are unable to identify which incremental innovations should/could be offered. The present research shows that IGA overcomes not only the problems of original IPA, but also those of both IPA methods regarding the identification of the possible impact of incremental innovations on customer satisfaction. It is a simple method to be used by managers and practitioners. Furthermore, this paper shows that using the expected dissatisfaction of customers represents a different way to evaluate attributes' importance.

The study analyses the Organizational Performance antecedents, mainly the mediating role of the Entrepreneurial Orientation in the relationship between the Organizational Learning and the Organizational Performance in small Brazilian enterprises. A confirmatory factorial analysis was performed, through a structural equation modeling (SEM), to test the association between constructs. The results confirmed the hypothesis. The Entrepreneurial Orientation mediation role for the relationship between the Organizational Learning and the Organizational Performance. It was noted, however, that the organizational learning still needs to be better structured regarding formal procedures in those small enterprises researched.