No abstract

Advances in healthcare service research emphasize a value-driven approach in healthcare by pressing the need to acknowledge what matters to the patient against the conventional approach of what should be provisioned in the service. This research study adopts a consumer-centric perspective of value creation, and explores consumer value preferences in healthcare services, using netnography of online consumer reviews of cancer patients. Six different types of consumer value are identified, which carry varying consumer expectations. These are excellence, novelty, spirituality, ethics, privacy and control. The research findings confirm that all types of consumer values are not positive; rather, there is a presence of positive and negative (or must-be) elements. Privacy and ethics are identified as the negative or must-be type of consumer value, which creates not much satisfaction, but their absence is dissatisfying. Novelty and control are identified as positive value types whose absence may not be that problematic, but their enhancement creates greater customer satisfaction. The findings provide shreds of evidence to the claim that all value types are not positive, and consumers often make trade-offs between positive and negative value types while evaluating services. Future research is suggested in different healthcare contexts (e.g., chronic vs. non-chronic disease) to develop value-centred management strategies.

Purpose -The article aims to identify the possibility of contextual shift in traditional notions of e-government service environment. The authors propose the existence of a new institutional entity as core service providers in addition to the government (G) and citizens (C) in the existing G2C e-government service environments. Considering the nature of actors involved, the authors position the new e-government environment under "credence based" service setting that emphasizes user's perspective. The work expands the scope of e-government to accommodate a much broader range of similar services. Design/methodology/approach -Scenario study has been chosen to understand the proposed contextual shift in traditional e-government service setting. Study of one of the e-government practices -"e-counseling in India" -has been illustrated to advocate the authors' viewpoint. The data is collected from authorized government websites in India that offer e-counseling services. In addition, 15 in-depth interviews were also performed with government officials and users to have a deeper understanding about the new service setting. Findings -The study has revealed and defended the authors' proposition on "contextual shift" and validated the existence of "credence based" setting in e-government service environments. Moreover, it provides preliminary insights about why and how information quality can be a critical element for the aforesaid setting. Practical implications -Identification of "credence based" e-government service environments may require a different design strategy for structures, policies, systems, and services to fulfil the user expectations. Originality/value -Attention is given to developing credence based context for G2C e-government environments. This "contextual shift" identified in this paper contributes to the existing stream of research that emphasizes user's perspective in e-government services.

Taking the means-ends approach to e-governance service quality the authors adopt the Parasuraman's ‘Gap Model' to evaluate the antecedents of service performance in an Indian context of government-to-citizen (G2C) service deployment under the national e-governance plan (NeGP) of India. This e-governance initiative in India has been implemented at multiple tiers of the government that integrates administration and service processes at different levels that includes center, state, district, block, and further to the lowest level of governance unit (Panchayat). The authors acknowledge five levels of potential service discrepancies across the service delivery chain, from designing the service policy to achieving citizen satisfaction. These are service conceptualization, service design, service capacity, service offering, and service consumption. Corresponding to these discrepancies, the authors explain six types of potential gaps in e-governance G2C service context: Assessment Gap, Design Gap, Capacity Gap, External Communication Gap, Delivery Gap, and Service Gap. Preliminary strategies to close these gaps are also proposed.

Purpose – This paper aims to understand the emerging state of online counseling practices in India, highlight the benefits of process transition and explore potential research issues in this domain. Changing demands of labor market and growing availability of wide range of education and training options in the higher/technical education sector underscore the need of counseling services for an individual’s career guidance requirements. “Online counseling” in this context, as an e-government intervention, is expected to meet this requirement by extending support to individuals’ decision-making process and optimally match their interest with appropriate kind of education. Design/methodology/approach – The authors have highlighted some key contributions from the literature to build theoretical insight about contextual factors of counseling, and presented a detailed case analysis of online counseling practices in one of the states of India. Findings – With a critical perspective, it is noticed that design of online counseling services in India has largely been developed from the requirements of service provider’s to support the conventional set of practices, with less attention given to students’ decision support. More research is required in the direction of service gap analysis, information quality issues and more interactive website functionalities from user’s viewpoint. Research limitations/implications – Aligning the objectives of online counseling services with the relevant theories of career guidance should essentially be considered by the government/online counseling managers. Furthermore, managers must understand the importance of information quality and self-help tools for online information accessibility to facilitate student’s decision-making process. Originality/value – The article reports a research scenario/case of a unique service of its kind under the education sector in India which is weighted high on both the dimensions – technical/operational elements, because of multiple stakeholders’ involvement, and informational service elements, as viewed through e-government service maturity research lens.