Currently, many businesses in the consumer electronics industry are facing an increasing number of consumer complaints, despite the application of quality tools that proved to be very powerful in the past. We assessed over 20 new product development projects, to understand the reasons behind the rising number of consumer complaints. We found that businesses are developing more innovative products that are brought to the market faster, with inherently higher uncertainties on the consumer expectations of these products. Current analyses of consumer complaints solely focus on checking if the product is functioning according to the technical specification, and these analyses show a rising number of consumer complaints where no failure could be established. When looking at product quality and reliability from a consumer's perspective, we found that consumers complain not only about technical product failures but also when the product does not satisfy their expectations. In this paper we will take the perspective of the consumer to analyse dissatisfaction with new products from various available sources, which were not set-up for quality and reliability purposes. We will show that analysing information from these sources gives better information, especially on the non-technical failures compared with the traditional quality and reliability sources.

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This paper proposes a conceptual framework to distinguish between different classes of reliability problems encountered in strongly innovative products. Next to the conventional (hardware and software) problems, new classes of failures have emerged with a wide range of often strongly related definitions, such as: soft failures, "No Fault Found" failures, "Fault Not Found" failures, "Cause Not Found" failures, nuisance failures. The fact that these new classes of failures do not have precise and orthogonal definitions, leads to difficulties in failure identification and classification. A list of dimensions is proposed to identify and classify failures in an unambiguous manner. Contribution of this research is two-fold: From the academic point of view, it encourages precise reasoning about the emerging failure classes in the general context of reliability problems, as well as forming grounds for consistent use of terminology within the community. From the industrial point of view, it potentially provides more accurate and easier detection of failures, hence facilitating more effective and efficient ways to handle them.

Drawing upon person-environment fit, specifically demands–abilities fit, this paper examines the impact of hospitality employees’ cultural intelligence (CQ) on their voice behavior and job satisfaction. Data were collected from domestic contact employees working for restaurants in three major cities in the United States. The results of the PLS-SEM model show that CQ has a positive effect on employees’ voice behavior through self-efficacy. Further, CQ has a positive effect on job satisfaction through a sequential mediation of self-efficacy and voice. This study contributes to the CQ and voice literature, utilizing CQ as a person’s ability to meet job requirements. This study also has important practical implications for hospitality practitioners who depend on employee voice for the success of organizations in today’s ever-changing global environment.