Servers' Effectiveness in Service Queuing Systems: A Behavioral Operations Management Approach
Abstract
Previous research in the service queuing literature has treated servers' psychological factors as fixed effects, which limits our understanding of the behavioral drivers of service effectiveness. This dissertation presents a model of service worker productivity that examines the joint effects of system-level workload and individual-level motivation on productivity. Using multilevel models, I tested my hypotheses in a call center setting with a pooled queue structure and limited financial incentives. I found that workload and intrinsic motivation jointly influenced servers' productivity. In particular, intrinsically motivated servers were more productive and less prone to workload effects. In contrast, the productivity of less intrinsically motivated servers was lower and exhibited a U-shaped response to workload levels. Furthermore, I found that the intrinsic motivation effect on servers' productivity was more favorable than the extrinsic motivation effect in this setting. I discuss the implications of these findings and present three recommendations for building theories of service effectiveness that are more valid and useful to practitioners.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Dunford, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Business administration|Management|Operations research
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