This paper presents a conceptual model of land as a coupled human-environment system. Land use and land cover are incorporated as elements of the human and environment system respectively. Drivers and associated processes that influence land use, land cover, and land system dynamics are incorporated within a set of sub-systems. The model includes consideration of driving sub-systems as a set of capital funds and flows, and how these are influenced by linkages between processes in the human (socio-economic) and environment systems and sub-systems. The model is consistent with existing models of the biophysical earth system used by the land change, earth system sciences, and socio-ecological systems communities. The purposes of the model are to provide (i) a holistic framework within which descriptions, models and analyses that focus on various components of land can be placed to describe and explain land systems and land system changes; and (ii) a guide for the development of more fully integrated and interdisciplinary understanding, analysis and study of land use and land cover dynamics, with explicit focus on relationships between human and natural systems.
PurposeThis paper aims to provide a quantitative decision approach to the service quality management, developed on the basis of Kano's theory of attractive quality. The proposed approach aims at exploiting contacts with service made by “mystery guests” rather than traditional surveys on customer opinions.Design/methodology/approachA specific probabilistic model of the process of serving quality is the adopted basic tool. Multiple comparison tests aimed at controlling the service quality are the core of the proposed decision approach. In order to collect the needed sampling data, a few mystery guests who experience many customer‐service contacts are employed.FindingsA quantitative decision methodology which both allows one to evaluate the actual service quality level and provides, via comparison tests, a tool to highlight the weak and strong points of the service delivery process.Originality/valueThe proposed quality map is an original graphical tool, which enables one to pin‐point strengths and failings in service quality, prioritize corrective actions and recognize improvements, if any. The operative value of the whole methodology is tested through a real application to the hotel service industry.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.