Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test the 5GP concept with measurement of the performance of Busan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai ports, employing a hybrid method of consistent fuzzy preference relation (CFPR), VIsekriterijumska Optimizacija i KOmpromisno Resenje (VIKOR) and PROMETHEE.Design/methodology/approach: The authors developed the concept of the fifth generation ports (5GPs), and apply CFPR, VIKOR and preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE) to evaluate the 5GPs.Findings: The performance of the ports of Hong Kong and Singapore is close to meet the definition of 5GP criteria. On the contrary, ports of Busan and Shanghai are still behind the 5GP stage in light of the majority of the evaluation criteria’s performance.Research limitations/implications: This paper studies four ports. More empirical tests are needed to verify the applicability of the 5GP concept toward other ports.Practical implications: The findings provided port managers with the insight of how to improve their port to meet the criteria of 5GP.Social implications: New criteria and higher expectations of existing requirements present challenges to port managers for a need to raise the bar of service standards and develop new competencies.Originality/value: The authors developed the concept of the 5GPs. Newly developed 5GP contributes to expanding the concepts of first to fourth generation ports developed by UNCTAD.

Improving the quality of the city bus service is an important topic for public transportation management. One way of measuring this improvement is to measure the gap between the passengers’ expectation and their perception. The expectation can be divided into desired service and adequate service, and the difference between these two is the tolerant zone of expectation. The present study has two purposes. The first is to propose a model for evaluating service quality based on the zone of tolerance of expectation (ZSQ). The second is to build an analytical framework for prioritizing attributes (NIZSQ, normalized importance–ZSQ analysis) through a quadrant analysis based on ZSQ and normalized importance. This research took the Taipei city bus service as an example. The data were collected by means of questionnaires. Statistical analysis was adopted to test the hypotheses. The result showed that the top two priorities for improvement are those attributes that are relevant to the interaction with the passengers, and the support from operations management.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to clarify the quality of home delivery logistics services from the perspectives of customers and provide insight to aid the prioritization of service quality improvements and guide managerial strategic planning.Design/methodology/approach: The study used a three-dimensional model that integrated Kano model, goal difficulty (GD) and importance–performance analysis (IPA) for investigating service quality aspects emphasized by customers and determine which attributes should be prioritized according to an enterprise's resource and capability constraints. Data were collected through questionnaires administered to the customers and managers of five primary home delivery logistics service enterprises and six small to medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan. Improving the quality of home delivery logistics services has become of increased interest for enterprises.Findings: The three most important attributes, ranked in order of priority for improvement, were the protection of customers' personal information, delivery of products without damage and reasonable compensation standards for product damage. The study concludes that enterprises should prioritize the improvement of these attributes. Implications, detailed explanations and directions for further investigations are also proposed.Originality/value: The study discusses the importance and relevant satisfaction levels of service quality attributes from the perspective of customers while also considering the limitations of companies' resources and capabilities. The results indicate that the method can be used to identify service quality attributes of home delivery logistics and formulate strategies for enhancing customer satisfaction.

Previous research has focused on examining embarrassment in sensitive product purchase situations. Although embarrassment is a widespread emotion in consumption situations, few studies have explored its impact on service encounters, especially in the service failure context. This study examines how customers react to different service failures that cause embarrassment and explores whether self-serving bias exists when customers perceive higher embarrassment in service failure. This study uses a 2 (source of failure) × 2 (level of embarrassment) scenario experimental method to examine the effect of two sources of failure on consumer locus attributions, negative emotions, and negative behaviors, considering the moderating effects of the level of embarrassment. Data were collected from 218 student subjects in Taiwan. The results show that embarrassment is important in service failure contexts. Specifically, when consumers perceive higher embarrassment, they attribute more responsibility to the service provider. These attributions, in turn, influence customers’ emotions and behavioral responses. These findings have several important theoretical and practical implications in terms of embarrassing service failures.