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臺大管理論叢
第
27
卷第
2S
期
85
An Empirical Study on the Relationship between Service Inventory
and Operational Performance: Taiwan Taxi Fleet Taken as an
Example
1. Introduction
Recently, an innovative business model called “sharing economy” has emerged in the
global business community. The new business model downsizes service capacity units to the
individual level and coordinates excess/idle capacity with unsatisfied demand in service
supply chains through an online transaction platform. In the transportation service industry,
Uber and Lyft are famous cases of sharing economy business models. By more efficiently
utilizing service capacity, this new transaction type reduces waste and decreases operating
cost. However, service demand and supply do not always occur at the same time. To better
manage service capacity for synchronizing demand and supply, firms need to adopt some
kind of service inventory management strategy and practice.
The concept of inventory is important and valuable in theoretical and practical research
on the supply chain/manufacturing management field; it is usually regarded as a critical
operation performance indicator. For the transportation service industry, compared to the
manufacturing industry, little literature has discussed service inventory and how to manage
it? The term “service inventory” implies that a firm keeps a “service in process” within a
service-based supply chain as a form of temporary stock. The “temporary service stock”
belongs to a certain value activity within the service supply chain; once the service is
demanded by a customer, the service provider will deploy temporary service as “the final
service”. Due to the lack of empirical studies regarding this concept, we conducted research
by way of a quantitative approach, using the data mining and cluster analysis methodologies
to identify and analyze the relationship between service inventory and operational
performance.
2. Literature Review
For the "Service" concept’s connotations, although many scholars have attempted to
provide appropriate definitions, our understanding of service so far is still quite vague, and
Sheng-Tsung Hou
, Professor, Graduate Institute of Public Affairs and Social Innovation and Department
of Business Administration, Feng Chia University
Wan-Chien Lien
, Doctoral Candidate, Graduate Institute of Technology Innovation & Intellectual Property
Management, National Chengchi University
Chieh-Min Chou
, Associate Professor, Department of Business Administration, Feng Chia University