While there is a substantial volume of existing literature relating to service quality in general, in the context of motor dealerships, research in the area of service quality is quite limited. Regardless of brand or dealership type, the quality of vehicle service experience is paramount for both customer retention and dealership profits. Despite this however, service quality within Irish motor dealerships in particular remains an under-explored area. This paper explores the importance of services and service quality within motor dealerships in Ireland. The paper provides an analysis of service quality from the perspective of senior managers working in franchised motor dealerships under the Volkswagen group of brands in Ireland. The significance of service department operations for dealership performance is explored in the study, along with the important contributory factors influencing service quality. Overall the results of the study indicate that service operations and service quality are vital for both dealership profitability and customer retention. The findings also highlight that many factors contribute to variations in service quality and attitudes towards service provision within dealerships. The paper emphasizes the fundamental aspects recognized by senior management within franchised motor dealerships as influencing customer perceptions of service quality and consequently should be the focus of service improvements.

Role and significance of Higher Education in business, particularly for the MBA program, have continuously evolved, progressed, and adjusted over the years. Major driving forces for this are the ever changing workforce requirements, available technologies, and expectations of the MBA graduates. In the recent past, interest and demand for fulltime residential MBA programs has declined, compelling us to reevaluate and critically reexamine all aspects of an MBA program objectives, content, focus, use of technology, and the delivery mode. The target student profile is also changing, as more and more mature working professionals are returning to academia to upgrade their academic portfolio, as required for more responsibilities and job opportunities. Institutions are addressing this by creating programs that are more flexible, inclusive, and supportive. Also, there is a growing notion that successful entrepreneurs do not need an MBA program, and to address that, academia is adjusting their programs to be more valuable to innovations. Online and virtual education is growing and in demand, and the recent pandemic has made this more visible. This technology based online mode is being evaluated to enable busy professionals to pursue their education without compromising their current job roles and family responsibilities. Online collaboration is opening opportunities for improving soft skill for long term benefits. Demand for tech savvy graduates is one of the trends that is shaping the business education in academia. Big Data and Artificial Intelligence technologies are in demand, more so in developed economies where highly competitive environments force companies to be more inventive in defining value propositions. Business graduates without an understanding of technology and how this can be leveraged for business objectives will be hopelessly stuck in the 20th century and be at a disadvantage in the 21st century. World population is coming closer, and this wave is altering the MBA student mix. A growing number of MBA programs will become blended combining on campus activities with distance learning or even fully digital. All products have a finite lifespan, and, when necessary, this lifespan can and should be extended. The MBA program also must evaluate new growth paths, which could be in a different direction. Failure to do so will lead to obsolescence. This paper looks at the trends in online asynchronous MBA programs and the direction academia is headed in this space.

Stock control methods are the proceedings that help many institutions and organizations to increase their profitability and use of resources or materials more efficiently and rationally. The results of the effective inventory control methods differ for each institution in terms of the expected benefit, necessity and the cost of materials. In the literature, various stock control methods have been implemented in various institutions and organizations and are still being implemented. In this study, ABC and VED analysis methods, which are widely used in the hospitals and other sectors where uncertainty and dynamism are relatively high, were applied for the surgery room of Cukurova University Hospital in Adana. The analysis was applied by taking into consideration of number of 806 consumables and evaluated based the month of January. ABC and VED analysis was performed for the consumables in the surgery room, and the ABC VED matrix table was created by crossing the two tables of ABC and VED analysis. The materials purchased for January were divided into 3 main categories based on the ABC VED matrix table, and the ratio of Category I with the highest cost and importance to the total cost was found to be 82.36 Per cent. The ratio of the materials in Category II and Category III to the total material costs is 16.99 Per cent and 0.64 Per cent, respectively. Based on the results, suggestions were made for the surgery rooms consumables of the Cukurova University Hospital.