Promoting the quality of hospital service for children with developmental delays

Quality of hospital services is the spotlight that the public are concerned with. This research established an objective and quality index of physical therapies to systematically analyse and propose an innovation strategy for hospital services. This research was to launch the critical index and to investigate the relationship and relative weight of its importance. Analytic network process and Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory were adopted. The result showed experts from different groups universally identified the ‘function-oriented therapeutic goal’ as most important. The result indicates that hospitals enforce ‘regular satisfaction survey of the patients’, continuously monitor ‘index of patient safety’, which is ‘function-oriented therapeutic goal’ to promote quality of physical therapies in children with developmental delays.     

Assessing advertising content in a hospital advertising campaign: An application of Puto and Wells (1984) measure of informational and transformational advertising content

The following is a report of a study designed to measure advertising content based on the cognitive and affective elements of informational (i.e., information processing) and transformational (i.e., experiential) content using the measure of advertising informational and transformational content developed by Puto and Wells (1984). A university hospital advertising campaign designed to be high in transformational content did not appear to affect perceived quality of local university hospitals relative to private hospitals or increase the likelihood of choosing a university hospital in the future. Further, experiences with university hospitals that seemed to be in direct contrast to the content of the advertisements based on subject perceptions affected how university hospital advertisements were perceived in terms of content. Conclusions and implications for hospital advertising campaigns are discussed.     

Productivity changes in Taiwanese hospitals and the national health insurance

In 1995 Taiwan launched the National Health Insurance (NHI) programme, which changed the method payment for hospital finances. This article examines the impact of this financial reform on hospital productivity during this period. Using the Malmquist productivity index approach, a hospital's change in productivity is decomposed into quality, efficiency, and technological change components. Factors affecting efficiency and productivity are also assessed. Results indicate that most hospitals experienced a significant productivity slowdown due to declines in technology and quality of service, but efficiency did significantly improve. The inception of the NHI programme does greatly improve a hospital's productivity and quality of service, but decreases efficiency. Public hospitals' efficiency improvements are significant.     

eCCIq: The quality of electronic customer-to-customer interaction

Electronic customer-to-customer interaction (eCCI) becomes crucial in innovative business models (e.g., Ebay, Facebook) that are either intentionally built on such eCCI occurring completely on purpose or for providers that are embedding web 2.0 and social media techniques in their service offering. To enable a more active application and purposeful management of eCCI, it is essential to conceptualize its quality (eCCIq) as a start. In doing so we identify seven factors that constitute the domain of eCCIq: ‘Content’, ‘Security’, ‘Hedonic’, ‘Quantity’, ‘Atmosphere’, ‘Convenience’ and ‘Social’. Construct development is based on existing literature on CCI and various closely-related constructs as well as on an empirical study assessing eCCIq in a qualitative and quantitative manner. Our results enable firms to more selectively influence and control eCCIq and provide the basis to conduct any further research on the impact of eCCI and its quality.     

Unfolding market vision quality: understanding its dimensions,drivers, and before-launch performance

ABSTRACT

While prior research has recognised the importance of developing radical and really new product innovations for long-term business success, the factors underpinning successful development of such ‘market-driving’ innovations remain elusive. This study unfolds the extrinsic and intrinsic dimensions of market vision (MV) quality and investigates their drivers, the organisational and individual dimensions of market visioning competence (MVC). Further, it examines the extent to which MV dimensions influence before-launch performance – specifically, the ability to maintain breakthrough integrity (BI) of new products and achieve early success with customers (ESC) with market-driving innovations. Using a sample of 179 managers of innovative companies in Thailand, the results highlight that the MVC organisational dimension acts as a key driver for both dimensions of MV quality. While the MV extrinsic dimension influences BI, the instrinsic dimension of MV influences ESC – and ultimately, BI influences ESC. Research implications exist to advance the development of market-driving innovations.     

Dimensions and outcomes of experience quality in tourism: The case of Port wine cellars

Ever since the notion that consumption has an experiential dimension, experience and its impact on business is receiving increased attention. Therefore, understanding experience quality, its drivers and outcomes becomes crucial, especially when experiences are the core of the service offering such as in tourism. However, research on tourism experiences remains sparse and largely conceptual. We develop a higher-order model of experience quality, validated in the wine tourism industry, outlining relevant dimensions and outcomes. Results support the six-dimensional structure of experience quality and its impact on loyalty, satisfaction and word-of-mouth. Overall, we validate a holistic multi-dimensional measure of experience quality and examine key nomological relationships, with important implications for tourism managers.     

大型百货商场顾客体验影响因素的实证研究

笔者对大连市的九家大型百货商场进行了一次实证研究,探究顾客体验的影响因素对顾客体验的影响机理。实证研究发现:顾客维度因素、情境维度因素、交通维度因素是影响顾客体验的三个主要维度因素(其中,情境维度因素是最重要的维度因素);服务功能质量是顾客体验最重要的影响因素,它不仅直接影响顾客的感知体验和情感体验,一些影响因素也通过它间接地影响顾客的感知体验和情感体验。     

A meta‐analysis of the indirect impact of foreign direct investment in old and new EU member states: Understanding productivity spillovers

In this paper, we summarise, combine and explain recent findings from firm‐level empirical literature focusing on the indirect impact of foreign direct investment (FDI ) on economic performance, measured as productivity, in the Enlarged Europe. We have reviewed 52 quantitative studies, released between 2000 and 2015 and codified 1,133 estimates. We run a regression of regressions which measures the strength of the FDI –productivity relationship. Taking advantage of large number of high‐quality studies on FDI and its role in explaining the growth in firms’ productivity in Europe, we adopt recent meta‐regression analysis methods—funnel asymmetry and precision estimate tests and precision‐effect estimate with standard errors —to explain the heterogeneous impact of FDI . This paper assesses the country‐specific impact of FDI on firms’ performance, after taking publication selection bias, econometric modelling and the individual studies’ characteristics fully into account. Our results show that on average FDI has a positive indirect impact on productivity. The impact is especially significant in selected European countries, and we interpret this as a sign of better absorptive capacities in those countries.     

The effects of app-related factors on app stickiness: The role of cognitive and emotional app relationship quality

Prior research tends to examine the effect of a narrow set of app-related factors on the construct of app relationship quality holistically. However, it is well-established that app relationship quality consists of cognitive and emotional aspects. To address these two issues, our study takes a more nuanced approach by examining a comprehensive set of app-related factors, including functional, offerings, experiential and relational factors, and their differential impacts on two distinct components of app relationship quality, namely cognitive app relationship quality (CARQ) and emotional app relationship quality (EARQ). It also examines the differential impact of CARQ and EARQ on app stickiness, which has long been considered as a managerial challenge. A ‘modular design approach’ was used to collect the data from an online UK consumer panel. 605 responses were analyzed using AMOS 24. The results indicated that functional and offering factors produced greater effects on CARQ than on EARQ. In contrast, experiential and relational factors were found to have stronger effects on EARQ than on CARQ. Further, CARQ was found to have a stronger effect on app stickiness compared to EARQ. The current study offers a detailed understanding of the factors that contribute to each component of app relationship quality and empirically demonstrates the differential effects of the cognitive and emotional aspects on app sickness. Such results are expected to help e-retailers to develop a strong digital presence, build future readiness for their brands, and design app-focused strategies using a consumer-centric approach.     

A consumer typology based on e-service quality and e-satisfaction

The increasingly systematic use of the Internet in consumers’ decision-making processes, coupled with the development of e-commerce, has led researchers and practitioners to examine issues concerning service quality and satisfaction in an online context. This paper proposes a post-hoc predictive typology of e-satisfaction based on four dimensions of e-service quality. A sample of 1144 French consumers recruited on websites from three different industries (online travel, cultural goods (books, CDs, DVDs, etc.), and electronics goods) was used to generate the proposed typology. Using a mixture modeling regression, five groups of consumers who differed in terms of e-satisfaction and e-service quality were identified: the ‘involved’, the ‘browsers’, the ‘fun seekers’, the ‘careful’ and the ‘surfers’. All the four e-service quality dimensions investigated were found to influence e-satisfaction. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

The Role of Spiritual Well-Being and Materialism in Determining Consumers’ Ethical Beliefs: An Empirical Study with Australian Consumers

A survey was conducted to investigate the relationship of Australian consumers’ lived (experienced) spiritual well-being and materialism with the various dimensions of consumer ethics. Spiritual well-being is composed of four domains—personal, communal, transcendental and environmental well-being. All four domains were examined in relation to the various dimensions of consumers’ ethical beliefs (active/illegal dimension, passive dimension, active/legal dimension, ‘no harm, no foul’ dimension and ‘doing good’/recycling dimension). The results indicated that lived communal well-being was negatively related to perceptions of the active/illegal dimension and the passive dimension and was positively related to perceptions of the ‘no harm, no foul’ dimension and the ‘doing good’/recycling dimension. Lived personal well-being was negatively related to perceptions of the active/illegal dimension and was positively related to perceptions of the ‘no harm, no foul’ dimension and the ‘doing good’/recycling dimension. Lived transcendental well-being was negatively related to perceptions of the passive dimension, the active/legal dimension and the ‘no harm, no foul’ dimension. Lived environmental well-being was negatively related to perceptions of the active/legal dimension and the ‘no harm, no foul’ dimension. The findings also indicated that materialism was positively associated with perceptions of actively benefiting from illegal actions, passively benefiting at the expense of the seller, actively benefiting from questionable but legal actions and benefiting from ‘no harm, no foul’ actions. Public policy implications of the findings and opportunities for future research are discussed.     

Capital Controls Re‐examined: The Case for ‘Smart’ Controls

The global financial crisis which began in east Asia in 1997 is not over, neither is the inquest into its implications for adjustment policy. In the wake of this crisis, we focus here on the role of capital controls, which formed a much publicised part of the crisis‐coping strategy in one country (Malaysia) and, less openly, were also deployed by other crisis‐afflicted countries. Evaluation so far has examined different target variables with different estimation methods, generally concentrating on efficiency and stability indicators and ignoring equity measures; it has also typically treated ‘control’ as a one‐zero dummy variable, ignoring the ‘quality’ of intervention and in particular the extent to which efficiency gains are obtained in exchange for controls. Partly because of these limitations, the literature has reached no consensus on the impact of controls; however, it is moving over towards acknowledging that the quality and type of controls is important, as well as their intensity. We propose an approach in which the government plays off short‐term political security against long‐term economic gain; the more insecure its political footing, the greater the weight it gives to political survival, which is likely to increase the probability of controls being imposed. The modelling of this approach generates a governmental ‘policy reaction function’ and an impact function for controls, which are estimated by simultaneous panel‐data methods across a sample of thirty developing and transitional countries between 1980–2003, using, for the period since 1996, the ‘new’ IMF dataset which differentiates between controls by type. We find that controls appear to cause increases in income equality, and are significantly associated with political insecurity and relatively low levels of openness to trade. They do not, in our analysis, materially influence the level of whole‐economy productivity or GDP across the sample of countries examined, although they do influence productivity in particular sectors. But the dispersion around this central finding is wide: the tendency for controls to depress productivity by encouraging rent‐seeking sometimes is, and sometimes is not, counteracted by purposive government policy actions to maintain competitiveness. Whether or not this happens is vital, on both efficiency and equity grounds. We make the case for ‘smart’ capital controls – controls which are time‐limited and contain an inbuilt incentive to increased productivity.     

Experiential value: Multi-item scale development and validation

The present study aims to explore the underlying dimensions of experiential value to provide a holistic view. The study proposes a 16-item scale ‘CEXPVALS’ capturing four distinct dimensions which may be termed as cognitive value, hedonic value, social value and ethical value. The scale items demonstrated that experiential value may be apprehended holistically in terms of quality of services, time, effort and convenience (cognitive value); enjoyment, pleasure and escapism (hedonic value); status, esteem and social approval (social value); trust and privacy (ethical value). Predictive modeling indicated that experiential value predict purchase intention. The extant literature revealed that no study so far has captured a holistic view of experiential value. Thus, this could be seen as a unique and significant contribution to the literature.     

The consumer experience: The impact of supplier effort and consumer effort on customer satisfaction

Existing research on experiential offers often examines the impact of such offers on consumers’ evaluations (e.g., customer satisfaction). Yet existing research has neglected that experiential offers typically involve effort from both the supplier and the consumer – and neglected that effort can influence evaluations. To address this gap, the present study examines the impact of supplier effort and the consumer's own effort on the consumer's evaluation of experiential offers in terms of customer satisfaction. Two experiments, comprising two different experiential offers, were carried out. In both experiments, supplier effort (low vs. high) and consumer effort (low vs. high) were manipulated. Customer satisfaction was the dependent variable. The results show that high supplier effort boosts customer satisfaction, and that the effects of consumer effort are either absent or indirect with a negative impact. Moreover, the results indicate that a supplier effort-consumer effort gap (i.e., the consumer perceives that the supplier has expended more effort than the consumer) contributes positively to customer satisfaction.     

孤独感对体验消费意愿的影响机理

随着经济的发展和社会的进步,体验消费的形式日益多样化,并逐渐在消费市场中占据重要地位。鉴于现有研究大多关注体验消费的结果变量,而缺乏对其前因变量如心理因素的探索,通过在线问卷调查收集有效样本1014份,并利用层次回归分析法、拔靴法等实证分析孤独感与体验消费意愿之间关系,探讨社交需求和自我建构在其中的作用。研究结果表明,孤独感对个体体验消费意愿具有显著正向影响,即个体感受到的孤独感越强,其为摆脱孤独感及相关负面情绪影响而进行体验消费的意愿越强;社交需求在孤独感对个体体验消费意愿的影响中起中介作用,即孤独感会激发个体产生社交需求,进而提高个体进行体验消费的意愿;自我建构调节了社交需求的中介作用,且相比于独立型自我建构个体,孤独感对依存型自我建构个体社交需求的影响更大,依存型自我建构个体进行体验消费的意愿更强。因此,为进一步推动体验消费产业发展,对企业而言,应积极关注孤独感等消费者内在心理因素,根据消费者心理与个人特质制定相关营销策略,满足消费者社交需求,缓解消费者孤独感;对商家而言,应积极向目标消费者传递体验产品社交价值,激发消费者依存型自我建构,满足消费者情感诉求;对政府而言,应关注居民心理状态,积极引导居民进行体验消费,加强社会成员心理健康建设。     

Investment History and Market Orientation Effects in the TFP–FDI Relationship1

This paper examines the robustness of previous stochastic dominance tests that find significant total factor productivity (TFP) heterogeneity between firms that export abroad and multinational enterprises (MNEs). We extend this literature by focusing on how ‘within‐MNE’ heterogeneity affects the extent to which one can identify the TFP threshold in the exporter–MNE TFP relationship. Within‐MNE heterogeneity is established by determining both the number and location of the foreign affiliates established by each MNE. In this way, we separate single‐affiliate MNEs from those with multiple affiliates, as well as analyse the role played by vertical FDI, a topic typically ignored in previous stochastic dominance tests of the Helpman et al. (2004, American Economic Review, 94, 300–16) hypothesis. Our empirical tests employ Japanese firm‐level FDI and TFP data for the period 1975–2000. Using Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests to determine stochastic dominance, we find significant TFP heterogeneity within the MNE group based on investment history and affiliate geographic location. While our results confirm the standard HMY three‐tiered classification to exist for Japanese firms, exporter–MNE ‘between‐group’ TFP heterogeneity is sensitive to the ‘within‐MNE’ investment history heterogeneity. We note that single‐ and two‐affiliate MNEs are statistically more similar to exporting firms than to MNEs with greater foreign affiliate totals. This shows the exporter–MNE TFP threshold to be not as explicit as Helpman et al. (2004, American Economic Review, 94, 300–16) suggest. In fact, our results allow us to identify the MNE‐side width of Girma et al.’s (2005, Economic Letters, 83, 317–24) ‘uncertainty region’ surrounding this threshold. Finally, we also find a strong TFP–market orientation relationship exists where the most productive firms follow complex integration strategies, lesser TFP firms do horizontal FDI, and the least productive MNEs do vertical FDI.     

Developing e-service quality scales: A literature review

This study reviews the literature on e-service quality (e-SQ), with an emphasis on the methodological issues involved in developing measurement scales and issues related to the dimensionality of the e-SQ construct. We selected numerous studies on e-SQ from well-known databases and subjected them to a thorough content analysis. The review shows that dimensions of e-service quality tend to be contingent on the service industry. Despite the common dimensions often used in evaluating e-SQ, regardless of the type of service on the internet (‘reliability/fulfilment’, ‘responsiveness’, ‘web design’, ‘ease of use/usability’, ‘privacy/security’, and ‘information quality/benefit’), other dimensions are specific to e-service contexts. The study also identifies several conceptual and methodological limitations associated with developing e-SQ measurement such as the lack of a rigorous validation process, the problematic sample size and composition, the focus on functional aspects, and the use of a data-driven approach. This is the first study to undertake an extensive literature review of research on the development of e-SQ scales. The findings should be valuable to academics and practitioners alike.     

The impact of market orientation on patient loyalty: the mediation of relationship quality

In health services, how to establish good relationships with patients and enhance patient loyalty has been crucial for service managers. We explore the impact that patients’ perceptions of market orientation direct effect on patient loyalty to a hospital as well as indirect effect via the mediation of relationship quality. Self-administered questionnaires were employed to collect data from outpatients. 450 questionnaires were valid. Results showed that market orientation had a direct positive impact on patient loyalty to the hospital and an indirect positive impact via the mediation of relationship quality and patient loyalty to a physician.     

Physicians' perceptions of consumers' attitudes: satisfaction,quality and selection criteria

A mail survey of physicians from Sacramento, California, elicited information on perceptions of consumer satisfaction, service quality for 10 types of service providers including physicians and the importance ratings of 12 choice criteria for the selection of a physician by consumers. The two most important selection criteria for physicians as perceived for consumers by physicians were ‘consumer's previous experience with provider’ and ‘reputation/recommendation’. The results are compared with an earlier consumer survey.