Multilevel trust in international marketing of healthcare services: A five-country comparative study

PurposeThis research aims to increase understanding on how multilevel trust is developed as well as how trust levels are interconnected and influence international marketing strategy for healthcare services.Design/Methodology/ApproachA comparative case study approach was applied with Elekta, a Swedish firm, operating in Brazil, the Philippines, China, Russia, and Hong Kong.FindingsThe research culminated in a multilevel trust (MLT) model comprised of three levels relating to individuals, company performance, and context.Research implications/limitationsThis study offers a context-based multilevel trust model from a process perspective focusing on healthcare. This model can be tested in other service sectors.Practical implicationsManagers should consider multilevel trust to boost relationships and achieve local acceptance.Originality/ValueThis research contributes to trust theory by constructing a context-based multilevel trust model for international healthcare marketing.     

Web site customer orientations, Web site quality, and purchase intentions: The role of Web site personality

This research extends the concept of salesperson customer orientation to Internet marketing by conceptualizing and studying the effects of Web site customer orientation on perceived Web site quality and consumer behavior. This research also adapts the concept of brand/store personality to Internet marketing by investigating the effects of Web site personality on perceived Web site quality and consumer purchase intention. The model is tested on apparel Web sites using data from multiple sources. Implications of managing Web site personality and Web site customer orientation are discussed.     

Temporal and financial risk assessments: How time and money constrain shopper behavior and influence purchase solutions

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to better understand the constraints that make shopper behavior unique from consumers and how those constraints manifest themselves in retail purchase solutions.Design/methodology/approachThis study utilized value laddering and phenomenological research methodologies to explore the data gathered from 39 interviews of male and female grocery shoppers.FindingsThis research examines the perceived constraints on shopper resources. The data reveal that all shoppers perceive themselves to be constrained by both finances and time. These findings hold across all income, age, and employment strata. As a result, price and convenience no longer function as segmentation tools. Instead, pricing and convenience become thresholds setting shopper “floor” expectations for retailers, service providers and brands.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was limited to grocery shoppers largely located in the southern US. Future research could expand on the variety of product categories and conditions explored, along with the cultural diversity of the participants.Practical implicationsShoppers' broader view of purchase relationships reduces the importance of transactional savings. Shopper consideration of total market basket value, allows for more focus on services and relationships to drive shopper value. Shopper constraints can result in purchase outcomes different than what consumer research would indicate.Originality/valueThis research is the first to examine elements which may constrain shoppers, particularly temporal and financial risk assessments, and how they impact shopper purchase solutions.     

Investigating the centric profile of international hotel groups: A pilot case study

This paper reports on the pilot stage of an inter-disciplinary research project that aims to assess how far a global/local perspective is being utilised by international hotel groups and the impact this has on the groups’ performance. A research instrument has been developed to assess the ‘centric profile’ or dominant attitude of international hotel groups to foreign cultures. The findings of the pilot case study of one international hotel group are reported and analysed, together with recommendations for refinements to the research instrument.     

Exchanging knowledge through healthcare manager placements in research teams

This study contributes to service industry theory by revealing how employers in the health service understand knowledge exchange as ‘transaction’. Although under pressure to deliver better services without additional resource, health service providers do not seek customers, making them unlike commercial service industries. This paper reports a UK knowledge exchange programme designed to bring together healthcare managers and researchers. Case study data were gathered from 36 semi-structured interviews with health services managers (Fellows) embedded in research teams, research team leads, and Fellows' workplace line-managers. Interviews were analysed thematically using a coding frame. The importance of personal contact in knowledge exchange mechanisms was confirmed but the knowledge model varied by interaction pairings (Fellow/research team; Fellow/health service). When with researchers, an exchange model was commonly in operation, marked by collaborative engagement. In contrast, line-managers tended to adopt a transactional approach, driven by instrumental motives. This transactional model merits further research.     

Modeling Marketing Dynamics by Time Series Econometrics

This paper argues that time-series econometrics provides valuable tools and opens exciting research opportunities to marketing researchers. It allows marketing researchers to advance traditional modeling and estimation approaches by incorporating dynamic processes to answer new important research questions. The authors discuss the challenges facing time-series modelers in marketing, provide an overview of recent methodological developments and several applications, and highlight fruitful areas for future research. This discussion is based on the First Annual Conference on Modeling Marketing Dynamics by Time Series Econometrics at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA on September 16–17, 2004.Insights from the First Annual Conference, Tuck School of Business at DartmouthThis revised version was published online in May 2005 with a corrected cover date.     

Business Ethics in the Greater China Region: Past,Present, and Future Research

While business ethics has generated a great deal of research internationally over the last few decades, academic reviews of the business ethics literature remain limited. Moreover, there has been little attempt to date to analyze this literature specifically in the Greater China region, which has been experiencing rapid socioeconomic growth and dynamic evolution of business ethics in recent decades. This paper addresses this research gap by undertaking a comprehensive and critical appraisal of the business ethics literature on Greater China. In particular, it maps out the existing research findings, identifies limitations in methodology, and suggests future directions for business ethics research in this region. The findings indicate that the scholarly interests cover 24 research themes, including corporate social responsibility and social performance; ethical beliefs, judgment, values, decision-making, and culture; workplace ethics and behavior; marketing ethics and consumer behavior; and sustainability. This review reveals a growing imbalance between empirical and conceptual/theoretical studies on business ethics. In addition, the published works covered in this review heavily rely on survey method and convenience sampling, with a predominant focus on a single individual level of analysis. Importantly, this study identifies four directions for future research: contextualized theoretical development, addressing multilevel research, developing research design tailored to the Chinese context, and ensuring more diversified and rigorous data collection.     

The Past,Present and Future of Relationship Marketing

In the light of the redefinition of 'marketing' by the AMA in service/relational terms, and a recent review of the current vector of research in marketing (Littler and Tynan 2005), it seems an appropriate time to provide a substantial review of the past, present and likely future of what has become known as Relationship Marketing, together with an extensive list of key RM literature. This paper will take a reader through the origin, development and current state of RM research, with notes on the future of the research and practice of RM. The paper concludes that RM is here to stay, whether or not it is recognised as the dominant logic/paradigm of marketing.     

Cultivating greater self‐confidence in African management research

Although strategic management has taken root in many African organizations, much of the existing body of African management research offers little insight into the current state of knowledge and direction in terms of Africa finding its voice within the mainstream research. We draw on a review of the literature to develop a conceptual framework for classifying the contributions in African management research. The conceptual model captures the indigenous (intra‐Africa) and inter‐Africa dimension of macro‐strategy and organizational behavior/human resource research. The accumulated body of research indicates a sign of growing self‐confidence in African management research that must be maintained and revitalized. This article contributes to the literature by developing a unified conceptual model that captures both the indigenous and comparative dimensions of management research. A number of fruitful avenues for future research have been advanced.     

信用证欺诈例外原则研究

信用证是最常见的国际贸易结算方式,信用证在我国对外经济贸易中的作用日益重要。但是由于银行在信用证结汇中只对单证作表面的审查,而不审查货物,就使得一些不法商人有机可乘,利用信用证的这一特性进行诈骗活动。本文简要分析了信用证的特点、信用证欺诈的种类,并对在发生信用证欺诈的情况下,如何进行有效的法律救济作了初步的分析。     

Marketing's Interfunctional Interfaces: The MSI Workshop on Management of Corporate Fault Zones

This paper first introduces the purposes and processesof the Marketing Science Institute's Workshop on Interfunctional Interfaces: The Management of Corporate Fault Zones. The motivatingissues of value migration and market orientation are considerednext followed by discussion of marketing's paradigm shift. Thelast half of the paper deals with several management problemsand research issues which were identified during the workshop.Hopefully, these questions and research needs will help to acceleratedevelopment of research into these interface issues.     

Institutions,Governance and Economic Growth in the EU: Is There a Role for the Lisbon Strategy?

While European economic integration and in particular the single European market often appear to be only a smallest common denominator in the EU, they condition the economic policy framework facing Member States and have been instrumental in putting governance patterns into motion. The Lisbon Agenda is a case in point. Motivated by competitiveness concerns, it outlines an economic and social strategy meant to relaunch the EU within the changed setting of world-wide competition and a knowledgebased economy. Its success ultimately hinges on whether the necessary coordination to implement policies with an EU rationale can be achieved so as to realise the efficiency properties of the internal market. *and Research Fellow at IEEI **and National Institute for Public Administration (INA). This paper stems from the authors' joint research and teaching on European Economics at the University of Victoria, Canada, at INA and at the University of Aveiro in 2005 and 2006 and is part of an FCT research project on Economic Growth, Convergence and Institutions (research grant POCI/EGE/55423/2004, partially funded by FEDER).     

Patient experience in the digital age: An investigation into the effect of generational cohorts

This research examines how patient experience is affected by various generational cohorts’ perceived ease of use and usefulness of healthcare patient portals and how this experience, in turn, shapes cohort technology use. Results suggest that digital technology needs to be designed and implemented with cohorts in mind. This study complements research in digital technology and customer experience by highlighting the relevance of generational cohort differences, that is whether they adopted digital technology (i.e., Generation X) or always had digital technology, (i.e., Millennials) on a patient’s experience.     

Ultimate Broadening of the Concept of Marketing: B-to-O-to-C Training Service Professionals Not to Inadvertently Kill Their Clients

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This précis on recent service breakdown prevention (SBP) theory and research advocates innovation organizational leadership and actions via business-to-organization (B-to-O) training focusing on how to manage face-to-face server-client encounters by designing/engaging in effective processes to achieve highly desirable outcomes. This research note advocates the use of role-playing training in experiencing simulated disastrous processes and how-to-avoid such outcomes.     

Intergenerational influence: Roles of conformity to peers and communication effectiveness

This research adds to the growing body of literature in consumer socialization by examining intergenerational influence on brand preferences and consumption orientations in parents and young‐adult offspring. Two factors suggested in past research to affect intergenerational influence are investigated: conformity to peers and communication effectiveness. A new rigorous method is introduced to demonstrate intergenerational similarity in mother/daughter dyads, distinct from an incipient level of similarity that may occur by chance. Results indicate that communication effectiveness is positively related to intergenerational agreement in all six consumption domains studied, whereas daughter's conformity motivation is related only to prestige sensitivity. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

An integrative conceptual framework for analyzing customer satisfaction with shopping trip experiences in grocery retailing

Grocery retailers aim to satisfy customers, and because grocery shopping trips are frequently recurring, they must do so continuously. Surprisingly, little research has addressed satisfaction with individual grocery shopping trips. This article therefore develops a conceptual framework for analyzing customer satisfaction with individual grocery shopping trip experiences within an overall ‘disconfirmation of expectations model’ of customer satisfaction. The contribution of the framework is twofold. First, by focusing on satisfaction with individual grocery shopping trips, previous research on satisfaction is extended to a context marked by frequently recurring, often tedious and routine activities. Understanding what causes satisfaction/dissatisfaction with individual shopping trips is required to explain overall, cumulative satisfaction with a retailer, which has been the focus of prior research on satisfaction in the retailing literature. Second, the framework synthesizes and integrates multiple central concepts from different research streams into a common framework for analyzing shopping trip satisfaction. Propositions are derived regarding the relationships among the different concepts in the framework and suggestions for future research are offered.     

企业腐败动机与“最优”腐败程度实证研究

对于企业向官员行贿动机的解释主要有两种相反的观点,一是企业为了获取政府帮助而主动行贿,二是企业在威胁逼迫条件下的被动行贿。文章从企业在应对政府和应对市场两项事务间的权衡出发,构建企业绩效与腐败强度间的二项式回归模型,通过与传统线性回归模型的比较,发现企业腐败是一种主动行为,腐败的目的是为了构建政治关系以获取相应回报。运用世界银行企业调查数据,二次项回归模型显示出绩效与腐败强度间显著的倒U型曲线关系,文章得出了企业的“最优”腐败程度并对其政策含义进行了解释。     

The Process of Trust Formation in E-Business: Insights from Case Studies of Two Small Firms

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to investigate and theoretically explain the process of trust formation in high risk e-business.

Methodology/approach: The interpretive case-based approach has been used in this study. Inductive analysis of interview data helped to develop the process model of trust formation in the context of business-to-business e-market transactions by two small firms.

Research implications: This research explains how and why trial outcomes influence trust formation. The findings also indicate the importance of the trialing process as a legitimate means of determining trustworthiness of the other party and the e-business platform. These findings add to the existing body of knowledge on trust in e-business and have important implications for further research.

Practical implications: The practical implication is that if sponsors of business-to-business e-markets can support initial trials, it would foster trust and lead to more active usage of e-business methods.

Originality/value/contribution: This research shows that trust formation in high risk e-business is a dynamic process, influenced by changes in risk perceptions from repeated trial outcomes in initial stages, a departure from prior variance studies with assumptions of static perceptions of risk and trust.     

数字化可编程直接序列扩频(DP-DS/SS)系统的设计

本文介绍了一种数字化可编程直接序列扩频(DP-DS/SS)系统的设计方案,借鉴了软件无线电的思想,基于FPGA DSP的结构实现数字化可编程功能,采用动态配置技术实现多模式工作。一些关键技术的研究使系统具有较强的适应性,部分应用结果表明该系统可以很好地应用于移动卫星通信和直扩抗干扰通信。     

The evolving domain of entrepreneurship research

Research on entrepreneurship has flourished in recent years and is evolving rapidly. This article explores the history of entrepreneurship research, how the research domain has evolved, and its current status as an academic field. The need to concretize these issues stems partly from a general interest in defining the current research domain and partly from the more specific tasks confronting the prize committee of the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research. Entrepreneurship has developed in many sub-fields within several disciplines—primarily economics, management/business administration, sociology, psychology, economic and cultural anthropology, business history, strategy, marketing, finance, and geography—representing a variety of research traditions, perspectives, and methods. We present an analytical framework that organizes our thinking about the domain of entrepreneurship research by specifying elements, levels of analysis, and the process/context. An overview is provided of where the field stands today and how it is positioned relative to the existing disciplines and new research fields upon which it draws. Areas needed for future progress are highlighted, particularly the need for a rigorous dynamic theory of entrepreneurship that relates entrepreneurial activity to economic growth and human welfare. Moreover, applied work based on more careful design as well as on theoretical models yielding more credible and robust estimates seems also highly warranted.