Measuring service quality in Ghana: a crossvergence cultural perspective

This paper develops an instrument for measuring service quality in Ghana aimed at capturing a crossvergence perspective and to compare the efficacy of the new instrument (GhanQual) with SERVPERF and PAKSERV within the Ghanaian cultural context. Data were collected using SERVPERF and PAKSERV scale items. Using a structured questionnaire, data were collected from a sample of banking and hospital customers in Ghana and analysed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and regression analysis. The new instrument demonstrated superiority over SERVPERF and PAKSERV and is recommended as the most appropriate instrument for measuring service quality within the Ghanaian cultural context. The study identified the important factors service managers in Ghana can utilise in measuring and managing service quality and is believed to be the first of its kind to propose and develop a crossvergence perspective service quality instrument as well as to compare the efficacy of SERVPERF and PAKSERV in a single study. Extension of this study in other countries is recommended as this study was contextualised within the Ghanaian cultural context. Nevertheless, this study provides a starting point for developing cultural-specific and crossvergence perspective instruments for measuring service quality.     

The Persistent Myths of “Acting White” and Race Neutral Alternatives to Affirmative Action in Admissions

This paper discusses the persistent myths that cloud our understanding of two politically charged themes that have been featured in discussions of the educational outcomes of Blacks: "Acting White" and Race Neutral Alternatives to Affirmative Action in postsecondary admissions. We discuss research that shows that the "Acting White" hypothesis fails both theoretically and empirically to explain differences in educational outcomes between blacks and whites. We provide evidence that race neutral alternatives to admissions in higher education are both less effective and less efficient in producing racially diverse cohorts. Policy recommendations that heed the myths that rather than follow the facts are likely to be injurious to those that they seek to aid.     

The Polanyi-Stanfield Contribution: Reembedded Globalization

This essay describes and interprets J. Ron Stanfield’s analysis of Karl Polanyi. Stanfield has helped to clarify Polanyi’s “double-movement” thesis by arguing that the double movement of self-regulating market forces and the protective response is essentially about freedom versus security. These insights provide an analysis that takes Polanyi into the twenty-first century by developing a theory of “reembedded globalization.” This is not something that Polanyi experienced before his death in 1964. Corporate globalization and the escalation of free-market rhetoric have led to a new round of disembedding since the 1970s, and this is evident by both the top-down, corporate globalization of privatization, deregulation, and marketization, as well as, by the challenges to it from the “movement of movements” coalescing around the World Social Forum. The most conspicuous evidence of this neo-protective response and its challenge to corporate-driven market forces is that between the security needs of the world’s globalization victims and the freedom of transnational corporations to make profits anywhere and in any way throughout the world. Understanding the clash in this way suggests that for humanity to save itself, it must struggle to reembed globalization and put security ahead of unbridled freedom. Reembedding globalization requires asserting democratic security ahead of the economic freedom of big business.     

Retention of latent segments in regression-based marketing models

Product design and marketing mix decisions for segmented markets depend crucially on the correct specification of marketing models used as input to these decisions. With real-world data, the true number of segments in a market is unknown. Current evidence from simulation studies suggests that the accuracy of commonly used criteria for determining the number of segments in a market depends on the usage context, including the type of distribution being used to describe the data, the model specification, and the characteristics of the market. This study investigates via simulation the performance of seven segment retention criteria used with finite mixture regression models for normal data. This is one of the most important analysis contexts in marketing research since regression models are used, for example, in conjoint analysis and market response analysis, yet no previous study in either the marketing or statistics literatures explores the segment retention problem for mixture regression models. The study shows that one criterion, Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) with a per-parameter penalty factor of 3 (AIC3), is clearly the best criterion to use across a wide variety of model specifications and data configurations, having the highest success rate and producing very low parameter bias. Currently, this criterion is rarely, if ever, used in the marketing literature.     

Some effects of accounting expertise and information load: An empirical study

Effects of accounting expertise and information load upon predictions made from accounting reports were explored in a laboratory setting. Both greater expertise and lower information load (where achieved by increasing the processing time available) were associated with the placement of wider confidence intervals around predictions by subjects. These two variables also had systematic (though generally not statistically significant) effects upon the dispersion of predictions made by the subjects (auditors and students).     

Foreign-owned plants and job security

We investigate the hypothesis that workers in foreign-owned plants face greater job insecurity than those in domestic-owned plants. Using linked employer-employee data from Germany, we examine whether foreign-owned plants are more likely to close down, and whether workers in foreign-owned plants face higher separation rates. Our results show that, in Germany, foreign-owned plants per se are not associated with greater job insecurity, either through plant exit or worker separation. However, small, non-exporting and privately owned foreign-owned plants do face a higher risk of closure than equivalent domestic plants.     

A cross-country study of service productivity

This study empirically examines service productivity and complements prior studies by framing service productivity as consisting of a number of key constituents. Adopting a bottom-up approach we present an integrative model proposing that resource commitment is the core from which employee readiness and customer readiness flow. These inform service productivity, which, in turn, informs job security. Our empirical examination reveals that service productivity has an impact on perceptions of job security, while resource commitment has the greatest impact on both employee readiness and customer readiness. In developing our integrative model we provide a framework that other researchers can apply, particularly where the service is highly intangible or in the public sector where service providers are being increasingly challenged to demonstrate value for money.