Saying it without words: a qualitative study of employee voice in the Iranian building sector

Abstract

The primary aim of this study is to examine the nature, extent and workplace experiences of voice in an industry characterized by vulnerable workers with precarious term of employment. Using qualitative data on the practice of voice and participation among a sample of construction and building materials & products manufacturing firms, we found that the motivation of workers to fulfil their basic human needs take precedence over other needs such as voice and participation intention. The extent to which employee voice was embedded in the organizational policies was found to rely primarily upon the need for compliance with minimum labor legislation and ISO quality management factory regime. Our findings also suggest that voice and participation beyond regulatory and ISO quality compliance remain at the sole discretion of the management that advocated a carrot and stick orientation. The article concludes with the discussion of theoretical and practical implications of the findings and identification of a number of new avenues for future research.     

DEA target setting using lexicographic and endogenous directional distance function approaches

Directional Distance Function (DDF) is an approach often used in data envelopment analysis (DEA) due to its clear interpretation and to the flexibility provided by the possibility of choosing the projection direction towards the efficient frontier. In this paper two new DDF approaches are considered. The first one uses an exogenous directional vector and a multi-stage methodology that at each step uses the projection along the input and output dimensions of the directional vector that can be improved. This lexicographic DDF approach also computes a directional efficiency score and a directional inefficiency indicator for each input and output variable. The second approach is a non-linear optimization model that endogenously determines the directional vector so that the smallest improvement required to reach the efficient frontier is computed.     

Participating mortgages and the efficiency of financial intermediation

This paper establishes a basic framework to study three different variants of Participating Mortgages (PMs). We obtain results for Shared Appreciation Mortgages (SAMs), Shared Income Mortgages (SIMs) and Shared Equity Mortgages (SEMs) in closed-form. We illustrate our findings with examples that show PMs are also attractive in an environment where prepayment can occur. Finally we conclude with the public policy implications of employing PMs as workout loans, especially post sub-prime crisis. We argue that by facilitating better risk sharing, PMs offer a means to enhance the efficiency and resiliency of the financial system.     

Managerial approaches towards service quality: the case of three service organisations

Using a multiple case study, this paper is concerned with assessing the impact of senior management's approach and attitudes on service quality and its implications for middle and firstline managers. Date from 52 semi-structured interviews representing a variety of managerial levels suggests that there exist many conflicts and differences in senior management's orientation and approach towards quality management (QM) with that of middle and firstline managers. The results further indicate that getting such consistency appropriate to the needs of top, middle, and firstline management, and of the QM itself, is one of the key problems of current management of service quality. However, the findings highlight that where there is consistency between senior managers' underlying approaches towards service quality goal with that of middle and firstline managers, service quality programmes will highly likely produce expected results. Finally, the implications of these findings as well as future research are put forward.     

A brand preference and repurchase intention model: the role of consumer experience

Consumer brand preference is an essential step towards understanding consumer choice behaviour, and has therefore always received great attention from marketers. However, the study of brand preference has been limited to traditional marketing focusing on functional attributes to maximise utility. But now the shift to experiential marketing broadens the role of the brand from a bundle of attributes to experiences. Technological advancements have helped to increase the similarities between brand attributes and product commoditisation. Consequently, consumers cannot shape their preferences among brands using rational attributes only. They seek out brands that create experiences; that intrigue them in a sensorial, emotional and creative way. This study seeks to develop a model that provides an understanding of how brand knowledge and brand experience determine brand preference and to investigate its impact on brand repurchase intention. Accordingly, exploratory focus group discussions are employed followed by a survey of mobile phone users in Egypt. The findings provide insights into the relative importance of consumer perceptions on different brand knowledge factors in shaping brand preferences. It also demonstrates the significance of consumers’ experiential responses towards brands in developing their brand preferences that in turn influence brand repurchase intention. The model therefore offers managers a new perspective for building strong brands able to gain consumer preferences.