Service Orientation: Its Impact on Business Performance in the Medical Service Industry

From the viewpoint of internal marketing, employees who are content in their job may be motivated to satisfy their customers better than ones who are not content. Another relevant premise is that the content employees, because of their work motivation, would eventually help improve the performance of their firm. To verify these relationships, some previous studies looked into the effects of organisational service orientation on employee's satisfaction. But only few of them investigated the mediating effects of variables such as service value and customer orientation for their role in linking service orientation to business performance. This study examines how an organisation's service orientation had an effect on its performance at hospitals. For this purpose, verification of the mediating role of service value perceived by employees as well as the role of customer orientation on the firm's performance was attempted. For this study, a total of 292 usable questionnaires were collected from hospital staffs located in metropolitan cities of Korea. The hypotheses concerning relationships among service orientation, service value, employee satisfaction and customer orientation were verified by covariance structural modelling, using SPSS 10.0 and AMOS 4.0 programs. The result is as follows. First, organisational service orientation had a positive effect on both employee satisfaction and service value perceived by hospital staff. Second, employee satisfaction had a positive impact on service value and customer orientation. Finally, service value as well as employee's customer orientation were found to exert positive influence on the medical firm's performance.     

Employment responses to aggregate and sectoral technology shocks

This paper investigates the responses of sectoral employment in US manufacturing to a technology shock by its type: aggregate or sectoral. In order to distinguish between aggregate and sectoral shocks, we construct independent VAR models for identifying each shock separately: a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) for aggregate shocks and a sectoral SVAR for sectoral shocks. Our aggregate model in particular extends the conventional small-scale VAR to the FAVAR framework of Bernanke et al. (2005) so that it can address the potential bias from omitted variables. The main findings are as follows: most industries exhibit negative employment responses to an aggregate technology shock while exhibiting positive responses to a sectoral technology shock. By comparing our FAVAR framework with Chang and Hong’s (2006) small-scale VAR, we show that applying the FAVAR results in significant differences in the estimated responses to an aggregate technology shock. Real rigidities (such as slow diffusion of new technology or frictional labor reallocation), rather than nominal rigidities (such as sticky prices), are crucial in accounting for the cross-industry difference in employment responses. In particular, the slow diffusion of new technology is closely related to the sluggish response of sectoral employment.     

The privatization of Korea’s Incheon International Airport

This study looks at the possible effects of the planned privatization of Incheon International Airport, Korea. To accomplish this, it uses a Delphi analysis involving nearly 50 experts to assess six possible scenarios that, for example, look at airport strategy and planning, financial, operations and approach facilities, and fees.     

International reserves and swap lines: Substitutes or complements?

Developing Asia experienced a sharp surge in foreign currency reserves prior to the 2008–9 crisis. The global crisis has been associated with an unprecedented rise of swap agreements between central banks of larger economies and their counterparts in smaller economies. We explore whether such swap lines can reduce the need for reserve accumulation. The evidence suggests that there is only a limited scope for swaps to substitute for reserves. The selectivity of the swap lines indicates that only countries with significant trade and financial linkages can expect access to such ad hoc arrangements, on a case by case basis. Moral hazard concerns suggest that the applicability of these arrangements will remain limited. However, deepening swap agreements and regional reserve pooling arrangements may weaken the precautionary motive for reserve accumulation.     

A Taxonomy of Industries Based on Knowledge Flow Structure

With the advent of the knowledge-based economy, the inter-industrial flow of technological knowledge is reckoned as the principal determinant of national competitiveness. The mode of knowledge flows, however, is intractably complex. Taking it as a network, this paper aims at providing an inductive taxonomy of industries based on the knowledge flow structure and thus identifying the user-supplier relationship among industries in terms of knowledge diffusion. Some proxy indexes are developed first to measure the knowledge flows, then the interactive mechanism among industries is investigated by the network analysis and eventually a taxonomy of industries is presented according to the characteristics of respective industries. The taxonomic approach highlights the importance of inter-industrial knowledge management system that facilitates knowledge flows across industries based on the idiosyncratic features of respective industries.     

“国际金融中心”需要怎样的城市形象广告片?——上海城市形象广告片的受众认知和态度比较研究

上海立志建设成为国际金融中心,打造这一城市品牌形象是一个系统工程,营销传播工作是重要的组成。本研究从广告效果空间论角度,对上海现有的四部城市形象广告进行了受众认知和态度效果的比较,并引入中外受众所代表的不同涉入度作为调节变量。我们根据结果绘制了四支广告在认知-态度二维图上的位置,并发现不同涉入度对认知效果没有调节作用,而对态度效果上则有调节作用。基于这些发现,我们提出了如何创作有效的国际金融中心城市形象广告的建议。     

Adding a freight network to a national interstate input–output model: a TransNIEMO application for California

The state of the nation’s infrastructure is the subject of widespread discussion and comment because it is thought to include many deteriorating and unsafe bridges. Ever since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, there has been increasing concern over the extent to which an attack on infrastructure could result in serious economic disruption. This research develops a model to analyze the economic consequences of an attack on a major element of the highway network. We add a freight network to a national multiregional economic impact model and make freight traffic flows endogenous. The use of a sub-national interstate model recognizes that most infrastructure planning is at the state level and most political leaders’ interest is local. We base our approach on the National Interstate Economic Model (NIEMO) and refer to an elaboration that we name Transportation network and the National Interstate Economic Model (TransNIEMO). The new model enables us to study the state-specific and industry-specific economic impacts of some significant changes in the nature of highway freight movements. We tested the model for selected freight movements in and out of California. The results are entirely plausible and encourage us to elaborate and test the model for hypothetical disruptions of freight traffic throughout the US.     

For the greater good: business networks and business social responsibility to communities

Business networks (co-operative arrangements between independent business organizations) may be the signature organizational form of the contemporary global economy. Many policy-makers and local leaders advocate business network membership as an alternative development strategy for regional economic vitality. The extant literature on business networks has focused on their association with business success. However, little is known about their impact on other aspects of community life. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the role of network membership on one non-economic dimension of the business community interface. We examined the relationship between business network membership and business social responsibility to communities, defined as the provision of leadership and support for community betterment projects. Data were gathered from telephone interviews with a random sample of 460 non-metro small business operators in the USA. Independent t-tests and ordinary least squares regression analyses controlling for theoretically important variables were conducted. Findings show that networked businesses provide more leadership and support for their communities than non-networked businesses. However, networked businesses were no more likely than non-networked businesses to use local suppliers of goods and services.     

Doctrine of relative purchasing power parity under fixed and flexible exchange rates reconsidered

The doctrine of relative purchasing power parity during periods of fixed and flexible exchange rates is investigated. Using cointegration techniques and data for the Group of Seven countries, a subset of the results suggests, that purchasing power parity held only between the United States and the United Kingdom over the period 1957 QI to 1973 QII. Different results are obtained for the 1973 QIII to 1990 QIV period. Based on the maximum likelihood approach of Johansen and Juselius and an error correction model, it is concluded that purchasing power parity held between the United States and Canada, the United States and France, the United States and Italy, and the United States and the United Kingdom.