An Empirical Approach to Service Classification for Productivity Management Studies

This paper presents key results of a research project on the application of service dimensions and classifications, to study differences between productivity management challenges across 12 important service sectors in the UK. The research methodology was mainly empirical in nature: unlike other research in this area, appropriate service dimensions and consequent classification models were introduced only after analysing the relationship between a number of candidate dimensions and aspects of productivity management. Among the dimensions studied, Front/Back Value Added, Personnel Judgement and Product/Process Focus turned out to be suitable indicators for a range of aspects relating to productivity management in services.     

Why computer-mediated communication improves the effectiveness of fraud brainstorming

Current auditing standards require auditors to conduct a fraud brainstorming session aimed at considering ways in which the audit client's financial statements might be fraudulently misstated. Lynch et al. (2009) document that computer-mediated fraud brainstorming is significantly more effective than face-to-face brainstorming for generating relevant fraud risks. In this study, we code and analyze process-level data from the Lynch et al. (2009) study to understand the factors contributing to the greater effectiveness of electronic fraud brainstorming. Specifically, we conduct mediation analysis to discern the degree to which equality of participation and two measures of task focus contribute to greater fraud brainstorming effectiveness when using a computer-mediated communication system compared to traditional face-to-face brainstorming. We also examine participants' perceptions of ease of system use, satisfaction with the process, and satisfaction with the outcome. Overall, the results indicate that the primary reason for the greater effectiveness of electronic fraud brainstorming is the greater degree of task focus as revealed through the length of comments made when using computer-mediated fraud brainstorming. In an absolute sense, participants using electronic brainstorming felt that their brainstorming mode was easy to use and they were satisfied with the process and outcome. The primary contribution of this study is in enhancing our understanding of precisely why computer-mediated fraud brainstorming outperforms face-to-face fraud brainstorming.     

Relationship between customer complaint behavior and demographic characteristics: A study of hotel restaurants' patrons

This study documented customer complaint behavior in hotel restaurants in Deadwood, USA, and examined the relationship between complaint behavior and demographic characteristics. The sample consisted of 250 hotel restaurant customers. It was found that the hotel restaurant customers tended to complain privately rather than taking public actions. Older, well-educated, customers with higher incomes tended to take private action to complain about their dissatisfaction more than younger, less educated customers with lower incomes. Based on results of the study, implications were suggested for industry practitioners to diminish the negative impact of complaint on hotel restaurants.     

The effectiveness of international diversification: whole markets versus sectors

A hedging approach is used to examine the effect of sectoral factors on the effectiveness of international diversification. By using data covering seven countries and various sectors, we find that international diversification is more effective when assets from developed markets only are used and when multiasset portfolios are used instead two-asset portfolios. The results also reveal that international diversification across whole markets is more effective than diversification across sectors. These results reflect the pattern of return correlation.     

An Economic Simulation Game with Fast Feedback for a Lay Audience: An Example of Seasonal Cash Marketing Strategies

This paper highlights the use and implementation of a simulation game that can be presented at producer extension meetings or in the classroom with minimal time investment to participants and game coordinators. Immediate feedback and participant involvement are key factors that may make this type of simulation more interesting than conventional methods of conveying economic information to lay audiences.     

The Role of Social Mechanisms in Demand and Supply Integration: An Individual Network Perspective

In many industries, including retail, increased complexity of marketing strategies needs to be met with increased efficiency in product delivery, requiring integration across demand and supply facing functions of the firm. For frontline logistics employees (FLEs) of manufacturing firms who are delivering and marketing products in retail stores daily, the ability to understand both the marketing and supply implications of their actions is essential. Despite the importance of cross‐functional integration at the retail frontline, little logistics research has explored how logistics frontline employees interact with managers and each other to integrate knowledge and information. The purpose of this research is to examine the antecedents to cross‐functional integration across demand and supply functions in multiple social networks of the FLE. Mixed methods, including social network analysis, structural equation modeling, and analysis of variance, are applied to test social capital theory hypotheses regarding the impact of relational embeddedness and social mechanisms, socialization and shared interpretation, on individual demand and supply integration across friendship, key enabler, and ideation networks of the frontline employee.     

BANKING ON SOCIALISM

Terry Arthur argues that the current UK banking system represents the very opposite of a free market, and that a genuine free market, in which there is no place for a nationalised central bank, is the best solution. One of the most successful examples of such a market is the Scottish experience of the nineteenth century, destroyed only by Peel's Banking Acts of 1844–45.     

Toward a unified theory of consumer acceptance technology

In the last few decades, scholars and practitioners have increasingly tried to understand the factors that influence technology acceptance. Theories and models developed by scholars have tended to focus on the role of cognition and have rarely included affect. The few studies that have incorporated affect have tended to measure a single emotion rather than modeling it comprehensively. This research addresses that inadequacy in our understanding of technology adoption by merging two previously unrelated models: TAM (the Technology Acceptance Model) and PAD (the Pleasure, Arousal, and Dominance paradigm of affect). This study also examines an enhanced view of cognition. The product of this unified theoretical framework is referred to as the Consumer Acceptance of Technology (CAT) model. The results of a test using structural equation modeling provide empirical support for the model. Overall, the CAT model explains over 50% of the variance in consumer adoption intentions, a considerable increase compared to TAM. These findings suggest that substantial improvement in the prediction of technology adoption decisions is possible by use of this model with its integration of affect and cognition. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.