The effect of signage and emotions on satisfaction with the servicescape: An empirical investigation in a healthcare service setting

Marketing and environmental psychology studies have long emphasized the importance of signage in large and dispersive service settings but have focused little on utilitarian service contexts. Previous studies have also analyzed the role of emotions in customer satisfaction with the servicescape, particularly in hedonic service environments such as malls, hotels, and restaurants, but a limited research has been conducted on the role of emotions in utilitarian service settings such as healthcare services. This study draws from the environmental psychology and service marketing literature to investigate the effects of signage and emotions on satisfaction with the servicescape in the hospital setting. In addition, it explores the moderating effect of emotions on the relationship between signage and satisfaction with the servicescape. The findings show that signage has a positive and significant effect on satisfaction with the servicescape. Negative emotions have a significant negative effect on satisfaction, while positive emotions have no significant effect. Differently from what was expected, emotions do not moderate the relationship between signage and satisfaction. Managerial implications are provided for service managers who wish to design a utilitarian service setting to effectively increase user satisfaction with the servicescape.     

Benchmarks in the spotlight: The impact on exchange traded markets

The Fix for precious metals is a global pricing benchmark that provides pricing and liquidity provision for market participants. We exploit the gradual change in the century old auction process to quantify the efficiencies related to more transparent pricing. Our focus is in the market impact of this change on exchange listed products. We find that reforms to the Fix have reduced quoted and effective bid-ask spreads and improved overall market depth. The results imply a positive spillover effect stemming from timelier and more accurate pricing information. The conditions under which we observe the benefits from transparency are related to product liquidity and the degree of market segmentation.     

Characterizing the mission statements of benefit corporations: Empirical evidence from Italy

In 2015, Italy introduced a new legal form—“benefit corporation” (società benefit)—that provides legal status to companies that have one or more common benefit objectives in addition to the profit-seeking goal. Italian benefit corporations are obligated by law to operate in a responsible, sustainable, and transparent way and to include the interests of different stakeholders in their corporate strategy. This study examines the Italian case by applying textual statistical analysis on benefit corporations' public mission statements using the IRaMuTeQ software. Performing hierarchical cluster analysis and correspondence factor analysis identifies the “benefit” concept emerging from the mission statements in terms of promotion of individual skills, development of a new business model, and service to society. This study contributes to the debate on the content of mission statements by giving empirical evidence about this new form of business, and it provides some practical implications for managers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers.     

Strategic management,plant closings,and social responsibility: An integrative process model

A process model of the manner by which organizations formulate and implement managerial strategies in response to plant closings is proposed. The model takes into account the overall context of the plant-closing process, identifying different strategic responses an organization may follow and the nature and philosophy of its social responsiveness. The model links the plant-closing process with theoretical underpinnings derived from both the strategic management and social responsibility literature.     

Entrepreneurial ecosystem research: present debates and future directions

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - The purpose of this article is to review the emerging research on entrepreneurial ecosystem and to guide future research into this promising...     

The Role of Roles in Risk Management Change: The Case of an Italian Bank

This paper explores the role of roles (i.e. groups of actors characterised by the same functional tasks within an organisation), and of their interactions, within processes of change in risk management (RM). By combining insights from the literature on RM and from institutional studies, this paper suggests that change in RM can be interpreted as a process that involves both enabling and precipitating dynamics [Greenwood, R., & Hinings, C. R. (1996). Understanding radical organizational change: Bringing together the old and the new institutionalism. The Academy of Management Review, 21, 1022–1054. doi:10.5465/AMR.1996.9704071862] between different roles. Aiming to address these dynamics empirically, we rely on a longitudinal case study of an Italian bank. The study shows that the interactions between roles were dependent on their respective specific interests, the different institutional templates they supported, and the shifts in power for control over relevant information. These dynamics both affected and were affected by the change in the template-in-use within the bank and allowed a sort of RM ideal (i.e. the search for more RM) to persist over evolving templates.     

On modeling the determinants of TFP growth

We investigate the determinants of TFP growth of Italian manufacturing firms. Using stochastic frontier techniques, we consider three approaches for taking into account the influence of external factors, i.e., the determinants or drivers of growth. First, in our novel approach external factors may influence the technological progress, that is the shift of the frontier. To model this possible unexplored effect, we extend the standard time trend model to make it a function of the external factors. Then, following more standard approaches, we model external factors as either influencing the distance from the frontier, i.e., inefficiency, or the shape of the technology. Using a sample of manufacturing firms in 1998–2003, we find that technological investments and spillovers, human capital and regional banking inefficiency all have a significant effect on TFP growth.     

A review and discussion of management control in inter-firm relationships: Achievements and future directions

Several years have passed since Hopwood (Hopwood, A. G. (1996). Looking across rather than up and down: on the need to explore the lateral processing of information. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 21, 589–590) proclaimed the need to explore the lateral processing of information, transcending legal organizational boundaries. Since then, many contributions in the management accounting literature have been published in an effort to overcoming this shortage. The aim of this work is to investigate whether these contributions have brought the possibilities of that powerful intuition to its full potential development. To this end, the paper provides a review of the theoretical and empirical literature on management control in inter-firm contexts by organizing contributions according to the breadth of the control solutions they investigated, i.e., control archetypes, management control mechanisms, and cost and accounting controls. Our objective is not only to present the state of the art in this field, but also to evaluate critically the corresponding achievements and to assist in developing new research questions. To address the limitations of the extant literature, we propose the prominence of control problems (cooperation, coordination, appropriation concerns) as a way to integrate the different streams of research, and we highlight some important variables (structure of interests, component and cognitional complexity of tasks) that have been neglected so far by management accounting contributors but, as has been suggested in the organizational literature, may influence control choices. We also identify several areas ripe for future research.