The effects of interaction behaviors of service frontliners on customer participation in the value co-creation: a study of health care service

This research explores the roles of various interaction behaviors of service frontliners in activating customer participation and creating customer value in the context of health care service. Based on the data of 285 paired patient–physician cases of serious chronic diseases, the analysis revealed that individuated, relational, and empowered interactions expressed by a service frontliner play a critical role in activating customer participation, leading to a higher level of perceived value; while ethical interaction has a direct-only impact on perceived value. These results imply that frontliner interaction can be further broken into participation-activating interaction and value-enhancing interaction. Both of which eventually lead to the improvement of customer value.     

Team innovation in retail services: the role of ambidextrous leadership and team learning

Service Business - Drawing upon the ambidextrous leadership theory for innovation, this study investigates the role of opening and closing leadership behaviors in both exploratory and exploitative...     

A Participatory Simulation to Facilitate Farmers' Adoption of Livestock Feeding Systems Based on Conservation Agriculture in the Uplands of Northern Vietnam

In the mountain areas of northern Vietnam, extensive husbandry of large-ruminants is limited by the lack of natural forage. Since 2000, the Mountain Agrarian System Program has been concerned with this issue and has evaluated technical alternatives aimed at sustainable integration of crop-livestock systems. One alternative consists of feeding systems for largeruminants based on cropping systems with plant cover. Diffusion of information about the new system is supported by a set of interactive communication tools for use between farmers and researchers. A participatory simulation method was developed that combines a compartmental model of the village territory with five technical innovations. Farmers simulate the adoption of the innovations they choose among food-forage cropping systems in rotation or in association, and urea-treated straw. They evaluate the quantity of forage that can be grown for their herd using the chosen set of techniques.

Simulations revealed farmers' constraints and objectives in adopting sustainable cropping systems on the hillsides while maintaining a small animal husbandry system. The results obtained by each farmer provide a useful basis for discussion about the implementation of innovation. This participatory simulation method could be more widely used to facilitate the diffusion of innovations such as integrating livestock feeding systems with conservation cropping practices.     

越南企业准备好了吗？

公众舆论普遍认为“入世”将给越南带来更多外国直接投资，但是，越南当地的企业家该如何面对外来挑战？[编者按]     

Unemployment or credit: Which one holds the potential? Results for a small open economy with a low degree of financialization

This paper investigates the relative importance of unemployment versus credit in determining the potential level of real activity for a small open economy with a low degree of financialization. We use a multivariate unobserved component model (MUC) to derive the potential output and the associated output gap for the Lithuanian economy. The model is estimated via Bayesian methods and the time paths of unobserved variables are extracted via the Kalman filter. The inclusion of unemployment in the MUC model substantially improves the estimates of the output gap in real time. Adding information about credit further emphasizes the overheating of the economy in the pre-crisis period, both in real time and ex post. Including credit preserves the conclusions regarding turning points. We uncover a strong negative correlation between the model-implied unemployment gap (without accounting for credit) and real credit growth. Data revisions do not appear to be the primary source of revisions of output gap estimates.     

Secrecy of Bank of Japan’s Yen intervention: Evidence of efficacy from intra-daily data

This paper examines the intraday effectiveness of the Bank of Japan (BOJ)’s foreign exchange interventions over the period May 13, 1991–March 16, 2004. The existing literature has generally failed to provide a comprehensive study on the effects of the BOJ’s interventions, and particularly, the efficacy of public and secret operations. By dividing a 24-h trading day into three horizons, we show that the intraday evidence on the effects of official interventions documented in prior studies primarily came from publicly known interventions. In the case of secret interventions, although there were no clear impacts on the first moment of exchange rate returns, we found significant second moment responses. Specifically, covert operations were able to reduce the Yen/USD return volatility during both Tokyo and subsequent overnight market hours. Furthermore, our extended model on secret interventions reveals that when the BOJ completely concealed its transactions, undetected interventions were shown to be most effective in both reversing undesired trends and reducing excess return volatilities. On the other hand, those interventions that were rumoured were not as effective. Finally, the interventions conducted during the periods of ‘oral interventions’ were in general more effective in moving the exchange rate in the desired direction.