Employee emotional response toward healthcare organization’s service recovery efforts and its influences on service recovery performance

Previous studies on service recovery performance of frontline employees have focused primarily on the direct relationship with the organizational efforts for service recovery. However, based on the reformulation of attitude theory (appraisal-emotional response-behaviour), we believe that the emotional responses (work engagement and burnout) toward organizational efforts for service recovery of frontline employees mediate the relationship. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine how healthcare frontline employees show their emotional response toward the organizational efforts for service recovery and it influence on actual recovery performance. This study uses two conflicting emotional responses, burnout and work engagement, to examine how employees react toward organizational efforts, helping better understand employees?? evaluations of the efforts. Research model and hypothesis were tested using a sample of frontline employees who perform none-clinical activities in hospitals. The results showed that teamwork and empowerment have positive effects on work engagement. In addition, customer complaint management, empowerment, and teamwork influenced negatively on burnout. Lastly, work engagement and burnout showed statistically significant impact of service recovery performance of frontline employees. Among the organizational efforts for service recovery, teamwork was the most important factor in improving frontline employees?? work engagement and lessened their burnout, respectively. Interestingly, customer service training had a negative effect on burnout. Besides, by comparing our research model to two alternative models, we confirmed the validity of the research model.     

User-generated product reviews on the internet: the drivers and outcomes of the perceived usefulness of product reviews

This study examines how people cope with the user-generated product reviews (UGPRs) found on various websites where anonymous web users post and share their personal product usage experiences. Based on information processing model of communication, we postulate that there are source, message, media, and receiver factors to influence individuals' psychological processing of the UGPR messages, and its subsequent behavioral outcomes. A survey was administered by a professional market research firm to 262 randomly selected US residents from 18 to 55 years old. Consistent with the predictions, the results of the structural equation modeling analysis showed that the perceived source expertise, message objectivity, website credibility, and receiver–source similarity had positive and direct impacts on the perceptions of UGPR usefulness, which, in turn, positively influenced individuals' willingness to share product reviews with others. A series of causal model invariance tests also confirmed that the findings were statistically invariant across different subgroups divided by such factors as product categories, websites, subjective product class knowledge, past UGPR experience, and the susceptibility to informational influence.     

Leader political skill and casino dealer morale: the mediating role of follower perceptions of leader–member exchange

Our study investigated the follower perceptions of leader–member exchange (FPLMX) as a mediator between leader political skill (LPS) and follower morale and tested these relationships using data obtained from casino dealers in Korea. Social astuteness, interpersonal influence, networking ability, and apparent sincerity are the indicators of LPS, while follower morale is composed of job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. The results from structural equation modeling suggest that the research model we have proposed is viable. Broadly speaking, FPLMX is a partial mediator between LPS and follower morale.     

Value Congruence Awareness: Part 2. DNA Testing Sheds Light on Functionalism

Part 1 of this exploratory study demonstrated that for terminal, instrumental, and work values, supervisors could only accurately assess the extent to which their terminal values are congruent with their employees, whereas, employees could only accurately describe degrees of alignment with their supervisors' work values. Thus, supervisors appear to possess conscious awareness of the terminal values held by their employees and employees similarly possess conscious awareness of their supervisors' work values. Part 2 of the study examined what each of these two parties might do with their conscious knowledge concerning value congruence with the other member. Supervisor ratings and employee self-ratings concerning employee job performance, citizenship, climate fit, working relationship (LMX), and other issues, were correlated with supervisor terminal value congruence estimates and employee work value congruence estimates respectively. For supervisors, only one significant finding was noted, indicating a positive relationship between the supervisors' awareness of terminal value congruence with the employee and the supervisors' estimate of the employee's potential for future promotion. For employees, seven hypotheses received support demonstrating relationships between the employees' 0awareness of supervisor/employee work value congruence and self-ratings of work behaviours, citizenship behaviours, volunteerism behaviours, work climate behaviours, work climate attitudes, work climate organizational-wide attitudes, and the supervisor/employee working relationship. Implications for management and future research are discussed.     

‘How do you feel about a disease?’ The effect of psychological distance towards a disease on health communication

Based on construal level theory, this research addresses the moderating role of an individual's psychological distance towards a disease in the effectiveness of advertising messages framed by two distinctive construal level terms (high-level and low-level). In Experiment 1, two different disease types (bronchitis/distant disease vs. influenza/proximal disease) were featured, with the result that an advertisement with high-level construal terms was more persuasive for a psychologically distant disease (bronchitis) than for a psychologically proximal disease (flu). The reverse was true for an ad framed with low-level construal terms. To replicate Experiment 1 and further test the hypothesis, in Experiment 2, the perceived distance individuals have towards one disease (cancer) was measured and used as independent variable. Consistent with the results from Experiment 1, the low-level construal messages were more effective under the psychologically close condition than the psychologically distant condition. Reverse was true for the high-level construal messages.     

Chivalrous idealist and pragmatic strategist: the influence of Mohist values on Ma Yun’s leadership in China

ABSTRACT

In the study of leadership within the private sector in China, few scholars have tried to link ancient Chinese teachings to the present leadership style beyond the level of highlighting Confucianism and/or militarist philosophy. This study argues that Mohist teachings are the foundation of Ma Yun’s leadership in Alibaba.com. Using three propositions of (a) Ma Yun’s motivation to become a start-up CEO, (b) structuring his business using his inter-national skills and linguistic competences and (c) shaping his leader-ship style based on the Mohist teachings, one of the minority schools of ancient Chinese philosophy, this paper finds that innovative firms in China such as Alibaba.com deliberately shies themselves from conventional symbols of Confucianism or militarist teachings to accommodate Western managerial in the name of unpopular ancient Chinese teachings. The result of Ma Yun’s leadership is successful corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance amid rapid innovation within his company. Our results show that Ma Yun’s Mohist quality and balance of justice and interests are the most effective measurement indicators of Ma Yun’s internal operations; values of eloquent rhetoric, a chivalrous spirit, and mutual love have promoted Alibaba’s external reputation and expansion and constitute important indicators.     

An empirical examination of perceived retail crowding,emotions, and retail outcomes

Crowded retail shopping conditions can result from many shoppers being present during a given time and at a given place, as well as from limited customer space owing to inadequate floor layout design and allocation of fixtures and merchandise on the floor. This study investigated the effects of the perception of human crowding and spatial crowding on consumer shopping behavior through mediation of emotions of pleasure, arousal, dominance, and a feeling of satisfaction in an international market. A store intercept survey was conducted on 554 hypermarket consumers in Taipei, Taiwan. The proposed structural relationships among perceived retail crowding, emotions, and retail outcomes were analyzed by using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling with Lisrel 8.54.

The results of the study demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed model in delineating the relationships of retail crowding-emotions-satisfaction-retail outcomes under actual retail environments. The study found that while human crowding perceived during shopping at a hypermarket store positively impacted shoppers' feelings rather than negatively, spatial crowding perceived due to high spatial density negatively impacted shoppers' positive emotions. The findings supported the view that retail crowding affected various shopping activities through influencing positive emotions and summary feelings of satisfaction. Managerial implications of the study were also discussed.     

Proxies for legal firearm prevalence

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - Product acquisition policies define legal markets. Policy evaluations require data but prevalence data are not always available. We introduce Legal Firearm...     

FACTOR DETERMINANTS OF TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH FOR THE JAPANESE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

This study uses industrial panel data for Japanese manufacturing to estimate the sources of productivity growth by simultaneously considering embodied technical progress, spillover effects, and openness, after controlling for returns to scale, imperfect competition, and capacity utilization. Estimation results show the existence of considerable embodied technical progress and interindustry externalities of capital investments positively affecting productivity growth. Furthermore, embodied technical progress causes research and development (R&D) capital to affect productivity growth insignificantly, suggesting that the impact of R&D is realized only after being embodied into other capitals. From sector‐wise estimations, we notice differences in factors affecting productivity growth between the durable and nondurable manufacturing sectors. (JEL D24, O30)     

How do racial minority consumers process a model race cue in CSR advertising? A comparison of Asian and White Americans

This study proposes that model race and race of consumers play an important role in processing corporate social responsibility (CSR) advertising. The aim of the study is to examine why a racial mismatch between target consumers and featured model race might work better among Asian Americans in the context of CSR ads, guided by motivated reasoning and self-referencing information processing mechanisms. Through an experiment, the study finds that people who perceive that money means social status tend to have more positive responses to CSR ads regardless of their race or ethnicity. In addition, Asian Americans who highly equate money with status are likely to evaluate CSR ads featuring a white model more positively than the ad with an Asian model. The study also reveals that Asian Americans with higher money as status perception tend to self-reference only when they view the CSR ad featuring a white model, but not an Asian model. However, White Americans do not vary in self-referencing based on model’s race when viewing the CSR ads.