Assessing primary healthcare services quality in Spain: managers vs. patients perceptions

This paper measures the perceptions of the service quality by both the users and the health centre managers in Spain. With this information, it was possible to calculate the size of Gap-6, proposed by Lewis of discrepancy among the customers' perceptions and the perceptions of health centre managers. Using factor analysis and multiple regressions, significant associations were found between the service quality dimensions and patient satisfaction. Implications and future research issues are discussed.     

Performance,reputation, and social responsibility in the UK's financial services: a post-‘credit crunch’ interpretation

This paper's origins lie in a perceived paradox whereby companies in Britain's financial services sector were externally promoted as ‘world class’ yet on a major peer survey of company reputations performed relatively weakly. The nature of this is explored across several components of reputation and reasons for the gap suggested. Recent events are seen as somewhat resolving the paradox; low reputation has apparently been justified by crises in the sectors; however, if that were the case, it raises questions about how any gap between reputation and reality came about and who was responsible for creating a false impression.     

The crisis-resilience of services trade

Much attention has been focused on the impact of the current crisis on goods trade; hardly any on its impact on services trade. Using new trade data from the USA, and more aggregate data from other OECD countries, the authors show that services trade is weathering the current crisis much better than goods trade. On the basis of new evidence from Indian services exporters, it is suggested that services trade is more robust relative to goods trade for three reasons: less cyclical demand; lesser dependence on external finance; and few explicitly protectionist measures so far taken in services.     

Does innovativeness of knowledge-intensive business services differ from other industries?

This article seeks to determine whether the innovative capabilities of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) do actually differ from other industries through comparing the innovation capacities and financial performance of KIBS with firms operating in other sectors (non-KIBS). Based upon a 1000-firm sample, the results of our estimated econometric model demonstrate that non-KIBS firms are in possession of significantly greater innovation capacities than KIBS firms. These differences were observed across factors such as organisational process innovation, the launch of already existing products in new markets, branding and new product designs. Nevertheless, as regards the actual importance attributed to product/service innovation, KIBS firms place a greater comparative importance on innovation in comparison with their non-KIBS peers. In addition, the empirical evidences display a significantly different range of effects of innovation capacities on financial performance and concludes that non-KIBS firms turn in better comparative performances than specialist KIBS firms.     

International franchise partner selection and chain performance through the lens of organisational learning

This study aims to investigate how international franchisors engage in exploratory and exploitative learning in the partner selection process and the implications for chain performance. Based on an embedded case study of a leading international hotel organisation, the findings reveal that the franchisor attempted a balanced learning approach in response to challenges caused by high cultural distance in international markets. However, the ‘crowd-out’ effect of exploration and exploitation created a ‘tension’: exploration emphasising adaptation to local needs dominated the partner identification stage in country markets, whilst exploitation stressing standardisation and efficiencies dominated the partner decision-making stage at division. As a result, a consistent brand image came at the cost of very cautious international expansion.     

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Influence of restaurants' physical environments on emotion and behavioral intention

The purpose of this study is to add to the body of knowledge on customer loyalty in professional services in business-to-business markets. The authors build on the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing group constructs and relate them to affective commitment, relational benefits and, through these two, to customer loyalty. The results show that trust and social bonds positively influence affective commitment, while adaptation and knowledge transfers positively influence relational benefits. Although both affective commitment as a more emotional construct and relational benefits as a more rational construct positively influence customer loyalty, emotional motivation seems to be much stronger than rational motivation. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed on the basis of the empirical findings.     

The geography of public services employment in Europe: concentration or dispersion?

It is widely known that the location of public services generates, directly and indirectly, important economic effects. The objective of this article is to examine the spatial distribution of employment in public services in 124 European regions in order to detect the existence of some pattern of spatial location. To do so we employ various exploratory spatial analysis techniques, such as the calculation of the Moran's I and the Geary's C statistics. The results obtained highlight the existence of remarkable differences among the European regions, and more concretely between the Scandinavian and the Mediterranean regions, differences that deserve further study.     

服务贸易与货物贸易对我国收入差距扩大的影响及比较

改革开放30多年来,伴随对外贸易的迅速发展,我国收入差距尤其是城乡居民收入差距不断扩大。本文利用我国1982-2011年的年度数据、引入多个控制变量的实证分析结果表明:货物贸易的发展会使收入差距先减少后扩大,而服务贸易的发展则使得收入差距先扩大后缩小,同时教育发展水平等因素也对城乡收入差距有显著影响。文章在对研究结论做出成因分析后,提出了部分有针对性的政策建议。     

工业信息服务业发展问题剖析和对策研究

工业信息服务业是信息化与工业化融合催生出来的新兴业态。剖析中国工业信息服务业发展过程中存在的主要问题,如市场有待规范、结构有待优化、地区发展不平衡,提出一些工业信息服务业发展对策,如明确发展重点、加强政策引导、加强行业监管。     

支付工具的产生和发展浅析

从历史的发展来看,支付工具的产生要考虑流通成本、使用和保存成本、标准化的要求,并且必须是公允价值工具。同时,还要受到经济发展状况、社会文化、金融技术及法律等环境的影响。有时,战争等突发事件也会对支付工具的产生和发展产生重大影响。