Consumer responses to service situations: Tests for main and interaction effects

This research examines the effects of service criticality, service type, previous service experience, and service recovery on customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and complaint behavior. The results of a 2 (service criticality: high or low) x2 (service type: personal or nonpersonal) x 2 (previous service experience: failure or nonfailure) x3 (service recovery: assistance only, compensation only, or assistance with compensation) between-subjects experimental design indicate significant main effects for each independent variable on the combined dependent measures. In addition, two-way interaction effects, each involving service type, were found. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.     

The relationship between job satisfaction and managerial remuneration in small and medium-sized enterprises: an empirical test of ‘comparison income’ and ‘equity theory’ hypotheses

The relationship between job satisfaction levels and the remuneration of non-owner managers employed by a sample of 97 UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is investigated. The main empirical findings are that relative remuneration levels appear to be largely explained by differences in human capital and job/firm characteristics and that job satisfaction is positively related to deviations from these estimated comparison-income levels. Moreover, the equity theory expectation that individuals with the least prospect of redressing payment inequities will have the greatest incentives to respond to payment inequities by congitive adjustment is also supported. The results indicate that job satisfaction levels for individuals expecting to remain in their current post are not significantly affected by current payment inequities. For those managers who expect to move firms, the amount of payment inequity has a significantly positive effect upon their job satisfaction.     

Modeling the relationship between networking and firm performance

Network theory suggests that successful business ownership might depend on the ability of owners to gain access to resources not under their control in a cost effective way through networking. To date, however, there has been little empirical support for this proposition, particularly for established firms. The results of this study, based on a large longitudinal database, indicate a significant positive relationship between networking (particularly with formal networks such as external accountants) and both firm survival and, to a lesser extent, growth, but not ROE. Further, network intensity is found to be associated with survival, and network range with growth.     

The value of a story in organisation learning

Projects of Organisation Learning (OL) are designed to facilitate a change in an organisation's ability to engage or construct their futures. However, OL remains difficult to explain and operationalise. Traditional views of Organisational Learning, by relying on implicit views of individual learning, distort the importance of the social/cultural context of learning. A Communities of Practice perspective is used to focus on locally negotiated and situated meanings in the context of the practice of valued work. A narrative approach is employed to access the values of a group of advisers required to learn and change according to the requirements of a central government department. The findings show a pattern of values not entirely disconnected from the requirements for change. However, by relying on the assumption of the diffusion of change, a change agent was unable to gain the acceptance of advisers to the requirements. It is suggested that future thinking about OL and change need to examine how talk is used to make new realities with others.     

Human Resourcing in Practice: Managing Employment Issues in the University

Participant observation in two universities is used to throw light on processes of sensemaking engaged in by managers concerned with human resourcing issues. Analysis of managerial sensemaking in the case study organizations is carried out using concepts from earlier sociological theorizing about human resource or personnel management, treating these theoretical ideas as resources for use in the researchers' own sensemaking. It is shown that theoretical 'sense' can be made of the managerial or 'lay' sensemaking in the universities in terms of a need to handle various tensions which are inherent in all employment management work in industrial capitalist societies. And it is argued that there is clear continuity between what is currently occurring and has occurred in the past. This interpretation is shown to differ from that of an alternative approach in social science sensemaking, that which uses the notion of a new paradigm of 'HRM'.     

Short-Sale Restrictions and Price Clustering: Evidence from SEC Rule 201

We provide a novel test of information-based theories of price clustering by examining trade, order, and the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO) quote price clustering during periods when information is removed from the market. We use a natural experiment of short-sale restrictions resulting from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 201 to more effectively determine the impact of information on price clustering. We find evidence of increased price clustering for trades, orders, and NBBO prices during short-sale restrictions. Overall, our findings indicate that short-sale restrictions harm the price discovery process and lead to a reduction in market efficiency.