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Management writings in the Middle East region are scarce and scattered. This is due to the lack of doctorate programmes offered by educational institutions, the weak links between academia and the business world, limited formal and informal networks, the lack of status given to the field of management by national bodies and the lack of a publication culture. A bibliography of management‐related writings in the Middle East is presented, which includes other functional areas such as marketing, finance and accounting. It aims to draw the students' attention to a variety of sources. In compiling the bibliography a review of the literature in Arabic, English and Turkish was undertaken, followed by a survey of the top officials of academic institutions offering management/commerce, business administration degree programmes in the region.

To streamline and improce their service delivery systems, service organizations have much to learn from their manufacturing counterparts in the use of quality and process improvement tools. The purpose of this article is to present a practical framework which integrates these tools in order to enhance the efficiency and customer orientation of service delivery systems. Two examples are used to illustrate the application of the framework. Also practical guidelines to facilitate the implementation of the proposed framework are offered.

Using the basic framework of the service profit chain, this study aims to develop an integrated model that explains the relationships among role overload (RO), customer orientation (CO), service interaction quality (IQ), customer satisfaction (CS) and sales performance.

A large-scale survey of 872 customers and 530 frontline employees across 50 branches of a major retail bank in New Zealand serves as the study setting.

The results indicate that RO has a significant negative effect on IQ. Nevertheless, CO mitigates the negative outcome of RO on IQ. IQ fully mediates the relationship between RO and CS. Additionally, the effect of IQ on branch sales is fully mediated by CS.

The cross-sectional nature of the current survey does not permit causal inferences. Thus, future studies should adopt longitudinal designs. Also, future studies should explore the roles of other variables (e.g. job crafting, work-related self-efficacy) as possible moderators.

Results suggest that service managers should create a balance between the role requirements and organizational resources to mitigate the adverse effects of employee RO. To enhance IQ and CS, bank managers should coach employees about work overload and train them in CO while prioritizing the tasks.

Empirical research pertaining to employee–customer interaction through a nested framework accommodating data from customers, employees and firm performance is scarce. This study fills in the void.

The purpose of this study is to gauge the effects of challenge and hindrance stressors as well as three high-performance work practices (HPWPs) such as training, empowerment and rewards on work engagement (WE) and turnover intentions (TI). This study also tests customer orientation (COR) as a moderator of these relationships.

Data gathered from frontline hotel employees in Northern Cyprus in two time periods with a time lag of two weeks were used to test the relationships.

The results suggest that both challenge and hindrance stressors heighten TI and empowerment fosters WE. Rewards alleviate TI. More importantly, COR acts as a moderator of the effects of challenge and hindrance stressors as well as training, empowerment and rewards on WE and TI.

Management needs to hire employees high on COR and develop training programs that boost employees’ customer-oriented behaviors. Employees should also be allowed to craft the level of job demands and resources as long as the work is congruent with management expectations.

This study contributes to the extant hospitality knowledge by testing COR as a moderator of the effects of challenge and hindrance stressors and HPWPs on WE and TI.

Uses data collected from a sample of expatriate managers on assignments in Turkey to attempt to examine the dimensionality of expatriate adjustment. Suggests that the results offer support to earlier findings that expatriate adjustment is a multifaceted construct. Shows that the measure developed to capture the different dimensions demonstrate satisfactory internal consistency reliability and concurrent validity. Discusses strategies to facilitate the adjustment of expatriate managers to their assignments.

Presents real‐life and day‐to‐day examples of service delivery problems which will be familiar to all readers. Then provides practical re‐engineering solutions to remedy the problems. The vignettes illustrating the problems are all real‐life cases based on the experiences of the authors, and the solutions they propose are also based on their encounters with service providers as educators and consultants, and talks to business audiences by both parties.

Self‐service food stores are a new emerging form of retail technology in Saudi Arabia. By focusing on relevant institutional, planning and operational dimensions, this exploratory study describes and analyses the process by which this form of food retailing was adopted. Data were collected from 96 stores located in three metropolitan areas of the Kingdom, and the results suggest that the sudden proliferation of these stores during the past decade was characterised by the lack of rational planning, short‐term decision making orientation, and limited concern for promotional activities. The analysis of the 62 study variables indicated that differences in store size exerted limited influence on store marketing activities and had a moderate effect on store planning and institutional dimensions.

Using the supermarket technology in Hong Kong as an example, the article shows that the transference of the retail technology from one market to another is highly dependent on the socio‐cultural environment. In effecting an international transfer a retailer may have to be satisfied with an incomplete transfer, proceed in a gradual, evolutionary process and maintain an adaptive interaction with the environment.

The article investigates the incidence and regularity of performance of marketing‐mix activities in Third World business contexts. The results support a relatively high level of incidence and regularity of performance of marketing‐mix activities — thus implying their “applicability”. However, the results suggest that corporate factors influence the performance of marketing‐mix activities.

This article proposes a conceptual framework and a research methodology for transferring marketing technology to developing countries to address important societal problems. The methodology developed by the author is described and illustrated with an empirical investigation. Guidelines for implementation of this methodology in developing countries are also provided.