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Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

As an alternative explanation of incongruent findings in the literature, the purpose of the present study is to introduce the concept of hedonic versus utilitarian service context as a moderating variable in the relationship between the affect (pleasure and arousal) and perceived service quality and satisfaction.

A consumer survey was conducted to test moderation hypotheses, which was analyzed with hierarchical regression equations.

The results show that pleasure had stronger influences on perceived service quality and satisfaction in the hedonic service context than in the utilitarian service context. Arousal is found to influence perceived service quality and satisfaction in the hedonic service context but not in the utilitarian service context.

It is likely that in hedonic related services, consumers will often use some affective criteria to evaluate service quality, in addition to the traditional service quality measures.

Companies providing hedonic services should modify the content of their services or add novelty stimulus into their services from time to time in order to evoke the most desired consumer emotions and enhance satisfaction.

The proposed moderating effect of service contexts improved predictions and explanations of the theoretical relationship between affect and perceived service quality/satisfaction. It specifies the conditions under which affect will or will not impact perceived service quality and satisfaction.

This study aims to identify the impact that Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy tendencies have on avoidance and revenge-seeking after a service failure. The research examines the role that negative affect and desire for revenge play in aggressive behaviors by consumers.

The study uses a survey research methodology. The measurement model is validated using CFA, and hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling. The mediated and serially mediated relationships are calculated using the bootstrap method by creating estimands to test the effects.

Machiavellianism is less likely to drive avoidance and negative affect, reducing desire for revenge, negative word of mouth and vindictive complaining. Those with narcissism tendencies are likely to develop a negative affect and a corresponding desire for revenge after the failure only if negative affect is developed. Consumers who exhibit psychopathy tendencies are likely to seek out revenge directly.

Each Dark Triad tendency influences consumer avoidance and revenge-seeking in different ways when a consumer’s goals are impeded. Companies can focus on service recoveries differently based on the types of tendencies of consumers engaging in avoidance and revenge-seeking.

The individual paths from Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy tendencies to avoidance and revenge-seeking are developed and analyzed. Further distinctions between each Dark Triad tendency aids service providers in addressing and preparing for these consumer behaviors.

The main purpose of this paper is quality assessment of services provided by the MUMS libraries and determining member satisfaction and expectations of library services in the LibQUAL dimensions.

This research used the survey method for collecting data. Library service quality was measured by using 22 items taken directly from the 2004 version of the LibQUAL scale.

The highest average score was “Service affect” with 6.39 and the lowest score 5.75 belonged to “Library as place”. Total results emphasised the importance of librarians' specialised knowledge level in presenting appropriate services in circulation and reference sections. A significant outcome, is in the “information control” dimension, and appropriate working hours; classification system for searching and accessing to information and appropriate time for loaning resources. The biggest gap related to updated multimedia databanks, appropriate number of computers and adequate facilities like laptops/PCs and broadband networks for better access to subscribed electronic resources through the MUMS central library web site.

The results of this study emphasise the importance of librarians' specialised knowledge level in presenting appropriate services in circulation and reference sections as well as identifying strengths and weaknesses of MUMS schools and hospitals libraries for improving decisions affecting the library service quality.

The findings show all highly important aspects of the “Service affect” dimension in academic libraries such as understanding user needs and presenting perfect service.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a multidimensional model of marketing culture and performance in tourism restaurants operating in Jordan. The paper introduces a model proposing certain associations between Webster’s (1990) marketing culture dimensions and attempts to underline how such associations affect restaurants’ performance.

A structured and self-administered survey was used, targeting managers and employees of tourism restaurants operating in Jordan. A sample of 334 tourism restaurants’ managers and employees were involved in the survey. A series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the research constructs dimensions, unidimensionality, validity and composite reliability. Structural path model analysis was also used to test the hypothesised interrelationships of the research model.

The empirical findings indicate that the marketing culture dimensions are seven rather than six, as proposed by Webster’s (1990) original model: service quality, interpersonal relationships, management–front-line interaction, selling task, organisation, internal communication and innovativeness. “Organisation” had positively and significantly affected “interpersonal relationships”. “Interpersonal relationships” had positively and significantly affected each of “management–front-line interaction”, “selling task” and “internal communications”. On the other hand, each of “management–front-line interaction”, “selling task” and “internal communications” had positively and significantly affected “innovativeness”. However, “innovativeness” itself had positively and significantly affected each of “service quality” and restaurant performance. Finally, “service quality” had positively and significantly affected restaurants’ performance.

Only seven dimensions of marketing culture were examined; meanwhile, there could also be other dimensions that affect restaurants’ performance. This paper has also examined the effect of a multidimensional model of marketing culture on restaurants’ financial performance only; the use of other types of non-financial measures could yield different results. The fact that paper’s sample consisted only of Jordanian restaurants further limits its generalisation potential.

The paper reinforces the importance of sound marketing culture to Jordanian tourism restaurants. It further underlines the importance of several marketing culture dimensions, particularly those related to employees’ selection, development and communication. Further, the paper emphasises the particular importance of front-office employees to the success of Jordanian restaurants. Tourism restaurants’ managers and executives can benefit from such findings for designing their marketing culture strategies to achieve long-term performance objectives.

This paper represents the first empirical attempt to examine the interrelationships between marketing culture dimensions introduced by Webster (1990). Accordingly, it should shed more light on the dynamics of marketing culture within service organisations, and how such dynamics affect organisations’ performance. Further, the paper is the first of its kind to study marketing culture dynamics in the context of Jordanian tourism restaurants industry. International tourism restaurants planning to expand their operations in Jordan’s tourism industry have now valuable empirical evidence concerning the marketing culture dimensions and their effect on performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of employee-displayed smiling on customers’ affective states (pleasure, arousal, and dominance) and satisfaction. Building on the stimulus-organism-response framework and theories of emotional contagion and feelings-as-information, the main hypothesis was that a smiling (vs non-smiling) employee significantly increases customer satisfaction through the mediating influence of pleasure.

The study used a quasi-experimental two-group between-subjects design. A total of 210 customers at a large retail bank had a brief service encounter at the store entrance with a smiling (vs non-smiling) bank teller. Customers then went into the bank to do what they came to do. Before leaving the bank, customers completed a survey that included demographic information, affect (pleasure, arousal, and dominance), and measures of customer satisfaction.

A smiling (vs non-smiling) employee had a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction. This effect was mediated by pleasure, but also, to a weaker extent, by dominance. These results contradict previous claims that smiling-induced emotional contagion does not remain throughout the completion of a service encounter.

Managers should encourage, and potentially train, employees to act in ways associated with positive emotions. Managers could also hire employees based on how good they are at acting and expressing themselves in a genuinely positive manner and create a pleasant store atmosphere so that the feelings and behaviors displayed by frontline employees are genuine rather than inauthentic.

This is the first experimental field study to examine the isolated effect that employee-displayed smiling has on customers’ affective states and satisfaction. The results provide more direct evidence for the psychological processes justified by emotional contagion and feelings-as-information theories. Furthermore, the finding that dominance mediates the smiling-satisfaction link has never been shown before.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of service quality on graduates’ satisfaction as perceived by Middle East University (MEU) graduates.

This research is cross-sectional and aims to explore the effect of service quality dimensions (academic staff, administration, classrooms and library services) on graduates’ satisfaction. Data were collected from 399 graduates. After confirming validity, reliability and normality of the data, and the correlation between variables, multiple regressions were used to test the hypothesis.

The results show that all service quality dimensions are highly implemented by the MEU. The relationships between all service quality dimensions and graduates’ satisfaction are strong. Finally, results show that all service quality dimensions affect graduates’ satisfaction.

To generalize the results of this research, further studies are recommended to be carried out on other universities especially in Jordan. Testing the perception and satisfaction of other universities, stakeholders will help to improve service quality and to gain suitable competitive strategies.

Service quality is a key driver for universities’ sustainable competitive advantage; therefore, dimensions of service quality should be included within universities plan, strategies and daily activities.

Considering service quality in higher education improves countries’ economic development, quality of life and well-being. All corporate social responsibility pillars (social, economic, environmental responsibilities and national and international regulation and norms) should be adapted and adopted within services quality systems and programs.

Most of previous studies were carried out to test the students’ perception while this research is dedicated to explore graduates’ perception regarding service quality offered by the MEU.

The purpose was to measure the service quality of school library in Yogyakarta based on user perceptions using the Libqual ^+TM method that used three dimensional indicators; affect of service, information control and library as place.

The researcher used a quantitative method to examine the perceived scores, minimum expectations and ideal expectations given by the users, which then resulted in the average Adequency Gap (AG) and superiority gap (SG) scores. Researchers collected data through observation and distributed questionnaires to 93 respondents who were students in Yogyakarta.

The study found that (1) affect of service dimension, the user is satisfied with the librarian being very polite to the user with an AG score of 0.58 and an SG of −0.1. (2) The information control dimension shows that users are satisfied with the ease of searching for information with an AG score of 0.53 and an SG of −0.44. (3) The library as place dimension, users are satisfied with the library space which is always clean with an AG score of 0.4 and an SG of −0.13.

This study broadens the view regarding the evaluation of school library services using certain methods so that they can be used to improve the quality of library services.

Natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina (the most destructive natural calamity in US history), have destructive impact on residents, critical infrastructure, as well as, functions and services of associated industries in the affected areas. In addition, due to a lack of both understanding of natural disaster impacts and preparedness to the hurricane, it was revealed that the emergency‐related organizations were not prepared to maximize the use of the critical infrastructure to mitigate the impacts. The purpose of this paper is to help those organizations have more understanding of disaster impacts and facilitate their decision making in order to prepare better mitigation plans.

A disaster impact mechanism and inter‐relationships based on the main functions of associated industries are derived through an extensive literature review and case analyses. Based on these inter‐relationships, a decision support system is developed and evaluated using a winter flood disaster event in the USA as a case study. The level of inter‐relation is chosen as a metric to measure the weights for inter‐relationships between critical infrastructure and associated industries. These weights are obtained through expert interviews and surveys.

The healthcare industry, for example, is revealed as the most dependent industry and the electricity and transportation infrastructure are the most significant to the communities and the associated industries.

The cell model of the disaster impact mechanism, the inter‐relationship approach, and the use of the concept of level‐of‐service in this paper will contribute to improving the methodology in the area of disaster impact analysis and mitigation.

Building on disconfirmation theory, equity theory and affect‐balance theory, considers antecedents to satisfaction with service recovery. A theoretical model is proposed and tested empirically based on a cross‐sectional national sample of 201 dissatisfied customers complaining of services. The results suggest that perceived performance of service recovery has an impact on equity. Second, disconfirmation of expectations of service recovery and perceived fairness of outcome of service recovery have an impact on satisfaction with service recovery. Finally, negative affect caused by the initial service failure does not have an impact on satisfaction with service recovery.