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The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between market orientation and service quality in the context of shipping companies. Moreover, this study aims to explore the moderating role of risk propensity in the above-mentioned relationship.

A research study was carried out on a sample of 255 shipping companies located in Greece. Data were obtained through a structured questionnaire from the managing directors or other senior executives. Data were analyzed through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, while the hypothesized relationships were determined through regression analyzes.

The analysis of the empirical data shows that intelligence generation and responsiveness have a positive and significant impact on the service quality of shipping companies. Also, the findings showed that this relationship is influenced by the degree of risk propensity, revealing, thus its moderating role on the market orientation – service quality link.

The current study contributes to the literature by examining for the first time the moderating role of risk propensity in the relationship between market orientation and service quality. Additionally, this is the first study that attempts to investigate the way the dimensions of market orientation predict service quality in the context of shipping companies.

In line with recent trends in the human resource management literature that address talented employees and their management, the purpose of this paper is to examine the associations between talent philosophies (innate/developable and exclusive/inclusive) and the way talent is identified and assessed in the context of service organisations.

A structured questionnaire was administered in shipping companies located in Greece and 125 questionnaires suitable for further use were collected. Moreover, the measurement instruments of the constructs under examination were adopted from relevant studies in the literature. Finally, the data were analysed through exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis.

The findings showed that the different talent philosophies impact upon the way talent is managed (i.e. identified and assessed). Specifically it was found that managers who adopt mainly innate and exclusive talent philosophies tend to rely more on their first impressions in the identification of talent and to focus in a greater extent on their personal judgment rather than standardized procedures in talent assessment.

Despite the increased academic voices on exploring the concepts of talent and talent management in the context of business organisations, the field is still lacking empirical evidence. Therefore, this study contributes to the limited empirical studies on talent issues and provides evidence on the links between the dominant talent philosophies and the way talent is identified and assessed in organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to enrich the existing literature by determining the underlying structure (latent factors) of total quality management (TQM) practices and their impact on company performance outcomes in the Greek hotel industry.

The research questions were examined using a sample of 153 top-and middle-level hotel-quality managers. Exploratory factor analyses, coupled with multiple linear regression analyses, were used to examine the extent to which elements of TQM influence hotel performance.

The TQM factors revealed by the present empirical research in the hotel industry are the quality practices of top management, strategic quality planning, employee quality management, customer focus and employee knowledge and education. On the other hand, the performance dimensions revealed through the present study are summarized as: financial performance, customer focused performance and service quality performance. The results also confirmed that most of the TQM elements are antecedents of hotel business performance.

Hotel managers/owners using reliable and valid frameworks comprising TQM practices and performance outcomes may better address their efforts by choosing whether to invest in company refurbishing or better train their personnel to maximize hotel performance.

The purpose of this study is to enrich the existing literature by identifying and confirming the enablers and outcomes of TQM specifically within the hospitality industry. Moreover, the relationship between the implementation of TQM practices and superior company performance is also examined due to the past contradictory results regarding this matter.

This study aims to reveal the constituents of seafaring service quality (physical and social environment) and their effects on seafarer employee satisfaction (job satisfaction and turnover intention) and analyse any differences among seafarer ranks. Literature on service quality has overlooked the transportation sector and seafaring in particular.

Seafaring service quality is measured by the workplace environment constituted of physical and social environments. Two types of employee (job) satisfaction were explored: overall job satisfaction and turnover intention. This study is based on a unique, large survey based on the Existence-Relatedness-Growth (ERG) needs theory. An exploratory factor analysis revealed four physical environment factors (Ship conditions, Communication facilities, Nautical health and Living conditions) and four social environment factors (Social fit, Team cohesion, Ship company support and Intercultural environment). Multi-group regression analysis assessed the effects of seafaring service quality on employee satisfaction.

The social environment has stronger effects than the physical environment on job satisfaction but not on employee retention. Team cohesion has strong effects on employee retention, while social fit has stronger effects on overall job performance. Seafarer ranks showed significant variations. The physical environment matters for 2nd engineers' and cadets’ job satisfaction but not for ratings, masters and chief officers. Team cohesion is significant to master, chief officer, engineer and cadet ranks but not for junior officers and ratings. Social fit has stronger effects on overall job performance than employee retention, particularly for ratings, cadets, master, chief officer and chief engineer ranks. Ship company support has the stronger effect on overall job satisfaction among all workplace factors; this is also observed across all ranks.

Motivation theories like the ERG theory can help understand service quality and employee satisfaction in the maritime sector; future studies should examine more behaviour variables/constructs from these theories.

Maritime companies can offer better services to seafarers, who are considered as key workers, by customising their interventions to specific seafarer ranks and developing a supportive culture that improves seafarer well-being.

This study examined the overlooked topic of maritime service quality based on a large-scale survey grounded on ERG theory and reveals how the physical and social environment has different effects on seafarer job satisfaction and retention.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the food safety management system (HACCP – type system) implemented in Greek food businesses, examine the techno-managerial factors influencing its application according to enterprises' opinion and correlate these answers to the HACCP evaluation results.

The study involved 33 slaughterhouses located throughout Greece. Two types of questionnaires were used (IF questionnaire – for the influencing factors and HE questionnaire – for HACCP evaluation). Reliability or item analysis and principal component analysis were applied to the data obtained from the survey.

The results showed that the companies identifying the benefits of HACCP implementation as very important have fully understood possible problems and had the best results as regards HACCP evaluation. Companies not identifying the benefits as important had poor score in HACCP evaluation. Businesses with HACCP certification for longer periods and especially those that were certified according to more than one standard had better performance in HACCP evaluation. In addition, slaughterhouses involved in rearing of animals as well, especially those slaughtering only one animal species, and which do not provide services for others, seem to have better performance as regards HACCP evaluation.

The findings of this study correlate the results of the HACCP evaluation with the factors that affect the implementation of a food safety management system using the hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and canonical correlation analysis (CCA) statistical technique.

The aim of this paper is to present a conceptual framework which explores the links between the two service features (physical and interactive), job satisfaction and their impact on customer satisfaction.

A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 168 first line employees of a major European port. Structural equation modelling and regression analysis were used to examine and test the relationships.

The empirical data verifies structural relationships between service quality, customer satisfaction and job satisfaction, treating job satisfaction as a consequence of physical features and as an antecedent of interactive features. The direct impact of employee job satisfaction on customer satisfaction, together with its indirect influence via service features, were tested and supported by the empirical data.

This study extends the literature by examining the distinct role that the interactive and physical features of services play in the formation of job satisfaction, which in turn influences customer satisfaction. This perspective could improve managerial understanding of the service quality‐job satisfaction relationship and lead to more focused decisions.

The aim of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework and conduct an empirical study across different service sectors to investigate the inter‐relationships between organizational learning culture, employee job satisfaction and their impact on customer satisfaction. It also aims to examine an individual‐level variable (educational level) to see if it exerts possible moderating effects on the aforementioned relationships.

A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from employees in three companies that belong to different service sectors (port, supermarket and automobile repair service). A sample of 437 usable questionnaires from first line employees was collected. Regression analysis, including a moderated mediation analysis, was used to examine the relationships.

The results confirmed the mediating role of employee job satisfaction on the relationship between organizational learning culture and customer satisfaction. In addition, this study empirically supported the premise that the indirect effect of organizational learning culture on customer satisfaction via employee job satisfaction will be stronger when employee education is at a high level than when employee education is at a lower level.

This study highlights that when the employees are supported by their organization's culture, not only are they provided with new knowledge and skills, but they are also more likely to be satisfied by their jobs. This spurs them to offer high‐quality services that will satisfy their customers' needs.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the relative importance of various service‐quality dimensions in explaining customer satisfaction; and to examine whether this assessment is affected by the measurement instrument that is used.

A new (“servicescape”) model for directly measuring the physical and the interactive features of a service is proposed and tested against the SERVQUAL measurement model and Nordic conceptualisation. Data are collected from a structured questionnaire survey of 434 passengers at the port of Piraeus in Greece.

The findings reveal that the widely used SERVQUAL instrument fails to fully capture the role of “tangibles” in determining overall customer satisfaction in the service under examination. The new proposed “servicescape model” attaches more importance to the role of physical environmental attributes than has been reported in most previous studies.

Service providers should pay more attention to the physical environment in which they are operating. They should also note that different measurement instruments provide different results.

This paper proposes and tests a new (“servicescape”) measuring instrument that has not been previously developed or operationalised.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of the leadership style on the service quality–customer satisfaction link.

A special survey instrument was developed and tested with the use of exploratory factor and regression analyses.

Data from 118 small enterprises were collected through personal interviews, and results supported that the level of leadership style moderates the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction despite what is commonly believed that leadership actually is a prerequisite of service quality.

Based on the fact that there is no literature connecting quality and satisfaction with leadership style, practitioners may be interested in finding out that executives’ behavior can influence the service provided to customers.

Leadership style is a concept which has been associated with many variables such as service quality, performance and job satisfaction. In the marketing literature, it has been widely accepted that service quality is positively related to customer satisfaction. This work is the first trying to examine the effect of leadership style on service quality–customer satisfaction linkage under conditions of environmental uncertainty and instability.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of market orientation (MO) and service quality (SQ) logic on business performance. It is generally believed that MO and SQ are different philosophies, as the first, mainly, focuses on the “external orientation or market based considerations”, whereas the second mainly falls into the “internal orientation or resource based” of the firm. However, very little empirical evidence is provided to examine their relationships and comment on their role in achieving superior business performance.

Drawing evidence from 400 shipping firms, this study examines the role of these two concepts (MO and SQ) on shipping companies’ business performance and attempts to classify cases according to their score on those constructs.

Analysis revealed that despite what was thought by most managers inside and outside the maritime sector, all shipping firms are strongly market-oriented and that SQ and business performance are closely related to each other.

The present survey, using a sample of 700 maritime professionals from some 400 shipping companies in Greece, aimed at exploring the combined effects of marketing orientation and quality on their performance. It further discriminates among three types (states) of companies based on their MO and SQ scores.