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This study aims to measure the quality of services provided to elderly people at the most crowded governmental ambulatory clinics of Tehran Province using the SERVQUAL scale (Study 1). Moreover, the research indicates the medicine reimbursement criteria to inform the decision-makers of public health insurance organizations using the Borda method (Study 2).

This study was done as a cross-sectional research on 425 elderly patients who came to the clinics during 2014 and 2015. Finally, using the paired t-test, Friedman test, Borda method, SPSS, Matlab software and Delphi method, the collected data were analysed.

Regarding the perceived quality, the services assurance dimension was ranked as having the highest quality (4.48) and the accessibility dimension as the lowest one (3.22). Based on the Borda method, the most important criterion for the Iranian health insurance companies to accept a medicine in their reimbursement list is the “life-threatening conditions” factor. On the other hand, “evidence quality” is accounted as the fifth important factor.

The main limitation was the senility of participants that makes it difficult for understanding and completing the questionnaires.

The results can be useful for healthcare policy makers and related authorities. Besides, public health insurers can use the findings for decision-making about the elderly diseases and the problems such as the medical expenses.

The present research has been done in a two-year time frame, and it is more recent than other related studies. Thus, the results are far more authentic and applicable.

The success rate of new products is stubbornly low. This paper aims to explore the differences in how product designers and product managers approach the new product development task by comparing their perspectives on the process.

This study conducted a worldwide survey of professional product designers and managers and compared their perspectives.

Managers struggle to understand the problem to be solved until they see the solution in the form of an outstanding product design. Designers struggle to develop new products until they have a specific and insightful understanding of the problem that needs to be solved.

Designers’ and managers’ ways of thinking are different, and effective collaboration depends on them being cognizant of each other’s ways of thinking; the success of their work is highly interdependent.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first study that simultaneously investigates both product designers and managers to reveal the paradoxical dynamics between their perspectives.

While studies have established the important role of change agents throughout organizational change programs and emphasized the change agents’ impact on outcomes of change efforts, it could be argued that the decision-making procedure for the selection of change agents may also influence the success of organizational change programs in several ways. This research aims to explore and compare the potential influence of a traditional change agent selection procedure with a more systematic and objective approach.

A qualitative case study has been conducted, before and after testing a group decision support system for the selection of change agents in an organization that was on the verge of a major rebranding.

The main findings suggest the importance of objectivity, transparency and attention to competency in the selection procedure for the role, while providing evidence for using a systematic participative decision-support process for the selection of change agents, leading to several desirable organizational outcomes, including improvements in perception of objectivity, trust, transparency, fairness and competency related to the selection process.

Drawing from the previous studies and the presented findings, this study offers evidence on the importance of paying attention to the selection procedure for the change agent role as it could potentially have an influence on the employees across organizations and, consequently, the success of change programs.

The literature on product design/development (PD) has attempted to understand the consumer but has not provided a comprehensive framework for product marketers and designers. Thus, this paper aims to compile and link the main topics in the literature on PD to create a foundation for strategic development in this field.

This research adopted a “fit-for-purpose” methodology, a cross-referencing method and a meta-narrative approach that are appropriate for reviewing studies in a field involving complex topics and areas in which the literature is still developing.

To enhance the quality of product development, there is a need for PD strategy based on a clear understanding of many factors: the consumer; the complex interrelations among a product’s values, dimensions and personalities; PD theories; and other related variables.

This study found that PD studies should concentrate more on codifying strategies to enhance product development success. This is particularly important in view of consumers’ varied and changeable tastes in the global market and the differing insights of product marketers and designers.

This comprehensive systematic review is a unique study that contributes to future business-to-consumer and business-to-business research by compiling scattered and hidden strategies, theories and variables in the PD/development literature.

This paper aims to explore professional product designers’ views on creative design and to compare their viewpoints with the related academic literature on product marketing.

To find the designers’ views on creative design, face-to-face in-depth interviews based on repertory grid analysis and semi-structured questions were conducted with 32 professional and award-wining product designers who mostly design for international producers.

Although marketing scholars often approach design as a noun – something that can be viewed and analysed as a bundle of attributes, dimensions or characteristics – professional designers view design differently. To them, design is a verb, a problem-solving process through which they meet the challenges consumers have with products. Comparing professional product designers’ views on design creativity with the main topics in the product marketing literature places scholars’ dispositionalism against designers’ situationalism; it also enables marketing scholars to improve their viewpoints on product design and to bring practical problem-solving and design thinking into their research. This also increases mutual understanding between marketers and designers.

This research enhances the knowledge of marketing scholars, marketers and designers about each other’s perspectives on product design creativity, which will improve their mutual understanding and the business-to-business relationship between marketers and designers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first study that has attempted to discover product designers’ opinions on the main topics in the related academic literature.

This research approaches human resource management (HRM) as a service and aims to develop and test a process for improving perceived HRM service quality.

A three-step process was developed by incorporating concepts and tools from service design approach. Based on the literature, it was hypothesized that applying this process could improve perception of HRM service quality, perceived HRM service value, level of leader–member exchanges along with perceived organizational support, role clarity and role ambiguity. A case study was conducted and these variables were measured and compared, before and after testing the process for a test group and a control group within an organization.

The main findings suggest the effectiveness of the presented process in improving the perceived HRM service quality and social exchanges (in terms of perceived organizational support and leader–member exchanges), while reducing role conflict and role ambiguity in employees and supervisors.

In a general sense, the obtained result implies that leveraging holistic and collaborative service design tools and concepts in (re)designing internal services, such as HRM, could improve perception of quality in organizational services, which in turn may lead to several important benefits for organizations, particularly in terms of HRM as per the context of this study.

This paper demonstrates development of an employee-centered method by borrowing from service design concepts and tools, to improve the perception of HRM service quality.