Search results

This study examines the importance of nineteen selection criteria consumers might use in their choice of a professional service provider. Factor analysis reduced the variables to five factors—knowledge, comfort, time, social reputation, and accessibility. The results present strong implications for competitiveness of professional service providers, with knowledge and comfort items representing those most important to individuals.

There are distinct differences between professional services and other services which affect the way consumers make purchase decisions about them. This paper discusses the differences using the consumer decision process as a framework. Strategy implications for the professional service provider are presented, and specific suggestions are offered to improve the efficiency of the exchange — thereby benefiting both the buyer and the service provider.

Men have not traditionally been considered a viable target market for most household purchases and, thus, for coupon distribution. However, with significant social changes over the last several decades, men may offer an opportunity for sales growth in many product categories. This study surveyed 206 males and females to identify gender differences in products purchased, frequency of coupon use by product type, and coupon source. The study also used demographics and parental coupon use to profile gender differences. Men were found to play a major role in household purchases, particularly for groceries, and to be light users of coupons overall. Men also were found to purchase more online products and more food delivery services than women but to use fewer coupons. Men were, however, found to be heavy users of grocery store loyalty cards.

Within the existing health care system, a significant percentage of Americans over the age of 65 will have need of extended health care. Yet the extended care industry has little information as to how consumers will make a choice among placement options. The results of this study describe both the need recognition and pre‐selection search stages of the decision process and the impact of need recognition on subsequent search activity. The information obtained from an influential person as the problem is being defined appears to have a complex relationship with pre‐selection search, with initial information leading to less search but additional information increasing search activity. Contrary to previous studies, pre‐selection search was found to be fairly extensive, increasing with time availability.

The recognition of services as a distinct type of product requiring distinct marketing approaches is a relatively recent development in the literature. While scholars have examined decision‐based differences between the marketing of services in general and the marketing of tangible products, few have had as their primary focus differences in client behavior relative to professional versus other services. Thus produced is the impetus for the study reported here. Focusses on identifying strategically useful distinctions between consumer external search and evaluation activities for professional versus generic retail services. Examines the advisability of assuming that what occurs relative to the search and evaluation of tangible products or services in general will automatically be mirrored in an among‐services setting.

In recent years, organisations around the world have been seriously affected by a range of economic, political and social upheavals that have gathered momentum in most parts of the globe. The viability of the conventional (pyramidal) organisational structures is being challenged in conjunction with major shifts in the roles of mid and top managers. In many countries, the pace of the above socio‐economic events and uncertainties is happening at an unprecedented pace. Some markets are showing signs of potential gigantic expansions while others (historically prosperous) are on the verge of complete collapse (Dent, 1991). In responding to the socio‐economic challenges of the nineties, organisations (across the board) have resorted to dismantling the conventional pyramidal structure and adopting so‐called “leaner” structures (see Zeffane, 1992). The most common struggle has been to maintain market share in an economic environment increasingly characterised by excess labour supply (Bamber, 1990; Green & Macdonald, 1991). As organisations shifted their strategies from “mass production” to “post‐fordism” (see, for example Kern and Schumann, 1987), there has been a significant tendency to emphasise flexibility of both capital and labour in order to cater for the niche markets which are claimed to be rapidly emerging, world‐wide. This has resulted in massive organisational restructuring world‐wide.

This chapter advances the notion of projects of passion as a class of phenomena for which profit seeking is secondary to the pursuit of a “calling.” Drawing on a comparative case analysis of seven temporary art projects realized over 35 years by renowned artist-entrepreneurs Christo and Jeanne-Claude, it defines a theoretical model of the unique elements and aspects of the process through which projects of passion unfold. In the model, freedom and novelty are singled out as unique drivers of project motivation, individual business models and rhetorical strategies as process mechanisms, and authenticity and impact (the aesthetic, social, and economic value appropriated by third parties) as project outcomes. The chapter concludes with implications for the strategic management of projects and opportunities for further research.

This paper reports on a pilot project to develop a 32-acre site made available by the City of Kampala for housing with the express purpose of promoting urban agriculture. Started in 2004 under the leadership of a city agronomist, with the aid of research teams from McGill University, Montreal, Makerere University, Kampala, and financial support from IDRC, the project is still ongoing. The process is one of participatory planning with the future residents, a group of mixed ethnicity and religions from all parts of the city, and includes training in house construction and agricultural techniques. Project implementation has been slower than anticipated due to unforeseen hazards such as mislaid title deeds, unavailability of government resources, communication shut-downs, the time required to transact business, acquire permissions, permits and the like, and most recently by the threat of a major power line from the Bujagali Falls to serve Kampala being thrust through the site. We nevertheless remain optimistic of ultimate success.

Companies today can't promise lifetime employment, but they can help employees ensure lifetime employability.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.