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The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of patronizing by salespeople when interacting with older consumers in a retail situation of shopping for a mobile phone. In addition to patronizing behavior, the impact of the age of the salesperson and gender of the consumer are explored.

The study is based on statistical analyzes of a between-participants controlled experiment collected via an online survey of 338 members of the German Senior Citizens League.

The study contributes to the field of services marketing by confirming that older consumers reject patronizing sales interactions and by showing that men are more tolerant of condescendence than women, especially when younger salespeople are involved.

A limitation of this study is the use of fictional situations with a selected number of manipulated variables in a simulated sales interaction.

Rejection of a patronizing sales interaction was found to be similar by both genders with an older salesperson. Furthermore, retail shops of technical appliances could prevent potential problems by being cautious of having younger male salespeople interacting with older women customers.

Research on the impact of condescending sales interaction as perceived by older consumers is scarce and has not previously considered the role of customer gender and salesperson age. Beyond investigating the perception of participants to patronizing, the role of the salesperson age and customer gender were investigated.

Within the past few years, responsible educators, librarians, parents, counselors, social workers, therapists, and religious groups of all sexual persuasions and lifestyles have recognized the need for readily available reading material for lesbian and gay youth. Unfortunately, this material is often buried, because it is embedded in larger works. To meet this need, I have compiled and annotated 100 of the best works for young homosexuals, bisexuals, and heterosexuals. I have also included a few of the best works currently available on heterosexuality as a much needed source of knowledge for all young adults whether they are gay or straight, whether they remain childless or eventually become parents.

This paper aims to focus on production ramp up modeling on built‐to‐order (BTO) manufacturers facing customized demand. The general purpose is to present a novel approach to managing collaboration, by considering information exchange between the manufacturer and the supplier.

The methodology applies feedback control mechanism to analyze supplier responsiveness and customer order decoupling point to represent the need for collaboration. A two‐stage game is applied ahead of control system application to optimize the capacity decision, with the ultimate goal being profit maximization.

The results show that a higher product commonality degree gives more opportunity for quick response BTO supply chains, which are managed by feedback control, and at the same time to possibly mitigate the bullwhip effect caused by demand information noise.

The analytical model here focused on one product family development, so the applicability of the proposed model to the whole product portfolio should be investigated in the future.

This paper helps the manufacturer to act optimally by considering the possibility of information exchange with the supplier and deciding on the product commonality degree, in taking into account the customer's lead time requirement.

A control system model of “BTO Supply Chain” is proposed by including product commonality and response analysis in the simulation model. Furthermore, a contribution to collaborative supply chains is shown by applying a synchronized supply model to represent supplier and manufacturer communication.

In commenting upon a recent action brought by a Mr. Soper for a libel published upon him in a trade journal in regard to the sale of adulterated boots, the Daily Telegraph makes some excellent remarks, which ought to appeal strongly to all manufacturers, no matter what trade they are engaged in, who are really desirous of conducting their concerns upon honest and straightforward lines. The Daily Telegraph observes that reformers are rarely popular with their rivals, especially when they expose tricks in the trade, and advocate raising the standard of commercial honesty. Mr. Soper, the plaintiff in the case in question, was in that position. He had started a crusade against the practice of adulterating the soles of boots with paper fillings, and advocated a standard mark, in order to distinguish what is genuine from what is adulterated. This was resented by the threatened interests. Mr. Soper raised up enemies, and, in consequence, the article complained of was written, accusing him of “knowingly” selling adulterated boots at his shop while he thus publicly denounced them. The libel lay in the word “knowingly,” for it appeared that adulterated boots were actually sold at Mr. SoPer's establishment. But this was because he had failed to detect their presence; he had taken all the precautions which he could take, and he had cut open a number of pairs; he demanded guarantees from the manufacturers with whom he dealt; and, moreover, he was willing to take back any pair from any customer which were found to contain paper. The boot trade does not emerge with credit from this investigation. It was admitted that adulteration had been going on for the last ten years, and one manufacturer's traveller, when asked whether he was not surprised that paper should be found in the soles of boots costing seven or eight shillings, frankly replied, “Nothing surprises me in the boot trade.” The public will share his truly Horatian attitude of mind. Some such standard mark as that advocated by Mr. Soper seems to be the only method of protecting the public, if, indeed, the public desires to be protected, which seems doubtful. The ordinary customer is as helpless in a boot shop as in a curiosity shop. He must trust the word of the shopkeeper. And in turn the shopkeeper has to trust the manufacturers. The excuses of some of the latter, that the use of paper instead of leather did not mean any profit for them, or that the workmen could not be stopped from using cardboard fillings, will not do. There would be no adulteration if it were not profitable to adulterate. Adulteration seems to be rampant in most industries. One might even say that in some it is no longer the exception, but the rule. Wool, for example, has been treated just as scurvily as leather. Woollen no longer means woollen, but cotton with a pinch of wool. One has to ask for “guaranteed pure wool”— and pay accordingly—to feel any confidence that one is getting wool. So, too, with flannel and silk, and even cotton is adulterated with minerals to give it an essentially false weight. The ingredients from which “shoddy” is made would terrify the future wearer of it if he could see the “devil” at work, tearing up the noisome rags. Ignorance in this respect is becoming more blissful every year. Cheap sweets, cheap jams, cheap table delicacies, and all kinds of foods, all of which are warranted pure by the manufacturers, are, as a matter of fact, adulterated with impunity, and are all, in reality, “nasty” as well as “cheap.” The impotence of Government departments and of the Legislature in face of this condition of things has been demonstrated ad nauseam, and while such efforts as are made by local authorities to detect and suppress adulteration should receive all possible support and encouragement, it must be admitted that there is only one effective way of dealing with the evil—namely, the supply of guarantees of an independent and authoritative type to retail vendors and purchasers.

The emergence of new manufacturing technologies, spurred by intense competition, will lead to dramatically new products and processes. New management systems, organizational structures, and decision‐making methods will also emerge as complements to new products and processes. This paper attempts to investigate technologies, systems and paradigms for the effective management of networked enterprise (supply chain networks), especially long supply chains. In doing so, the paper presents not only an exhaustive literature review to identify the complexities, gaps and challenges associated with long supply chains but also the emerging enabling technologies to support these gaps and challenges.

The approach takes the form of an interview of industrials, researchers and a literature review.

“Competition in the future will not be between individual enterprises but between competing supply chains.” Business opportunities are captured by groups of enterprises in the same enterprise network. This is due to the global competition that forces enterprises to focus on their core competences.

The paper presents a vision of the future technical issues relating to long supply chains and an insight into the future scientific and industrial advances required to meet future market and public demands.

This research work highlights the research issues and discusses the key enabling features, which will need to evolve and be perfected in industry in the future manufacturing networked enterprises and especially long manufacturing supply chains.

In either 1960 or '61, when I worked in the Acquisitions Department at the D.C Public Library, the Director killed an order for the recently‐published, unexpurgated edition of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover. The Library had stocked the abridged version, which some say is actually more suggestive—“hotter”—than the uncut edition. Professional selectors in the Fiction Department picked the new title. Nobody had objected to it, either in or outside the Library. But the Director canceled the order anyway, fearing that someone on the Congressional Committee that appropriated library funds might complain.

UNTIL 1952 Queen's University was fortunate to have one main library building. With the establishment of the Institute of Clinical Science in the hospital area 1½ miles from the main university site, the formation of a separate medical library near the hospitals was considered essential.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of wine closure types on the quality perception of wine consumers in a traditional wine market, combined with the willingness to pay for red and white wines in bottles closed with screw caps compared with that for wines in bottles with a cork closure.

An online experiment with 436 Austrian wine consumers was conducted in a two-by-two between-groups design. To assess the quality of Austrian red and white wine, quality indicators such as origin, grape variety, awards, the content of residual sugar, vintage, geographical indication, ageing potential, organic certification, vineyard designation and brand (producer) have been applied. Furthermore, different involvement levels as well as willingness to pay were taken into consideration.

Contrary to earlier findings, results confirm that Austrian consumers do not generally perceive wines (both red and white) in a screw cap bottle to be lower or different in quality from those in a cork-closed bottle. However, consumers expect red and white wines in bottles with a cork closure to be higher in price than wines in bottles with a screw cap. Among established quality indicators, the present analysis shows that price is the strongest cue for quality when it comes to wines and indicates that wines in bottles closed with corks and bearing a higher price tag are considered to be of higher quality.

This research comes with limitations, such as the absence of sensory differences. Moreover, the research design is based exclusively on the description of wines and a limited set of quality indicators and does not involve the actual tasting of wines.

Outcomes suggest that in the strategic positioning of wines, the difference in wine consumers’ quality perceptions between wine bottles with screw caps and cork closures plays a smaller role than anticipated. Findings are relevant for practitioners, particularly in old-world wine markets where cork is still seen as the closure of choice for higher-quality wines.

The results of this survey contribute to understanding consumers of an established old-world wine market and their attitudes towards alternative bottle closure types such as screw caps. It adds new insights to the research stream of the quality perception of wines.

Grounded on substantial theories and service concept models, this paper aims at proposing a novel patient satisfaction index (PSI) model. This model allows for identifying the key sources of patient satisfaction and for comparing performance results across hospitals competing on the national and international health-care market. The PSI is also an important benchmark instrument for medical tourism.

The PSI model was initially tested in hospitals in a developed country (the German hospital market). A total of 1,281 complete patient responses were analyzed by means of partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

This model’s sources of competitive advantage – doctors’ and nurses’ interaction quality, environmental quality and outcome quality – mostly explain patient satisfaction, which is the key target construct. The results also reveal that the doctors’ and nurses’ interaction quality is the most salient driver of patient satisfaction.

The proposed PSI model can be generally applied to facilitate the comparison of hospitals on a regional, national and even an international level. In addition, the PSI model helps health-care management facilities prioritize their service components’ improvement (e.g. to attract more medical tourists).

Medical tourists are confronted with a variety of health destinations and may find it difficult to choose an appropriate region and health-care provider. This study contributes to medical tourism research by developing a general patient satisfaction index model for medical tourists.

本论文以多种理论和服务概念为理论基础, 建立全新的患者满意度测量（PSI）模型。此模型涵盖了多种患者满意因素, 以及针对国内和国际健康管理市场上的各种医院, 提供性能和质量比较方法。PSI同时也是医疗旅游很重要的衡量标尺。.

PSI模型首先在发达国家（德国医疗市场）的多家医院进行测试。1281份可用患者问卷用于分析研究。本论文采用偏最小二乘回归结构方程模型（PLS-SEM）为数据分析方法。.

患者满意的影响因素包括：医生和护士与患者的互动质量、环境质量、医疗结果质量等多种竞争优势因素。本论文还发现医生和护士对患者的互动质量是导致患者满意的最显著的因素。.

PSI模型可以被推广应用在区域、国家、甚至跨国医院的比较上面。此外, PSI模型帮助健康看护管理组织更好地优化服务细节 （比如, 吸引更多医疗旅游的患者）。

医疗旅游的患者面临多种健康目的地的选择, 可能会很难选择合适的地方和健康服务结构。本论文为医疗旅游的患者建立完善的患者满意度衡量模型, 对医疗旅游研究做出贡献。.

研究论文