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The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of culture on service quality and customer satisfaction.

By extending GIQUAL, an instrument developed for measuring service quality in Greek Insurance, to measure the culture of individuals, hypotheses on all 25 possible relationships between the dimensions of culture and of service quality are determined and tested. The relationships between the dimensions of service quality and customer satisfaction, in the light of culture, are further examined.

Of the 25 hypothesized relationships between the dimensions of culture and of service quality, 23 are confirmed and the remaining two are directionally supported. The hypothesized importance of the service quality dimensions is also confirmed. However, the expected association between the importance of quality dimensions and the strength of their relationships with customer satisfaction is only directionally supported. Although the typology of Hofstede is used in the study, a culture different from the one specified for Greece by Hofstede's scores is exposed.

The main limitations of this study are first, that it is based on a single service industry and secondly, that convenience sampling is used. However, its methodology and conclusions provide a solid basis for future research.

Insight on using culture for directing resources where quality investments are needed most is provided to managers. Although weak, the directional support for the hypothesized effect of the importance of quality dimensions on their relationships with customer satisfaction enhances the value of the findings. Different sub‐cultures that may be found in varying market segments can be used for determining quality investment priorities.

This study explores the effects of culture on service quality and customer satisfaction drawing evidence from Greek Insurance.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the path service quality → customer satisfaction → loyalty, at the level of constructs, drawing from the Greek insurance industry.

A SERVQUAL type service‐quality instrument is developed for Greek insurance. Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses are used to determine the scale's dimensionality. Path analysis is utilized to examine a model linking service quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty at the level of constructs' individual determinants.

SERVQUAL's dimensionality is not confirmed. A non‐tangibles, tangibles structure exists in Greek insurance. “Tangibles” does not affect customer satisfaction while WOM is an antecedent of repurchasing intentions. Satisfaction does not directly influence the latter.

This study suffers the limitation that it tests the fit of the model within the limits of a single service industry. Another limitation is availability sampling. However, the satisfactory fit of the estimated model allows for the study to be a reliable comparison basis for future research.

Insurance managers may use GIQUAL for measuring the quality of insurance services offered. They must improve the intangible rather than the tangible elements of service and direct their support mechanisms towards developing customers willing to engage in positive WOM. The proposed model can be used to provide comparable findings across sectors, countries and time provided that, in each case, an appropriately customized SERVQUAL type scale is used.

This study explores the service quality, satisfaction, and loyalty path at the level of specific dimensions drawing from Greek insurance.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the potential of importance‐performance (IP) analysis as a decision‐making tool for service management, employing IP analysis to assess the performance of Greek insurance in delivering quality services.

Data were collected in a two‐stage survey. In both stages, respondents were asked to provide importance and performance scores, in identical seven‐point Likert scales, for the 25 service attributes identified for Greek insurance. In order to qualify for the sample, individuals had to be over the age of 25 and have at least one insurance policy and one service encounter with their insurers within the previous three months. The two methodological streams of IP analysis, “gap analysis” and IP maps, were employed to analyse the data.

The value of importance‐performance analysis as a tool for managerial decision making in services was reaffirmed. Contrary to previous findings on insurers' reluctance to respond to their customers' quality requests, Greek insurance was found to have adequate reflexes in this respect. In stage one, the dimensions Responsiveness and Assurance were positioned in the “keep up the good work”, Reliability in the “concentrate”, Empathy in the “low priority” and Tangibles in the “possible overkill” quadrants of the importance‐performance map. In stage two, the industry was found to have taken actions towards keeping‐up with its customers' requirements.

The main limitations of this study are that it was based on a single service industry and that convenience sampling was used. However, its methodology and results are valid for various industries in the service sector and provide a solid basis for future research.

Service managers can exploit the approach taken by this study to improve service management. Greek insurers have to keep considering the needs and wants of their customers regarding service delivery.

Many large companies in Europe include mainly men in supervisory boards and the women quota is often lower than 20%. In Germany an optional women quota of 30% in supervisory boards was proposed for capital-market-oriented companies in 2016. Some assume that without a gender quota the earnings of enterprises would shrink as male and female members in supervisory teams do not work in such a harmonized and structured way. Others think that a women quota in supervisory boards should be requested by law and should not remain optional. In this context, conducting research and analyzing the impact of the women’s presence in supervisory boards on the success of companies appear as a necessary topic. The present chapter looks at the companies of EURO STOXX 50 in the year 2015 and their success and tries to establish whether this success can be related to the percentage of female members in supervisory positions. It replicates in this way the study of Binder, Alonso-Almeida, and Bremser (2016) which analyzed the relationship between female’s representation in the management board (executive board) and firm performance (measured by earnings before taxes – EBT) of the EURO STOXX 50 companies in 2014. It is in the same time an extension of the original study as the supervisory board is brought under scrutiny.

This chapter from a brief review of the relevant literature on the energy markets points out the changes in the relationships between energy companies and customers through the Web. The objective is to highlight the changes of the energy markets thanks to the web demonstrating that it is able to ensure the raising of the switching rates and hence the competition, goal of the liberalization of public services. To this end, the authors will use secondary data from Accenture researches about the perceptions of customers and energy companies around the relations established via the web, and the CUAC for the switching mode performed in the State of Victoria in Australia.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have become one of the key growth strategies for firms. However, the management literature fails to consistently explain the paradox of the increasing activity of both cross-border and domestic M&A versus their poor performance. Scholars recently contend that not all M&A are alike. This research will explore how different characteristics of M&A relate to different M&A implementation approaches – namely exploitation versus exploration may better relate to M&A performance. Furthermore, it will provide various propositions that have the potential to foster future research directions.

Since the dawn of the civilizations that olive has been playing a critical role on both the society and the economy. Indeed, one can argue that olive and olive oil were as critical as they shaped a form of culture, a seminal pillar that supported the Mediterranean civilizations and that has since then spread worldwide, influencing others. As waves and tides, the use of olive and olive oil has certainly met low points, to the extent that its use even became to be considered old fashioned more recently, when the traditional Mediterranean food and culture started to be jeopardized by very different modern ways of living. Nevertheless, despite defying challenging conditions, stubbornly as always, the Mediterranean diet not only continues to prevail, but keeps granting the admiration of diverse strands of the society and science, being notoriously evident the set of recent research that points to its health benefits, having olive oil as the cornerstone, a vegetable fat, considered to be highly healthy, as it enhances the control of important health indicators, such as the bad cholesterol, serving for nutritional and therapeutic uses, and preventing the occurrence of a number of diseases, including cardiovascular problems and some forms of cancer.

Taking into consideration this framework, the research presented in this book is focused on the examination of the main trends on olive and olive oil in the Iberian Peninsula, from production to retail and consumption, by analyzing several data sets covering recent decades. In terms of findings for more recent years, it was possible to conclude that despite the increasing recognition of the benefits of olive and olive oil by the society, and despite the increase in olive production, the consumption of olive oil has been decreasing internally, being replaced by increases in exports. This is most probably due to the economic conditions that have deteriorated due to the 2008’s financial crisis, which, together with an increase in olive oil prices, has prevented a considerable portion of the population to have financial conditions to access to the consumption of such an important component of the Mediterranean diet.

The purpose of this paper is to better predict customers’ behavioral intentions (BI) by developing and empirically testing an integrative conceptual framework that allows us to investigate the mediating role of corporate image (CI) and switching barriers (SB) in the interrelationships among service evaluation constructs (i.e. service quality (SQ), perceived value and customer satisfaction (CS)) and customers’ future intentions. These relationships are explored in the mobile telecommunications service context.

Around 1,000 customers of mobile telecommunication services were questioned using a structured questionnaire. To test the proposed hypotheses, a model was constructed and estimated using the method of partial least squares path methodology.

Findings indicate that the provision of high-SQ and the creation of superior value, through the development of reasonable costs, can result in high-CS; enhanced CI, and either directly or indirectly through SB, in customers’ favorable BI. However, given the price-competitive structure of the industry under investigation, customers’ loyalty decisions are mainly based on service-related criteria. The value of and satisfaction from delivered services are far more important decision criteria, than image and SB.

This study was limited to one service setting and the proposed model should be cross-validated in other service contexts before the relationships among its components are fully clarified. Also the use of cross-section design reduces inference ability regarding temporal changes in research constructs.

Results suggest that marketers, in their effort to develop more customer-oriented marketing plans in mature markets, should consider both the pool-in factors, reflecting the value of the provided services; CS, and CI, and the interactions among them as well as with the push-back factors, reflecting SB, as they all impact on customers’ BI.

This paper contributes to the body of existing knowledge by considering both CI and SB, along with other service evaluation constructs, as antecedents of consumers’ BI. The interrelationships among SB, service evaluation and CI has not been adequately addressed in the existing literature.

The expected growth of elders and chronically ill patients requires health insurers and health-care systems to shift from primarily focusing on the care of the sick to focusing both on care of the sick and on preventive health care. Public expectations for high-quality health care call for a new, more profound, and more actionable understanding of the healthy customer’s mind regarding health-promoting behaviors. Mind-Genomics may become the next big idea in health service. The relation between Mind-Genomics and data-driven personalized health plans is now being systematically explored. Some of the findings are reported in this research project.

Methodology: Respondents were 200 members of the Excellus American health fund. Based on measures of patient experience the authors created and tested concepts of messaging. The authors conducted a series of conjoint-based designed experiments to establish response patterns to our messaging. The authors analyzed data using Mind-Genomics, an empirical “micro-science” for discovering psychographic mind-sets and mapping motivating messages for healthy behaviors.

Results: The authors segmented patients by attitudes, perceptions, preferences, needs, and behaviors by their responses to messaging, thereby uncovering underlying psychographic mind-sets. The authors used the Personal Viewpoint Identifier to tag each person in the population by a sample mind-set and use the right messaging.

Discussion: To understand the mind of the patient regarding health plans, health funds may use the powerful tools of Mind-Genomics. Health insurers and health systems may implement Mind-Genomics as the next frontier of knowledge development to offer customized health plans, thus investing in preventive medicine.