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Despite the extensive body of research on the relationship between trust and performance in a supply chain environment, the concepts and the relationship between them has not been fully understood. The purpose of this paper is to develop a model that links the antecedents of trust, trust itself and firm outcome success.

A questionnaire survey was conducted to gather the data for this study. Statistical analysis included factor analysis with reliability and validity tests, and partial least square of structural equation modeling.

The data suggest that trust is built principally through supplier centric traditional performance metrics such as delivery reliability and product quality conformance. However, contrary to the extant literature, the people oriented trust enablers (e.g. personnel exchange, interpersonal contacts) have no bearing on the establishment of trust.

The research limitation is the relatively small sample size. However, this study can be perceived as a directional one for further research.

The results can be used by the managers to improve their understanding on the relationship with other parties in the supply chain.

The significant value of this research can be retained by buying firm managers. The results are particularly important for them to improve their understanding in how they allocate time and resources in managing their supply chains and partner firms.

The design of new services is a fundamental element of a firm’s growth strategy but, despite some recent work, our knowledge of the new service design process remains weak. This paper examines the impact of service culture and internal politics on the design, introduction success and rejection of new service design proposals. The extant literature is reviewed, a conceptual framework is developed and several longitudinal case examples are discussed. The results indicate that existing service culture can have a significant impact on modifying the new service design proposal making implementation success and high customer satisfaction levels more difficult to achieve. Several propositions for future research are presented.

Investigates the change in requirements to sustain supplier alliances as the relationship matures. Notes that the trend to outsource more materials and services has made firms more reliant on their sources of supply. This has led to a move towards increasingly collaborative supplier relationships, referred to as supplier alliances. Widespread use of these relationships is new and relatively little is known about the attributes that may promote success or failure. A recent paper concludes that such “partnership” relationships tend to expand and be more successful with each year following establishment. Tests this assumption using a longitudinal survey of 41 buyer‐supplier relationships. Finds that the purchasing firms perceived some improvements in benefits from their alliance‐like relationships but not significantly more than those which maintained traditional relationships. Also finds that the factors leading to improved benefits changed significantly as the alliance matured, with specific information flows becoming key. Proposes a profile of the relative importance of these factors over time.

Many firms have entered into strategic supplier alliances as a means of leveraging technology and as part of their continuous improvement efforts. The advantages and disadvantages from such an approach and the implementation problems are well known. However, knowledge of how these relationships evolve and dissolve over time is weak, hindered in part by cross‐sectional and a one‐perspective approach to empirical research. Presents the results from a survey based study of matched buyer and supplier pairs over time. Examines negative and positive trend relationships for predictive and explanatory causes. Data did not support the theory that the subordinated use of power can help to explain continued success and satisfaction with the relationship nor did negative trend relationships necessarily mean dissatisfaction. However, negative trend relationships appear to be predictable based on overly optimistic expectations that the benefits from such efforts will be forthcoming and reluctance on the part of buying firms to share information.

Studies focusing on service quality management suggest that service firms spend too little effort on planning for service quality. The ensuing costs associated with poor service quality planning lead to lower profitability as part of the “cycle of service failures”. Examines how a quality planning technique (quality function deployment) (QFD) can be modified and adapted for use in a service environment to help prevent service failures. Illustrates the potential for the quality function deployment process as an effective tool at both the strategic planning level and the tactical level using the front‐desk activities in a hotel as an example. Also discusses the potential application of the QFD process to other design and planning challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of trust with suppliers on hospital-supplier integration (SI) and hospital supply chain (SC) performance. Additionally, the mediating effect of SI on trust-hospital SC performance is investigated.

A research model and hypotheses were developed based on literature review. The study is based on survey data collected from 152 respondents in 55 private hospitals in Jordan. The proposed hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

The paper finds that trust with suppliers has a positive impact on hospital-SI and hospital SC performance. Hospital-SI partially mediates the relationship between trust and hospital SC performance.

The findings of this research provide useful insights into the role of trust in boosting SC performance in the healthcare sector. High levels of SI not only improve hospital SC performance but also enhance the transformation of trust benefits into SC performance.

This research is one of the limited studies that investigated the effect of trust on hospital-SI and hospital SC performance in the healthcare sector. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate those relationships in the Middle East in general and in Jordan in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess the interrelationships between various characteristics of information sharing and trust and their criticality for effective information-centred supply chain collaboration initiatives and, in turn, its criticality to overall firm’s performance.

A survey of 189 executives from different firms was conducted and the resulting data were analysed to investigate how collaboration enablers affect effective collaboration and to determine its impacts on organisational performance. Structural equation modelling through partial least squares is used to study the relationships between four enablers (trust, information readiness, information accuracy and information security), perceived collaboration success, and two outcomes (sales growth and overall operational performance).

The empirical results indicate that three collaboration enablers including trust, information readiness and secure sharing of information improve supply chain collaboration. The present study finds that “secure sharing of information” was the most important factor in fostering information sharing-centred collaboration. The present study also demonstrates that effective collaboration positively and significantly influences on firm’s performance.

This study provides researchers and practitioners with a more comprehensive understanding about the information sharing-centred collaboration, its enablers and effects on firms’ performance in a supply chain context. Future research should focus on developing additional constructs that may capture other drivers of effective collaboration.

The present study makes an empirical contribution to the body of knowledge by investigating an integrated framework focussing on the enablers of collaboration through information sharing and its impact on firms’ performance.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on how representative the literature is in identifying industrial practice to designing product‐service systems (PSSs).

The paper analyses literature to report on the existing approaches used to design PSSs. A single exploratory case study approach, based on semi‐structured interviews and archival data analysis, was used to understand an existing product‐service organisation's approach to designing PSSs. A total of 12 senior managers were interviewed from a cross section of the organisation, to gain multiple perspectives on the PSS design process and ten company reports were analysed.

The research has identified that the PSS design process reported by literature is not representative, lacking inputs and outputs to some phases and feedback. In total, 18 inputs and 11 outputs have been identified from the case study that are not reported by the literature. These create five feedback loops within the PSS design process used by the case study organisation. This suggests that the PSS design process is cyclic and iterative and not sequential, as reported by existing literature.

This research is based on a single‐case study approach, limiting the ability to generalise findings, and does not provide a complete PSS design approach.

This research compares literature against industrial practice to PSS design, presenting insight to aid practitioner's design PSSs.

This paper fills a gap in the servitization and PSS literatures; evaluating the approaches reported by literature against existing industrial practice.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.