Search results

This paper first aims to examine associations between factors involved in business-to-business complaints management and results (satisfaction and loyalty) and analyses three types of distributors based on their cultural profile (domestic, low context and high context). Second, the paper investigates whether the identified associations remain stable over time.

Data from a sample of distributors for a manufacturing company were gathered during two periods of time. A factorial analysis of correspondences and a cluster analysis were carried out to visually represent the associations among clients, complaints and results in the associations among clients, complaints and results. The stability over time of these relationships was also analysed by calculating the correlations between the Euclidean distances on the two maps (one per year) and their mobility ratio.

The authors found significant evidence that clients from different cultures are associated with varying profiles of complaint and different result types and that certain associations remain stable over time.

While many studies have analysed complaint behaviour in business-to-consumer contexts, there is a lack of research from an international business-business relations point of view, leaving questions virtually unexplored. Second, the last phases of supply chain management, specifically complaints management, have been undeveloped, limiting the cultural factor to the general scope of negotiation. In this vein, this paper compares different complaint profiles and results, comparing culturally different customers/distributors. Third, research has mostly referred to a single period, while this paper investigates two different periods of time for the same company (and their distributors) to analyse the relevance of the stability (or not) over time of the associations identified.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the level of efficiency in the Mexico electricity industry during the 2008-2015 period.

A data envelopment analysis (DEA) network model is proposed, where technical efficiency is calculated. A factorial analysis using the principal components method was carried out first. Later, latent dimensions were calculated through the variance criterion and sedimentation graph, where four components were presented. After performing factor rotation, the nodes were grouped: generation, transmission, distribution and sales. It proceeded later to structure a DEA network model.

From the calculations made, the most efficient node was the transmission, while the North Gulf and East Center divisions were the only efficient.

The limitations presented in this study were data collection.

The implications that were observed were that through the results obtained, proposals can be made to the Mexican electricity sector to improve each of the nodes, and have a better operation and reduce energy losses.

The social impact of this type of study is that based on the results obtained, they present the basis for improving energy policy and users can have a better service that has better quality and coverage.

The originality of this study consists in the use of two methodologies, factor analysis methodology and DEA network model.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the current positioning of online banking in Spain.

Netnography, a new technique for obtaining information.

The collection and analysis of 261 valid messages from two online consumer portals enables us to observe the existence of two competitor groups and two types of attributes. On the one hand, consumers perceive online banking as competitors depending on their size; and on the other hand, negative (or positive) aspects are compensated (or accepted) as a result of greater (or lesser) profitability. This means that different forms of value creation are offered with online banking clients.

The methodology used represents an innovative way to determine the positioning of online banking and could be extended to other digital products.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the use of a phototherapeutic technique called “Talking Pictures” within the forensic setting. This approach involves the use of a set of photographs to facilitate clients’ disclosure, self-growth and promote the development of positive self-narratives. The use of art therapies and the construction of adaptive identity narratives have been proven to support desistance and increase resocialization in the prison population.

A 42-year-old Italian male offender was met for six therapy sessions and invited to talk about his past, present and future through the use of photographs. Session transcripts were analysed using the software for linguistic analysis T-LAB.

Results show a progression in the language used during the sessions: in the beginning the client uses a denotative language with many concrete nouns and no emotional words, in subsequent sessions his speech begins to assume more symbolic connotations and emotional words are used to describe past traumas as well as to find new meanings to present events. Moreover, the fixity of the client’s self-image is contrasted with the emergence of new sides to his personality encompassing agency and self-worth.

The study is based on a single case, therefore results cannot be generalised to the prison population; moreover, the absence of any follow-up and standardized measurements of the client’s progression should be addressed by future research by both involving larger samples and including follow-up and quantitative measures of the study results.

The paper provides details on an innovative technique that might be used to explore the offenders’ goods and values and to develop truly redemptive rehabilitation programmes.

This paper adds to the scant literature on phototherapy in prisons and connects it with a reflection on desistance indicating that phototherapeutic interventions might be used to promote positive self-narratives, thus increasing desistance.

This paper aims to analyze the sustainability approach within higher education institutions. Universities, as institutions of knowledge, play an important and strategic role in maximizing social and economic benefits in a hands-on way. However, some studies on sustainable development and HEIs reveal a distancing between students and the application of sustainable initiatives in universities. This fact differs from the premises of the Talloires Declaration, which points to students as a community and as global leaders and ambassadors for sustainability.

This paper mapped the approaches, present in the literature, used to develop sustainable campuses and in particular the apparent dichotomy between the changes indicated as top-down or bottom-up in HEIs. To that end, scientific articles focused on sustainable actions in HEIs were analyzed to identify implementation approaches for sustainable development and student involvement in the process.

Results have shown that sustainability promotion models in universities generally occur in a top-down manner, where students are receptors and not sources of development for sustainable policies in universities. Thus, the authors highlight the importance of students becoming central players in sustainable initiatives.

The article becomes original when it identifies the dichotomy between top-down and bottom-up approaches. It does so through multidimensional scaling and exploratory factorial analysis in scientific articles on the topic Sustainability Funding in Higher Education. These findings show that, unlike what is discussed in the literature, sustainability promotion in universities generally occurs in a top-down manner, where students are receptors and not active agents in promoting sustainability. In response to this, the authors discussed the importance of the bottom-up approach, where they are key players.

This paper tries to find out the different research fronts that have recently defined the scientific area of organizational studies. These fronts represent the paradigms or theories that the current research in the most relevant journals is based on. A study of how trends develop in those journals is also done. Quite different from other typologies, this work has used an empirical method of analyzing the literature references found in the articles published in some of the most relevant journals in this field in recent years.

Based on a lexical analysis of publications on 529 Facebook pages, published between 2013 and 2017, this research explores how Brazilian left-wing activist groups participate on Facebook to coordinate their opposition and engage in social struggles. This chapter shows how activist groups set up two main digital network repertoires of action when mobilizing on Facebook. First, in direct connection with major political events, the platform is used as a media arena to challenge governments’ political actions and second, it is employed as a tool to coordinate mobilization, whether these mobilizations are demonstrations on the street or at cultural events, such as at a music concert. These repertoires of action exemplify ways in which contemporary Brazilian activism is carried out at the intersection of online and offline engagements. While participants engage through these two repertoires, this network of activists is held together over time through a more mundane type of event, pertaining to the repertoire of action allowing the organization of mobilization. Stepping aside from opposition and struggles brought to the streets, the organization of cultural activities, such as concerts and exhibitions, punctuates the everyday exchanges in activists’ communications. Talk about cultural events and their related social agendas structures activist networks on a medium-term basis and creates the conditions for the coordination of (future) social movements, in that they offer the opportunities to stay in contact, in addition to taking part in occasional gatherings, between more highly visible social protests.

To explore the factors that affect the implementation of Internet technologies and to what extent the size of the company, as an organizational factor, influences that process.

According to the innovation adoption theory, it was found that Internet adoption in firms is a process with different stages where a company is in one of a number of development stages depending on some variables related to organizational factors, such as the availability of technology resources, organizational structure, and managerial capabilities. The paper identified empirically different stages in the Internet adoption process and linked them with those factors. It analyzed questionnaire‐based data from 280 companies, applying factor and clustering analysis.

Four main groups of companies were found according to their stage in the adoption of Internet technologies. The paper established that, contrary to the literature suggestions, the size of the company does not have any effect on the availability of these Internet technologies but it does for managerial capabilities. The smaller the size of the firm, the greater the possibilities of using external advice in adopting Internet technologies, because small firms usually have fewer managerial capabilities. In the mean time, a more sophisticated technology development was identified in larger firms.

As in all empirical research, the characteristics of this study limit the applicability of the findings. First, the study concentrated in businesses that already were using Internet technologies, because they have registered their domain name. Consequently, the study firms that did not have a Spanish domain name were omitted; however, firms could have a “.com” or “.org” domain name and still be Spanish firms. Also, other companies without any domain name on the Internet were not included in the study. Second, the study applied a classification analysis with exploratory purposes about the characteristics of the business according to the cluster of pertinence. Nevertheless, a longitudinal study could be more useful explaining whether or not these companies follow the process described. Third, a more detailed questionnaire with more specific questions could be more helpful to gain a better description of the phases of a more sophisticated technology adoption (i.e. the acceptance/routinization and infusion stages).

This paper has some relatively important managerial implications. First, the fact of having a domain name does not mean that the companies are in the acceptance/routinization phase and even less in the infusion phase. From this, the paper identified how the majority of firms were in the so‐called initial stages of the Internet technologies adoption process. Second, it is possible that managers who do not perceive the strategic value of these technologies are managing the majority of these firms. Third, as more businesses implement these technologies in their processes, presumably more competitive pressure will exist to adopt Internet technologies.

This paper contributes to the research into the organizational factors that affect Internet adoption.

This paper aims to offer a multi-dimensional scale for measuring the concept of perceived unfairness of revenue management pricing (RMP) in the context of hospitality.

To develop a measurement scale for the perceived unfairness of RMP, the authors conducted a qualitative study using the critical incident technique to identify the key components of our measurement tool. They then collected two samples of quantitative data enabling them to have compelling evidence of the scale’s reliability and validity.

This research identified three dimensions of perceived unfairness of RMP in the context of hospitality: perceived normative deviation, perceived opacity and negative effects. The new scale proposed here is an alternative measurement instrument that could be useful for detecting and correcting some negative aspects of RMP.

This measurement scale will help hotel managers to detect potential feelings of unfairness in relation to the RMP policies. It might also be used within the framework of market analyses and pricing strategy plans. Finally, the results of this research show that transparency, fairness and ethics based pricing could help hotel managers increase their revenue-per-available-room during and post COVID-19 pandemic.

This research develops a complete measurement scale for perceived unfairness of RMP, including cognitive and affective dimensions. The richness of this scale will help hospitality companies effectively identify the indicators that denote perceived unfairness of RMP, making them better equipped to handle customer dissatisfaction.

The present study is part of a joint effort to gain a holistic understanding of the consumption experience. This paper aims to understand the essence of the winery experience through a better characterisation of the latter because of the consumer value approach and to define the main cultural differences between the Old World and the New World in this respect.

The authors felt that netnography offered the most suitable qualitative method to capture the meaning of a winery experience in an international context. To this end, we collected 3,065 original tourist reviews for 35 wineries, written from January 2015 to June 2016.

The findings suggest that a winery experience is made up of the following values: “hedonic”, “economic”, “social” and “legacy”. In addition, the results indicate that social and legacy values are more important for the Old World, while the New World tends to put more emphasis on economic and hedonic values.

Wineries need to deliver experiences that encourage tourists to explore what their enterprise has to offer. Given the importance of the customer experience to trigger wine purchases and positive word-of-mouth to promote brand loyalty, the findings can help winery managers to adapt their services in consequence.

Few studies have applied a consumer value approach or used netnography to examine tourists’ experiences from a cross-cultural perspective.