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This study examines the quality of work-life (QoWL) as a formative construct and validates the scale in an Indian context. Taking a cue from the two-factor (Herzberg) theory, the study developed and validated a formative assessment model of QoWL in the current scenario.

Cross-sectional data and a self-administered questionnaire were used to analyze the QoWL scale based on a sample of 841 respondents from IT/ITES, BFSI, CPG and manufacturing sectors. Indicators/items of QoWL were considered a first-order reflective construct, and factors of QoWL were considered second-order formative construct in the study. Embedded two-stage approach was used to assess the antecedent construct in the model in which QoWL was measured with seven formative indicators in stage one, and all the constructs of the QoWL are measured with a single item (Global_QWL, i.e. the essence of all constructs) in stage two.

The study found QoWL as a formative construct with seven significant dimensions; namely, hygiene factors included fairness in compensation (FC), job security (JS), interpersonal relationship (IR), health and wellbeing (HWB), where motivational factors had rewards and career growth (RG), work-life balance (WLB) and learning and development (LD). The study also indicated the strong association of a single item (global_QWL) with all constructs of QoWL. The study findings conceptualize a QoWL as a formative construct within the mentioned sector and can be generalized and extended to other sectors of the economy as well.

Future researchers can take guidance to deal with the formative construct in the development and validation of scale in various topics in the field of HRM. Future researchers can extend the study across cities and different sectors.

In this VUCA world, employees have to be constantly on their toes to ensure their organization remains relevant. In this context, the least organization can do for their employees is to offer a conducive environment and favorable QoWL. This study aims to assist the key decision-makers in applying the QoWL index as a formative construct and aiding them in improving the quality of their decisions.

Researcher believes that applying the QoWL index as a formative construct can aid decision-makers in improving the quality of their decisions by equipping them with relevant inputs and knowledge. Government can focus on the employees' welfare and introduce the current motivational and hygiene factors in the area of quality of life of the Indians.

Formative assessment measurement of QoWL model was validated with the two-factor theory to understand the work environment of India in the private sector across different sectors. The unique finding of the study was a single item (global_QWL) to conclude the QoWL index as a formative construct by redundancy analysis.

In pharmaceutical marketing, salespeople require promotional instruments to satisfy and retain their customers (physicians), but companies ignore the need because of the costs involved. It appears that the importance of promotional support is understood differently by managers and sales representatives. This study aims at developing a new construct called “promotional support”, as a resource support provided to salespeople to help them satisfy customer needs and achieve sales goals.

A detailed review of literature is followed by in-depth interviews to create items for the construct “promotional support”. Substantive validity is performed for identification of items measuring the construct. To initially validate the measures, a vignette study is performed. Formative index development procedure is followed. Data from a sample of 124 pharmaceutical sales representatives are collected and analyzed.

A formative construct is developed which possesses convergent (redundancy analysis) and nomological validity. The results of post hoc validation tests like confirmatory tetrad analysis and inter-item correlation are satisfactory and confirm the authors’ conceptualization.

The scale requires external validation by testing it with different samples such as managers of pharmaceutical firms.

This study will help managers of pharmaceutical firms gain insights into the role and importance of promotional inputs given to their sales representatives.

This study uses the formative scale development procedure to develop promotional support. This construct can be used to understand the effect of promotional support given to pharmaceutical sales representatives on other constructs, which in turn helps in theory-building.

Sport teams not only compete with other teams for the ultimate prize but also for a share of customer mind space. For winning fan loyalty and resultant economic success, management of sport teams need to focus on team-branding, and thus, developing and measuring a team’s brand equity becomes essential, which is the core purpose of this paper.

Current work builds upon previous efforts to develop a reliable and, more importantly, a parsimonious sport team brand-equity (STBE) index, as opposed to the usual multi-dimensional reflective scales, too complicated and not of much use to practitioners.

The authors propose that the STBE index having eight indicators is enough to capture the full domain of the concept and provide a snapshot about the ability of a team’s administration to create strong emotional bonds with its fans.

Apart from demographics of the respondents, an important drawback is that the STBE index is from the perspective of television or online viewers and not those watching live in stadiums. This work contributes to extant sports brand equity literature by proposing a simpler scale made of casual variables, as opposed to reflective scales running into large number of similar items, a first of its kind in this domain. The authors also are able to forward the growing call for developing more of such scales through this effort.

Not only can the present scale be easily used by sport-marketers and researchers, it will be especially useful for marketing managers who want to associate their brands with sport teams, as it affects performance of their own brand.

The work represents a novel effort for developing a team-based brand equity and, to the authors’ knowledge, has not been attempted in this literature before.

The importance of customer satisfaction as a critical success factor has been recognized by practitioners and academics for several years now. Although customer satisfaction plays an important role in industrial markets due to their special characteristics, most researchers focus on consumer goods or services, leaving industrial goods fairly uncovered. In order to give manufacturers of industrial goods well-founded recommendations on how to reach a high level of satisfaction, the main drivers of customer satisfaction have to be revealed. The identification of these drivers is the primary goal of this study. Taking into account that there has been a change of paradigms in scale development we created a state-of-the-art questionnaire consisting of 15 constructs to be measured with 52 items, which was administered to respondents in 12 countries worldwide. The drivers’ analysis using Partial-Least-Squares (PLS) reveals a lot of penalty-services, whereas only the quality of machines and the quality of quotations offer a significant chance on increasing customer satisfaction, therefore disagreeing with previous results.

This study aims to provide a conceptualisation of HR outsourcing (HRO) effectiveness from a service quality perspective and subsequently develop a scale – HROSERVPERF to measure HRO service performance underpinned S-O-R theory.

Grounded on theoretical conceptualisation, literature and information collected through semi-structured interviews, HRO service performance items pool were generated. 257 responses from manufacturing firms in Malaysia that have outsourced their HR were collected. PLS-SEM is used for scale confirmation and validation.

The conceptualisation of HRO effectiveness and HRO service performance suggests a need for scale development that encompasses service quality-satisfaction-loyalty framework supported by S-O-R theory. Operational improvement, resource alignment and service delivery emerged as the service performance dimensions of HROSERVPERF.

This study was limited to manufacturing firms in Malaysia, hence little generalisation could be drawn beyond this context. However, this serves as future research opportunities.

HR managers and service providers can employ HROSERVPERF to measure and improve HRO service performance more effectively. Service providers can re-strategise and target their scarce resources to better retain their clients.

This is the first paper that provides HRO effectiveness conceptualisation from a service quality perspective followed by a scale development with formative measures using PLS-SEM underpinned S-O-R theory.

Massive transformations in mobile communication technologies have forced marketers to recognize and emphasize the factors that influence consumers’ perception of advertising value. This paper aims to explore and rank the various antecedents of advertising value as perceived by consumers to offer meaningful conclusions to marketers on mobile platforms.

Responses were collected from 483 consumers using a shopping mall intercept survey and analyzed using SPSS to confirm reliability, validity and data reduction. The Relative to an Identified Distribution (RIDIT) analysis and Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) methods were then applied to prioritize the scale items of the antecedents of mobile advertising value.

Five antecedents of advertising value were found: credibility, entertainment, informativeness, irritation and message relevance. A priority ranking was allotted to the antecedents’ scale items using the RIDIT analysis and was verified via GRA results with a correlation of 98% between the rankings of the two independent methodologies.

The findings provide a roadmap to determine which antecedents of mobile advertising value have a higher or lower impact on consumers’ overall perceptions of the advertisements they are exposed to on mobile platforms.

This study aims to use first-hand data to prioritize the underlying antecedents of mobile advertising value, which has rarely been done to the best of the authors’ knowledge. It also used two different approaches in a single study to rank the dimensions, thus producing more valid results.

The main purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of promotional inputs presented to salespeople, such as continuing medical education (CME) sponsorship and drug samples, on adaptive selling and sales performance.

This study used a mixed-methods approach. First, depth interviews were done and this was followed by a survey on 247 pharmaceutical executives in India. Data analysis was done using AMOS, Process Macro and floodlight analysis.

Results showed that CME sponsorship and drug samples drove adaptive selling and sales performance positively. Additionally, results reveal that CME program sponsorship negatively moderated the adaptive selling–sales performance relationship; free drug samples too negatively moderated this relationship.

Firms may hire salespersons with high customer orientation and adaptive selling and train them hone these further. The present research also crucially suggests that pharma firms may allocate CME sponsorship and drug samples to salespeople low on adaptive selling.

This could be the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, that uses promotional inputs (such as CME sponsorship and drug samples) as an antecedent to adaptive selling and sales performance. Moreover, this is the only research that has tested CME sponsorships and drug samples as moderators to customer orientation–adaptive selling and adaptive selling–sales performance.

Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

The purpose of this paper is, first, to review the main conceptual proposals for the study of information and communication technologies (ICT) in tourism companies, and second, to develop and validate a formative scale for measuring the degree of technological advancement in hotels, based on the perceptions of a sample of Spanish hotel guests.

After a literature review on the measurement of technology advancement in tourism, a formative scale for ICT advancement in hotels from the guest perspective is developed and validated through a multiple-indicator, multiple-cause model estimated through partial least squares regression with data from 197 Spanish hotel guests.

Results of the empirical research allow validating the proposed formative scale for measuring technological advancement in hotels, identifying solutions that hotel guests mainly associate with highly technified establishments.

The proposed and validated formative scale for measuring the degree of technological advancement of hotels is expected to enable the proposal of models where the relations between central variables in consumer behaviour research (e.g. value) and their dependent variables (e.g. satisfaction) may be influenced by guests’ perception of hotel technology.

This paper presents an initial attempt to develop a scale for measuring the degree of technological advancement of tourism companies, a topic that has received scant attention in acad`emic research in spite of the importance of technology in this industry.

本论文研究目的, 第一, 审阅关于旅游公司的信息通信技术（ICT）相关理论研究；第二, 以西班牙酒店客户为样本, 编制和验证酒店科技先进度的形成性量度。

本论文首先审阅了旅游产业中科技先进度测量的相关文献, 然后通过MIMIC模型编制了从酒店客户角度出发的测量酒店ICT的形成性量度, 最后通过197份西班牙酒店客户样本和偏最小二乘回归来验证模型。

本论文验证了衡量酒店科技先进度的形成性量度, 并且发现各种解决方案, 其酒店客户用来评价高科技酒店个体的标准。

编制和验证的衡量酒店科技先进度的形成性量度, 表明消费者行为学核心概念（比如, 价值）和消费者满意度之间, 是可以由酒店客户对酒店科技度的感知因素来影响的。

本论文首次编制衡量旅游公司科技先进度的量度。尽管科技在行业中被视为很重要, 但是这个话题在科研界受到较少的关注。

科技先进度、信息通信科技、形成性量度、反应性量度、酒店

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