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The axiom that “the customer is always right” is no longer valid when companies realize that some of their customers are not right at all. Paying too much attention to these so‐called “wrong” customers may jeopardize a company's survival and profitability. Right customers have to be retained, “at‐risk” right customers have to be recovered, and wrong customers have to be divested. This study attempts to operationalize the concept of customer “rightness” and “wrongness” in terms of different configurations of attribute satisfaction and overall satisfaction. Based on the result of a discriminant analysis of satisfaction survey data, customers with different configurations of attribute satisfaction and overall satisfaction are re‐examined in terms of switching intention, behavioral patterns and demographic characteristics in order to highlight any significant descriptor.

This study investigates the synergetic impact of joint marketing collaboration between a bank and an affinity organisation on their affinity credit card holders' behaviours. Seeks to identify the sources of the influence of the alliance partners which induce changes in the attitude and behaviour of cardholders.

A theoretical model was developed to reveal the impact of perceived card benefits, affective customer loyalty toward the bank, affective customer loyalty toward the affinity organisation, and perceived prestige of affinity organisation, on the card usage behaviours of customers. Survey data were obtained from 162 students who were holders of a university affinity credit card in Hong Kong.

Findings indicated two routes of influence that affect the intention and behaviours of affinity credit cardholders. The two routes were complementary rather than competitive in a symbiotic collaboration. The first is a cognitive route. It shows that a cardholder's attitude formation is strongly influenced by the cognitive evaluation of card benefits instead of by affective loyalty toward the bank or toward the affinity organisation. The second route is an emotional route of influence. It originates from the perceived prestige of the affinity organisation to cardholders' intention and usage behaviours.

The impact of the symbiotic collaboration on customer behaviours is an important question which has yet to be answered in the literature of strategic alliances. To the best of one's knowledge, this is a pioneering empirical study addressing this research issue.

This paper examined engineers’ satisfaction with services of a building permission unit at a local municipality using a focus group, a questionnaire and follow‐up interviews. Obtained satisfaction indexes are reported. Differences in satisfaction levels were tested using parametric t‐tests and Kruskal‐Wallis non‐parametric tests according to engineer’s specialization, size of office and number of building projects submitted to the building permission unit. The results indicate no significant statistical differences in satisfaction levels based on specialization (civil engineers versus architectural engineers), size of the consulting office, or the number of projects submitted. However, satisfaction indexes were not high. They were about 60 per cent.

To provide a concise briefing on the most topical issues and relevant implications from the top 400 management publications in the world.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the argument in context.

The article, written in the academic style of exploratory research, reviews the literature on the concept of customer “rightness” and “wrongness” and fleshes out certain new perspectives in the context of the Hong Kong mobile‐telephone industry.

Provides implementable strategies and practical thinking that has influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

With the growth of worldwide e‐commerce, companies are increasingly targeting foreign online consumers. However, there is a dearth of evidence as to whether global consumers prefer to browse and buy from standardized global web sites or web sites adapted to their local cultures. This study provides evidence from five different countries as to whether global consumers prefer local web content or standardized web content. The study also measures how the degree of cultural adaptation on the web affects consumer perception of site effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to propose that customer readiness and web-channel readiness for internet banking (IB) adoption are the twin universal determinants of retail customers’ attitudes and intention towards IB-adoption. The paper delineates IB-readiness as the state of preparedness, ability, and willingness to engage in IB, and the authors argue that both the potential banking customer and the financial institution's web-channel must be equally ready before IB-adoption can occur. This paper presents the results of the initial test of the IB-readiness model with a sample of retail banking customers in Scotland.

Nine customer-related and ten channel-related predictor-variables isolated from existing literature were tested for their effects on attitude and intention towards IB-adoption. Seven demographic mediators were also tested for their impacts on the effects of the predictor-variables on attitude and intention. A sample of 1,000 customers was surveyed. Multiple regression and logistic regression analyses were used to test the influence of the predictors and mediators.

Of the seven mediators, only three were significant. Also, only eight of the original 19 predictor-variables were significant, with the impact of mediation, in determining customer attitude and intention towards IB-adoption.

The results present some consumer behaviour and marketing communications implications for bank marketing. To convince potential customers to adopt and continue using IB, bank marketers must ensure that the eight predictors validated in this study are facilitated and sustained.

A valuable contribution of the paper to the global IB-adoption theory is an equal evaluation model of potential universal antecedents of IB-adoption – the “EQUAEVAL” – which can be further-tested in future cross-national research.

This paper aims to investigate the ability of performance measurement systems (PMS) that were implemented by headquarters at foreign subsidiaries to influence decisions made by the subsidiary. This is important because PMS are important control mechanisms in the relationship between headquarters and subsidiaries within multinational firms.

Acknowledging that controlling foreign subsidiaries is particularly challenging when they are geographically distant to headquarters, the authors collect survey‐based data from Chinese subsidiaries of multinational firms. They develop several hypotheses which are tested on a sample of 148 subsidiaries using multiple regression analysis.

The results suggest that the influence of headquarter‐designed PMS on subsidiary decisions is higher when the compensation of subsidiary management is linked to PMS, when additional formal control is enforced, when PMS are affected by external events, when PMS are comprehensive, and when subsidiaries are embedded into the local business environment. Also, the authors find a negative interaction effect between comprehensive PMS and the extent to which PMS are affected by external events on the decision‐influence of PMS.

Limitations arise from the study setting in China. As management accounting research originates from and has mostly focused on Western countries, it remains somewhat unclear whether the constructs and instruments used in this study are fully transferable to China, despite the statistical and conceptual remedies that were applied.

The study offers new insights into the role of PMS in multinational companies. It extends earlier research by offering empirical evidence from one of the most important emerging economies. As such, the results are relevant for almost every global firm using PMS to control foreign subsidiaries.

This paper aims to report on the results of a study carried out to establish the contribution of business choice and location decision to the success of small and medium enterprises in an emerging economy like Uganda.

This study is cross-sectional and correlational. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of 181 small and medium restaurants. The data were analyzed through correlation coefficients and hierarchical regression using statistical package for social sciences.

The findings reveal that both business choice and location decisions positively and significantly contribute to the success of small and medium enterprises. However, it was noted that more attention should be paid to location decision than business choice as determinants of SME success.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the contribution of business choice and location decision to the success of SMEs using evidence from a developing African country like Uganda. Finally, this research offers practical contributions to managers and owners of SMEs who have to make strategic decisions for firm profitability, survival and growth in the competitive business arena.

Considers the questions asked by F. Engels (1888): “Which is primary, spirit or nature?” and by Max Delbruch (1986): “How can we construct a theory of a universe without life, and therefore without mind, and then expect life and mind to evolve, somehow, from this lifeless and mindless beginning?” Views these questions historically and interprets them with further questions and analysis. Discusses the Logos doctrine and the development of scientific methodology. Asks a further question: “Can mindless objects obey mathematical laws?”. Examines the limitations of Leibniz as a scientist and the importance of his monadology. Finally, discusses Haldane’s views on the mind of a material system. Includes an extensive appendix which elaborates on the “curious vocabulary” used by the pioneers who founded wave mechanics.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the underlying characteristics that influence quality management implementation at manufacturing companies operating in China.

The data of this study were based on 199 manufacturing companies collected from a cross‐sectional survey in China. The cultural profiles of these companies were identified through cluster analysis. Multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to identify the effects of operating characteristics and cultural profile on the implementation level of quality management practices.

The results show that in general, there is no significant difference in implementing quality management practices among companies of different operating characteristics in terms of company size, industry, ownership, and production process. This study reveals that cultural profile is a distinguishing factor to explain the difference in quality management implementation among the companies.

As China is becoming an important supplier of products to the global market, it is necessary to understand how product quality is controlled and managed in China. This study examines the effects of operating and cultural characteristics of companies in China on their implementation of quality management practices. The results contribute to a deeper understanding of how to build an effective quality system at companies in China.