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With the emergence of the knowledge economy different countries are responding with changes within their tertiary education systems. Education is increasingly recognized as a cornerstone to the continued growth of a country but with the globalization of business is education becoming a commodity?

This paper examines educational policies and their implementation within the UK and Canada.

This paper finds that education in the UK has become a commercial product within the international arena, unlike Canada where tertiary education has remained a domestic pursuit.

This paper engages in a controversy that questions whether the economic value to a nation of education is found only in the numbers of students or can be enlarged to include the results of the education for the students.

Investigating employee responses to relational fulfilment of the psychological contract and work‐life benefits of a telecommuting program, this study aims to contribute to the literature on social exchange in employment.

The setting of the study was the German public administration. Survey data from 947 Civil Servants were analyzed in structural equation models. Analysis of mean structure was used to compare telecommuting participants (n=601) and regular workers (n=346).

Trust and affective commitment consecutively mediated between relational fulfilment of the psychological contract and organizational citizenship behavior. Members of the telecommuting program had more positive representations of social exchange, reporting higher levels of fulfilment, trust, and commitment than their peers.

Reliance on cross‐sectional self‐report data poses a limitation. Selection effects in the quasi‐experimental design for comparing telecommuters and regular employees cannot be ruled out. Generalizability to more transactional or short‐term employment is debatable.

The study adds to a more integrated understanding of the psychological processes that reinforce and strengthen employee trust and commitment, thus forming the basis of the motivation to go above and beyond specified duties and reward‐contingent behavior.

This study aims to identify specific changes in the content of the psychological contract during mergers and acquisitions (M&As), looking into both the “previous” and the “current” psychological contract.

A total of 255 non‐managerial employees who had recently gone through a MorA, participated in the study. They were asked to evaluate both their previous psychological contract (prior to the MorA) and their current psychological contract (after the MorA). Paired t‐tests provided support for the propositions stated.

Statistical analysis revealed that employee perceptions of both organizational obligations and contributions change after a MorA. Furthermore, employees with limited coping with changes ability are more likely to consider that their contract has changed after a MorA.

The cross‐sectional character of this study may have increased common method bias. Still, no other option existed in this organizational setting.

These findings suggest that major organizational changes, such as MorA significantly impact on individuals' view of their employment relationship. In fact, employees that feel confident in handling organizational changes are more prone to believe that their psychological contract has replaced by a new, subordinate one. Consequently, it is important that organizational agents shield employees against M&As negative impact by fostering coping with changes ability.

The paper offers insights into psychological contracts after a major organizational change.

Addresses the standardization of the measurements and the labels for concepts commonly used in the study of work organizations. As a reference handbook and research tool, seeks to improve measurement in the study of work organizations and to facilitate the teaching of introductory courses in this subject. Focuses solely on work organizations, that is, social systems in which members work for money. Defines measurement and distinguishes four levels: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Selects specific measures on the basis of quality, diversity, simplicity and availability and evaluates each measure for its validity and reliability. Employs a set of 38 concepts ‐ ranging from “absenteeism” to “turnover” as the handbook’s frame of reference. Concludes by reviewing organizational measurement over the past 30 years and recommending future measurement reseach.

Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) are employees’ proactive individualized negotiations with their employer for higher job autonomy corresponding to their competencies and values. The path to i-deals in the organization can commence with value-based human resource (HR) practices. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this path from value-based HR practices to i-deals through the mediating roles of corporate social responsibility (CSR), emotional intelligence (EI) and upward influence behaviors.

The hypothesized model was verified through the structural equation modeling-based analysis of cross-sectional data from 362 respondents from Vietnam-based software companies.

Research findings found value-based HR practices as the starting point of the path to i-deals, in which consecutive crucial milestones are ethical CSR, EI and organizationally beneficial upward influence behaviors.

I-deals literature, through this empirical inquiry, is further extended by discovering the socialized driving forces, such as CSR and EI, behind individualized i-deals.

Previous research on community attitudes toward the police focuses on suspect race as an important predictor of attitudes toward law enforcement and police use of force. Generally, missing from these studies, however, is the role of mental illness, both independently and in conjunction with race, and its effect on perceptions of police. This chapter summarizes our recent research addressing two issues: (1) how race and mental illness of suspects affect perceptions of the appropriateness of police use of force, and (2) how race and mental illness of citizens affect perceptions of police.

We examine these issues by summarizing research obtained through The Portland Race and Mental Illness Project (PRMIP), a survey administered to residents of Portland, Oregon. For our first topic, we use an experimental vignette that randomly alters race and mental health status of suspects. For our second topic, we ask respondents to self-report race, mental health status, and perceptions of the police.

Our dual focus provides two key findings: first, citizens’ perceptions of police use of force are affected by suspect race and mental health status. Second, like Black citizens, citizens with mental illness also have a negative impression of law enforcement.

Our research builds on research indicating racial disparity in trust in police by showing that mental illness – both that of the respondent and that of a suspect – affects attitudes toward the police. These results suggest that mental health status affects attitudes toward law enforcement and should be considered in future research and public policy.

To identify and describe work environment conditions that give rise to a shared or different state of the psychological contract for managers and employees.

Semi‐structured interviews conducted with seven managers and 12 employees within an Australian credit union. Questions relate to the causes (work environment conditions) and content (salary, recognition and rewards, trust and fairness, open/honest communication) of the psychological contract. Comparative analysis techniques identify and contrast psychological contract categories of managers and employees.

Although managers and employees shared similar responses as to the state of the psychological contract, they attributed different causes to these states. Managers tended to construct rational explanations and emphasise resource constraints and financial considerations, whilst employees constructed emotional explanations and attributed this situation to an unfair, uncaring or distant management. Employees regarded the Staff Consultative Committee and open‐door policies as “symbolic acts” rather than genuine attempts to give employees a voice in the company.

Aligning the psychological contract espoused by management more closely with that upheld by employees requires managers to adopt more personal, face‐to‐face communication strategies. The removal of status‐related barriers to communication places managers in a better position to explain to employees how the organisation can meet (or not) specific contract expectations and obligations.

Paper provides interesting insights into how contracts form within the context of work environment, HRM policy and practice, and cultural factors – work context factors largely ignored by psychological contract researchers.

Describes how service businesses, who have most direct contact with consumers, seem to be the last to adopt a consumer‐oriented marketing concept. Theorizes over service marketing and how it stands at the same point as industrial marketing did some ten years ago. Postulates that general theories or frameworks for service marketing development seems to have followed two quite different paths. Says that one approach, which covers services offered by service companies, should be changed in a more product‐like manner, enabling the application of existing marketing theories. Compares the second approach, which is a notion that services are different, compared with physical products, holding that marketing concepts and models have to be developed in a more service‐like direction. Reports that findings herein are based on both theoretical and empirical research and that service marketing theory is the result of an ongoing research project, begun in 1976. Concludes by theorizing that service‐marketing theory, as presented, can only be applied to part of a service firm's total marketing function.

Marketing thought originating from the era of the barter system, gradually evolved into production and sales orientations, with greater emphasis on the process, quality, and selling of products. Thereafter, customer satisfaction as an essential component of the strategic decision process occupies a significant position among various marketing activities. This paper aims to address the inadequate research inputs on determining the time‐specific evolutionary relevance of marketing thought divulging into the essential components of each marketing concept, especially those with customer satisfaction as a dimension in the measurement construct.

A detailed, conceptually integrated analysis of various marketing philosophies is offered to facilitate business executives in examining the philosophy followed by their companies and how to move vertically in pursuance of improved business performance.

In comparison to the Indian market, which is fast becoming an attraction for the developed nations as an investment hub, it is the observed and experienced that public sector corporations are still at the production orientation stage, whereas private companies are predominantly using the sales‐oriented approach. The present status of customer orientation, market orientation and relationship marketing culture in India, is quite distinct from the status in the West as indicated by literature published in the developed countries. Banking, insurance, tourism, and hospitals still need to ensure minimum customer‐oriented services, which are not performed impressively in India.

Being a conceptual and country specific paper, the paper lacks wider generalization of its findings. Moreover, at many instances personal judgment of the authors might have resulted into biased interpretation.

Indian companies, with a few exceptions, lack an adequate orientation to pursue continuous market research in order to sense new developments, which are taking place due to the implementation of advanced information technology leading to greater exposure to customers. It can, thus, be synthesized that with respect to marketing practices in Indian settings, the existing large gap between the theory and implementation is drawing much attention from those concerned with the socio‐economic consequences associated with future business goals.

This paper can help managers in evaluating their business orientation level, but how to improve it further or update them as per ongoing changes in marketing thought and practice, has to be investigated and examined on continuous basis. Hence, empirical testing and validation of the constructs originating from the study have to be pursued, so as to analyze both the nature and the extent of the business orientation of a particular firm.

This study aims to provide the first longitudinal examination of the relationship between affective, calculative, normative commitment and customer loyalty by using longitudinal panel survey data.

Repeated measures for 269 customers of a large financial services provider are employed. Two types of segmentation methods are compared: predefined classes and latent class models and predictive power of different models contrasted.

The results reveal that the impact that different dimensions of commitment have on share development varies across segments. A two-segment latent class model and a managerially relevant predefined two-segment customer model are identified. In addition, the results demonstrate the benefits of using panel survey data in models that are designed to study how loyalty develops over time.

This study illustrates the benefits of including both baseline level information and changes in the dimensions of commitment in models that try to understand how loyalty unfolds over time. It also demonstrates how managers can be misled by assuming that everyone will react to commitment improvement efforts similarly. This study also shows how different segmentation schemes can be employed and reveals that the most sophisticated ones are not necessarily the best.

This research provides the first examination of models for change in customer loyalty by employing survey panel data on the three-component model of customer commitment (affective, calculative, and normative) and considers alternative segmentation methods.