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The purpose of this paper is to examine whether International Organisation for Standards (ISO) certification affects consumer perceptions of the service provider.

Data from a questionnaire survey of 204 Spanish consumers of insurance services is used to investigate whether differences exist in consumer perceptions of the services provided by ISO 9000‐certified firms and non‐certified firms in terms of: quality; satisfaction; and corporate image. Mean and covariance structure analysis (MACS) is employed to provide reliable analysis of any differences detected.

The paper finds that ISO certification improves consumers' perceptions with regard to all three variables (quality, satisfaction, and corporate image). This was especially the case with respect to perceived service quality and perceived corporate image. The results therefore suggest that ISO 9000 certification enables companies to realise marketing benefits as a result of enhanced evaluation of service by consumers.

An acknowledged limitation of the study is the high variability of the effect size estimates for the three variables. Future studies should use larger samples to reduce such variability.

The paper shows that previous studies of the ISO 9000 standards have tended to focus on management and expert opinion rather than the opinion of customers. The present study addresses this deficiency in the extant literature by seeking the perspective of the customer, which is of critical importance in assessments of quality and marketing benefits.

The aim of this paper is to propose a model for understanding a complex management issue – the customer loyalty in a public sports service.

Customer loyalty is discussed through the methodology of system dynamics. The proposed model considers the dynamic, non‐linear, asymmetric, and reciprocal relationships between its elements, and permits the analysis of the evolution of the system under hypothesized conditions.

The model reproduces historical data of abandonment and consumers' attitude toward the service (ATS). The achieved simulations showed how the future entry of new competitors can severely threaten public service performance. Furthermore, it was also found that the consumers' ATS was not a very good predictor of the consumers' behavior.

System dynamics methodology can also be applied to understand the loyalty in the remaining services offered by the public institution. Other services, such as fitness, aerobics, martial arts, can be analyzed by considering their respective different competitive environments.

The new competitive environment can dramatically affect the number of consumers per year if a public institution does not differentiate its service. In addition, the entry of new competitors will affect the evolution of the system, as the customer satisfaction rates will be modified.

Understanding customer loyalty is one of the most important concerns for academics and practitioners in the areas of management and marketing. The system dynamics approach is an under‐utilized methodology in the field of sports management, which overcomes simplistic linear approaches. The paper shows how system dynamics can provide attractive insights into the field of sports management.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce this special issue of Management Decision and discuss the key question “Should sport be taken seriously?”.

The themes of the special issue are discussed and each paper is introduced.

Sport should be taken seriously because it has a significance beyond the field of play. It has become a commodified activity which creates and consumes wealth and can be used as a context for management research.

Rarely before has sport been taken seriously in a management research context. This guest editorial and the special issue that follows it begin that debate.

“When James Boswell returned from a tour of Corsica in 1765 he wrote: ‘It is indeed amazing that an island so considerable, and in which such noble things have been doing, should be so imperfectly known.’ The same might be said today of Puerto Rico.” Thus began Millard Hansen and Henry Wells in the foreword to their 1953 look at Puerto Rico's democratic development. Four decades later, the same could again be said about the island.

This study provides a new look at the late 19th-century university issue in Spain. Loss of self-government among universities and the state’s centralization brought a conflict between science and religion to the fore in the process of the secularization of knowledge.

We first delve into the anti-Darwinian framework associated with the scientific professionalization process, focusing on the case of the jurist Antonio Hernández Fajarnés (1851–1909). Secondly, we study the idea of the university that emerged from the Ateneo de Madrid, analyzing key speeches from the jurist Francisco Fernández de Henestrosa (1855–s.d.) given in 1887/88 and from the pharmacist José Rodríguez Carracido (1856–1928).

The study concludes that the Restoration Era in Spain was characterized by a generalized desire – shared by neo-Scholastics, conservatives and liberal rationalists – to improve the public university system. In this context, French influence was no doubt decisive; however, the Humboldtian university idea had already begun to have notable influence.

This article analyzes sources yet unknown to international research, such as the Ateneo de Madrid debates and Spanish university rectors’ inaugural speeches. It opens up a critical examination of the so-called displacement of educational principles in Spain toward a state-centered system of doctrinal moderantismo as opposed to the nation-centered system of the Cádiz liberalism. At the same time, it identifies key pockets of resistance relative to Spanish university transformation toward increased methodological secularization.

This study aims to contribute to the analysis of the impact of financial control or “financial fair play” (FFP) regulations on the financial performance of the Spanish professional football league (LaLiga) by examining the moderating role of club size. The authors argue that introducing FFP positively impacted the financial performance of small clubs but increased the economic gap between large and small clubs.

A 12-year dataset covering 22 football clubs is used to test the hypotheses. Panel regression models are estimated for eight measures of financial performance indicators, comprising three financial dimensions: profitability, liquidity and solvency. The Gini index is applied to clubs' economic and sports variables to determine the degree of economic imbalance between the largest and smallest clubs.

The results show that FFP significantly and positively impacted the profitability of small clubs and the solvency of medium-sized clubs but has not impacted the largest clubs' financial performance. After these regulations, economic inequality in Spanish LaLiga increased.

The authors find evidence that club size moderates the effect of FFP on financial performance. The moderating role of club size may explain the mixed results found in previous research. The authors’ findings contribute to improving the literature on the impact of FFP on the financial performance of European football clubs.

The aim of this study is to analyse the importance of bottle design in relation to other purchasing criteria, and also to understand which design elements are most attractive to consumers.

A survey of a sample of 437 wine drinkers was carried out in Portugal using non-probabilistic sampling. The technique used was conjoint analysis based on the SPSS conjoint module.

One of the key findings was the low importance of bottle design in shaping consumer preferences compared to other attributes (origin, price and category of wine). In terms of design elements, the label had the biggest influence on consumer choice, followed by the type of bottle, bottle seal and brand name, in that order. Differences in consumer choice were evident according to the level of knowledge of wine and frequency of consumption.

The findings of this study provide guidance for Portuguese wineries as regards the marketing and design decisions of their products and packaging.

This study sheds new light on the importance of wine bottle design on consumer preferences. Previous studies in the area have proved to be minimal and heterogeneous.

This article aims to explore the concept of chain value of the public port system in Ecuador from the perspective of importing/exporting companies, analyzing how perceived value in the use of port services affects customer satisfaction and the intermediate links of the influence of trust and commitment on customer loyalty.

Relying on a survey of 634 Ecuadorian companies with experience in international trade as port users and a theoretical framework well-established in the literature on consumer behavior, the empirical study found evidence of a positive and significant relationship with the knowledge of chain effects.

The findings confirm the chain effect and reveal ways to maintain an ongoing satisfactory, trust and committed relationship with users, thereby ultimately gaining and maintaining their loyalty. The conclusions suggest how this postulate can help to close the gap referred to the effective management of port services, and point out that port managers should be concerned with a continuous in-depth understanding of the perceived value and its chain effects.

The authors add evidence of the use of the postulate of the chain of effects on these dimensions, whose applicability is very well established, tested and consensual for the doctrine in industrial marketing. In contrast, it is scarcely present in the port relationship with its users.

This paper analyzes the effect of company response style and complaint source on silent observers' reactions to a service failure episode vented on Twitter.

In a 2 × 2 experimental design, company response style (personalized vs automatic) and complaint source (ordinary Twitter user vs influencer) were manipulated to test the hypotheses.

Complaint source moderates the effect of company response style on brand image, purchase intention and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Thus, the authors found that a personalized response to a complaint, compared to an automatic response, leads to a more favorable brand image as well as purchase intention and eWOM intention when the complainant is an ordinary Twitter user. However, the automatic response, compared to the personalized one, is better perceived when the complainant is an influencer. The authors also found that service failure response attribution and the emotions elicited during the firm–complainant interaction mediate the previous effects.

This paper deals with the company's initial reaction after a complaint is posted on Twitter; however, the complaint-handling process is longer, and both the customer and silent observers await a resolution. Future research could tackle subsequent stages of the process and different recovery strategies.

The study offers meaningful insights regarding complaint handling on Twitter and how the effectiveness of the company response style depends on the complaint source. Marketers should offer adapted personalized responses to prompt positive behavioral intentions for ordinary Twitter users, who represent prospective consumers. However, a personalized response given to an influencer may be perceived more negatively, as silent observers may interpret that the company offers such a response just because the complaint comes from a well-known person who can reach many users and not because of an honest interest in serving consumers.

This research focuses on the underresearched area of the impact of online complaints on silent observers, a large group of prospective consumers quietly exposed to complaints aired on Twitter. The underlying mechanisms are also identified.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the importance that customers give to the origin attribute when selecting a financial entity compared to other features directly related to the service that these institutions provide. In addition, this study aims at analysing what level of brand origin provides a greater utility for customers in their preference structure: regional, national or foreign.

The technique of conjoint analysis is applied via a survey of 427 customers to determine customers’ preference structure when choosing a financial entity.

Of particular note among the main results is the great importance the respondents give to the origin of the entity, preferring regional over national or foreign institutions. The existence of three different segments of customers based on their preference structure is also a remarkable result.

Place-of-origin effect is not universal. Due to this fact, the results of the studies focussed on this research topic are difficult to extrapolate to other geographical areas.

The current situation in southern Europe financial sector obliges many small financial entities to undertake mergers in order to face the stability and solvency policies established by European Central Bank. In this sense, these institutions must decide whether or not to maintain their regional brand identity. The results of this study show the appropriateness of maintaining and communicating the regional origin of the entities. These findings will contribute to guiding decision making on brand management for financial entities.

To the best of the knowledge, there is a lack of research on the place-of-origin through different levels simultaneously. This paper provides a starting point for further research about this effect in the services sector.