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This study examined perceptual similarities and differences between customers and employees in terms of critical service incidents. Specifically we explored the extent to which customers and employees were similar or different in summary perceptions of service failures and recovery, the attributions made by the two perspectives in terms of causes for failures and recovery efforts, and whether each perspective believed that age, gender or race contributed to service failures or recovery. The critical incidents technique was used to collect 1,512 customer‐reported incidents and 390 employee‐reported incidents. Results revealed that customers and employees had both similar and different views depending on the ultimate outcome of the encounter. Overall, customers and employees were fairly similar in their perceptions regarding failures that ultimately resulted in a good recovery effort. However, the two perspectives differed in their views of service failures that accompanied a poor recovery effort. Conclusions and implications for practice are also provided.

In the following article, Doug Protheroe UK managing director of Hoffman Engineering, worldwide manufacturers of electrical and electronic enclosures, examines the serious and sometimes lethal problem of corrosion the effects of which are losing industry millions of pounds each year.

Drawing on the corporate association framework and attribution theory, the purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine the shield effects of CSR-linked sport sponsorship on consumer attitudes toward a sponsor, attribution patterns in a sponsor’s service failure and repurchase intentions and second, to investigate the halo effect of CSR-linked sport sponsorship on corporate ability (CA) associations and the relationship between CA associations and consequential variables in the context of service failure.

A scenario-based two-factor (sponsorship types: baseline vs sport sponsorship vs CSR-linked sport sponsorship × service failure types: flight delay vs cancellation) experimental design was employed.

The results indicate that CSR-linked sport sponsorship outperforms non-CSR sport sponsorship in forming CSR association and developing CA association. Both CSR and CA associations are found to positively influence the consumer’s attitude toward a service provider. Consumers with positive attitudes attribute the sponsor’s service failure to external factors, leading to repurchase intention after a service failure.

This study connects two fields of research, service failure and sport sponsorship, thereby providing evidence on how CSR-linked sport sponsorship can play a shield role in the context of service failure and whether CSR-linked sport sponsorship can be a proactive strategy for service providers in industries where service failures are inevitable. Additionally, this study provides empirical evidence on whether CSR-linked sponsorship can lead consumers to perceive service quality as “doing right leads to doing well” by creating a halo effect.

This is an exploratory study with the purpose of empirically testing and advancing knowledge on the relationship between top management team (TMT) leadership styles and a service recovery culture. A further test explores a contingency perspective, examining if gender diversity on the TMT shapes this relationship.

We examine the perceived TMT transformational leadership style, as well as the moderating effect of TMT gender diversity. Relying on both survey and archival data, our hypotheses are tested with a sample of 234 public firms based in the United States. Moderated hierarchical regression analysis is used as the statistical approach.

Results suggest that perceived TMT transformational leadership is positively associated with a service recovery culture. When accounting for TMT gender diversity, the relationship between perceived TMT transformational leadership and a service recovery culture is positively moderated.

The study represents a sample of for-profit public firms operating in the United States and should not be taken as a general population sample. The findings could vary relative to other countries, private companies and non-profit organizations.

This is the first known study to explore the relationship between TMT leadership styles, TMT gender diversity and a service recovery culture. The study extends findings with the respect to the impact of TMT leadership and gender diversity on organizational development, as well as offers new insights into the antecedents of a service recovery culture.

This evaluation examines the impact of the academic and social connection efforts of the Multicultural Center for Academic Success (MCAS) Summer Bridge (SB) program on the academic performance and retention of its student participants. Specifically, the SB program incorporates academic and social connection theoretical frameworks provided by Vincent Tinto (1975) and Doug Guiffrida (2006), and this study seeks to ascertain the program’s impact on student performance and retention.

The study used an adaptation of the Pascarella and Terenzini (1980) Institutional Integration Scale Survey and focus-group interviews of past SB participants to provide data. Additionally, the study conducted a comparative analysis between SB participant grade point averages and persistence rates with general population students or students of color, a dominant demographic within the MCAS SB program.

The study finds a correlation between the academic and social connection efforts of the center, and the academic performance and retention percentages of its student participants.

“We live at a hinge time in history, a threshold time when societies and cultures are being recomposed. We are learning that the way life used to work—or the way we thought it should— doesn’t work any longer” (Parks, 2009, p. xv). This article is about learning, culture change, practice and leadership. Many wise minds have articulated the leadership mindset we need for the future, and what remains stubbornly elusive is how we get there. We believe the difficult challenge of developing a new mindset--a new view of the world--to address the complexity and dynamic nature of the 21^st century is of central importance to leadership education today. As Einstein famously conveyed, we cannot address the problems of today with the same mindset that created those problems. Our inquiry explores the following questions: “How do we develop the skills, capacities and consciousness necessary for bringing creativity, innovation and a new mindset to our most strategic and pressing organizational challenges? How do we practice our way into a new paradigm of leadership?” We invite you to join us in this inquiry into leadership

Kostova, Roth and Dacin called in 2008 for the advancement of a theoretical conception of the multinational corporation (MNC) that takes into account both power relationships among actors and the structure of its internal institutional field. While micro-political scholars of MNCs have started to answer the former part of the call regarding power, the second part has not been thoroughly addressed yet. Furthermore, the agentic aspects typical of power games and the structural aspects characterizing institutional fields have not been fully combined in a multi-level perspective of MNCs so far. Leaning on Bourdieu, we suggest an answer to the pending call. We theorize the MNC as a playing field of power emerging around the issue of finding a meta-rate of conversion of the actors’ capitals constituted in national fields. We conceive such issue field in a dynamic state due to the constant entry and exit of new players (e.g. through mergers, acquisitions or divestitures). This results in the need to continuously test the validity of exchange rates. The role of the metainstitutional field level of the MNC as a global category is also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to chronicle the participation of the Colorado State University Libraries in a campus‐wide teaching program sponsored by the campus center for teaching and learning, and discusses the opportunities provided by such participation for academic librarians in general.

The author uses a case study approach to explore one academic library's participation in a campus‐wide teaching program sponsored by the institution's center for teaching and learning. The aim of the article is to demonstrate how the program works, and to discuss the potential for similar programs at other libraries.

The library's participation in a campus‐wide teaching program has strengthened ties with the campus center for teaching and learning; improved the instructional skills and knowledge of faculty and professional staff; and highlighted the importance of teaching and learning within the library.

The author presents a blueprint for instructional collaboration with the campus center for teaching and learning, and suggests that such programs will greatly benefit reference and instruction librarians.

This article will benefit reference and instruction librarians who seek to improve their teaching skills. Relatively few articles have investigated collaborative relationships between libraries and centers for teaching and learning in which librarians participate as students.

There has been much discussion regarding the necessity of moving away from precise (rules-based) standards toward less precise (principles-based) standards. This study examines the impact of the proposed shift by using a controlled experiment to evaluate the influence of rule precision and information ambiguity on reporting decisions in the presence of monetary incentives to report aggressively. Using motivated reasoning theory as a framework, we predict that the malleability inherent in both rule precision and information ambiguity amplify biased reasoning in a manner that is consistent with individuals’ pecuniary incentives. In contrast, consistent with research exploring ambiguity aversion we predict that high levels of ambiguity will actually attenuate aggressive reporting. Our results support these predictions. Specifically, we find an interactive effect between rule precision and information ambiguity on self-interested reporting decisions at moderate levels of ambiguity. However, consistent with ambiguity aversion, we find decreased self-interested reporting decisions at high levels of ambiguity relative to moderate ambiguity. This study should be of interest to preparers, auditors, and regulators who are interested in identifying situations which amplify and diminish aggressive reporting.