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In his apocalyptic book on the environment and public policy, Timothy C. Weiskel warned of the consequences of humanity's intrusion into the biological and geo‐chemical processes of the natural world. He said that our intrusions have been massive and thorough; that they now threaten to transform ecosystemic parameters; and that unless responsible public policy directs itself toward moderating our current destructive impact on the environment, we will face ecosystemic collapse and human catastrophe “on a vastly greater scale than has ever been recorded in human history.”

This paper synthesises the literature on the issues related to the older patient, health service quality and its measurement. It discusses the need to consider these perspectives in the definition and assessment of quality of a community‐focused aged healthcare programme, and critically examines the existing evaluation of quality in healthcare, contrasting the patient's role and impact on the quality of the service and its outcome. The paper then reviews the documented problems associated with using satisfaction as an indicator of the patient's view of quality. An alternate validated approach to measuring the patient's perception of the quality of the service is identified in the services literature; this multidimensional hierarchical tool and scale, which specifically measures the patient's view of quality, is presented. The tool covers nine sub‐dimensions, four dimensions and the global perspective of quality as perceived by the patient. An adaptation of this tool is presented to measure the patient's view of quality using the relatively new Transition Aged Care programme as an example, and make the argument for the holistic measurement of transitional aged care quality, using a validated and reliable patient‐specific tool. Importantly, the paper proposes that the identification of the patient view of service quality will offer information that could specifically assist with service improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical framework of the factors that potentially influence dissatisfied customers to continue purchasing from their existing service provider in the business‐to‐business (B2B) services sector.

This review paper synthesises the findings from previous studies on switching barriers, and relationship variables, dependence, and calculative commitment.

Five major factors deter customers from switching to an alternative service provider: switching costs; interpersonal relationships; the attractiveness of alternatives; service recovery; and inertia. These factors are mediated by dependence and calculative commitment.

This is the first comprehensive study of the factors that potentially influence dissatisfied customers to remain behaviourally loyal to a service provider in the B2B services sector. This important study has significance for marketers in developing strategies for customer retention and service recovery.

Barriers to entry and entry deterrent strategies are widely discussed elements of the strategic literature and help define the attractiveness of an industry. The channel structure of the pharmaceutical industry, in part because of the level of regulation applicable to it, has the potential for idiosyncratic strategic behaviour. The purpose of this paper is to explore the applicability of traditional approaches to entry barriers and entry deterrence in the Australian retail pharmacy industry facing the threat of a major entry by examining the perceptions of incumbent retail pharmacists regarding the strength of potential barriers to entry into the industry, and their likely response to entry.

The paper uses both qualitative and quantitative methodology to categorise potential barriers to entry in terms of their perception by incumbent players. More than 20 in‐depth interviews are conducted with a range of stakeholders and 132 retail pharmacists completed questionnaires.

The paper suggests that this industry is relying on barriers which, while arguably effective, are outside the industry's control, and do not justify the apparent complacency among retail pharmacists.

This research is of significant managerial relevance since it demonstrates that the incumbents are unprepared for potentially devastating impacts if supermarkets or other new competitors were to enter the market.

The authors propose and utilise a novel framework for entry barrier analysis which includes the perceived locus of control for each entry barrier. The contribution of the paper is therefore in its treatment of the traditional arena of entry barriers and deterrence.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the problems patients and caregivers have with using medicines appropriately, their desire for assistance with managing medications and their self‐perceived need for the Australian Home Medicines Review (AHMR).

A qualitative research study was conducted with eight semi‐structured focus groups, including a total of 50 HMR‐eligible patients and caregivers. Participants who were purposively sampled represented older males, older females, younger chronically ill patients, patients from Chinese and Arabic backgrounds and the general HMR target group.

According to the types of medicine problems encountered by participants, their level of medicine understanding and their desire for assistance with using medicines, four distinct patient segments are identified and explicated: the heedless patient, the aware patient, the scrupulous patient and the self‐sufficient patient.

The uptake of the HMR service can be effectively increased by direct‐to‐consumer HMR promotion that is tailored to the behaviors, needs, and desires of eligible patients and caregivers. The proposed segmentation model of HMR‐eligible consumers addresses these differences and can be used to inform health policy makers regarding a more effective promotion of the HMR service.

This is the first study to investigate how the HMR‐uptake could be increased, from the perspective of eligible patients and their caregivers.

The absence of a theoretically sound framework for delineating the various forms of Internet retailing may negate recognition of situation‐specific issues or engender insights being drawn from, and applied to, incompatible contexts. To address this gap, the fulfillment‐product classification scheme that segments Internet retailing into four categories was developed. Efforts were then directed towards providing a more detailed examination of perceived Internet shopping value than has to date been performed by examining the sources and inhibitors of utilitarian and hedonic value relative to each fulfillment‐product category. The interviews with experienced Internet shoppers generated theoretical and managerial insights pertaining to value, while the classification scheme has applications beyond that of the current research topic.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether and how much patients would be willing to pay for diabetes disease state management (DSM) services in community pharmacies, and also to determine the relationships between willingness to pay (WTP) and different clinical/socio/demographic characteristics of patients.

A sample of 130 diabetic patients recruited from 14 pharmacies across Sydney, Australia completed self‐administered questionnaires. SPSS 16.0 was used to assess WTP in four scenarios (50 and 100 percent improvement in diabetes control after a 30 minute initial and 30 minute follow‐up consultation, respectively). Descriptive and inferential statistical techniques (regression) were used to analyse data.

Patients are willing to pay a median of AUS$30 for 50 percent improvement and AUS$40 for 100 percent improvement per 30 minute initial consultation, and AUS$20 for 50 percent improvement and AUS$30 for 100 percent improvement per 30 minute follow‐up consultation. Although results varied across scenarios, WTP generally increased when: patients' income is greater than AUS$150,000; frequency of patients' diabetes‐related hospitalizations is between 2 and 4; and patients' perceptions of pharmacists' ability are higher. The remainder of the variables tested are not significantly associated with WTP.

The findings demonstrate that most patients are willing to pay for diabetes DSM services in community pharmacies, and there is a great opportunity for pharmacies to expand their clinical services in this area.

The key contribution to the literature is the data relating to the willingness of Australian diabetic patients to pay for pharmacy‐delivered disease management support, and how this varies across people with different clinical/socio/demographic characteristics.

To investigate the determinants of behavioural brand loyalty amongst dissatisfied customers in the business‐to‐business (B2B) services sector.

A qualitative study was conducted, with 28 personal interviews undertaken with managers who are involved in the choice of service providers. The respondents belonged to 24 organisations located in Australia. Template analysis and eyeballing were techniques used to analyse the data collected.

Assessment of the reasons why dissatisfied customers stayed with the service providers resulted in six categories. The categories were found to be, in order of decreasing frequency, impact of alternative providers, switching costs (18), others (17), inertia (14), investment in relationships (13), and service recovery (13). The results not only confirmed factors found in the literature, but also uncovered 11 other factors.

The sample size, whilst appropriate for qualitative research, should be considered adequate only for exploratory analysis and a further quantitative study is needed to validate the study.

This study is important for those firms who have many prospective switchers because it is important to understand why these customers stay, and to what extent such firms can discourage such customers from leaving in both positive and negative ways. For those service firms that are attempting to attract these prospective switchers, an understanding of why they do not switch is important, as it will enable them to develop strategies to overcome these switching barriers and gain market share.

This research is the first study to investigate in a single model a range of barriers to switching in a B2B services context. The results that confirmed categories found in the literature also discovered 11 other factors not evident in the extant literature.

This study aims to investigate the attributes that create brand trust in internet retailing extending the work by Ha, and expanding the purchase categories.

Using a two‐phase qualitative and quantitative methodology, 15 in‐depth interviews were conducted followed by written surveys from 199 respondents. Linear regressions were undertaken to test the hypotheses. Further to the empirical research, a new model is proposed.

Regression analysis using Ha's six scales of security, privacy, brand name, word of mouth, information, and (past) experience yielded an R² of only 0.105 for the dependent variable of web brand trust. Similar results were obtained when adding in extra scales (i.e. website design and navigation, returns policy and country of origin), and when completing regression analysis using only the attributes that had a statistically significant correlation with brand trust. The results for all three types of regressions increased to R²≤ 0.165 when the attributes length of time using the internet, length of time purchasing from the internet and frequency of internet purchase on the internet were included.

A limitation of the study was that the sample included only part‐time graduate students from one Australian university. Therefore future research should include respondents from a wider range of ages, income and educational levels.

The study extends the work of Ha to additional cultural and internet retailing contexts. It also introduces a wider range of factors affecting brand trust.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which inertia is distinct from calculative commitment and to extend the knowledge on these constructs in the corporate financial services context in Australia. The study proposes and empirically analyses a research model that considers switching costs as an antecedent to inertia and calculative commitment.

An e‐mail URL‐embedded web questionnaire was used to collect data online from responding organisations. The psychometric properties of the measures were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis, and the hypothesised relationships among the latent constructs were estimated using structural equation modelling.

The variance‐extracted test established discriminant validity between inertia and calculative commitment. Switching costs affected both inertia and calculative commitment differently.

The measurement scales should be subjected to further assessment before drawing conclusions on their construct validity. The findings support the contention that inertia occurs from high search and learning costs associated with transaction account products, and that calculative commitment is caused by the existence of sunk costs.

Managers should be cautious in employing barriers as mechanisms for customer retention, because calculatively committed customers might be behaviourally loyal only for as long as it is instrumentally rewarding to be so. However, dissatisfied customers often can become involved in inert buying patterns.

This paper is an important initial step in highlighting the extent to which inertia is distinct from calculative commitment, in addition to providing a measure of inertia.