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The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

The aim of this paper is to identify the dimensions of Automated Teller Machine (ATM) service quality and to evaluate customers’ perceptions of the relative importance of these dimensions.

A structured questionnaire gleaned from the literature and focused group studies was used to collect data from 530 ATM customers of 15 banks in Ghana. Descriptive statistics, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, as well as multiple regression, were used to identify the relative importance of the dimensions of ATM service quality.

The paper identified five dimensions of the “ATMqual” model. In order of importance, these dimensions are reliability, convenience, responsiveness, ease of use and fulfillment.

The variables of the ATMqual scale provide practical levers for bank managers to improve customer experience with ATMs. The relative importance of the factors identified in the study also provide managers with a guide as to which issues to focus on in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the ATMs.

The paper provides a theoretical basis for conceptualising ATM service quality. The resulting dimensions, referred to as the ATMqual, thus address the paucity of a robust research in conceptualising and testing the dimensions of ATM service quality. Apart from the improved theoretical insight, the dimensions identified also provide bank managers with better understanding of and means to better manage customers’ ATM experiences.

Health-care professionals undergo numerous training programs each year in order to fulfill licensure requirements and organizational obligations. However, evidence suggests that a substantial amount of what is taught during training is never learned or transferred back to routine work. A major contributor to this issue is low training motivation. Prior conceptual models on training transfer in the organizational sciences literature consider this deficit, yet do not account for the unique conditions of the hospital setting. This chapter seeks to close this gap by adapting conceptual models of training transfer to this setting that are grounded in organizational science. Based on theory and supplemented by semistructured key informant interviews (i.e., organizational leaders and program directors), we introduce an applied model of training motivation to facilitate training transfer in the hospital setting. In this model, training needs analysis is positioned as a key antecedent to ensure support for training, relevant content, and perceived utility of training. We posit that these factors, along with training design and logistics, enhance training motivation in hospital environments. Further, we suggest that training motivation subsequently impacts learning and transfer, with elements of the work environment also serving as moderators of the learning-transfer relationship. Factors such as external support for training content (e.g., from accrediting bodies) and allocation of time for training are emphasized as facilitators. The proposed model suggests there are factors unique to the hospital work setting that impact training motivation and transfer that should be considered when developing and implementing training initiatives in this setting.

Companies are increasingly leveraging digital technologies toward innovation strategies that deliver novel features to customers sequentially through successive new product generations (i.e., successive innovation). Extant literature examining successive innovation is both limited and fragmented across marketing and management literatures. Our goal is to synthesize literature on concepts related to successive innovation (such as versioning and upgrades) to identify the core dimensions of successive innovation and provide a cohesive framework to guide future research in this domain.

Given the equivocality in understanding the conceptual domain of successive innovation, we review and synthesize literature across three disciplinary domains: marketing, management, and information and decision sciences. Based on the emerging patterns from the literature review, we develop a conceptual framework of successive innovation with the aim of moving the discussion toward greater theoretical clarity.

Based on the literature review and synthesis, we identify three core-dimensions that define successive innovation and compare these across digital and physical product realms: coexistence, embeddedness, and adoption controllability.

Our proposed conceptual dimensions of successive innovation, and discussion of differences across physical and digital product domains, offer important directions for future research and a common vocabulary.

As physical and digital successive innovations can differ in coexistence, embeddedness, and adoption controllability, firms need to consider relevant barriers to adoption of successive product generations and select appropriate strategies to promote and communicate successive innovation. Our proposed successive innovation conceptual dimensions help managers comprehend the complexity of arranging such innovation in business and consumer segments.

Our contribution to the emerging literature on successive innovation is threefold. First, by conducting a comprehensive literature review, we integrate insights from different fields of inquiry (i.e., marketing, management, and information and decision sciences). Second, based on the synthesis of the literature, we offer a conceptual framework of successive innovation, which aims to move the discussion toward greater theoretical clarity. Third, based on our review and conceptual framework, we discuss a set of future research directions to guide academic research efforts.

THE PRESIDENT of the Library Association for 1929–30 will be Lord Balneil, the son of the Earl of Crawford, and it is difficult to think of a better choice. Lord Balneil has an admirable bibliographical ancestry—if we may so put it—seeing that his grandfather, the 26th Earl of Crawford, was President in 1898; and the Haigh Hall Library at the family seat is one of the noble private libraries of England. Lord Balneil is the Chairman of the Appeal Committee for the endowment of the School of Librarianship and so has already identified himself in a practical manner with the cause of libraries.

This register of current research in social economics has been compiled by the International Institute of Social Economics. The register does not claim to be comprehensive but is merely an aid for research workers and institutions interested in social economics. The register will be updated and made more comprehensive in the future but this is largely dependent on the inflow of information from researchers in social economics. In order to facilitate this process a standardised form is to be found on the last page of this register. Completed forms, with attached sheets as necessary, should be returned to the compiler: Dr Barrie O. Pettman, Director, International Institute of Social Economics, Enholmes Hall, Patrington, Hull, N. Humberside, England, HU12 OPR. Any other comments on the register will also be welcome.

The purpose of the paper is to determine the factors that lead to satisfaction of the customers as regards to e‐banking services provided by selected banks in India.

Survey method was used to conduct the study. Data were collected through a well structured questionnaire from a sample of 350 respondents.

As a major finding of the study, six factors namely ease of use, reliability, convenient accessibility, security, low transaction cost and the time consumption emerged as factors that lead to customer satisfaction as regards e‐banking services. Further, the results of multiple regression showed that out of the above mentioned six factors, three factors, namely, ease of use (i.e. user friendly web sites leading to easy technology‐customer interaction), low transaction cost (i.e. saving of time, speed of service delivery, convenience and reduced paper work in monetary terms) and security (i.e. dependable safety mechanism in terms of illegal access of accounts, hacking and password protection) are found to be statistically significant at 5 percent significance level.

The study has a regional bias since the respondents belong to a single state of northern India. To have better generalisation of the results, a sample size could be made appropriately large and a wider geographical area be covered.

Taking findings of the study into consideration, strategies could be drawn by the bankers to spread their businesses as a large chunk of the population in India is still not using banking services. Through internet, however, access could be provided to customers residing in remote areas of the country.

The study is quite helpful for the policy makers in comprehending the attitude of banking customers towards e‐banking services provided by the banks and for developing appropriate strategies for placing themselves at competitively advantageous positions.

Contemporary businesses face rapidly evolving changes and complexities that challenge their respective managerial responses and capabilities. The natures of information and communication systems, ways of doing business, knowledge-transfer methods, diffusion channels of innovation, and industrial habitus are shifting. Additionally, methods, concepts, and frameworks to study these challenges need to be in accordance.

Many of these features characterizing the new business environment influence not only the consumer business, but also the business-to-business (B2B) sectors and their ways of functioning. Interestingly, the influence also connects domestic with international business through the global connectedness. This is particularly visible in marketing communication, as the difference between domestic and international business communication has further diminished due to digital and virtual dimensions and applications. In this new age, it is assumed that new ventures and small- and medium-sized enterprises can turn their vulnerabilities and size constraints into competitive advantages by addressing these challenges with efficient social media usage. To address this technology-enabled dimension of B2B relations, the authors present a case study illustrating how a firm advances its relationship management and communication by introducing social media instruments. The study contributes to relationship management and international marketing communication and provides new insights into the workings of social media within the B2B context.