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Purpose: Different approaches have been applied to define and measure service quality as both a process and a performance-intensive presentation. The literature agreed that service quality assessments are essential in measuring performance, however they could only reach a partial consensus. Although the Servqual scale is the most widely known and used tool in measuring service quality, it has received various criticisms. This study presents the difficulties encountered in measuring service quality and an evaluation of the Servqual scale.

Methodology: The study provides a conceptual framework, examining the research on the subject in the literature and the criticisms of the Servqual scale. It is designed as a compilation/assessment to improve the perspectives of the interested parties by bringing together evaluations about the pros and cons of the most well-known service quality scale.

Findings: Measurement of service quality is a complex business. Although it has received various criticisms, the Servqual scale which enables the measurement of quality in the services sector is still the most frequently used measurement tool.

Practical Implications: The difficulty of defining the service and its quality, which arises from the characteristics of the services, does not eliminate the necessity of measuring the quality of the service. With this study, a conceptual framework has been provided on the subject, a collective evaluation has been made for the most widely used scale, and the ground has been prepared for improvement and development in the criticisms of the scale.

The authors believe the COVID-19 pandemic has an impact on supply and demand. The potential decline in real sector performance leads to lower expectations of securities performance. The uncertainty of future performance can change investor behaviour. This study tried to gain insight into stock investor behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results showed that the majority of the investor realized and believed the pandemic would affect the stock market performance. Hence, they did not show herding behaviour and were very confident during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey also indicates that investors tend to avoid risk rather than take the opportunity to buy at a lower price. Moreover, investors believe that the COVID-19 vaccine will soon be found, and the economy will return to normal. Government and self-regulated organizations (SRO) are responsible for making effective policies to convince the investors about the future prospect.

This study examines whether there are unintended consequences that emerge from status interventions in task groups in relation to cohesion and solidarity. Past theorists have argued that inconsistent status structures produce weaker levels of cohesion and solidarity in comparison to consistent status structures.

Data come from an online experiment involving mixed-sex dyads interacting in one of three conditions. Participants individually completed an ambiguous problem-solving task and then worked together over Zoom audio to form a group decision. In the three conditions, participants were either given no performance feedback before the problem-solving task or were informed the male or the female participant performed better on a pretest related to the task. The conversations were recorded and analyzed using measures related to paraverbal synchronization and accommodation.

In terms of self-reported cohesion, there appeared to be a difference, albeit a weak one, in only the inconsistent-status condition, with female participants reporting higher levels of cohesion in comparison to males. However, in terms of solidarity, there was no significant difference between the conditions.

Although inconsistent status structures were associated with weaker perceptions of cohesion, it did not appear to impact solidarity like theorists have suggested. Status structures do not appear to impact group solidarity.

The nature of group membership in conjunction with status consistency/inconsistency may produce the significant differences in solidarity that theorists have suggested.

To date, there has been little empirical examination of how status consistency affects cohesion and solidarity. Relatedly, the current study advances the research on vocal accommodation by analyzing status and solidarity simultaneously.

This chapter explores the gap between social expectations and actual sustainability performance in the business world and identifies the root causes of this discrepancy. The author reviews corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability, and their relationship with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This chapter also compares the connections and differences between the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the SDGs. The author analyzes possible solutions to bridge the gap, including renewing the social contract between businesses, society and institutions. This involves rethinking the role of businesses and institutions in promoting sustainability and creating new systems and structures that incentivize sustainable practices. This chapter concludes by discussing the pathway to a sustainable and inclusive world through systems innovation and change. When embracing a systems thinking approach, individuals and organizations can identify and address the root causes of unsustainability, and create more resilient and sustainable systems that benefit both people and the planet.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive analysis of how sentiments may be a part of, or adjacent to, status generalization. We demonstrate why this problem is so difficult to solve definitively, as many resolutions may exist. Sentiments may present the properties of graded status characteristics but may also be disrupted by processes of the self. Sentiments may have status properties enacted within dyadic interactions. However, sentiments may also be status elements during triadic constellations of actors. Finally, we discuss current research that is underway to provide more empirical evidence to offer confirmation or disconfirmation for some of our proposed models.

We provide a synthesis of literatures, including pieces from group processes, neuroscience, psychology, and network scholarship, to address the relation between sentiment and status processes. Accordingly, this is a conceptual chapter.

We attempt to motivate future research by exploring the many complications of examining these issues.

Understanding how social inequalities may emerge during group interaction allows researchers to address their deleterious effects. Positive sentiments (in other words, “liking”) should bring actors closer together to complete tasks successfully. Ironically, when paired with negative sentiments within task groups, inequalities in group opportunities may result. To address these social inequalities, a thorough understanding of how they develop is necessary, so that efficacious interventions can be adopted.

This deep dive into the relation between sentiment and status processes joins the 25-year quest to understand the issues surrounding this relationship.

This chapter focuses on testing optimal capital structure theory: The role of intervening variable debt to equity ratio (DER) on the influence of the financial performance, Ownership Structure of Independent Board of Commissioners (IBCO), Audit Committee (ACO), and Institutional Ownership on Firm Value. The research design was explanatory research using path analysis. Using purposive sampling, 61 manufacturing companies, observation period from 2014 to 2018 with 286 N samples. The research novelty empirically can prove the role of intervening variable DER on the effect of return on assets (ROA) on firm value and shows the market response to the ROA is fully reflected by DER, indicating the existence of an optimal capital structure. The role of DER on the effect of ROE and IBCO on firm value is a partial mediation with the inverse direction. This phenomenon shows that the mechanism of forming a balance between the responses of investors and creditors relates to debt financing.

This chapter explores the impact of equality, diversity, and inclusivity (EDI) on internal change agents’ (ICAs) personal and professional development. We have surveyed 117 ICAs that undergo a four-year digital development programme at Edinburgh Business School (EBS). Our survey design draws from expectancy, surprise, sensemaking, and attribution theories to test four hypotheses using Spearman’s rank. We found that diversity features such as gender, age, sector affiliation, work experience, management responsibility, and programme stage do not strongly impact ICAs’ experience of personal and professional development. Surprisingly, some diversity features had a modest or moderate impact on ICAs’ experience of personal and professional development. This disconfirmed our basic assumption about the effectiveness of inclusivity practices in the digital development programme at EBS. We conclude that future research should further investigate the impact of evaluation on ICAs’ personal and professional development and how we can secure it in a digital Business School context.

This chapter examines trans and gender non-conforming persons' experiences of recreational sport and physical activity (PA). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with trans and gender non-conforming people, which were then analyzed using critical discourse analysis (CDA). Participants highlighted that while they did derive enjoyment from sport and physical activity, most mainstream spaces they had experienced, such as organized sport and gyms, were still unsafe and unwelcoming. These experiences were largely due to the continued influence of binary notions of gender on the organization of sport and physical activity as well as assumptions about bodily performance and presentation. Participants discussed how gendered bodily norms influenced the way they experienced their own bodies, both a result of others' perceptions and through self-surveillance. They also reflected on creating their own physical activity communities as a way to derive the benefits of physical activity while avoiding discriminatory experiences in mainstream spaces.

Higher education institutions have undergone a transformation over the past few decades, from loosely coupled systems to more centrally managed organizations. Central to this ongoing development is the increasing competition for resources and reputation, driving higher education institutions to rationalize their structures and practices. In our study, we focused on changes in job advertisements for professorships in Germany from 1990 to 2010. Findings showed that the requirements stipulated by universities for professorial positions have become increasingly differentiated (and measurable) over time. In this context, competitive aspects, such as third-party funding, international orientation, or publications, have particularly come to the fore and grown significantly in importance. We discuss these findings in light of an increasing managerialization of higher education institutions, which has a direct effect on collegiality. We argue that the differentiation of professorial job profiles leads to even more formalized appointment processes and may push collegial governance into the background.

In this chapter, we outline the evidence regarding the status effects of physical attractiveness in the workplace. We frame the effects of attractiveness as power and status dynamics shaped by the context of the workplace. Attractiveness serves as a social status that mostly provides benefits in the workplace, although the results are not uniformly positive. We first explain attractiveness as a status characteristic and how it operates in general social interactions. We then examine these effects across three typical yet significant career development milestones in a worker's life: (1) the selection and hiring process of employment, (2) day-to-day interactions with colleagues and co-workers and (3) in leadership roles and positions.