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Explores the extent to which the construct service quality plays in an internal marketing setting. A conceptual model known as the “Internal Service Quality Model” was designed based on the original “GAP Model” developed by Parasuraman. The model evaluated the dimensions, and their relationships, that determine service quality among internal customers (front‐line staff) and internal suppliers (support staff) within a large service organisation, namely, Singapore Airlines. The dependent variable in this study was internal service quality (ISQ), while the independent variables were tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. The results suggest that the perceptions and expectations of internal customers and internal suppliers play a major role in recognising the level of internal service quality perceived. The acceptance of the postulated hypotheses has confirmed the importance of the internal service quality construct, thus acknowledging the usefulness of the INTSERVQUAL instrument and the conceptualised Internal Service Quality Model proposed in this research study.

This study aims to examine the effects of vocational training programs for people with disabilities on their income.

It conducted a multinomial regression analysis of 10,469 survey responses from 31 provincial administrative areas in mainland China.

It finds the following antecedents all influence the trainees’ self-reported income, including their perception of the quality of the program, the training subject, the degree of consistency between their current job and this subject, their employment sector, their motivation and access to training resources and the geographical location of the program.

The findings are not representative of people with disabilities across mainland China because the respondents were not randomly sampled.

The findings suggest that to increase the income of people with disabilities, the training can be designed according to the needs of employers by teaching subjects relevant to the needs of the labor market, reaching out to motivated trainees and enhancing the quality of training. Training institutions, employers and governments are recommended to work together to integrate class-based learning with workplace-based learning and practices. More training resources can be devoted to the self-employed people with disabilities or those who operate in the informal sector and are in less-developed areas.

The improvement of employment opportunities and income of people with disabilities supports the safeguarding of their social economic rights and the building of an inclusive society.

Few studies have empirically explored and explained the effects of vocational training programs on people with disabilities’ income. This article fills this gap by assessing the performance of China's vocational training programs funded by the Federation of Disabled Persons at all levels.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the status quo of digital poverty among adolescents in China, analyze the characteristics and the causes, then propose countermeasures to provide reference for alleviating digital poverty among adolescents.

The study developed an initial scale of digital poverty among adolescents and used survey data to revise the scale, on this basis, formed a questionnaire, which was distributed to nationwide adolescents. The study developed its findings from the 837 valid questionnaire respondents.

The digital poverty among adolescents is mainly shown in the poverty of digital ability, digital psychology and digital environment and presents the following characteristics, that is, insufficient information seeking ability and information selection ability needing to be improved; equipped with basic information awareness but lack of information evaluation ability; lack of patience in obtaining information and inclined to the principle of least effort; imperfect knowledge structure and immature psychological emotions and vulnerable to external interference; having a certain relationship with the information environment, but not significantly affected by regional economic differences. Finally, the study puts forward countermeasures to alleviate digital poverty among adolescents.

Understanding of the digital poverty among adolescents will likely demand rethinking into a number of issues ignored by information poverty studies.

Few studies focus on digital poverty among adolescents. This study developed an initial scale of digital poverty among adolescents and revised it by survey data, then conducted an empirical study through questionnaire, which could expand the understanding of information poverty in the field of library and information science.

Strategic decision importance has rarely been investigated as a decision-specific characteristic in the strategic decision-making process (SDMP) literature taking into consideration information management while taking important strategic decisions. Here, the ability of decision importance to predict decision effectiveness as an outcome of SDMPs in higher education institutions (HEIs) is examined in the context of Bahrain.

A conceptual model is developed relating decision importance to decision effectiveness indirectly via the SDMP characteristics intuition, rationality and decentralization. Data from a cross-sectional questionnaire completed by leaders of HEIs and academics involved in strategic decision-making in Bahrain are used to test the model and hypotheses via correlation analysis. The paper also considers a literature review of the use of information management while taking a strategic decision.

Decision importance is shown to positively influence decision effectiveness in Bahraini HEIs mediated by rationality and by decentralization in decision-making, although negative effects of decentralization are also demonstrated. However, decision importance does not influence decision effectiveness mediated by intuition.

Due to the small sample size, the results cannot be generalized to contexts beyond HEIs in Bahrain. Additional SDMP characteristics of significance in the context of HEIs could be future investigated, for instance, political behaviour and lateral communication, are not included in the model. Future research exploring the latter two aspects could provide deeper insight into the findings.

The findings of this paper could be considered by HEIs senior management and members of the governing body while strategic decision-making, which could be at different levels, including strategic planning or assessing a strategic decision in terms of effectiveness. This paper will also provide insight one the use of information while considering strategic decision-making.

A model leading for effective strategic decision-making could be used by leaders of HEIs and regulators including licensing bodies and QA agencies to set standards for HEIs for sustainable performance and quality education in line with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Initiative. Strategic decision-making will have an impact on the overall performance of HEIs and serve all relevant stakeholder’s including parents, students, employers and industry.

Little research conducted in relation to strategic decision-making in the Gulf Cooperation Council therefore, this research will add original findings and the outcome of this study will lead to future research related to SDMP and the use of information management in the overall strategic decision-making.

The role of management control is frequently emphasized in connection with inter-organizational relationships and value networks. For example, boundary-spanning cost and accounting control techniques have been studied in multifaceted empirical settings. The prevalence of such techniques is, however, currently unknown in conjunction with companies’ interests to increase inter-organizational integration in general. Additionally, also the nexus between the internal state of cost management and the company’s willingness to develop inter-organizational relationships requires further investigation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The study is based on an extensive survey that was responded to by more than 1,500 CEOs and CFOs from large, medium-sized and small Finnish enterprises in a variety of industries. As the authors chose the mixed-methods approach, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected for the study.

The findings suggest that companies can be allocated to five clusters: “the cost experts,” “the trustful,” “the holdouts,” “the trailblazers” and “the uncertain”. When the networking-oriented clusters, “the trustful” and “the trailblazers” are combined, the authors can conclude that 40 percent of the studied companies are interested in increasing inter-organizational integration. However, only 7 percent have boundary-spanning techniques in use. There is also a correlation between interest in integrating and developing cost management.

This paper contains several theoretical implications, although further research, e.g. comparative studies, is required to verify the findings. The scarcity of managerial implications can be regarded as a limitation.

This paper fills several untapped research gaps by studying inter-organizational integration in the cost management context from multiple, complementary perspectives with a particularly large set of data.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the purchase behavior with regard to innovative food packaging techniques and sociodemographic properties of consumers in Turkey (the crossroads of Europe and Asia).

The survey was conducted with 365 people (around 50 persons for each region) who live in the different regions to represent the whole population of Turkey as good as possible. Questionnaire methodology was used to achieve the research objectives. Multiple-choice test which consists of 24 questions (Table I) were selected in order to keep the questionnaire at a reasonable length. Questionnaires were distributed to the respondents in small groups for effective communication. Multiple correspondence, decision tree and prospect profiles statistic procedures were used to identify the purchase behavior.

In the study, some consumers worried that innovative packages might mislead them and therefore sales should be handled under trusted brands. Majority of consumers were willing to use innovative food packages to prevent the microbial spoilage. Consumers indicated that they do not want to see sachets in active food packages due to the probability of mistaken. Consumers who chose the price as a first thing to get their attention in food packaging, would accept the increase in price lesser than 10 percent after seeing the positive impacts of innovative packaging. Most of the consumers’ (74.79 percent) expectation from innovative packaging was the visual ability to observe the history and freshness of foods inside the packaging. Participants indicated that education through commercials (40.55 percent) would be the most effective way in order to increase the overall acceptability for innovative packaging.

The limitation of this study was that, these questionnaires were applied only to Turkish consumers and findings might not be applicable to other countries.

Better understanding of consumer adoption of innovative packages can help to minimize rejection of innovative technologies. Knowledge of consumer behaviors toward active and intelligent packaging can contribute to developing better industry strategies.

This paper gives the detailed information about purchasing behavior of Turkish consumers’ regarding innovative packaging techniques.

In recent years, investment management education has become increasingly relevant. As a result of this development, it is essential that various role players should be consulted to ensure that investment management is taught in line with practitioners’ requirements. The South African Qualifications Authority also specifies that educators and practitioners should collaborate to maintain relevance in all fields of education. The importance of various areas in investment management was investigated. This article compares the ranking of these areas in terms of their importance as perceived by academics and practitioners. The study being reported also aimed to determine whether gaps exist between the areas that academics regard to be important and the areas that practitioners regard as such. Areas that are generally regarded to be most important include asset allocation, fundamental analysis and the measurement of risk and return. Areas that are regarded to be least important include arts, antiques and other hard assets; rights and capitalisation issues; and real estate. Areas in need of research include the measurement of risk and return; asset allocation; derivatives; and global markets and instruments. The findings of this study could have a significant impact on the provision of relevant training for South African investment specialists.

The young population in Turkey is gradually increasing. Generation Y, which comprises the people born between 1980 and 1999 (Broadbridge et al., 2007) and free-spirited and tech-savvy, forms a large part of the population of the world, especially Turkey, and is of great importance to the housing sector for their home-buying preferences. In this study, housing preferences of students in Turkey’s two socio-economically different universities were comparatively analysed through quantitative methods.

A survey was simultaneously distributed among students of two universities. The survey consists of six main factors: “reliability”, “economic opportunities”, “transportation opportunities”, “quality of life and social opportunities”, “quality standards”, and “technological opportunities”, with 25 statements. The questionnaire was developed through a comprehensive literature review and the opinions of university stakeholders.

Results showed that the structure of the family and socio-economic differences affect home-buying preferences. The Mann–Whitney U test indicated that there was a meaningful difference of opinion between students of two universities. Munzur University students paid attention to economic opportunities when buying a home. Additionally, there was a meaningful relationship among the age groups in factors of “having a parking place” (p = 0.026) and “having a playground” (p = 0.026). As the age increases, students desire a playground around their future home.

The most important limitation of this study is the non-parametric data. Non-parametric data structure and the tests performed accordingly are less preferred than parametric data structure. For that reason, to what extent the results accurately represent Generation Y needs to be assessed through future study. Also, a certain number of sampling could be reached as purposive sampling was used.

This study contributes to the literature in terms of comparatively analysing buying preferences of Generation Y through statistical methods and showing the relationship between these preferences and socio-economic features statistically. Due to the insufficient quantitative research on the literature, this quantitative study was carried future home-buying preferences of Generation Y university students, who will also be actively involved in the housing market. The purpose of this study investigates marketing factors that affect housing preferences of students in Turkey.

This study aims to describe and analyse interlibrary loans and document delivery (ILL/DD) in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and to evaluate the ILL/DD service quality of one particular library.

ILL/DD at the Chinese Science Digital Library (CSDL) is described. The success of ILL/DD at CSDL is analysed. Finally, the service quality of one library’s ILL/DD based on LibQUAL+ is evaluated.

ILL/DD at CSDL can be improved through a multi-library union, and a modified LibQUAL+ model can be used to evaluate a library’s ILL/DD service quality.

More patrons can access a better service, and the work efficiency of librarians can be improved.

This study is helpful to librarians interested in ILL/DD and resource sharing in China.

Focuses on a study about major innovation in the ISO 9000:2000 registration process. Shows that the application of the behavioural science field is an excellent strategy for businesses to use to help improve investment return on ISO 9001:2000. Reckons that, in order to maximise benefits from implementing ISO 9001:2000, companies should approach the process using an organizational behaviour strategy, to ensure motivation involving the workforce.