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This paper explores the development and application of a self‐administered organizational diagnostic to assess the firm’s underlying business orientation. The research further explores the relationships between Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO), Market Orientation (MO), and Performance with high tech firms headquartered in the Silicon Valley. In this initial study of 89 respondents, we explored differences in business orientation between startups and established firms. We also examined whether the constructs and their measurements could be used to provide managerials recommendations for performance improvements. We found that the interaction between EO and MO was positively and significantly related to business performance.

Stress‐management training benefits individual participants and their employer organisations in terms of improved health, higher productivity, reduced absenteeism, and fewer accidents. However, employee reluctance to enroll in stress‐management training programmes is common. An easy‐to‐complete, self‐administered diagnostic inventory can lower resistance of potential trainees. High stress scores and confidentiality often motivate employees to seek counselling, training, or both. The Personal Stress Assessment Inventory, which is self‐scoring and comprehensive, was found to be an appropriate instrument ‐‐ with a high level of internal consistency and external validity.

Building great products can be a reality for any company that takes the time and effort to create and execute the linkages between: winning strategy; the role of products and services; the product building blocks; and, linkages to customer needs. In fact, our research and work with clients suggests that a lack of alignment of these factors is the number one cause for the poor performance of many new products. This article defines for the reader the four winning strategy choices a company has – Product Leader, Distribution Giant, Innovation Superstar and Customer Lover and how each of these models puts a different emphasis on products and services. Once a company has selected a winning strategy, executing that strategy successfully requires adherence to the business model, including aligning product and services, customer imperatives and financial realities to that winning strategy model. Losing focus and drifting away from the chosen strategy or interspersing, for example, the product priorities from one winning strategy with the customer imperatives from another is a recipe for lackluster earnings and poor stock performance. Readers will learn how to outsmart the competition and build products that really win in the marketplace.

This article consists of four parts. The first part describes some of the forces in management and society in general which are supporting the move towards self‐developmental approaches to education and training. The second part suggests that managerial competencies and skills generally come about not through formal training but as a result of self developmental processes. Following this is a brief description of management self development — what it is and what it means in practice. The final section of the paper discusses the need for support in the self development process and suggests that support groups of learning communities go some way towards meeting this need.

Subjective measurements of cognition have seldom been used in schizophrenia. This is mainly due to the assumption that such measurements lack sensitivity in a disorder characterized by poor insight. We investigated the capacity of BRIEF-A (Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function - Adult Version: a self-administered, ecological questionnaire) to identify executive deficits in adults with schizophrenia. The global score and each domain-specific score was significantly lower in patients than in healthy controls. BRIEF-A could be a useful complement to objective measurements, providing a subjective assessment of everyday consequences of executive dysfunction in patients with schizophrenia.

In recent years, the development and application of innovative and disruptive technologies in manufacturing environments is shaping the fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0. The purpose of this paper is to describe a tool to assess the maturity level in implementing Industry 4.0 concepts and technologies in manufacturing companies.

Using a framework to develop maturity models found in literature, three main steps were taken: the model design from the literature review on industry 4.0 and the comparative analysis of existing models; interviews with engineers and managers of relevant industries; and pilot tests in two relevant industrial companies.

The proposed maturity model has 41 variables considering five dimensions (organizational strategy, structure and culture; workforce; smart factories; smart processes; smart products and services). The studied companies showed different levels of Industry 4.0 implementation. According to respondents, the model is useful in making an initial diagnosis and establishes a roadmap to proceed the implementation.

Empirical evidence supports the relevance of the proposed model and its practical usefulness. It can be used to measure the current state (initial diagnostic and monitoring assessments), and to plan the future desired state (goal), identifying which transformational capabilities should be developed.

The literature review did not return an enough complete maturity model to guide a self-administered assessment. Therefore, the proposed model is a valuable tool for companies and researchers to understand the I4.0 phenomenon, plan and monitor the transformation actions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate patients’ views toward the perceived service quality of public and private healthcare service providers. Determinants of healthcare service quality were compared by carrying out a GAP analysis to equate perceived and expected services and examined differences in the service quality.

The study sample comprises 310 inpatients of public and private healthcare service providers. Self-administered questionnaires were used along a five-point Likert scale and analyzed through the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. GAP analysis was used to observe the difference between expectations and perceived service quality.

A cross-sectional study revealed significant quality gaps between the expected and perceived services of public and private healthcare service providers; conversely patients’ expectations are not fully met in both types of hospitals. Private hospitals surpassed in terms of overall perceived service quality from their counterparts. Perceived services were found better in terms of physician medical services in public sector hospitals, while rooms and housekeeping services were found better in terms of private sector hospitals.

The result can be used by both public and private healthcare service providers to restructure their quality management practices which could only be possible through effective management commitment, regular patients’ feedback and translucent complaint procedures.

The study conceptualizes the expected and perceived hospital service quality dimensions as an eight-dimensional framework. A comparison between public and private sector hospitals is made to get a better understanding about the differences in the perceived healthcare services among two sectors. Consequences of the study will aid hospital managers and policy makers to get a fuller picture of healthcare services in order to contrive enhancement practices.

This study aimed to determine the prevalence and risk factors of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection among medical laboratory science students (MLSSs) in the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS), Ghana.

A cross-sectional study design was employed to recruit a total of 178 students into the study. A self-administered questionnaire was used to gather relevant information on risk factors, and a hepatitis B diagnostic test kit was used to test for HBV infection. Descriptive, chi-square test, bivariate and multiple logistic regression statistical analysis were computed. Significance was observed at p < 0.05.

The prevalence of HBV infection among MLSSs was 6.7%. Torn gloves and splash of blood and body fluids contributed to 43.0% and 28.0% of all the risk factors of HBV infection, respectively. Also, 43.3% of students had received at least one dose of the hepatitis B vaccination. Sharp object-related injury and torn gloves increased the odds of HBV infection, while vaccination decreased the odds of HBV infection.

This study reveals the prevalence of HBV among MLSSs, who are recognized as being among the high-risk student populations aside from student nurses.

This empirical study aims to explore sufficiency conditions for patient loyalty to a hospital.

The study collected 645 self-administered questionnaires from patients in a major medical center in Taiwan and applied fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fs/QCA) to explore the sufficiency conditions for patient loyalty.

The findings support the conclusion that the three conditions (patient satisfaction, patient participation in the process of diagnosis, and patient participation in treatment decision-making) in combination are sufficient for high patient loyalty to the hospital but high patient satisfaction alone is insufficient. While the three conditions in configural algorithm are sufficient, this expression is not necessary, which means the findings do not reject possible alternative conditions for high patient loyalty.

The study applies a relatively new method, fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fs/QCA) to test the sufficiency proposition of the theory. This method enables researchers to focus on examining sufficient conditions without worrying about various confounding factors and informs this study ' s conclusion that patients exhibiting high scores in all three conditions mentioned above constitute a near-perfect subset of highly loyal patients. Hospitals thus should provide their satisfied patients opportunities to share a role in the process of diagnosis and treatment decision-making.

Along with patient satisfaction, this study clearly identifies two important stages of patient participation (i.e., participation in the process of diagnosis and treatment decision-making) that are important in forming patient loyalty to a hospital. Prior studies do not present empirical evidence to this proposition.

The purpose of this study is twofold. First, it aims to provide a review of the Net Promoter© Index (NPI), the evidence of its ability to predict financial performance, and the evidence of its superiority to other voice of customer metrics. Second, it seeks to investigate the nomological validity of the Net Promoter question. It aims to view the NP question as an alternative to the traditional word-of-mouth measure, which is one of the components of customer loyalty. The nomological validity of NP was evaluated in a model including customer satisfaction as an antecedent and repurchase intention as a consequence.

The data for empirically addressing a set of hypotheses related to the nomological validity were collected via self-administered questionnaire. A total of 159 participants completed questions for banking services, 153 individuals completed questions for hairdresser/barber services, and 132 completed questions for cell phone services. The hypotheses were tested using partial least square analysis.

The results provide evidence for the nomological validity of the NPI question; albeit, the traditional word-of-mouth measure seems to perform equally as well or even better.

A set of pros and cons related to NPI are developed. The paper recommends including the NPI in a portfolio of voice of customer metrics but not as a standalone diagnostic tool. Further, given the present state of evidence, it cannot be recommended to use the NPI as a predictor of growth nor financial performance.

The paper provides further insights into the validity of the Net Promoter Index as a measure of customer loyalty.