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The purpose of this study is to introduce concepts for understanding and managing short- and long-term development of customer satisfaction related to service quality.

This study is based on empirical qualitative research in professional business-to-business services. The data were collected from in-depth interviews of highly experienced consultants and analyzed in terms of the content of the qualitative data.

This study empirically identifies situations where the level of customer satisfaction with a single service rendered changes over time and is different in short and long term. It finds different short- and long-term quality levels both during a service process and in the post-purchase evaluation period. It finds that sometimes long-term quality can be provided only at the expense of short-term quality and vice versa.

The concepts of short- and long-term quality provide a simple and effective conceptual tool for understanding potential short- and long-term differences in customer satisfaction as well as the reasons for it.

The study highlights the importance of considering quality dynamics at the level of a service rendered, both during the service process and in the post-purchase period. It helps in developing effective ways to understand and manage changes in customer satisfaction in the short and long term. It helps in developing strategies for communicating the overall value of a service to customers in “no pain, no gain” cases.

This study provides concepts for analyzing wicked problems.

Dynamics of quality and satisfaction in services have received very little attention in research studies although the existence and relevance of the phenomenon was recognized long ago. This study introduces new concepts for understanding this phenomenon further by focusing on the short- and long-term effects of the service quality.

The purpose of this paper is to try to identify the motivation of firms that announce share repurchase but do not follow it up with the actual purchase. The authors conjecture that the long-term earnings quality of such firms is low, which makes them poor candidates for actual stock repurchase. Their intention is to mimic actual repurchasers and their motivation appears to be just to get a bounce in their stock price normally associated with such announcements.

The authors use probit analysis to ascertain whether earnings quality can predict the subsequent repurchase behavior of firms that announce share repurchase. As Gong et al. point out, the relationship between earnings management and the percentage of shares repurchased may be endogenous. In order to mitigate the potential endogeneity bias, the authors use a two-stage instrumental variable probit model adapted for this study from Lee and Masulis (2009).

The results show that non-carry-through firms have lower earnings quality than carry-through firms in the pre-announcement period in all of the metrics the authors use to measure earnings quality. In the post-announcement period, the earnings quality of the non-carry-through firms declines still further and the difference in the quality becomes more pronounced. The results of probit regression show that lower earnings quality increases the likelihood of becoming a non-carry-through company.

The finding has interesting implications for investment management as investors can differentiate non-carry-through firms from carry-through repurchasers by examining the firm's earnings quality.

The analysis shows that poor long-term earnings quality increases the chance of not carrying through on the repurchase announcement. The authors also find that the poor earnings quality of non-carry-through firms limits their ability to manage earnings downward prior to the repurchase announcement.

This article is based on an empirical study and describes an approach for managing customer expectations to achieve long‐term quality and customer satisfaction in professional services. Professional services are somewhat different from other types of services, and often so are customer expectations. This article describes three types of expectations typical in the professional services context: fuzzy, implicit, and unrealistic. These types of expectations may represent a dangerous pitfall for long‐lasting customer satisfaction. Managing expectations is important since service quality and satisfaction result from how well the actual service performance, in other words the service process and outcome, matches the expectations. Much can be done to achieve long‐lasting satisfaction with sophisticated expectations management. This article suggests that making fuzzy expectations precise, implicit expectations explicit, and unrealistic expectations realistic, facilitates long‐term quality and customer satisfaction. The expectations‐management approach introduced in this article is particularly important when the goal is to create long‐term customer relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual model of behavior in the franchise network from the perspective of quality management.

Based on the review of the literature, the development of a theoretical scale for measuring quality in franchise systems in the short term (i.e. transactional quality) and in the long term (i.e. relationship quality) is proposed.

Two dimensions of transactional quality are identified from the franchisee perspective: contents and assistance. The dimensions of transactional quality from the franchisor's point of view refer to two aspects: formality and identify. The relationship quality identifies variables such as trust between cooperation partners, mutual commitment, and relationalism.

The proposed model is a theoretical model; an additional step is to validate empirically the dimensions of the model.

The main practical implication is that the contract does not completely reflect the actual conduct of franchisor‐franchisee relationships. It is necessary to harmonize the transactional or contractual perspective with the relationship view.

The franchise system has assumed great importance as a pattern for the expansion of services and, just like any other organization, needs to preserve the quality of the business concept to achieve overall success. On that basis, this paper aims to contribute to quality management in franchise networks and proposes a dual model for measuring quality: transactional and relational quality.

The purpose of this study is to empirically test how problem-solving lean practices, along with leaders as learning facilitators in an action learning approach, can be transferred from a production context to a knowledge work context for the purpose of becoming a learning organization while enhancing performance. This is important to study because many organizations struggle to enhance efficiency in the short term while still trying to be long-term learning oriented (i.e. learning organization development).

The authors draw on theory on learning interventions to show how lean practices for problem-solving can foster learning and help an organization to become adaptive. This study’s subject is a non-production department of 100 employees at the LEGO corporation. The authors applied survey results from a natural experiment lasting 18 months between a pre-measurement survey and a post-measurement survey. The results were compared to a control department of 50 employees who were not exposed to the lean practices intervention. The authors’ focus was on the individual level as individuals have different perceptions of lean practices, performance, and learning.

Using repeated-measures tests, difference-in-difference regressions analyses, and structural equation models, the authors find that a package of contemporary lean practices for problem-solving, along with leaders who function as learning facilitators, significantly improved learning organization dimensions while also enhancing efficiency and quality and that learning organizations positively mediate the relationship between the lean intervention and quality-related performance, while efficiency is directly affected by the lean interventions. Data from LEGO's key performance indicators (KPIs), benefit trackers, on-site observations and more than 40 interviews with managers provided results that were consistent with the survey data. A detailed description of the lean practices implemented is provided to inspire future implementations in non-operations environments and to assist educators.

The authors contribute to the learning literature by showing that a learning-to-learn approach to lean management can serve as an active and deliberate intervention in helping an organization becoming a learning organization as perceived by the individual organizational members. The authors also add to the lean literature by showing how a learning approach to lean, as used by LEGO, can positively affect short-term efficiency and quality and create a foundation for a longer-term competitive advantage (i.e. a learning organization) in a non-production context. By contrast, most of the lean literature streams treat efficiency separately from a learning organization and mainly examine lean in a production context.

The extant literature shows three research streams on lean, learning, and performance. The authors built on these streams by trying to emphasize both learning and efficiency. Prior research has not empirically tested whether and how the application of problem-solving lean practices combined with leaders as learning facilitators helps to create a comprehensive learning organization while enhancing performance in a non-production context.

It is argued that quality improvement efforts play an important role in industrial organizations by altering the role of the human resource management (HRM) function and the human resource professional as TQM is consistent with a move towards a more strategic HRM approach. Investigates and empirically tests the current status of the quality improvement efforts in selected industrial organizations in Greece and analyzes the “HR elements” related to these efforts. Also examines the extent to which Greek industrial organizations differentiate in the way they utilise their human resources as well as in the influence their human resource/personnel departments enjoy. The main findings of the study were that HR function in Greek industrial organizations has been seriously neglected for years and the role of the personnel professionals in quality improvement efforts has been overlooked.

For over a decade, total quality management has been a principle focus of business managers and academic researchers alike. The myriad prescriptions and practices, all purporting to represent this management philosophy, have been implemented with varying degrees of success. Despite the significant failure rate of TQM programs, the successes, as indicated by Baldrige Award winners, support continued interest in TQM. The search for linkages between current descriptive models and proposed prescriptive models of TQM spawned our research, which, in turn, required creation of a survey instrument. This paper describes the initial sources and development of this instrument, the rigorous sequence of testing that it has been subjected to, and its application for current and future research. The successful achievement of key survey statistics suggests that this instrument can be used for TQM data collection with confidence by researchers elsewhere who will investigate other proposed models.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the relationship between job stress, stress coping ability and performance among Japanese nurses.

Health risk and organization environment as job stress factors, sense of coherence (SOC) as stress coping ability and medical risk indicator and sickness‐absence days as a performance proxy were used to investigate the relationship between stress and performance. Length of professional experience also was included in the investigation.

The findings suggest a possibility that enriching nurses' professional experiences reduces medical risk. There is also a possibility that raising the SOC, while improving organization environment, contributes to reducing sickness‐absence.

A cross‐sectional study of nurses in a single institution was used. In order to generalize the study's results, it will be necessary to conduct multi‐institutional longitudinal studies.

The present study shows key factors affecting medical risk and sickness‐absence leading to a reduced nursing performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether customer‐perceived service quality and expectation of service quality have causal impacts on overall customer satisfaction.

Data on all the variables were elicited from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), and these were analyzed using the Granger causality method.

Satisfaction and perceived quality were positively related. Even though perceived quality did not Granger‐cause satisfaction in the short term, it did so in the long term. Likewise, even though satisfaction did not Granger‐cause perceived quality in the short term, it did so in the long term. But customer expectations Granger‐caused both satisfaction and expectation in the short‐term and the long term.

The findings are based on only one company. Extrapolation to other companies demands caution and the data may not satisfy asymptotic assumptions.

The study contributes to the literature by advising managers to extend their customer satisfaction tracking to overall customer satisfaction with its strategic implications.

In view of current climate change policies, this study aims to provide researchers, regulators, and business practice with the current picture of practices regarding carbon-related compensation granted to chief executive officers (CEO). To this end, it examines whether and to what extent European companies translate their carbon reduction strategies into carbon targets underlying their CEOs’ short-term and long-term compensation, what characteristics the carbon targets used commonly have in terms of their quality and time frame, and whether the carbon targets used differ among carbon-intensive, and less carbon-intensive companies.

Drawing on the stakeholder-agency theoretical perspective, this study explores the patterns of use and characteristics of carbon-related targets in CEO compensation. In this vein, a content analysis of corporate disclosure for the business years 2018 and 2019 is conducted for a European sample of 65 large listed companies from 16 countries and 11 industries.

The findings of this study show that albeit the trend toward new adoption, carbon-related CEO compensation systems are still uncommon. The results also reveal that carbon targets are mainly used to determine short-term compensation. Further, the findings highlight that carbon-related CEO compensation is almost equally widespread among carbon-intensive and less carbon-intensive companies. However, in terms of target quality, the study shows that carbon-intensive companies display greater heterogeneity and opacity.

By analyzing the characteristics of carbon targets and the prevalence of carbon-related CEO compensation for the first time, this study contributes to the stakeholder-agency theoretical perspective on corporate governance. In view of the European Green Deal and climate-related stakeholder demands, regulators and business practice are encouraged to recognize that carbon-related CEO compensation should gain momentum and the disclosure on this matter should become more transparent and comparable among companies and across industries.