Search results

To describe and analyze in detail an Interpretive Release (the “2006 Interpretation”) approved on July 12, 2006 by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) regarding the soft dollar safe harbor under Section 28(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Following a brief discussion of the history of soft dollars, describes and analyzes in greater detail relevant aspects of the 2006 Interpretation, including an explanation of the three‐part test concerning the use of soft dollars to pay for products and services under the safe harbor, a discussion of “mixed use” items, further detail on soft dollar arrangements, an explanation of liabilities and obligations of managers and broker dealers, and an implementation timeline.

Under the 2006 Interpretation, a money manager may rely on the safe harbor to acquire products or services only upon satisfaction of each part of a three‐part test. First, does the product or service meet the eligibility criteria of Section 28(e)(3)? Second, does the eligible product or service provide lawful and appropriate assistance in the performance of relevant responsibilities? Finally, may the money manager properly conclude, in good faith, that the commissions paid are reasonable in relation to the value of the research and brokerage products and services provided by the broker (in relation either to the particular transaction or to the money manager's overall responsibilities with respect to discretionary accounts)? The 2006 Interpretation also is relevant to broker‐dealers who may receive soft dollars. Under Section 28(e), a money manager can pay soft dollars only to broker‐dealers who “provide” research or brokerage services and “effect” transactions. Under the 2006 Interpretation, the circumstances under which broker‐dealers will be seen as “providing” services and “effecting” transactions will be interpreted more broadly than under past interpretations, allowing brokers and money managers greater flexibility to structure soft dollar and commission‐sharing arrangements in a manner that will better serve the interests of investors.

Provides a detailed analysis of the 2006 Interpretation concerning soft dollars.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between foreign market entry modes and hard‐ and soft‐service firms. The paper investigated which foreign market entry modes service firms opt for, and if this is influenced by systematic differences between types of service industries. A secondary purpose is to test the generalizability of the research findings from manufacturing sector to service sector firms.

Our sample consisted of 140 Swedish service firms. These firms were investigated using a mailed questionnaire survey, and logistic regression analysis was used for testing the hypotheses.

The statistical analysis shows that, in general, soft‐service firms are much more likely than hard service firms to choose a high control entry mode over a low control entry mode. Furthermore, as cultural distance increases, the likelihood of this choice increases even more.

The implications are that while hard service suppliers can learn from the experience of manufacturing firms going abroad, soft services are unique. Given the importance for soft‐service suppliers to interact with their foreign customers, they should opt for a high degree of control over their foreign market entry mode. In future research on foreign market entry mode selection in service firms more attention should be given to social processes that exercise control.

The findings enhance knowledge on foreign market entry by service firms.

The purpose of this paper is to figure out the impacts of soft innovation in the city hotels in general, whereas the focus is on figuring out if there exists a difference in vitality on the components of soft innovation among the hotel categories, as 4 stars, 5 stars and boutique hotels in Izmir, Turkey.

The first part is related to a detailed literature review on the soft innovation components as color, sound, light, scent and decoration. Literature review is followed by a qualitative research where expert information on the research topic is collected. Judgmental sampling is used to identify experts’ views where in-depth semi-structured interviews are conducted with 12 hotel managers in Izmir city. The soft innovation hotel application areas taken into consideration are: lobby and reception, rooms, restaurant, bar and ballroom areas, meeting and congress halls, SPA and pools, gardens and landscape and other exterior hotel architecture.

The findings of the research reveal the sample hotel managers’ views as all the soft innovation applications are important for all city hotels regardless of their category, meaning that soft innovation may lead to better marketing results. Thus, according to hotel managers, soft innovation offerings have a potential for better customer satisfaction as positive feedback. However, the vitality degree among components changes according to the hotel’s category. For boutique hotels the most important component is found to be the decoration of the hotel, whereas for 4 stars hotels it is light and for 5 stars hotels it is scent.

The results of this study give relatively limited information because only managers’ point of view are shown. In the research, customers’ perceptions on soft innovation based interviews with the top management of the hotels studied takes place, indicating which may not be the case to reflect the real perception of customers. Therefore, for further researches, it is recommended for the other researches to take into consideration of customers’ point of views as well. Also, time limitation, sample size and application of only qualitative research may be stated as the limitations for this study. Quantitative research applies to customers on the same topic and problem statement is recommended for further studies related to city hotels’ soft innovation applications.

Motivation of this study is to understand how soft innovation can change hotels’ atmosphere and make it more attractive from the managers’ perceptions. According to hotel managers’ views, soft innovation applications may lead to higher customer satisfaction, but the level of investment among the components may change according to the city hotel’s category. Research implications indicate that hotel managers may optimize the effectiveness of their soft innovation efforts by taking into consideration their hotel type, application areas and innovation category as decoration, color, scent, sound and light. According to hotel managers, decoration-related soft innovation is more important to boutique hotels, lighting-related soft innovation is an effective investment for 4 stars hotels and scent-related soft innovation is a suitable investment for 5 stars hotels.

The originality of the study lies in the analysis of the components of soft innovation as a means for effective city hotel marketing and innovative management applications. Though it is a very suitable industry for implementation, improvement and development, there are limited studies on soft innovation applications in the hotel industry.

Drawing on social exchange and similarity attraction theories, the purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of soft attributes (e.g. social and relational attributes) on hard attributes (e.g. core attribute performance) in a high contact service context, namely in the hair care service environment.

This research extends the key mediating variable model (KMVM) of Morgan and Hunt by hypothesising that, while trust fully mediates the effect of soft attributes on loyalty, trust only partially mediates the effect of hard attributes on loyalty. Data were collected using the critical incident technique from 176 students.

Supports the fully mediating role of trust for soft attributes and a partially mediating role of trust for hard attributes.

Future research should test the model in contexts that involve less employee‐customer contact and interaction.

The study underscores the practical importance of investing in non‐core (soft attributes such as social and relational attributes that focus on social bonding) attributes in addition to core attributes (hard attributes such as performance excellence of key service delivered) in service marketing.

In this time of heightened regulatory attention to potential conflicts of interest and the transparency of transaction costs in buying and selling portfolio securities, soft dollar practices have come under intense scrutiny. Regulators are asking whether the use of soft dollars should be eliminated, while some in the investment management industry have begun to restrict their own practices or even voluntarily discontinue them. What should you be doing now? Should you be evaluating your soft dollar arrangements? Do you have effective soft dollar policies and procedures in place to maintain compliance with applicable regulatory requirements? Who are the primary beneficiaries of your soft dollar arrangements? This article outlines the background and regulatory considerations applicable to soft dollar arrangements, and discusses the issues money management firms should consider in reviewing their soft dollar practices.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for the development of total quality management (TQM) model for service organizations considering both internal and external environmental factors.

Through an extensive literature search, it is found that despite a large body of knowledge on TQM, there is hardly any research undertaken on the model of service quality including all external and internal factors that can affect the impact of soft and hard TQM factors on organizations performance. So, a systematic literature review has been conducted to extract the relevant journal articles for the study purpose.

The conceptual model fills this yawning gap and presents a framework of integrated relationships based on several constituent models. These are soft TQM factors, hard TQM factors and organizational performance. Moreover, quality improvement, market benefits, R&D performance and quality performance are used as mediators while industry rivalry and entry barriers are used as moderators between soft and hard TQM and organizational performance. The seven propositions, derived from these elements, highlight the dynamic relationship between above mentioned constructs.

One major limitation is the testing of this model. It has not been tested in any environment or organization to assess its validity. Future research can be done to test the developed hypotheses. Besides three journals, other journals can also be focused in future to get detailed insight into different factors. Impact of IT on organizational processes toward TQM can also be studied in future. More rigorous statistical tests can also be applied to generate more findings with an extension of review time period and selection of more journals.

The model developed in this study can be applied in any service organization with slight modifications to enhance the service quality of organizations by integrating both internal and external aspects for quality improvement. By adopting this framework, organizations can increase their production quality.

This proposed framework will help organizations to effectively implement TQM in their organizations considering internal and external organizational factors.

This chapter explores the strategic motives behind the decision of hotels to internationalize. It approaches the subject from the perspective of the soft-service sector and aims to develop an understanding of this phenomenon. The literature covers several different factors that stimulate the decision to expand operations abroad. The process requires a trigger that will initiate the process and control the assignment until completion. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with international hotel chains to develop an understanding of the process. The findings reveal factors that can be distinguished between proactive and reactive and also be categorized under the four major motives behind internationalization: seeking natural resources, markets, efficiency and strategic assets or capabilities. The international strategy of hotel chains provides a roadmap for expansion and often acts as a trigger. The findings also reveal the significant role of vice presidents (VPs) of international development, development directors, agents and networks in initiating the process of internationalization and stimulating the chains towards specific parts of the world. One of the main differences between manufacturing and soft services is the wide variety of entry modes that are at the disposal of services. The findings are consistent with the literature published and provide an insight into the initial steps towards internationalization by hotel chains, in the post-COVID era.

Research question: What are the strategic motives behind the decision of hotels to internationalize?

Notes that good service delivery has come a long way from “smile training”, but many managers are left wondering whether they should put emphasis on the “hard” or the “soft” aspects of service. There is no doubt that “soft” issues are key and many successful service companies stress the importance of developing customer‐friendly values, a positive environment and interpersonal skills to match. Remarks that “hard” aspects are important too and include process alignment, customer surveys, benchmarking standards and capacity management. The ability to handle times when something goes wrong demonstrates the interplay of “hard” and “soft”, service delivery necessitates a complex blend of “hard” and “soft” approaches.

This paper aims to describe and discuss in-house cleaning services in local authorities to gain a better understanding of current practices. These descriptions are intended to increase researchers’, practitioners’ and educators’ understanding of the studied issue, as there at present does not exist a solid understanding of in-house cleaning services in local authorities. Previous studies provide little detailed information regarding the internal environment of facility management (FM) organisations, in particular with regard to FM organisations’ individual services.

This research is based on two descriptive case studies, one from Norway and one from the UK. The case studies are based on semi-structured, face-to-face in-depth interviews and document reviews.

The cases demonstrate that in-house cleaning services can be structured and managed in different ways, particularly with respect to the split in services, the management of staff and customer contracts, the span of control, the chain of command, self-managed leadership, cleaners’ hours of duty and the use of outsourcing.

Although the previous research on particular FM services is limited, this paper’s detailed descriptions may stimulate further development and research within the field. The knowledge brought forward is part of bridging a knowledge gap on cleaning in FM research. This knowledge can contribute to advancements in the way this service is discussed and measured across contexts by encouraging more rigour and specific studies on cleaning.

This paper constitutes one of the first detailed descriptions of in-house cleaning organisation in local authorities. This is a type of service supply that is common in certain contexts and identified as beneficial to cost-saving in other contexts.

In turbulent, highly competitive markets corporate organisations are faced with the dichotomy of “downsizing” their costs, yet at the same time improving the service that they offer their customers. This paper shows how a more market‐orientated approach can bring greater benefits for companies. Additional “soft” services can help to tailor a package of customer service and provide product and service differentiation, while inverting the traditional organisational structure can bring customer and supplier closer and lead to greater collaboration. This requires more open communication systems for the rapid capture, transfer and management of information. This has proved difficult in the past, but Web‐based technology is changing all of that. The paper concludes that all of these features are essential for a customer‐supplier interaction model that can provide the customer with added value in product and service delivery, and the supplier with increased business opportunities.