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This study investigates the relationships between innovation, quality, productivity and customer satisfaction in pure service companies. Previous studies have shown a negative relationship between quality and productivity in services. However, we argue the two can be positively related when innovation is present.

This paper develops and tests hypotheses using secondary data from COMPUSTAT, KLD STAT and the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). We test these hypotheses using ordinary least squares regression and conduct additional testing using path analysis.

The findings show that quality and productivity are positively related when innovation is present in pure service companies. The findings also reveal find that innovation is antecedent to both service quality and productivity which in turn positively affect customer satisfaction.

Both companies and customers can increase their outcomes including higher levels of service quality, productivity and customer satisfaction. Managers should therefore design innovative systems that enable customers to participate in service production. Other innovative systems may help to increase capacity utilization by smoothing high and low demand times, thus increasing both service quality and productivity.

This study contributes to service research by identifying innovation as the key to simultaneously increasing service quality and productivity. The authors find empirical support for a model in which service quality and productivity have a complementary relationship leading to customer satisfaction with innovation as an antecedent, and we do so using a sample of pure service firms.

This paper aims to analyze the political background of the Hawthorne criticisms, positing that the political atmosphere of the 1940s, influenced by the decline of the new deal liberalism and the rise of the conservative coalition, stimulated scholars to challenge the Hawthorne studies.

Primary sources used in the guise of archival commentaries, journal articles and other published works (books and book chapters). Secondary sources are offered to provide additional insight and context.

The findings show that politics unnecessarily discredited Mayo. As a result, contemporary scholars failed to recognize Mayo’s work as an important part of the basis for modern management theory.

The purpose of the research is to look into the political context of the Hawthorne studies to understand how management practice and research is impacted by ongoing political issues.

To date, no work has fully accounted for or understood the political climate of the time in considering the criticisms of the Hawthorne studies. By more fully understanding the political context, scholars can reevaluate the weight they place on the then criticisms of the Hawthorne studies.

This study aims at providing exploratory insights into the initiative and capabilities of Chinese SMEs to develop and utilize diverse networks to support internationalization. Such network development and utilization efforts are fundamental to the analysis and explanation of Chinese firms’ internationalization patterns and outcomes. Extending from the existing network studies in the Chinese context that generally put emphasis on strong‐tie and ethnic‐oriented networks, this paper investigates and explains explicitly the use and effects of both strong‐ and weak‐tie networks in the international development of Chinese SMEs. Indepth case studies on four rapidly internationalized Chinese SMEs are conducted. The case findings demonstrate that weak‐tie networks are essential to the firms’ business development in foreign markets; and were proactively developed and utilized in the course of the firms’ development. The cases also provide alternative perspectives to the beliefs and values underpinning strong‐tie networks presumed in existing literature. The findings draw attention to the changing business values and approaches of the Chinese firms aiming at developing internationally. Managerial implications concerning the significant influence of effective networking on internationalization are pinpointed.

This paper attempts to provide an understanding of gift‐giving for a more systematic assessment of relationship building to succeed in an Asian realm. This study proposes to examine the underlying linkage between the intensity of gift‐giving and constructing relationships. The goal is to provide both researchers and businesses an insight into how to successfully manage profitable relationships in a culture‐rich environment that is growing ever more demanding and complicated. Gift‐giving is seen as an act of reciprocity, and often misconstrued as bribery by Westerners, yet it appears to be an important constituent of the Asian culture and can be seen as a form of relationship investment, that if cultivated well, can uplift interactions between businesses.

China’s economy is transforming at a brisk pace. A partially dismantled command economy and introduction of competition have fueled consumer demand for a greater selection of innovative new products in the retail market. The challenge for retail buyers is to adjust their procurement processes to respond to consumer needs in an efficient and effective manner. This study examines factors influencing buyer‐supplier relationships in a transition economy. We present a model to explain the factors driving retail buyer dependence on suppliers. We find that retailer evaluation of supplier credibility mediates the relationship between retailer perceptions of a supplier ability to add value to its business and the ability to achieve its desired goals. In part, this is due to the supplier’s market orientation. Interestingly, guanxi ties have no impact on the retailer perceptions of the supplier credibility, but have a positive affect on retailer dependence on its supplier partners.

This paper aims to provide a look at an unusual emerging market though its main aim is to provide a rich and colourful exercise for teaching marketing. Rich in that the teacher has a variety of options, colourful in that the student will be engaged by the language and content.

The case study focuses on an unusual and relatively new leisure product that combines two growing areas: cruise tourism and music festivals. The case is written in a narrative style to allow student interpretation of the material and application to a range of marketing concepts. The information within the case is derived from a number of published sources including market data, internet chatrooms, blogs and an interview with a customer.

The case builds to provide a picture of an innovative niche product in an emerging growth market. In the introduction, it demonstrates that popular music is no longer limited to low‐income youth. The sections that follow the introduction set the scene for a (variable) market definition. Next, the experiences revealed in the Sixthman Blog show their lack of understanding of this “new product”. Whilst, the personal experience that follows highlights typical customer demographics and needs. The research from Mintel pulls much of this together before leaving some thoughts for the future in the final section.

The case can be used for teaching in a number of ways, for example, relating to market development, segmentation, targeting and marketing communications.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a conference and the individual presentations, as well as to make general observations, and relate them to important issues in acquisitions and collection development.

The design is to describe the conference by individual presentations and general observations at this conference and preceding Charleston conferences from the viewpoint of an attendee.

The findings are that acquisitions and collection development are undergoing fundamental changes that are changing operations and services rendered to faculty and students.

The reporting of conference presentations on the important changes, both formal presentations and informal discussions, furthers the knowledge of the important current challenges in the field. Through these means information will be relayed to readers to help them enact their own changes.

Reporting on this conference cites the new trends and important issues in the fields of acquisitions and collection development from the perspectives of the conference presenters and attendees.

A review of publications in teaching and teacher education over 10 years (2000–2010) on teacher professional development is the subject of this chapter. The first part synthesises production referred to learning, facilitation and collaboration, factors influencing professional development, effectiveness of professional development and issues around the themes. The second part selects from the production nine articles for closer examination. The chapter concludes by noting how the production brings out the complexities of teacher professional learning and how research and development have taken cognizance of these factors and provided food for optimism about their effects, although not yet about their sustainability in time.