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This study aims to examine whether and how cultural (dis) similarity between business entities enhances or impairs the development of commitment in the trust building process in industrial importer-foreign supplier relationships.

Drawing on theoretical lenses of transaction cost economics, resource-based view and dynamic capability view, this study investigates how cultural (dis)similarity moderates the effects of opportunism, transaction-specific investment (TSI), the relative advantage of importing and communication on commitment, leading to building trust in business relationships. Using structural equation modeling and moderated regression analysis, the study tested several predicted effects using a sample of 154 industrial importers drawn from a developing country in Asia.

A key finding of the study suggests that supplier opportunism comes into play and is negatively associated with industrial importer commitment as cultural dissimilarity increases. For culturally similar countries, opportunism does not affect commitment. Conversely, TSI has a positive effect on commitment for culturally similar countries; for dissimilar countries, TSI has no effect. The study also corroborates several additional hypotheses prevalent in the literature.

Cross-sectional data rather than longitudinal data, single country rather than multi-country perspectives and data from the importer’s side rather than from both importer and exporter may affect generalizability. Future research ought to address these issues to provide further insights.

The paper enriches the literature and extends the nomological network for international business theory by introducing the moderating effect of business cultural similarity in building commitment. Managerial perspectives are also gleaned from the findings.

To determine the factors that explain customer satisfaction in the full service restaurant industry.

Secondary research and qualitative interviews were used to build the model of customer satisfaction. A structured questionnaire was employed to gather data and test the model. Sampling involved a random selection of addresses from the telephone book and was supplemented by respondents selected on the basis of judgment sampling. Factor analysis and multiple regression were used to test the model.

The regression model suggested that customer satisfaction was influenced most by responsiveness of the frontline employees, followed by price and food quality (in that order). Physical design and appearance of the restaurant did not have a significant effect.

To explain customer satisfaction better, it may be important to look at additional factors or seek better measures of the constructs. For example, the measures of food quality may not have captured the complexity and variety of this construct. It may also be important to address the issue of why customers visit restaurants. Instead of the meal, business transactions or enjoying the cherished company of others may be more important. Under the circumstances, customer satisfaction factors may be different. The results are also not generalizable as the sampled area may have different requirements from restaurants.

Full service restaurants should focus on three elements – service quality (responsiveness), price, and food quality (reliability) – if customer satisfaction is to be treated as a strategic variable.

The study tests the transaction‐specific model and enhances the literature on restaurant service management.

The disparities faced by women, especially in Bangladesh, have a long and contentious history. From education and employment to health care and other social products, the marginalization of women has been stark. This paper aims to examine whether women experience poorer services than men in the hospitals in Bangladesh.

A survey was conducted in both public and private hospitals in Dhaka City, Bangladesh. The sample comprised 305 randomly selected respondents. Using statistical and data mining techniques, the authors test the hypothesis and identify interesting data patterns.

Surprisingly, very few differences were found between the service experiences of male and female patients. While the literature would predict differently, given the disparities that women generally experience, on most service quality attributes female patients were at least as well‐served as male patients.

The findings may be unique to the sample from the capital city where hospital users may be more affluent and are provided better service without gender inequity.

The findings raise intriguing questions. Among the various possibilities the authors surmise the following: there may be deeper systemic changes underway that are reflected in service providers' attitudes toward women. It is possible that women have lower expectations from the service providers; thus, their ratings are at par with those of men even if they actually received poorer services.

This is probably a unique study in that it focuses on gender effects on perceived service quality in a hospital setting in Bangladesh

The purpose of this study is to propose a doctors' service orientation (DSO) scale and uses it to compare the services received in public, private and foreign hospitals in a developing country from the patient's perspective.

The scale was derived from the service quality literature and qualitative research. A questionnaire was designed next. Data were collected from patients who had used the services of doctors in a hospital.

The scale demonstrated appropriate psychometric properties. Two clear patterns emerge from the study results: on 10 out of 12 measures of doctors' service orientation, there was no significant difference in their perceived behaviors between public and private hospitals and foreign doctors were “always” rated significantly higher.

This study focused on one major city because of time and resource constraints. The findings are thus not generalizable to hospitals across the country. Also, because of translation and retranslation issues, the scale ought to be further tested for wider use.

The scale may be used periodically in a comprehensive quality assurance program to exhort doctors to become more service oriented and to improve their performance over time.

Examines the factors that influence consumer dispositions toward hospital advertising. Both perceptual and demographic variables were included in the analysis. The results suggest that when hospital advertisements are perceived as helpful and not adding to patients′ costs, consumers are likely to favor this marketing activity. With the exception of education, demographic factors did not have a significant effect on the dependent variable.

Customer-centric banking envisions that banks should meet both tangible and intangible satisfaction criteria of their customers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the customer-centric banking practices that drive satisfaction of corporate customers in Bangladesh.

Financial managers from a sample of 112 non-financial listed companies were interviewed. The study employed a structured questionnaire using Likert scales. Exploratory factor analysis followed by multiple regression analysis were used to test the effects of both tangible and intangible factors.

The findings of the study indicate that customer-centric banking is primarily influenced by intangible factors. Among six bank selection criteria analyzed in this study, corporate image, commitment, compassion and consistency are the four significant intangible factors that drive corporate customer satisfaction. The two tangible factors: cost-benefit and convenience were not significant determinants of satisfaction for corporate clients.

For lack of sample frames and relative unavailability of corporate respondents, a non-probability sampling technique was used. The study contributes to the existing literature on customer-centric marketing, relationship marketing and bank selection by suggesting that there is a shift in banking needs among corporate clients in developing countries such as Bangladesh.

The study contributes to a richer understanding of the customer-centric banking framework, suggesting the service strategies that banks ought to adopt. The results are especially important for developing countries that are experiencing a change in theoretical understanding of customer satisfaction in financial services.

Now banks and policy makers can better strategize on building loyal corporate customers for banks, thereby ensuring healthy corporate banking relationship. Banks can also prioritize on the important intangible elements to focus on to satisfy corporate customers. Among other factors, technology adoption, training of corporate customer managers, and emphasizing customer-centric banking policies may help provide better services and obtain higher levels of customer satisfaction.

To transform the population of Bangladesh into a more literate and numerate group so that higher‐order nation building objectives can be attained, primary education has a vital role to play. Its effective delivery depends significantly on the ability of the field personnel to carry out their supervision, reporting, and related managerial tasks. A field survey was conducted; it found that various constraints and obstacles continue to hinder the performance of these tasks. What is vitally important is to enable the field personnel; by doing so, primary education planners can better attain their objectives and the nation can progress more rapidly on the path to development.

States that rapid changes in the environment have exerted significant pressures on hospitals to incorporate patient satisfaction in their strategic stance and quest for market share and long‐term viability. This study proposes and tests a five‐factor model that explains considerable variation in customer satisfaction with hospitals. These factors include communication with patients, competence of the staff, their demeanour, quality 0of the facilities, and perceived costs; they also represent strategic concepts that managers can address in their bid to remain competitive. A probability sample was selected and a multiple regression model used to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that all five variables were significant in the model and explained 62 per cent of the variation in the dependent variable. Managerial implications of the proposed model are discussed.

This study seeks to provide insights concerning the predictors of industrial importers' commitment to their foreign suppliers in a relationship paradigm involving an emerging market.

Integrating a review of the relevant importer-exporter and distributor-supplier relationship literature, a model of importer commitment was developed. Based on survey data obtained from industrial importers for an emerging market, CFA and SEM were employed to test the proposed theoretical model.

The findings significantly support the theoretical framework and most of the hypothesized path relationships in the model. Predictors such as importers' knowledge significantly and positively influenced commitment through the intermediation of trust, supplier opportunism had a significant and negative effect on importer commitment, again through the intermediation of trust, and transaction-specific investment had a direct effect on industrial importers' commitment. Supplier's opportunistic inclinations did not have a significant direct effect on the commitment of the importers.

This research only considers the views of industrial importers that limits generalization. The sample size, constrained by the total number of industrial importers in the country examined, was also somewhat of a limiting factor concerning SEM modeling.

This study suggests the factors that export managers need to consider in maintaining long-term relationship with their foreign buyers, while contributing to building the relationship through knowledge sharing and curbing opportunistic inclinations.

This paper examines the antecedents of trust and commitment in industrial importer and foreign supplier relationships in the context of an emerging market. Based on the earlier literature on B2B exchanges, the role of importers' knowledge in driving commitment through the intermediation of trust offers new insights. This is particularly important because the importers are experiencing unprecedented growth opportunities. Considering their need to make decisions quickly and gain advantages from suppliers, will they remain committed to a particular supplier? Or will their commitment be strengthened by gaining knowledge of the supplier? The tested model offers unique insights.