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The purpose of this paper is to explore hospital staff response to patient complaints and the factors influencing the response pathway.

The paper uses an exploratory study in a large Taiwanese hospital purposefully chosen as a case study site. The critical incident technique (CIT) is implemented, using a questionnaire along with non‐participant observations in which the results have been triangulated. A total of 59 cases were collected.

The study found when facing “humaneness” complaints, hospital staff attempted to investigate the event and then explain the facts to the complainant or empathise with him/her and then refer the problem to the relevant unit. In response to complaints combining “communication” and “care/treatment and humaneness”, staff tended to investigate the event's details and then directly explain them to the complainant. When complaints involved “care/treatment”, staff tended to empathise with the complainant, investigate the facts and explain them to the complainant. Additionally, the organisational response to complaints was influenced by who made complaints; its type, severity, complaining method and patient status.

The literature revealed that the case study is the most common organisational study method. However, this approach is criticised for not offering findings that can be generalised.

Complaint nature is the major factor influencing the response pathway. If healthcare managers intend to reduce complaint rates then they need to carefully classify the complaint's nature. Different complaints have different handling procedures and guidelines to help managers resolve complaints in the first place.

There are extensive studies focusing on investigating complaints and their resolution. These studies tend not to demonstrate various means of handling patient complaints. Neither do they describe how different complaints might lead to different outcomes. Therefore, this paper explores hospital staff response to patient complaints and the factors influencing the pathways in response to complaints.

The purpose of this study is to develop and test a theoretical framework to examine business purchase decisions using the concept of “values” (personal values (PV), organizational values (OV) and values-congruency).

The data for the study were collected from members of the Supply Chain Management Association of Canada. The relationships between perceived PV/OV/ values-congruency (IVs) and perceived role values played in business purchase decisions (DV) were hypothesized. Three factors, namely, humanity, bottomline and convention were identified using exploratory factor analysis. The hypotheses were tested using polynomial regression, which is a preferred method for measuring congruency or fit (Edwards, 1994).

Perceived humanity (humaneness or benevolence) values of an organization were found to have a positive relationship with the perceived role that humanity and convention (risk aversion or compliance) values played in business purchase decisions. Perceived purchase function formalization within buying organizations was also found to have a positive relationship with the perceived role of humanity, bottomline and convention values played in business purchase decisions.

The study drew a relatively small convenience sample from a single industry association/country with a low response rate. It used the perceived role of values instead of behavioral intention or actual behavior to measure business purchasing behavior. McDonald and Gandz’s (1991; 1993) list of values may be more suitable to measure OV than PV. The study only considered the buyer side of purchase decisions and values to have positive characteristics.

Buying organizations may consider formalizing their purchase functions, clarifying their humaneness/benevolence and risk aversion/compliance values to their employees and vendors and incorporating them in the purchasing criteria/process. Similarly, selling organizations may benefit from considering these values of customers to position their products and services for better sales outcomes and business relationships.

The study explores the role of values in business purchase contexts by proposing and testing a theoretical framework. The study has implications for practitioners and academics in the field and identifies several areas for future research.

The tourism industry is facing significant challenges in an ever-changing world marked by globalisation, digitalisation and societal shifts. The issues of overtourism and massification exacerbate concerns about sustainability and the industry's impact on the environment and local communities. These concerns arise as profit-driven ideologies overshadow the industry's original vocation to contribute to meaningful encounters, well-being and social justice. This chapter explores the cultivation of humaneness and conscience within tourism through education, knowledge and personal reflection. Drawing inspiration from Hannah Arendt's interpretation of Socrates' philosophy, it highlights the importance of critical thinking and a comprehensive understanding of the industry's role in shaping alternative futures. Tourism higher education plays a pivotal role in empowering students to become catalysts for systemic transformation. Furthermore, this chapter emphasises the value of embracing diverse viewpoints and engaging in meaningful encounters and dialogues with local communities and stakeholders to collaboratively imagine and implement sustainable practices. Only by dismantling entrenched habits through critical thinking and fostering collaboration can the tourism industry envision alternative trajectories towards a more conscientious and humane path forward.

This paper aims to report the development of an Islamic service quality scale that is derived from the literature, verbal protocol method interviews, and survey. Design/methodology/approach

Verbal protocol interviews were conducted with 24 men and 12 women from Indonesia. A pilot testing of the questionnaire was conducted with four Indonesian students. The items were further refined and pilot tested with six Indonesian students. Exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis (n

The results indicate a robust measure of Islamic service quality: general Islamic values, Halal/Haram, attention to Islamic religious activities, honesty, modesty, and humaneness and trustworthiness. Future researchers can apply the Islamic service quality measure to Muslim consumers in other countries. Successful service providers need to be cognizant of the intrinsic roles played by Islamic values and practices among the Muslim consumers.

Major limitations include the recall ability of consumers during the verbal protocol method of interviewing, potential blending of Islamic values and Javanese culture, and the extent of separation of state and religion. Future researchers can apply the Islamic service quality measure to Muslim consumers in other countries.

Successful service providers need to be cognizant of the intrinsic roles played by Islamic values and practices among the Muslim consumers.

This paper contributes to the extant literature on Islamic marketing by developing a unique measure of service quality that is pertinent to Muslim consumers.

Loyalty among customers is the baseline for services to use to grow and sustain their competitive advantage, particularly in the banking industry. There are two primary objectives of this research. First, this study aims to empirically test the Muslim Consumer Service Quality (MCSQ). Second, this study aims to test the mediating effect of Muslim Consumer Satisfaction (MCS) on the relationship between MCSQ and Muslim Consumer Loyalty (MCL) in Indonesian Islamic banks.

The proposed hypotheses were tested by collecting data from 280 Indonesian Islamic customers. The collected data were tested using PLS-Graph 3.0.

The findings indicate that MCSQ (consisting of Islamic values, Sharia compliance, honesty, modesty, humaneness and trustworthiness) positively influenced MCS and MCL significantly. Further, the results indicate that MCS partially mediates the influence of MCSQ on MCL.

The data were mainly gathered in Indonesia and the model needs to be tested in other contexts. Furthermore, the questionnaire was distributed among the customers of Islamic banks, and future studies could compare it with the customers of conventional banks or dual account (Islamic and conventional bank) customers. Moreover, further studies should compare between the expectations and reality of the delivered services to understand the service quality gap, which this study did not measure.

The findings indicate that by measuring the service quality in the Islamic context of Islamic banks, such as MCSQ, the managers can design their services to specifically target their Muslim customers. Furthermore, customer satisfaction must be the focus for the bank’s managers when developing MCSQ to close the gap between the expectations and reality of the delivered services.

This study empirically tests the developed MCSQ in the context of Indonesian Islamic banks, which is expected to enrich the literature of service marketing. Furthermore, a partial mediation effect of MCS was identified on the influence of MCSQ on MCL, which few studies have discussed previously.

The purpose of this paper is to characterize issues related to head nurses’ decision making when managing ethical dilemmas.

The study is qualitative descriptive, in which researchers stay close to the data. The data were collected in the format of unstructured written reflections. Inductive conventional latent qualitative content analysis was applied to the data.

The issues of head nurses’ management of decision making in ethical dilemmas relate to the following aspects: taking risks in deviating from the formalities, balancing power and humaneness, maintaining the professional hierarchy, managing resistance to change, managing with limited options, and experiencing the decline of nurse’s professional and/or human dignity.

Reflections in written form were preferred to semi-structured interviews and the researchers were unable to contact the participants directly and to ask additional questions. All the reflections were produced in a language other than English.

The issues of head nurses’ management of decision making in ethical dilemmas reveal the gap between societal expectations and the opportunities to improve nursing leadership in health care organizations.

The issues of head nurses’ decision making when managing ethical dilemmas are related to contexts that reflect the attitudes of society and health care system toward nursing management.

The study adds to the understanding of issues of the management of decision making in ethical dilemmas. It is an ongoing systematic process that encourages head nurses to learn from practice and manage the quality of care by empowering themselves and nurses to take responsibility for leadership.

This paper challenges the philosophy underlying traditional management thinking. The historic and possibly arcane purpose of business, to maximise shareholder wealth, is no longer a relevant proposition. Academics and managers need to rethink the philosophical framework of management theory. For the past 50 years the management literature has adopted a more “human” approach to the management of organisations yet the importance of systems and process and performance measurers associated with the scientific theory of management prevails. With the growing importance of knowledge creation and the corporate social responsibility movement it is timely to reflect on the purpose of business as adding value to society and rejecting the focus on accumulation of personal wealth. Knowledge‐creating enterprises are founded on the development of sustainable relationships within the organisation and with stakeholders and thus require a different philosophical perspective.

Tourism recovery after the pandemic has failed to take the path leading to sensitivity and humaneness at destination level. This chapter argues that to open this path, we need to confront the belief that tourists are self-centred, fun-driven and cheating individuals. This view on tourists and more generally human beings is central to the neoliberal understanding of consumers. It has moreover taken a strong grasp on the mind of economists, politicians, academics and the public at large.

To counteract this idea, I call upon Aristotle's discussion of friendship. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes between three forms of friendship: of utility, of pleasure, and of goodwill. Utility implies a relationship where people befriend each other in virtue of some good or service that they get or expect to get from each other. Friendships of utility, therefore, imply reciprocation. Friendships of pleasure can also be understood as a form of reciprocal altruism. However, friendships of goodwill are different because they are felt for others for their own sake and not in expectation of a favour in return. Friendships of goodwill include therefore others who may not be able to reciprocate, such as tourists staying only a short time at a destination. Looking through the lens of friendships of goodwill, one could argue that all tourists, including short-stay visitors, will be friendly and caring towards their hosts.

This chapter explores the soundness of friendships of goodwill in the light of more recent research on human nature. It also discusses its implications for our understanding of human beings, the relationship between hosts and guests, and ultimately the opportunity to steer tourism along a more sensitive, human and sustainable path.

This paper aims to develop a culturally sensitive model based on the Chinese Confucian philosophy and normative ethics, which emphasizes the wholehearted social responsibility of a Junzi (a noble man). Analogous to the popular marketing concept and strategic marketing orientation concepts, the authors define the Junzi concept as a business philosophy and Junzi orientation as the implementation of this philosophy. It proposes a Junzi orientation has a positive influence on companies' performances.

An 18-item scale comprising five dimensions: (1) Ren – benevolence, humaneness; (2) Yi – appropriateness, righteousness; (3) Li – propriety, harmonious differentiation; (4) Zhi – wisdom, knowledge management; and (5) Xin – integrity, trustworthiness, was developed to measure Junzi orientation. A total of 423 questionnaires were collected from different industries in Hong Kong, and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted.

The multidimensional behavioral construct of Junzi orientation scale was reliable and valid. The data supported that Junzi orientation has a positive influence on companies' performances.

The paper suggests that Junzi orientation could enhance a firm's competitive advantage.

This paper develops a culturally sensitive business orientation scale based on Chinese Confucianism and normative ethics.

We have, at this stage, a picture of a new form of management emerging which places prime emphasis on its human aspect. We have, earlier in the series, identified the source of the change as a search for some solution to the problem of how to motivate employees in the new social and political environment when the time‐honoured sanctions of brute force and coercion have ceased to apply. We have reviewed that range of ideas which came out of the application of the behavioural sciences to the work situation and how they came to be assembled under the umbrella title of participative management. We can appreciate the soundness and the humaneness of the participative management concepts and we have plenty of evidence to convince us that the ideas work out well in practice. So why not just sit back and let these new ideas take over and solve our problems?