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This paper reports the results of a three-year-long research on business relationships, relying on qualitative data gathered through multiple-case study research of four focal companies operating in Australia. The industry settings are as follows: steel construction, vegetable oils trading, aluminum and steel can manufacture, and imaging solutions. The research analyzes two main aspects of relationships: structure and process. This paper deals with structure describing it by the most desired features of intercompany relationships for each focal company. The primary research data have been coded drawing on extant research into business relationships. The main outcome of this part of the research is a five construct model composed by trust, commitment, bonds, distance, and information sharing that accounts for all informants’ utterances about relationship structure.

This paper examines the diffusion of a multinational bank’s quality initiative across functional and geographic boundaries. It demonstrates substantial regional differences in the volume and institutionalization of TQM activities, with slow development and little staying power in the U.S. and rapid expansion in Asia and Latin America. Event history analysis of quality team formation demonstrates that positive feedback occurs primarily within business divisions operating within national boundaries.

Performance measurement has benefited from several management accounting innovations over the past decade. Guiding these advances is the explicit recognition that it is imperative to understand the causal linkage that leads a firm to profitability. In this paper, we contend that the relationship quality experienced between two organizations has a measurable impact on performance. Guided by prior models developed in distribution channel and relationship marketing research (Cannon et al., 2000; Morgan & Hunt, 1994) we build a causal model of relationship quality that identifies key relationship qualities that drive a series of financial and non-financial performance outcomes. Using the healthcare industry to illustrate its applicability, the physician practice – insurance company relationship is described within the context of the model’s constructs and causal linkages. Our model offers managers employing a causal performance measurement system such as, the balanced scorecard (Kaplan & Norton, 1996) or the action-profit-linkage model (Epstein et al., 2000), a formal framework to analyze observed outcome metrics by assessing the underlying dynamics in their third party relationships. Many of these forces have subtle, but tangible impacts on organizational performance. Recognizing them within performance measurement theory adds explanatory power to existing performance measurement systems.

This study investigates the impact of tourists’ perception of consumer-generated content (CGC) on their travel behaviors. Online questionnaire survey was conducted on the clients of travel agency along with onsite interviews of visitors at several busy tourist destinations/spots in Taiwan including Alishan, Sun-Moon Lake, and airports. In total 316 responses were generated. The findings indicate that usability of social media is the strongest factor that contributes to respondents’ perceived functional and hedonic quality. Functional quality of social media then draw respondents’ awareness that eventually increases their intention to visit a destination of interest. The results also indicate that functional quality is more important than hedonic in terms of increasing the propensity of using social media.

Due to impressive market growth over several decades, consulting can today be regarded as an influential industry. In spite of this success, consulting is confronted with prejudices, which, to some extent, can be linked to difficulties in the evaluation of consulting services. By guaranteeing certain qualification levels, professionalism is generally considered useful for reducing this kind of uncertainty. In this chapter, using a German case as an example, we analyze professionalization efforts among consultants. We argue that these efforts will never be successful if the classical concept of professionalism is applied. However, seen from the perspective of the “new professionalism” that concentrates on work behaviour, consultants qualify as highly professional.