bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Key determinant factors for retail bank switching in Ghana
Authors: Narteh Bedman 
Published: September 2013

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to determine the factors that influence retail bank switching in the Ghanaian banking sector.Design/methodology/approach– A detailed review of the extant literature and focus group discussions was used to identify 31 variables which were used to survey 419 customers of 18 retail banks in Ghana. Descriptive statistics and factor analysis were used to identify the main retail bank switching factors.Findings– The result of the study indicates that service encounter failures, pricing failures, electronic banking failures, service recovery failures and core service failures accounted for retail bank customer's decision to switch banks in Ghana.Research limitations/implications– The focus of the study on Ghana limits the generaliseability of the findings. Moreover, the five factor structure identified in the study could be replicated in other countries, thereby setting the stage for cross-country studies on retail bank switching.Originality/value– The study concludes that factors that account for retail bank switching in developed economies are not essentially different from the factors accounting for retail bank switching in Ghana. The study is thus significant especially to foreign banks entering the Ghanaian banking industry as it provides insight into how to satisfy and retain customers.
A comparative analysis between certified and non-certified companies through the quality management system
Authors: Texeira Quirós Joaquín , do Rosário Fernandes Justino Maria 
Published: September 2013

Purpose
– The purpose of this study is to analyze a questionnaire answered by a sample of ISO 9000 certified companies and a control sample of companies which have not been certified, using a multivariate predictive model. With this approach, this paper assess which quality practices are associated to the likelihood of the firm being certified.

Design/methodology/approach
– This paper implemented non-parametric decision trees, in order to see which variables influence more the fact that the company be certified or not, i.e. the motivations that lead companies to make sure.

Findings
– The results show that only four questionnaire items are sufficient to predict if a firm is certified or not. It is shown that companies in which the respondent manifests greater concern with respect to customers relations; motivations of the employees and strategic planning have higher likelihood of being certified.

Research limitations/implications
– The reader should note that this study is based on data from a single country and, of course, these results capture many idiosyncrasies if its economic and corporate environment. It would be of interest to understand if this type of analysis reveals some regularities across different countries.

Practical implications
– Companies should look for a set of practices congruent with total quality management and ISO 9000 certified.

Originality/value
– This study contributes to the literature on the internal motivation of companies to achieve certification under the ISO 9000 standard, by performing a comparative analysis of questionnaires answered by a sample of certified companies and a control sample of companies which have not been certified. In particular, this paper assess how the manager's perception on the intensity in which quality practices are deployed in their firms is associated to the likelihood of the firm being certified.
Self-medication model and evidence from Portugal
Authors: Isabel Tavares Aida 
Published: September 2013

Purpose
– The self-medication (SM) practice has been increasing in Europe, due to either an information policy for medicinal products or to highly educated people. The paper aims to consider a time constraint in the consumer decision optimization problem and test the optimal choices, using data from Portugal. Moreover, the author tries to understand the factors that determine the choice of SM.

Design/methodology/approach
– First, the paper finds the optimal choices of a consumer using consumer theory. Then, the paper uses data from Portugal which is characterised by a universal public health system. The paper estimates a simple probit for SM. The estimation is run on adults, and also on gender and on age subsamples.

Findings
– The main results show that waiting time is not a simple concept. While people may accept waiting a long time for an appointment and may not choose SM; waiting in the doctor's office is looked down upon and so choosing SM seems to be faster and more preferable. The results also show that there are some differences in the factors that explain SM according to age and gender, which matters for policy purposes.

Originality/value
– The empirical work on SM in Europe is original. Taking into account a time constraint is new in the agent decision model of health demand.
Evolution of structural indicators: China and its regions 1981-2010
Authors: Albala-Bertrand J.M. 
Published: September 2013

Purpose
– This paper deals with some structural indicators and their evolution, in China and its regions, over the period 1981-2010.

Design/methodology/approach
– The paper uses a quantitative approach. Linear programming and structural growth decompositions were used. The authors first produce estimates of the optimal productivities of incremental capital and the optimal incremental income elasticity of capital by means of a linear programming exercise. They then produce an accounting growth decomposition to assess the changes in the contribution of capital productivity, capital intensity and labour participation to the growth rate of output per capita. Finally, they combine an accounting growth decomposition with a standard production function, growth accounting, decomposition to assess the contribution of both capital productivity and capital intensity to total factor productivity (TFP). They also show in the Appendix the difference in the TFP growth contribution when marginal elasticities are assumed variable over time and when scale returns are assumed to be increasing rather than constant.

Findings
– The main conclusion of the paper is that capital intensity, rather than capital productivity or labour participation, has been the main growth contributor. Capital productivity has fallen, while capital intensity has increased significantly, but that does not mean that quantity in itself, rather than quality, is behind such growth, as total factor productivity, which is significantly more than engineering technical change, has been relatively important over the period.

Originality/value
– Both the use of linear programming to assess the evolution of incremental capital productivity and the decomposition of TFP.
FRBRoo-based approach to heterogeneous metadata integration
Authors: Chen Ya-Ning , Ke Hao-Ren 
Published: September 2013

Purpose
– This paper seeks to adopt FRBRoo as an ontological approach to integrate heterogeneous metadata, and transform human-understandable format into machine-understandable format for semantic query.

Design/methodology/approach
– Two cases of use with museum artefacts and literary works were exploited to illustrate how FRBRoo can be used to re-contextualize the semantics of elements and the semantic relationships embedded in those elements. The shared ontology was then RDFized and examples were explored to examine the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Findings
– FRBRoo can play a role as inter lingua aligning museum and library metadata to achieve heterogeneous metadata integration and semantic query without changing either of the original approaches to fit the other.

Research limitations/implications
– Exploration of more diverse use cases is required to further align the different approaches of museums and libraries using FRBRoo and make revisions.

Practical implications
– Solid evidence is provided for the use of FRBRoo in heterogeneous metadata integration and semantic query.

Originality/value
– This is the first study to elaborate how FRBRoo can play a role as a shared ontology to integrate the heterogeneous metadata generated by museums and libraries. This paper also shows how the proposed approach is distinct from the Dublin Core format crosswalk in re-contextualizing semantic meanings and their relationships, and further provides four new sub-types for mapping description language.
FM and milk production: herd ventilation systems in hot climates
Authors: Mulholland Kieran 
Published: September 2013

Purpose
– The following editorial aims to highlight the potential impact that efficient facilities management with regards to agricultural ventilation systems could have in hot climates.

Design/methodology/approach
– Through a review of the literature surrounding different ventilation systems and their benefits and disadvantages on milk production, evidence to support the aims was compiled. Through looking at the direct effects on milk yield and how these values vary across the globe a scope of the potential effect of better facilities management was created.

Findings
– This paper found that although more expensive to install and power mechanical ventilation provided many benefits to animal welfare and productivity. However, in contrast developing countries were relying upon more traditional methods such as natural ventilation, which have limitations in tropical climates. By using India as a case study the potential benefits of improving productivity on the emissions of green house gases was illustrated.

Research limitations/implications
– The findings in this editorial are limited by the quality and amount of literature currently published regarding ventilation methods in many developing nations such as India.

Practical implications
– Practically it is a complex process to quantify the processes involved in milk production. Therefore, the data referenced in this editorial is subject to vary across the globe with contrasting farming techniques and livestock breeds.

Originality/value
– This paper brings an original view on how better management of ventilation systems; most noticeably within developing nations with hot climates could potential produce large benefits. Through increased productivity within the world's largest milk producers the green house gas emissions from agriculture can be reduced.
User involvement in service integration and carers' views of co-locating children's services
Authors: Kaehne Axel , Catherall Chris 
Published: September 2013

Purpose
– There has been considerable discussion about the benefits of health and social care integration over the last decade but less research on the purpose and effectiveness of carer and user involvement in service changes and service evaluation. The paper aims to report the findings of a study of two learning disabilities services in Wales that undertook co-location in a children development centre.

Design/methodology/approach
– The study investigated whether carers of children with learning disabilities had any knowledge of organisational changes that occurred as a result of co-locating services. The study used a mixed method approach. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with all parental representatives on the service planning groups and then asked local staff to facilitate a survey to parents of children with learning disabilities in their area.

Findings
– Carers in both locations were mainly unaware of any changes, unless they were personally involved in service changes through advocacy or parental support groups. Carer responses mainly reflected national debates, such as service cuts, rather than the local context. Whilst there was significant support for co-location in general, parental views differed considerably on the merits of service changes depending on the needs of their own child.

Originality/value
– These results caution against assuming a simple pathway from parental views of local services to defining service needs to plan new services. The authors argue that parents lack sufficient knowledge of organisational changes to make an informed decision on whether these changes would bring about service improvements. Implications for research and professional practice are spelled out.
Development of a culture of sustainability in health care organizations
Authors: Ramirez Bernardo , J. West Daniel , M. Costell Michael 
Published: September 2013

Purpose
– This paper aims to examine the concept of sustainability in health care organizations and the key managerial competencies and change management strategies needed to implant a culture of sustainability. Competencies and management development strategies needed to engrain this corporate culture of sustainability are analyzed in this document.

Design/methodology/approach
– This paper draws on the experience of the authors as health care executives and educators developing managerial competencies with interdisciplinary and international groups of executives in the last 25 years, using direct observation, interviews, discussions and bibliographic evidence.

Findings
– With a holistic framework for sustainability, health care managers can implement strategies for multidisciplinary teams to respond to the constant change, fine-tune operations and successfully manage quality of care. Managers can mentor students and provide in-service learning experiences that integrate knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Research limitations/implications
– Further empirical research needs to be conducted on these interrelated innovative topics.

Practical implications
– Health care organizations around the world are under stakeholders' pressure to provide high quality, cost-effective, accessible and sustainable services. Professional organizations and health care providers can collaborate with university graduate health management education programs to prepare competent managers in all the dimensions of sustainability.

Social implications
– The newly designated accountable care organizations represent an opportunity for managers to address the need for sustainability.

Originality/value
– Sustainability of health care organizations with the holistic approach discussed in this paper is an innovative and practical approach to quality improvement that merits further development.
Symbiosis: integrating tourism and Mediterranean landscapes
Authors: Doxiadis Thomas , Liveri Dionysia 
Published: September 2013

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper demonstrate the strong branding correlation between tourism and the landscape, and show that good design can have a positive influence on both.

Design/methodology/approach
– The relationship between a tourist destination's brand and its landscape is first established. Then the positive and negative correlations between a tourist destination's brand and its landscapes is examined, through realized examples. Finally, good practice is presented in the form of three main levels of study and planning, through case studies of the government-commissioned or internationally recognised work by our office.

Findings
– There are specific cases of strong correlation between the image and brand of tourist destinations and their landscapes. This is especially true of Mediterranean destinations. Tourism not only uses the qualities of local landscapes but also strongly influences them. The economy of many Mediterranean regions depends on tourism, so a sustainable approach is required for a new equilibrium between tourism and the landscape. In some areas negative correlations have been identified and dealt with by local governments, while in other destinations positive correlations have been successfully exploited. Certain destinations go further: they create or add to positive landscapes.

Originality/value
– The relationship of a tourist destination's brand to its landscape is often taken for granted. This paper shows the correlation between brand and landscape, especially in Mediterranean destinations, and provides original examples of good practice in landscape design and management.
Places going viral: Twitter usage patterns in destination marketing and place branding
Authors: Sevin Efe 
Published: September 2013

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to analyse how Twitter is utilized by five prominent American destination marketing projects (Illinois, San Francisco, Idaho, Texas, and Milwaukee) to understand the overall trends and usage patterns of microblogging, and the relation of social media ecology and place branding.

Design/methodology/approach
– This is a comparative study of five Twitter accounts belonging to five destination marketing offices (@enjoyillinois, @onlyinsf, @visitidaho, @texastourism, and @visitmilwaukee). This research looks at two different types of communication activities on Twitter: one-way communication (i.e. broadcasting messages), and two-way communication (i.e. conversing with other users). A total of 5,582 tweets created between October 10, 2011 and October 10, 2012 were analyzed in terms of main topics and subjects covered, and main communication activities engaged.

Findings
– The research found that destination marketing projects tend to use Twitter pre-dominantly to share about events – such as festivals, concerts, and fairs – taking place in their jurisdiction with their followers. These projects do not necessarily make use of interpersonal communication and networking capabilities of Twitter. Rather, this social media platform is used to distribute information online.

Originality/value
– The findings of this research have practical and theoretical implications. On the practical side, this research sheds light on how Twitter is utilized, and creates recommendations on how destination marketing projects can widen the broadcasting of messages and reach target audiences. On the theoretical side, this research tests the explanatory powers of Kavaratzis' influential city branding framework.
Sport team loyalty: integrating relationship marketing and a hierarchy of effects
Authors: H. Tsiotsou Rodoula 
Published: September 2013

Purpose
– Given its importance in the brand management of sport teams, the present research initiative primarily concerns the investigation of the formation process of sport team loyalty. By integrating a hierarchy of effects model into a relational perspective, the study aims to investigate the role of sport consumers' involvement, self-expression, trust and attachment with a sport team in building loyal relationships. A conceptual model is proposed and tested in the context of professional soccer teams.

Design/methodology/approach
– The data of the study comes from 287 consumers of a South East European country. The fit of the model is tested using structural equation modeling and the statistical program LISREL.

Findings
– The results confirm that: all the hypothesized constructs constitute either direct or indirect determinants of sport team loyalty; a hierarchy of effects approach, cognition-affect-conation, can explain how strong consumers-team relationships can be developed; and team attachment acts as a partial mediator in the relationship between the cognitive components of the model (team involvement, trust and self-expression) and team loyalty.

Practical implications
– The findings provide several implications to marketing managers of sport teams in how to go about and develop loyal sport fans.

Originality/value
– No previous investigation has integrated relationship marketing with a hierarchy of effects in order to explain loyalty to a sport team.
The case of Amazon.com: towards a conceptual framework of online customer service experience (OCSE) using the emerging consensus technique (ECT)
Authors: Klaus Philipp 
Published: September 2013

Purpose
– The concept of online customer service experience (OCSE) has recently received great interest from academia and businesses alike. Despite the belief that providing superb online experiences will influence customers' online buying behavior, most of the research focuses solely on the controllable factors of the online experience. This paper seeks to address these issues.

Design/methodology/approach
– Using the means-end approach in 62 semi-structured interviews with a representative sample from three countries, and a new tool to elicit behavioral aggregation, the emerging consensus technique (ECT), the author conceptualizes online customer service experience (OCSE).

Findings
– The study identifies functionality and psychological factors as the two main dimensions of online customer service experience. Functionality encompasses the technical attributes of the web vendor, namely the sub-dimensions usability, product presence, communication, social presence, and interactivity. Psychological factors consist of the attitudinal based sub-dimensions context familiarity, trust, and value for money. The conceptual model extends and expands existing literature on online customer service experience models. In particular, the study identifies that the individual importance of the online customer service experience dimensions differ depending on which stage of the experience, namely prior to, during, or after the transaction the customer is in. Moreover, the study reveals the presence of one previously unexplored key component of the online customer service experience: social presence.

Originality/value
– Based on its empirical findings, this article proposes a dynamic conceptual framework of online customer service experience, which incorporates the individual dimensions of the online experience according to the stage of the customer journey. Using and validating a new tool of extracting elicit behavioral aggregation, the ECT, the study conceptualizes the online customer service experience, exploring previously unexplored key dimensions of OCSE. The model highlights the dynamic nature of OCSE by exploring the relative importance of each identified dimension in relation to the stage of the interaction, i.e. before, during, or after the transaction/purchase, between the customer and the service provider.
Firm size and the voluntary disclosure of nonfinancial information by private versus public firm managers
Authors: E. Karim Khondkar , Pinsker Robert , Robin Ashok 
Published: September 2013

Purpose
– The specific purpose of this study is to understand how firm size and public/private affiliation (employment status) affect voluntary disclosure decisions concerning quantitatively immaterial nonfinancial information. Although the prior disclosure literature is large and has considered a variety of factors including size and to a lesser degree employment status, this study offers a new perspective by considering both factors in the context of qualitative materiality.

Design/methodology/approach
– This paper presents 136 manager participants with 24 cues representing nonfinancial, realistic business events and solicits their disclosure judgments. The cues are adapted from Pinsker et al. and contain information that does not meet widely-accepted quantitative thresholds for disclosure (e.g. 5 percent of net income), yet were identified by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as more likely to be material. This paper uses a median split of total assets and total revenues to determine “large” and “small” firms. Managers' judgments are measured in an own-firm setting (The context is their current employer, which can be public or private.).

Findings
– This paper finds that disclosure is positively linked to firm size, but this paper do not find an employer status effect. Additional testing reveals that private firm managers are sensitive to SEC oversight and other external, competitive pressures, suggesting that they face mimetic pressures to behave like their public firm counterparts. In sum, their findings contribute significantly to the disclosure, strategic management, institutional theory and judgment-and-decision-making (JDM) literatures.

Originality/value
– Although there is a vast literature on public firm managers' voluntary disclosure behavior (mostly involving large firms), there is little research regarding the voluntary disclosure behavior of small or large private firm managers involving nonfinancial information.