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This study aims to present an extended service-profit chain (SPC) framework for assessing service performance. This framework is then used to investigate non-linear and asymmetric links between service delivery investments and customer satisfaction, as well as time lags in organisational performance outcomes.

The study draws on panel data with repeated measures from a sample of automotive after sales service departments. Data collected comprises both objective and survey-based data, including operational inputs, productivity, service quality, service experience, behavioural intentions, customer retention and organisational performance.

Non-linear and asymmetric effects are identified, suggesting that customers’ evaluations of service performance are more sensitive to negative performance (dissatisfaction) than positive performance (satisfaction). Accordingly, focusing on attributes for which customers are experiencing negative performance first, and then allocating resources to attributes for which customers are experiencing positive performance, can be far more consequential for improving customer satisfaction.

From a practical perspective, the findings deepen current understanding of the relationships between service performance metrics. They also provide guidance for managers seeking to better deploy service resources to enhance service quality, customer satisfaction and customer retention to improve profitability over time.

Drawing on a unique and rich data set, this study provides a significant improvement on previous SPC frameworks by adding new dimensions identified in recent meta-analyses and addresses calls for more research into non-linear, asymmetric and longitudinal effects within the SPC.

The purpose of this paper was to analyse the academic context of the Hawthorne studies from 1936. More specifically, great attention was paid towards those articles that were critical of the Hawthorne studies. This study aimed to analyse why the Hawthorne studies were so criticized during the time period.

The author analysed various critical articles/books from the time period. The author developed the sample through the use of Landsberger’s Hawthorne Revisited. The author used one of the first critical articles, Daniel Bell’s, as a means to analyse the critics. In addition, secondary literature was used to place the articles in context.

The author found that the majority of the critics were sociologists; these criticisms reflected larger debates in sociology in terms of theory, method and ethics of research. They reflected the great changes that occurred in sociology during the time period, as opposed to industrial/organizational psychology, for example, where there was little criticism at the time.

The purpose of this study was to continue the work of Muldoon (2012) and Hassard (2012) and place the work of the Hawthorne studies in a larger academic context.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that the production of past workplace and organizational ethnographies needs to be better understood in their historical context. Design/methodology/approach – A programme of research work on the history of workplace and organizational ethnography is proposed, and a historiographical discussion outlines the purpose, scope and means by which such a project might be realised. Findings – The article highlights why organizational ethnographers should understand the history of their research practice. Originality/value – The paper suggests that a serious attempt is made to create a body of historical knowledge about workplace and organizational ethnography. The value of this would be to deepen the contribution ethnographic research makes to organization and management studies, and ensure that continuity and change in ethnographic research practices are better understood.

The purpose of this paper is to examine potential differences between male and female workaholics in relation to work stress and work‐life imbalance; also to test for gender as a moderator in the relation between workaholism with work stress and work‐life imbalance.

An exploratory approach was used to examine employees on workaholism, work stress, and work‐life imbalance. A separate variances t‐test tested gender differences in the study variables. Hierarchical regression analyses tested the potential moderator effect of gender on the work stress‐workaholism and work‐life imbalance‐workaholism relations.

It was found that work stress and work‐life imbalance correlated with workaholism, regardless of gender. Gender did not moderate the relations between workaholism with work stress and work‐life imbalance.

Limited generalizability between cultures was a limitation; future research should collect data from diverse races. Reliance on self‐report measures is another limitation; a more accurate picture could be attained by gathering data from other sources.

There is some support to the notion that the once traditional roles of men and women may not predominate in today's workforce; women may be taking a more career‐minded view, while men are becoming more family‐oriented. Thus, it is imperative that intervention programs focus on decreasing workaholism in both men and women. Also, such interventions as on‐site childcare, flexible work time, and telecommuting should be included.

The data were analyzed with a composite variable to capture workaholism in a continuous fashion. Unlike the traditional median split technique, with the composite approach, one is able to use data from all participants who are not missing data.

The purpose of this article is to suggest that doctoral student socialization is a gendered process.

This article uses a qualitative case study methodology, studying engineering students in one university department.

The author considers how various norms and practices, including competition and hierarchy along with overt objectification of women, point to the masculine nature of the discipline.

Although stage models of socialization are helpful in that they provide an outline of students’ various tasks as they progress through their doctoral programs, they can account neither for the culture of disciplines nor for the identities of students who populate them. The author suggests that students in engineering are prepared to embrace competition and hierarchy, norms that point to a gendered disciplinary culture. Although, certainly, particular interests will lead students to pursue different majors, the discipline serves to reinforce culture.

The present paper seeks to understand the influence of great works through the relationship between theoretical and empirical publications. The authors examined three samples of articles published in the Academy of Management Review and used the grounded theory approach of qualitative analysis to help identify differences and similarities between theory articles that have led to empirical tests and those articles that have not. It was found that those theory articles with concise introductions drawn from disparate academic domains, proposed empirical designs, methodologies, and measurement strategies, and discussions that reiterate the need for the prescribed theory are more likely to receive empirical consideration than those theory articles that do not include these factors.

This study aims to examine the relationship between the personality dimensions of consumers and celebrities; the effect of celebrity personality on attitude towards the celebrity; and the effect of attitude towards the celebrity on purchase intention.

Data were gathered from 400 respondents in the North of England to explore the connections between five consumer personality dimensions (agreeableness, extroversion, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism) and nine celebrity personality dimensions (neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, sincerity, excitement, stylishness and positivity) and were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The findings suggested that some dimensions of consumer personality, i.e. conscientiousness, extroversion and openness, were significantly related to all the celebrity personality dimensions. Moreover, all the celebrity personality dimensions had a significant effect on consumers’ attitude towards the celebrity; however, only neuroticism, extroversion, openness, sincerity and positivity significantly affected purchase intention. Finally, attitude towards the celebrity had a significant effect on purchase intention.

The study introduces a celebrity personality scale and explores a topic that has not previously been researched.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if facets of workaholism are associated with a family history of metabolic diseases.

Data on workaholism and family history of health issues were collected, through administration of an online survey, from 194 employees.

Workaholism significantly related to a family history of metabolic diseases.

Future researchers should collect objective disease data, examine work-related moderators as well as potential mediators, and implement longitudinal designs with much larger samples. That said, the data reveal a correlation between workaholism and family history of metabolic disease.

The results provide valuable information to help promote a healthy workforce and to improve employees’ health by reducing workaholic tendencies. They could also help to minimize health-related costs associated with metabolic diseases that could develop in parallel with workaholism, as well as costs in terms of a loss in productivity due absenteeism.

It is, the authors believe, the first study to investigate the relationship between facets of workaholism and family history of health issues that have often been associated with metabolic diseases.

The aim of this paper is to consider business schools and to elicit whether, in seeking differentiation, rankings are more desirable than brand personality and whether silver medal winner effects exist in the perceptions of brand personalities.

Literature on reputation, identity, differentiation, brand personality and its measurement is reviewed. In seeking to determine the role of rankings and the presence of silver medal effects two survey data collections among business schools are conducted using the identified brand personality instrument.

Results highlight the importance of a distinctive differentiation positioning and show that reputation reflected in published rankings are able to provide counterfactuals that can influence consumer emotions and help establish preferences. Silver medal effects are found to play an important role.

These results emphasise the point that it is simply not enough to be ranked highly. What seems to be more critical is to be perceived as different. It appears that brand personality rather than reputation in terms of ranking is more strongly related to customers' expressed preferences. The results also illustrate the need to understand and deal with the challenge faced by marketing managers when silver medal effects are present.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the similarity of the reputation of political leaders with those of their parties and to assess the claim of causal links.

A multidimensional measure of brand personality is used to measure the reputation among voters of the three main parties and their leaders in two surveys each prior to British General Elections in 2001 and 2005.

The reputations of leader and party are highly correlated, but statistically distinct in both studies. The leader's reputation appears to influence that of the party more than vice versa. However, the decline in Tony Blair's reputation between 2001 and 2005 appears to have influenced more those loyal to other parties.

Further work would be useful to compare the relative value of cognitive and affective measures of reputation, particularly in predicting voting behaviour.

The findings emphasise the role of the leader's reputation in managing that of a political party. A change of leader will, inevitably, produce a change in party reputation. The two reputations interact and monitoring such effects will require similar ways of measuring both.

Links between the reputations of organisations and their leaders have been claimed but never demonstrated empirically.