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The purpose of this paper is to add to the current knowledge of how and why small businesses should engage in quality management (QM) by providing insights from small business owners who are committed advocates of QM. By so doing, to encourage small business owners to see that QM is right – and possible – for any small business wanting to improve performance.

Using an inductive method, semi-structured interviews followed a template of six open-ended questions. Study participants were ten owners of small family-owned business winners of a National Quality Award (National Housing Quality Award (NHQA)), making them industry leaders in applying QM. Data from these QM advocates are presented and discussed.

The cases reveal consistent encouragement for small businesses to engage in QM, with every owner certain that positive outcomes follow. Despite recognizing barriers to engagement, interviewees strongly feel the barriers are small relative to gains realized through QM. These QM advocates advise getting started by choosing one or a few QM tools and/or customizing tools rather than becoming overwhelmed by prospects of the complexity of doing QM to the exacting standards of various quality programs. Finally, they encourage small businesses to stay the course once started on QM.

Limitations are that the paper relies on just ten case studies and these were taken from just one industry. While these limitations cannot be disputed, the rich data, interpretations, and opportunities for future research emerging from the inductive approach seem likely to resonate well beyond the particular industry involved here.

This paper speaks directly to small business owners by including many quotes from owners and summarizing themes from multiple interviews. The advice provided can be acted upon by any small business, with the opportunity of realizing improved business performance.

Few articles provide insights on the merits of QM for small businesses directly from interviews with small business owners. Here, the authors learn about the rationale for small businesses engaging in QM, are given thoughtful comments on how to get started, and told about the realities – including difficulties – of small business QM.

The purpose of this study is to modify the service quality scale (SERVQUAL) for measuring the performance of Islamic banks after modifying and validating it to fit the Islamic banking context. Furthermore, it provides insights for the limitations good service delivery has on maintaining favorable provider’s satisfaction in Islamic banks under conditions when category attitudes have been disrupted and made salient by major disruptive events.

Focus groups (managers of Islamic banks) were conducted to develop context-specific service quality measures. Exploratory factor analysis and CFA have been conducted to test the validity of scales developed and questionnaires were then sent to Islamic banking customers of major Islamic banks in Egypt for testing the relationships between the research variables and hypotheses developed.

The findings of this study are two-fold; identifying a service quality dimension not previously identified in extant service quality measures (SERVQUAL, CARTER), devotion to customers and alerts brand managers that harm to category attitudes caused by societal-level disruptive events can make it difficult to gain high satisfaction even with superior customer service. In this disruptive event context, although high service quality is associated with brand satisfaction, brand satisfaction seems unexpectedly dampened by category attitudes, perhaps, due to the general malaise felt toward the category following the disruptive events.

Islamic institutions are alerted to the heightened need for providing superior service, as even superior service may no longer assure high satisfaction. Extrapolating to an even bigger societal disruptor, in the soon-to-come post-COVID-19 world, category attitudes toward walk-in banking services will be in turmoil and highly salient. So, brand managers will need to develop creative ways to strengthen not just brand attitudes but also to re-stabilize category attitudes if the category is to recover.

This is considered a pioneer study in using mixed methods to re-think the famous SERVQUAL scale in a unique context and relating findings to impacts of disruptive events on attitude toward Islamic banking.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between consumers' alliance encounter satisfaction (AES) and their behavioral intentions toward standalone platforms of host and guest partners, and the moderating effects of consumer AES attributions on AES-to-behavioral intention relationships.

This paper extends attribution theory and satisfaction literature to the brand alliance context. The study used 1,470 survey responses from consumers, each having had purchase experiences with one of 16 brand alliances, to test hypotheses.

AES spills over to favorable behavioral intentions toward each alliance partner as a standalone brand. This spillover effect is strengthened by a carryover effect. Intriguingly, if a partner outshines the other and solely receives AES attributions, there is a significant contrast effect adversely affecting the spillover effect for the non-attributed partner.

The findings provide advice on partner selection and alliance resource commitments. Choosing partners well and working synergistically to attain AES is essential for gaining behavioral intention uplift for alliance partners. Brand managers are advised to select partners with comparable rather than superior capabilities. Also, since outcomes of alliance encounters lead to greater gains (or losses) for host brands, hosts are called to be particularly thorough when making alliance resource commitments.

There are few studies of actual consumer experiences with alliances, since most consumer-focused alliance research uses experimental designs. This paper is among the first to examine the effects of actual consumer alliance encounters on behavioral intentions toward each alliance partner as a standalone firm.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an historical review of Stanley C. Hollander's Sales Devices throughout the Ages, from 2500 BC to 1953 AD.

Using the historical review method, the paper examines a monograph with historical importance, summarizing the contents and analyzing it in the context of the author's life. With reference to outside sources, the paper seeks to improve understanding of the monograph within its historical context.

Sales Devices throughout the Ages provides a fascinating journey through 4,000 years of selling history. Analysis of the monograph and of its historical context reveals transformations in the legitimacy of selling, both within marketing and within society as a whole.

This monograph is one of Hollander's earliest works, and as a result, few library copies remain. We are not aware of any other reviews of this monograph, and are therefore pleased it is being brought to the fore in this special issue celebrating Hollander's life and work.

Built upon brand attitude literature, particularly the cognitive dissonance theory and contrast theory, the authors' conceptual framework aims to explain how prior consumer satisfaction with each alliance partner affects consumer attributions (i.e. credit or blame) directed toward each partner for both highly satisfying and less‐than‐highly satisfying alliance experiences.

This paper extends the cognitive dissonance theory and contrast theory to the brand alliance context. Survey responses from 1,510 consumers, each having had purchase experiences with one of 18 brand alliances, were used to test hypotheses.

The authors identify which of the two theories provides greater explanatory power under varying conditions. Further, they find an intriguing host effect. That is, consumers tend to hold host partners more responsible for both highly satisfying and less‐than‐highly satisfying alliance encounters.

The authors' findings help firms better understand how consumers respond to alliance encounters. Practical insights include distinct advice for host versus guest partners in partner selection and resource commitments to alliance platforms.

This paper is among the first to investigate consumer reactions to actual alliance encounters, especially in market rather than experimental conditions. Further, whereas the literature has focused on positive consumer experiences with brand alliances, the authors' research includes both highly satisfying and less‐than‐highly satisfying alliance experiences and thus they uniquely report on the full range of alliance encounter outcomes.

Aims to improve understanding of an important and widely used management tool for motivating the salesforce – sales contests. Begins by introducing the question: what factors are associated with salespeople′s feelings towards a sales contest? Several potentially relevant characteristics that are expected to be associated with various feelings towards contests are discussed. To test the hypotheses, data were collected through verbal protocols and surveys from salespeople belonging to a division of a Fortune 100 firm. Results indicate that salespeople′s self‐esteem, commitment level, and career stage play a role in influencing feelings towards the sales contest.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

It may be said that the great mass of the food taken by an individual is required and used to satisfy the demands of the body for a source of energy in order that the normal functions and activities of life may be carried out. This energy value of the food was looked upon, until within comparatively recent years, as the important consideration in dietetics. With the accumulation of knowledge regarding the necessity of supplying food essentials, apart altogether from their energy value, this attitude has changed, and it is now known that not only is a certain total quantity of food essential, but that an adequate quantity of the various food essentials must also be supplied. The quantitative problem of dietetics, therefore, resolves itself into a consideration of two aspects which may be considered separately—(1) the total food requirements of the body for energy purposes; and (2) the requirements of the body for the individual food essentials—protein, carbohydrates, fats, mineral salts, vitamins, and water.