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The aim of this paper is to suggest and demonstrate how anchoring vignettes, as a survey instrument, can be applied to study quality management (QM) across cultures. Cultural differences may create challenges in QM. Quantitative surveys are commonly used to study QM practices but do not consider the cultural bias in the survey results. An important question is how to study QM so that the results are comparable across cultures. Herein, the use of anchoring vignettes is suggested to reduce the problem of cross-cultural incomparability.

This paper focuses on developing and testing vignettes for studying QM. Based on previous survey studies, two vignettes for each QM dimension are developed. The vignettes are then tested with two pilot tests on the web-based survey platform.

The paper provides a concrete example of how a survey using anchoring vignettes could be designed and used to deal with cultural bias in QM survey Based on hypothetical examples from Swedish and Indian cultures, the results from pilot studies evaluating vignettes are promising and show the applicability of the proposed method. Anchoring vignettes may help to provide more accurate survey results and thereby contribute to understanding of cross-cultural differences in QM practices. One of the challenges is the design of vignettes, which requires high precision and several tests to make the method work.

The paper discusses the potential of using anchoring vignettes to study QM practices across cultures. This may contribute to better understanding of QM practices in an international context, and thereby help improve QM practices in multinational organisations.

Customers from different cultures might have different expectations and perceptions of quality, leading to different levels of satisfaction. Together with the construct and measurement equivalence issues of cross-cultural surveys, this raises the question of the comparability of customer satisfaction measurements across countries. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the survey method of anchoring vignettes as a tool for improving the comparability of customer satisfaction measurements across countries and to shed some light on cultural influences on customer satisfaction measurements.

Based on the models of American Customer Satisfaction Index and European Performance Satisfaction Index, the authors designed and conducted a survey using the method of anchoring vignettes to measure and compare customer satisfaction with mobile phone services in four countries – Costa Rica, Poland, Sweden and Thailand. The survey was carried out with young adults aged 20–30 years, who were mostly university students.

This study demonstrates how anchoring vignettes can be used to mitigate cultural bias in customer satisfaction surveys and to improve both construct and measurement equivalence of the questionnaire. The results show that different conclusions on cross-cultural benchmarking of customer satisfaction would be drawn when using a traditional survey compared to the anchoring vignettes method.

This paper evaluates the survey method of anchoring vignettes as a potential quantitative research method for studying customer satisfaction across countries. The results also contribute to customer satisfaction research as these shed some light onto how culture influences customer satisfaction measurements. The practical implication for firms and managers is that allocating resources among different countries based on traditional customer satisfaction surveys may be misleading.

The Swedish health-care system currently implements cancer care pathways (CCPs) for better and more timely cancer diagnostics. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate and define “crowding out” effects associated with the CCP implementation.

A document study based on implementation reports and action plans from Swedish county councils (n = 21) and a case study in one county council were conducted. Qualitative data collection and analysis were used to acquire more knowledge about the “crowding out” effects associated with the CCP implementation.

Three effects discussed under “crowding out” were defined. The first effect, called the push-out effect, occurs when other patients have to wait for care longer in favour of CCP patients. Another effect is the inclusion effect, whereby “crowding out” is reduced for vulnerable patients due to the standardised procedures and criteria in the referral process. The final effect is the exclusion effect, where patients in need of cancer diagnostics are, for some reason, not referred to CCP. These patients are either not diagnosed at all or diagnosed outside CCP by a non-standard process, with the risk of longer waiting times.

“Crowding out” effects are an urgent topic related to CCP implementation. While these effects have been reported in international research studies, no shared definition has been established to describe them. The present paper creates a common base to measure the “crowding out” effects and support further development of CCPs to avoid the negative effects on waiting times.