Postulates that the use of some key ideas from statistical controlthinking can improve service quality. Explores the identification andanalysis of gaps in perceptual differences…
Abstract
Postulates that the use of some key ideas from statistical control thinking can improve service quality. Explores the identification and analysis of gaps in perceptual differences between service customers and service providers as a way of adopting a statistical control philosophy in a service environment. Argues that such a method provides excellent information for creating a true customer‐centred approach to service delivery, being practical, simple in operation and useful for both immediate and long‐term strategic impact.
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Cindy Claycomb and Dean Headley
Public smoking bans are becoming more prevalent, but not without controversy. Consumer attitudes about the effectiveness of service provider imposed smoking/nonsmoking separation…
Abstract
Purpose
Public smoking bans are becoming more prevalent, but not without controversy. Consumer attitudes about the effectiveness of service provider imposed smoking/nonsmoking separation have changed. Arguments against bans often center on the belief that patronage at restaurants and bars will decline, leading to declining entertainment sector revenue and the elimination of privately owned establishments by public policy. This paper aims to investigate consumers ' beliefs and behavioral intentions concerning a proposed smoking ban.
Design/methodology/approach
The study presented involves a typical US city facing a vote by their city council for a public smoking ban (including restaurants and bars). In 2007 consumers ' beliefs and behavioral intentions concerning a proposed smoking ban were investigated. Current study findings were compared to a prior study about consumers ' beliefs that smoking/nonsmoking sections were effective at separation, and hence did not support public smoking bans. The authors applied logistic regression to determine if consumers ' beliefs about the effectiveness of smoking/nonsmoking sections influenced their support for public smoking bans.
Findings
The comparison clearly suggests that beliefs have changed. The majority of consumers in this most recent study do not believe in the effectiveness of separate smoking/nonsmoking sections. Consequently, this majority of newly enlightened consumers is in favor of public smoking bans in restaurants and bars. To further address the economic impact argument, the authors offer a conservatively based argument that restaurants and bars could expect economic gains.
Originality/value
There will always be some winners and losers with new policy, but it is found that the overall restaurant and bar sector can expect increased patronage and economic gains from a smoking ban.
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This essay aims at retracing the intellectual and biographical events of the economist Gino Arias (1879–1940), examining more in detail the two seasons at the opposite ends of his…
Abstract
This essay aims at retracing the intellectual and biographical events of the economist Gino Arias (1879–1940), examining more in detail the two seasons at the opposite ends of his life: the early one that saw him considerably committed to the Zionist cause and the one that, thirty years later, would force him to confront the racial laws of the Fascist regime.
Despite the seeming tragic continuity of these two phases, Arias’s case is a real historiographical paradox since, over the long span between the opposite ends of his biography, not only did he distance himself from the Zionist movement, but he also gradually laid the foundations for his upcoming and immediate dedication to Fascism; indeed, within the Fascist regime he would stand out as an authoritative and influential theorist of corporatism, the institutional solution Mussolini tried to exploit to organize the national economic life.
After carefully examining Arias’s early contributions to the Zionist cause (that include the establishment of the Florentine Zionist Group and that led him toward strongly nationalistic stances), this essay sums up Arias’s intellectual biography during the next years and then, thanks to unprecedented documents from the Italian Ministry of Interior, closely looks into his fate after his conversion to Catholicism in 1932 and up against the racial laws of 1938, as well as into his attempts to escape persecution. A few final observations will then try to highlight the dramatic exemplarity of his case.
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The governmental public health workforce provides essential public health services to communities from public health agencies operations at the local, state, and federal levels of…
Abstract
The governmental public health workforce provides essential public health services to communities from public health agencies operations at the local, state, and federal levels of government. The roles and duties of public health workers range from infectious disease tracking and control to healthy eating promotion to checking food service establishments for safety. Unfortunately, most of the time, the general public is unaware of, and unconcerned with, public health’s primary mission of disease prevention. This behind-the-scenes, service-oriented workforce has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by working long hours, extra days, and ever-changing job roles, all while becoming targets of political attacks and enduring substantially elevated psychological distress and burnout. Though this workforce is not well enumerated, existing studies indicate that public health workers face higher anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and burnout than other frontline healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic response. Several strategies have been suggested to address these vulnerabilities, including increasing the amount and stability of available funding, implementing organizational-level policies and programming to boost resilience, and providing individual-level social support, both instrumental and emotional, to protect against burnout and other psychological distresses.
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Mariella Pinna, Giacomo Del Chiappa and Marcello Atzeni
This study aims to compare public and private hospitals based on both cognitive and affective components of patients’ satisfaction.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to compare public and private hospitals based on both cognitive and affective components of patients’ satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey of 770 Italian patients from public and private hospitals was conducted. Then, hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster analyses and a series of chi-squared tests were run with the aim of segmenting patients’ emotional response.
Findings
Respondents show different levels of satisfaction and a different emotional status based on the private or public nature of the service provider. The cluster analysis helped to identify two segments. Specifically, the cluster with the highest positive emotions is reported to have a higher level of satisfaction and a higher intention to return; this evidence is much stronger when a private service provider rather than a public one is considered. A series of chi-squared tests reveal that no significant differences exist among clusters based on socio-demographic characteristics.
Research limitations/implications
This study uses a convenience sample and is highly context specific, and thus the authors are unable to make generalizations.
Practical implications
Hospital managers should develop a customer-oriented approach, for example, by paying greater attention to patients’ emotions and experience, via conducting systematic surveys on patients’ emotions and improving the servicescape.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this study resides in simultaneously considering the role of cognitive and affective components on patients’ satisfaction and behavioural intention, and segmenting patients based on their emotional responses. Moreover, only few studies provide a comparison of public and private hospitals in Italy.
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Purpose of this chapter is to explore Afrocentric mentoring models of individuals in higher education. In this chapter, leadering will refer to mentoring and the influence upon…
Abstract
Purpose of this chapter is to explore Afrocentric mentoring models of individuals in higher education. In this chapter, leadering will refer to mentoring and the influence upon followers and why and how activities and objectives are to be achieved. Issues of race, social class, disability, gender, sexual orientation, age, and geographic location play a role in faculty and leader faculty leadering. Literature review was used in investigating the phenomenon of faculty leadering from the perspectives of cross-cultural faculty leadering relationships within the field of education and Afrocentric faculty leadering models. Afrocentric philosophy, Indigenous wisdoms, and also the cultural traditions and perspectives of peoples of African heritage are assumed to offer a helpful foundation toward a nuanced explanation of culturally relevant faculty leadering within the faculties of education. A faculty leader to demonstrate professional behaviors and actions that will assists staff in professional socialization in higher education. Racism and other forms of oppression experienced by Black and other marginalized youth in societies cause many to develop fatalistic attitudes about themselves, their education, and their future. African-centered faculty leadering models should be rooted within philosophies, cultures, and principles that apply theories to praxis, unique locally and globally.
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Marla Robertson, Leslie Patterson and Carol Wickstrom
Our purpose in this chapter is to examine the implementation of a set of lesson frameworks to set conditions for teachers to deal with the complex challenges related to writing…
Abstract
Purpose
Our purpose in this chapter is to examine the implementation of a set of lesson frameworks to set conditions for teachers to deal with the complex challenges related to writing instruction in a high-stakes testing environment. These lessons provided a flexible framework for teachers to use in tutorials and in summer writing camps for students who struggle to pass the state-mandated tests, but they also build shared understandings about writing as a complex adaptive system.
Design/methodology/approach
We look to two sources for our theoretical framework: the study of complex adaptive systems and research-based writing instruction. In the chapter we summarize insights from these sources as a list of patterns that we want to see in powerful writing instruction. The analysis presented here is based on open-ended interviews of 17 teachers in one of the partner districts. The results of an inductive analysis of these transcripts is combined with a summary of 9th and 10th grade test results to inform the next iteration of this work.
Findings
Our findings suggest a shift toward patterns that imply shared understandings that writing and writing instruction require dialogue, inquiry, adaptability, and authenticity. These lesson frameworks, rather than limiting teacher’s flexibility and responsiveness, provide just enough structure to encourage flexibility in writing instruction. Using these frameworks, teachers can respond to their students’ needs to support powerful writing.
Practical implications
This set of lesson frameworks and the accompanying professional development hold the potential to build coherence in writing instruction across a campus or district, as it builds shared understandings and practices. We look forward to further implementation, adaptation, and documentation in diverse contexts.
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William E. Kilbourne, Jo Ann Duffy, Michael Duffy and George Giarchi
This study investigates the applicability of a modified SERVQUAL instrument as a means of measuring residents' perceptions of long‐term health‐care service quality in the USA and…
Abstract
This study investigates the applicability of a modified SERVQUAL instrument as a means of measuring residents' perceptions of long‐term health‐care service quality in the USA and UK. The results confirm a stable, four‐factor structure that is similar to previously defined service quality dimensions and is invariant across the countries studied.
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BOURNEMOUTH lies in one of the most beautiful parts of South‐west England; and all the world knows how this region has been immortalised by Thomas Hardy, who by his romances and…
Abstract
BOURNEMOUTH lies in one of the most beautiful parts of South‐west England; and all the world knows how this region has been immortalised by Thomas Hardy, who by his romances and poems has introduced to the public of England and America the ancient land of Wessex.
Nicholas Ridley and Dean C. Alexander
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the strategic intelligence oversights with regards to the funding of terrorism.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the strategic intelligence oversights with regards to the funding of terrorism.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper considers the modus operandi of terrorist financing, and how and how speedily or otherwise they were identified, and the international and national anti‐terrorist financing measure implemented post 9/11.
Findings
The paper concludes that there were (and still are) strategic oversights, delays and distractions by government law enforcement and financial regulatory agencies in combating terrorist financing.
Practical implications
The paper suggests there should be more proactive exchange of intelligence by law enforcement and financial regulatory agencies in combating financing of terrorism.
Originality/value
The added value is lessons learned in international efforts against financing of terrorism.