Reports a study which investigated the attitudes of information and library staff in two parts of the ILS sector, the business and the academic, to continuing professional…
Abstract
Reports a study which investigated the attitudes of information and library staff in two parts of the ILS sector, the business and the academic, to continuing professional development. Interviews were held with 17 ILS workers, including training/development staff. Experience of in‐house and external CPD activities, attitudes to professional organisations and CPD, views on CPD and career development, and on the Library Association’s Framework for Continuing Professional Development, were among the areas explored. Attitudes of staff to the introduction of a compulsory CPD scheme for the ILS sector were also investigated. The findings show that ILS staff have a considerable commitment to both the principles and practices of CPD. However, very few staff reported using the Library Association’s Framework for Continuing Professional Development, and levels of support for the idea of a compulsory scheme of CPD for the ILS sector were not high.
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Elizabeth Levin, Paramaporn Thaichon and Thu Nguyen Quach
– The study aims to consider the overall impact of the service encounters and projects undertaken on the long-term relationship between the agency and its clients.
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to consider the overall impact of the service encounters and projects undertaken on the long-term relationship between the agency and its clients.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a parallel mixed-method design incorporating quantitative and qualitative elements in the client–advertising agency context. Data obtain via an online survey in Study 1 were analysed using structural equation modelling and bias-corrected bootstrapping technique. Study 2 featured 15 in-depth interviews with marketing managers and project leaders.
Findings
The findings revealed that advertising agencies deliver value and create trust through creativity aspects as well as project management processes. In addition, both perceived value and trust have crucial roles in fostering client–agency relationships and the continuance of business relationships. Value has a stronger direct effect on loyalty when compared with trust, confirmed by the results of Study 2. Several respondents pointed out the influence of client characteristics on both evaluation of creativity as well as loyalty.
Practical implications
The results highlight the importance of project management and planning which should be seen as an investment by both parties. Moreover, agencies need to involve clients in the creative process and focus on marketing themselves and the value they add to enhance client loyalty.
Originality/value
This study was the first to develop a model for the drivers of loyalty, drawing from literature in three key areas: service quality, relationship marketing and project management. An additional contribution of the study stems from the incorporation of an integrated parallel mixed-methods approach.
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Frederick O'Dell and Hugh Preston
The purpose of this study is to investigate reasons for non‐use of a UK hospital library service and under‐utilisation by some groups of staff. The context is the increasing role…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate reasons for non‐use of a UK hospital library service and under‐utilisation by some groups of staff. The context is the increasing role of evidence‐based clinical and non‐clinical activity in the health sector and requirements for professional development.
Design/methodology/approach
A purposive sample survey of staff groups in an acute services, teaching and district general hospital (DGH) is carried out. Three core themes for non‐use of hospital libraries are identified from the literature and the survey findings are evaluated in accordance with those themes using quantitative and qualitative evidence.
Findings
The evaluation demonstrates that the three selected themes of ignorance of service, not having a need and perceived bar on access are based on shortcomings in library promotion and hospital staff members' assumptions about access and benefits.
Research limitations/implications
Selection of specific non‐use factors within a larger list from previous studies enables a focus on issues that have previously been less fully investigated. The limited scale of the research indicates the value of a further larger scale survey.
Practical implications
The findings could help health sector libraries to improve service delivery and increase the number of library users.
Originality/value
The selected themes have only been previously investigated in broader studies and not in the specific detail of the current study. The study focuses on perception of service benefit as well as practical issues of access and so can be of value to hospital library managers in their aim of achieving or endorsing a role within the core hospital ethos.
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Elizabeth Levin, Thu Nguyen Quach and Park Thaichon
This paper aims to determine the dimensions of service quality of advertising agencies and their effects on relationship quality between an advertising agency and their clients…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to determine the dimensions of service quality of advertising agencies and their effects on relationship quality between an advertising agency and their clients through the social and economic exchange.
Design/methodology/approach
The intention was to target firms which use the services of an advertising or marketing solutions agency; hence, participants were recruited from a business database service providing details for key decision makers in Australia and New Zealand. An online survey was used in this study.
Findings
Creative competence, project management processes and project outcome influenced relationship quality through value and interpersonal relationships. However, only creativity had a significant direct relationship with relationship quality.
Practical implications
Although creativity plays a major role in relationship development, agencies must have efficient and effective project management processes in place to ensure successful project completion within timeline and budget to be able to maintain ongoing relationships with their clients.
Originality/value
The research draws upon literature from three key disciplines, service quality, relationship marketing and project management, to address the gaps in the current literature related to customer relationship management in the B2B client–agency context.
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Melody L. Wollan, Mary F. Sully de Luque and Marko Grunhagen
This paper suggests that motives for engaging in affiliative‐promotive “helping” extra‐role behavior is related to cross‐cultural differences. The cultural dimensions of in‐group…
Abstract
This paper suggests that motives for engaging in affiliative‐promotive “helping” extra‐role behavior is related to cross‐cultural differences. The cultural dimensions of in‐group collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, performance orientation, and humane orientation, and their differential effect on helping extra‐role behavior in a diverse workforce are examined. Theoretical implications provide guidance for future empirical research in this area, and provide managers with more realistic expectations of employee performance in the workplace.
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Dibya Nandan Mishra and Rajeev Kumar Panda
This research examines the role of a therapist’s attributes, namely, expertise, sociability, likability and mind-set similarity, in building trust, satisfaction and commitment…
Abstract
Purpose
This research examines the role of a therapist’s attributes, namely, expertise, sociability, likability and mind-set similarity, in building trust, satisfaction and commitment amongst visitors in Indian wellness resorts and hotels.
Design/methodology/approach
The text mining approach was adopted to collect a large corpus of 3,94,373 online reviews from TripAdvisor, Google Reviews and hotels.com. Reviews were taken from 1,677 resorts and hotels that deal in spa and wellness care across India. This study uses unsupervised Naïve Bayes classification and n-gram lexical TF-IDF vectorizer method to classify and find the sentiment of the reviews shared by the visitors of the wellness resorts. Additionally, multiple linear regression is performed to understand the impact of the therapist’s identified attributes on the visitor’s relationship quality.
Findings
The research found positive sentiment towards the therapist’s likability, and visitors seemed satisfied with the overall wellness service. The sentiment towards trust and commitment is low. The study also found significant links between likability and expertise in building the relationship quality between the therapist and the visitors. The expertise of the therapist enhances visitors’ trust and willingness to return. The therapist’s likability nature helps in increasing visitor satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
This study helps to understand the service personnel's level of relationship with the customer in hospitality services. Further, the study empirically verifies the important factors that build relationship quality in Indian wellness services.
Practical implications
The present study argues the need for greater clarity in understanding the customer perception of the services provided by wellness therapists in Indian wellness resorts and hotels. The study guides hotel managers to perform training of wellness therapists to improve customer satisfaction. Using the findings of the current study, managers can prioritize therapists’ attributes and realign their core strategies and provide satisfying wellness services to customers.
Originality/value
This study demonstrates the essential qualities a therapist should develop to enhance the relationship with the resort visitors and foster trust, commitment and satisfaction. The study goes a step further by using a vast database of online data for deep insights into the visitor’s view and the use of machine learning for amplifying results.
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John Nicholson, Adam Lindgreen and Philip Kitchen
The purpose of this paper is to apply pragmatic and practical perspectives to the transferability of research findings by examining the potential of structuration to serve as the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to apply pragmatic and practical perspectives to the transferability of research findings by examining the potential of structuration to serve as the relationship marketing meta‐theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper revisits the advanced subjectivist critique of functionalism as the dominant research paradigm before challenging the apparent fortification of the interpretivist paradigm and, in so doing, highlights interpretivism's weaknesses when dealing with social structures.
Findings
With the proposed model, relationship marketing researchers, using structuration theory, can recognize the temporal and spatial specificity – and thereby transferability – of interactions and relationships. Structuration is academically rigorous and pragmatic, because it avoids the distraction of the largely academic paradigm wars.
Research limitations/implications
By addressing the often‐noted spatial and temporal limitations of relationship marketing research, this research responds to calls for longitudinal research. The model offers the potential for examining historical interactions and relationships to gain insight into the constraining and enabling forces of social structures.
Practical implications
The use of a multi‐paradigm perspective is more pragmatic than a single paradigm investigation. Using structuration as that multi‐paradigm perspective, a relationship marketing researcher can gain greater insight into the spatial and temporal specificity and transferability of research findings. Researchers thus may assess the limitations of implementing marketing practice on the basis of the findings they gain from one space and time context in a different space and time context.
Originality/value
A paper discussing structuration is a rarity among marketing literature. This paper is the first to outline the potential use of structuration as the meta‐theory in relationship marketing research.
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Sunghee Jun and Jisu Yi
This paper aims to present a mechanism that explains how followers become loyal to social media influencers. It suggests influencer interactivity as a unique feature of influencer…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a mechanism that explains how followers become loyal to social media influencers. It suggests influencer interactivity as a unique feature of influencer brands and investigates how it affects influencer authenticity, emotional attachment, and thus brand loyalty.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional survey of 282 social media users was conducted to estimate the conceptual model. Participants were asked to respond to the survey questions based on their perceptions of a specific influencer they follow on social media. The relationships among variables were tested via structural equation modeling.
Findings
The findings show that influencer interactivity is positively related to influencer authenticity and emotional attachment. Influencer authenticity mediates the effect of interactivity on emotional attachment and directly affects brand trust. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that followers’ emotional attachment to influencer brands increases brand loyalty through brand trust.
Originality/value
This study is the first to approach influencers as a brand, rather than a brand endorser. Specifically, this study conceptualizes the influencer brand’s interactivity and finds a link between influencer interactivity and the followers’ perception of influencer authenticity. It discusses why influencer interactivity and authenticity play key roles in shaping influencer brand equity. This study contributes to both the human brands and the influencer marketing literature by proposing a model to understand how the brand equity of the influencer brand is formed.
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Shinobu Sasaki, Kyoko Kusakabe and Philippe Doneys
Using the concept of human security, the purpose of this paper is to explore the subjective perception of insecurities experienced by Thai subcontracted workers in industrial…
Abstract
Purpose
Using the concept of human security, the purpose of this paper is to explore the subjective perception of insecurities experienced by Thai subcontracted workers in industrial value chains and examines how they mitigate these insecurities.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a qualitative approach and analyses the narratives from in-depth interviews with 23 female subcontracted workers in low-income communities in Bangkok, Thailand. Four male subcontracted workers were also interviewed to compare gender differences. Five key informant interviews with NGOs and academicians were conducted.
Findings
There are three main findings. First, subcontracted workers’ economic insecurities are influenced by their work and personal trajectories in the labour market. Second, many of their health and care-related insecurities are fuelled by relational rather than individual experience; that is, they are worried they will not be able to provide care for their children, to fulfil their responsibility as mothers, or they are concerned with the effects of their hazardous work environment on their family members. Third, most subcontracted workers mitigate their insecurities using their immediate relational network in the absence of formal protection.
Originality/value
While earlier literature on subcontracted workers’ vulnerabilities in Thailand discussed the issues from a politico-economic perspective, this paper uses the concept of human security, which enables us to better understand their insecurities as context-specific experiences in their daily lives.