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The purpose of this paper is to find out whether LibQUAL+^TM can account for student loyalty to the library of an institution of higher education. LibQUAL+^TM is a marketing tool that is used to measure perceived service quality of libraries, and the present analysis aims at validating this service quality instrument within a more comprehensive theoretical satisfaction‐image‐loyalty framework.

The data source is a survey among students at the bachelor's level of a university college in Norway. The analysis is based on structural equation modelling.

The three LibQUAL drivers (information control, affect of service and library as a place) account for 85 per cent of the variation in student loyalty.

This research has been applied to a specific university college. The research should be expanded to other institutions offering higher education.

The study gives practical insight to managers regarding drivers of student loyalty for decision making and strategic control. The library as a place has the greatest impact on loyalty in this study.

Relationship marketing and management have become increasingly important for higher education managers. By identifying drivers of student loyalty regarding image building and satisfaction creation, and by allocating resources to activities that are important for students regarding these two processes, managers may obtain increased student retention, thus helping to ensure future public funding.

Public funding of institutions offering higher education is becoming scarcer, more complex, and to an ever‐increasing extent performance‐based. Concerning the teaching area the financing is partly based on student credits and professional degrees. Thus student loyalty has become an important strategic theme. The purpose is to study relationships between student satisfaction, students' perceptions of the reputation of an educational institution and student loyalty; hypothesizing positive relationships between satisfaction and loyalty, reputation and loyalty, and between satisfaction and reputation. Antecedents of student satisfaction and reputation are also included in the study.

The data source is a survey among students at the bachelor level of a university college in Norway, analyzed by a structural equation modeling approach.

The findings strongly support the three hypotheses. The university college may be looked upon as being satisfaction‐driven. Still reputation management is of great importance. Significant antecedents are identified and discussed.

This research has been applied to a specific university college. The research should be expanded to other institutions offering higher education.

Based on a theoretical framework the study gives practical insight concerning drivers of student loyalty so that key success factors for the coming period of time can be identified.

When determining the most appropriate management strategy, such insight is becoming even more important than earlier. By allocating resources to activities that are important for the students, the managers may increase the value offered so that student retention may be obtained, thus ensuring governmental funds in future.

In social psychology literature, gender is often an important predictor of differential outcomes. However, gender as it influences consumer behavior has not attracted much research interest in a retailing context. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze associations between gender, drivers (antecedents) of store satisfaction and store satisfaction in grocery retailing. It employs various approaches. Thus an additional purpose is to discuss the findings from the various approaches with respect to consumer marketing.

The data source is a survey among customers of a chain‐based Norwegian grocery store. T‐tests, factor analyses and various multiple regression analyses were conducted.

A direct significant effect of gender on store satisfaction was found when controlling for other included antecedents. Gender does not have any moderating effect on the relationships between antecedents and store satisfaction. Females have higher satisfaction levels than males, but the satisfaction drivers are gender independent.

This research has been applied to a specific grocery store belonging to a specific chain of retailing grocery stores.

Findings that could be perceived as mixed, confusing and difficult to handle in decision making are discussed and clarified, which should provide consumer marketers insights into resource allocation with respect to the “satisfaction‐profit chain.”

Gender has only a direct effect on store satisfaction. Stable gender‐independent drivers of store satisfaction were identified. These insights can contribute to consumer marketing activities that favorably influence shoppers' attitudes, thus resulting in sustained revenues and profitability in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze associations between practitioners' perception of marketing and business performance, and discuss possible implications for marketing education.

A survey was conducted in Norwegian companies in the furniture and fishery sectors. The relationship between practitioners' perceptions of marketing and business performance is analysed by combining ordinal regression with cluster analysis. The latter is used to categorize practitioners' views of marketing.

The results indicate that the cluster to which a firm belongs makes a difference in business performance. Firms that share a common view of marketing, strongly focused on both core marketing and sales, perform better than firms that share a more narrow view of marketing. Thus, both “intrinsic” and “instrumental” aims may be important to any core curriculum for marketing education.

Even though the data set accounts for a large percentage of the two selected sectors in terms of total turnover, the sample itself is small.

Vocational skills such as sales management should be an integrated part of marketing education. Financial accountability and customer profitability analyses should preferably also be included.

This study of the relationships between practitioners' perceptions of marketing and business performance, by combining cluster analysis and ordinal regression, is a new and valuable approach in this context. The findings have also important practical implications for marketing education.

The purpose of this paper was to identify similarities and differences between domestic and international student’s expectations of their tertiary experience, as well as the way in which they evaluate the quality of the service that they receive from their tertiary provider. The paper develops an augmented model of service quality which is adapted to suit the tertiary education context.

The study adopted a qualitative research approach. A total of six focus groups were conducted with a total of 36 International students and domestic students. All students were enrolled in the third year of an undergraduate degree at one large metropolitan university in Australia. The data were analyzed using qualitative analytic techniques and coded using NVIVO.

First, the study found that there are significant challenges with regard to the use of student expectations as the foundation for assessing students’ service quality evaluations. This is because students were found to have vague expectations, and limited prior experience of the service from which to shape their expectations. In addition students were found to form their expectations as they consumed the service, throughout their degree program which often spanned three to four years. Second, the study found that traditional dimensions of service quality were not sufficient to capture the depth of international and domestic students’ service evaluations. The study proposed the inclusion of an additional two service quality constructs, namely, social benefits and co-creation/participation.

Two new dimensions of service quality emerged from this study, “Social benefits” and “Co-creation/Participation”. The study therefore suggests that the tertiary experience should be enhanced through the provision of additional opportunities for student to staff and student to student interactions. In addition, tertiary institutions should also enhance opportunities for engagement within both the academic and industry environment.

The purpose of this paper is to review the conceptual and methodological challenges of a J-shaped association between alcohol consumption (AC), coronary heart disease (CHD) and all-cause mortality. In associated papers in this journal, Skovenborg et al., 2021 reviews the evidence for the J-shaped curve, and Ellison et al., 2021 examines the advantages and drawbacks of Mendelian randomization studies of the J-shaped curve.

A number of methodological problems are common in observational research in general, and some of the methodological problems suggested for the J-shaped alcohol-CHD-associations are discussed. The extent of the methodological problems in studies of the J-shaped curve is reviewed, and the possibility that the J-shaped curve is an artifact created by reverse causality and residual confounding is discussed. Further, the issue of interaction with drinking pattern and type of alcohol is discussed.

Imprecise categorization of alcohol intake information seems to have had little effect on the J-shaped alcohol-CHD-associations, nor has it affected the ability of these studies to show increasing mortality from a range of causes with increasing AC. The problem of “sick quitters” has been resolved by large studies using lifelong abstainers or infrequent drinkers as reference group. Many studies lack information on drinking patterns with regard to regular, moderate consumption versus binge drinking. Stratified analyses by important risk factors for CHD have not significantly changed the J-shaped association observed in most epidemiologic studies.

Potential biases and residual confounding probably do not overcome the J-shaped alcohol-CDH-association observed in most epidemiologic studies; however, the existence of a J-shaped curve is challenged by some degree of uncertainty. The actual review together with the associated papers by Skovenborg et al., 2021 and Ellison et al., 2021 offers a possibility to “update your priors” and achieve greater certainty when giving your patients information on the pros and cons of alcohol intake.