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Customer satisfaction with service companies is probably declining steadily across the developed world because it no longer matters to most people. Investors favour companies that lock in their customers irrespective of their satisfaction levels. CEOs are concerned primarily with their share price and their image, and customer satisfaction hardly influences either of these. Line managers demand that customers be profitable irrespective of their attitudes. Marketeers are finding that new technologies open up far more promising possibilities for studying both customer purchasing behaviour and the reasons behind it than satisfaction ever did. Finally, customers are being rewarded more and more for their dissatisfaction rather than their satisfaction. The only group keeping the consumer satisfaction concept alive is middle managers, who are still conditioned by their weekly fix of satisfaction statistics.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the field of risk management in relation to the connection to quality management. It poses and attempts to answer three questions. What can quality teach risk management? What can risk management teach quality? What must both risk and quality management still learn? This is an area which has so far not been explored by the quality management fraternity.

The examination is built on more than 20 years' experience in the area of quality management and extensive involvement in recent developments around risk management (e.g. the Australian/New Zealand standard for risk management – AS/NZ4360, the development of a risk management model by the European Foundation for Quality Management, and the launch of risk‐based instruments by a number of private companies).

Amongst the major findings are that there are three types of risks: predictable risks that organisations know they face; the risks which an organisation knows it might run but which are caused by chance; and the risks which organisations do not know they are running.

It is pointed out that in the past the challenge for quality management professionals was to support process and design improvements, but the challenge of the future is to improve relationships in order to reduce and manage the most important risks.

The paper outlines how the quality management discipline can help with the management of these types of risks.

Although total quality management might be defined as a passing fad there are three key reasons why it will remain (or return as) an important issue on the agenda for top management. First, there is growing pressure because of the use of the Internet to create excellence at the operational level, combined with the fact that it has been shown in the past that a level of excellence in the operational processes can never be reached without support from top management. Second, there is a trend towards stronger demand for improved measures of the performance of companies and total quality management has a role to play in relation to this. Third, there is an increasing number of networked organisations, and we will show that total quality management again is a major factor in this trend. Each of these three scenarios reinforces the importance of total quality management for top management and most companies will be touched by these scenarios.

Several frameworks have been developed to map and document scientific societal interaction and impact, each reflecting the specific forms of impact and interaction that characterize different academic fields. The ReAct taxonomy was developed to register data about “productive interactions” and provide an overview of research activities within the social sciences and humanities (SSH). The purpose of the present research is to examine whether the SSH-oriented taxonomy is relevant to the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines when clarifying societal interactions and impact, and whether the taxonomy adds value to the traditional STEM impact indicators such as citation scores and H-index.

The research question was investigated through qualitative interviews with nine STEM researchers. During the interviews, the ReAct taxonomy and visual research profiles based on the ReAct categories were used to encourage and ensure in-depth discussions. The visual research profiles were based on publicly available material on the research activities of the interviewees.

The study provided an insight into how STEM researchers assessed the importance of mapping societal interactions as a background for describing research impact, including which indicators are useful for expressing societal relevance and impact. With regard to the differences between STEM and SSH, the study identified a high degree of cohesion and uniformity in the importance of indicators. Differences were more closely related to the purpose of mapping and impact assessment than between scientific fields. The importance of amalgamation and synergy between academic and societal activities was also emphasised and clarified.

The findings highlight the importance of mapping societal activities and impact, and that societal indicators should be seen as inspiring guidelines depending on purpose and use. A significant contribution is the identification of both uniformity and diversity between the main fields of SSH and STEM, as well as the connection between the choice of indicators and the purpose of mapping, e.g. for impact measurement, profiling, or career development.

The work sheds light on STEM researchers' views on research mapping, visualisation and impact assessment, including similarities and differences between STEM and SSH research.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether dialogue groups for physicians can improve their psychosocial work environment.

The study assessed the impact of eight dialogue groups, which involved 60 physicians at a children's clinic in one of the main hospitals in Stockholm. Psychosocial work environment measures were collected through a validated instrument sent to all physicians (n=68) in 1999, 2001 and 2003. Follow‐up data were collected after the termination of the groups.

The overall score of organizational and staff wellbeing, as assessed by the physicians at the clinic, deteriorated from 1999 until 2003 and then improved 2004. This shift in the trend coincided with the intervention. No other factors which might explain this shift could be identified.

In a naturalistic study of this kind it is not possible to prove any causal relationships. A controlled survey of management programmes concerning the work environment among physicians would be of interest for further research.

The results suggest that dialogue groups may be one way to improve the psychosocial work environment for physicians.

There is a lack of intervention studies regarding the efficacy of management programmes directed toward physicians, concerning the effects on professional and personal wellbeing. This is the first time dialogue groups have been studied within a health care setting.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the aspects of being a physician that such medical professionals mention in dialogue groups when given the opportunity to choose their own topics of discussion.

Over a period of two years, 60 physicians participated in eight dialogue groups at one of the main hospitals in Stockholm, Sweden. Five focus group interviews were performed after the final dialogue group session.

Qualitative content analysis showed that three themes dominated in the physicians' perceptions of their role: hierarchy and subgroups; understanding of learning and knowledge; clinical work. Very little time in the dialogue groups was spent discussing the third theme, i.e. problems or issues related to patients or their families. The hierarchy among doctors seemed to influence many aspects of the role of these individuals, their healthcare organisation and their work environment. The methodology in the dialogue groups challenged the prevailing hierarchical structures and seemed to improve the relations between different groups of doctors in the hierarchy. For some of the physicians, this also resulted in a new way of perceiving and acting in their professional role.

The results of this study represent only one hospital.

The findings may help healthcare managers understand physicians' conceptions of their role.

Few intervention studies have considered management programmes directed towards physicians. The present investigation is the first qualitative analysis of the use of dialogue groups within a healthcare setting.

There is evidence that spirituality at the workplace has positive effects on work outcomes, and there are different models conceptualizing the construct. To date, there is no discussion highlighting how digitalization is affecting workplace spirituality and vice versa. The present review tries to close this gap by discussing the psychological dynamics in light of digitalization and spirituality in the context of work.

This is a conceptual discussion based on an extensive narrative review. The conceptual design is further tested with a real-life case study.

The result is a model that may guide future research, which consists of the four highly interdependent domains, namely psychology (with the dimensions of emotion, cognition and behavior), digitalization (with the dimensions of platforms, data and algorithms), spirituality (with the dimensions of meaning, self-transcendation and belonging), as well as the workplace (with the dimensions of work tasks, location, community and culture and values). The discussion includes implications for the future of work, suggestions for management decisions and potential future research directions.

To date, there are many discussions about digital transformation and a limited amount of them have invested in analyzing psychological dimensions. The application to spirituality and the workplace – especially when the two are combined – is almost wholly absent, which makes the present discussion both innovative and original.

The paper aims to focus on implantable antenna sensors used for biomedical applications. Communication in implantable medical devices (IMDs) is beneficial for continuous monitoring of health. The ability to communicate with exterior equipment is an important aspect of IMD. Thus, the design of an implantable antenna for integration into IMD is important.

In this review, recent developments in IMDs, three types of antenna sensors, which are recommended by researchers for biomedical implants are considered. In this review, design requirements, different types of their antenna, parameters and characteristics in medical implants communication system (MICS) and industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) bands are summarized here. Also, overall current progress in development of implantable antenna sensor, its challenges and the importance of human body characteristics are described.

This article give information about the requirements of implantable antenna sensor designs, types of antennas useful to design implantable devices and their characteristics in MICS and ISM bands. Recent advancement in implantable devices has led to an improvement in human health.

The paper provides useful information on implantable antennas design for biomedical application. The designing of such antennas needs to meet requirements such as compact size, patients’ safety, communication ability and biocompatibility.