Stephan Tobler and Harald Stummer
A common way to handle quality problems and increasing costs of modern health care systems is more transparency through public reporting. Thereby, patient satisfaction is seen as…
Abstract
Purpose
A common way to handle quality problems and increasing costs of modern health care systems is more transparency through public reporting. Thereby, patient satisfaction is seen as one main reported outcome. Previous studies proposed several associated factors. Only a few of them included organizational determinants with potential to inform the health care provider's management. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the influence of organizational contingency factors on patient satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
As a case, Switzerland's inpatient rehabilitation sector was used. Therein, a cross-sectional study of public released secondary data with an exploratory multiple linear regression (MLR) modeling approach was conducted.
Findings
Five significant influencing factors on patient satisfaction were found. They declared 42.2% of the variance in satisfaction on provider level. The organizations' supplementary insured patients, staff payment, outpatients, extracantonal patients and permanent resident population revealed significant correlations with patient satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
Drawing on publicly available cross-sectional data, statistically no causality can be proved. However, integration of routine data and organization theory can be useful for further studies.
Practical implications
Regarding inpatient satisfaction, improvement levers for providers' managers are as follow: first, service provision should be customized to patients' needs, expectations and context; second, employees' salary should be adequate to prevent dissatisfaction; third, the main business should be prioritized to avoid frittering.
Originality/value
Former studies regarding public reporting are often atheoretical and rarely used organizational variables as determinants for relevant outcomes. Therefore, uniformed data are useful.
Details
Keywords
Kristin Jürkenbeck, Achim Spiller and Stephan G.H. Meyerding
Vegetables are an important component of a healthy diet. Given that tomatoes are the most purchased vegetable in Germany, the purpose of this paper is to focus on how consumers…
Abstract
Purpose
Vegetables are an important component of a healthy diet. Given that tomatoes are the most purchased vegetable in Germany, the purpose of this paper is to focus on how consumers evaluate tomatoes during their food choice. Each consumer has different preferences and, in order to target them, it is necessary to identify consumer groups. The study segments tomato consumers into homogenous target groups.
Design/methodology/approach
A choice experiment was used to simulate the buying situation in a supermarket. The data were analysed using latent class analysis, as well as principal component factor analysis to measure food-related lifestyles. The sample consisted of 1,027 consumers and was representative of the characteristics of gender, age, educational level and income for the German population.
Findings
Consumers perceive air transportation and plastic wrapping as most climate damaging in tomato production. Six different tomato consumer groups were identified and named according to the attribute they found most important, i.e. “Balanced consumers”, “Price-conscious consumers”, “Taste enthusiasts”, “Colour-sensitive consumers”, “Price-conscious consumers with a taste preference” and “Colour- and price-sensitive consumers”. In three clusters, colour was the most important attribute. However, green and yellow tomatoes were rejected by all segments, indicating communication problems.
Originality/value
The results of this study provide breeders and marketers with valuable insights into the factors driving tomato choice. The information was based on a large sample and will help breeders to select the types of tomatoes that are in demand by consumers.
Details
Keywords
Nurul Indarti, Naya Hapsari, Andy Susilo Lukito-Budi and Risa Virgosita
This study aims to investigate the trends in existing studies in the field of ethnic entrepreneurship in the context of growing markets in terms of definitions, theories, themes…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the trends in existing studies in the field of ethnic entrepreneurship in the context of growing markets in terms of definitions, theories, themes, methodologies and settings.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used bibliometric analysis and used Publish or Perish software with Google Scholar as the database. A total of 183 articles published in 122 journals from 1988 to 2018 were selected. This study used systematic data to reveal trends in growing markets and qualitative inductive analysis to define relevant themes within the topic.
Findings
The results show that ethnic entrepreneurship is defined as involving immigrants from developing countries. From a theoretical point of view, socio-cultural theories, socio-economic theories and combinations of both have been used to explain the phenomenon. Six research themes have been developed indicating potential explorative and exploitative research themes. This study identified the dominance of the qualitative approach in ethnic entrepreneurship research and found that the typical research subjects are Asian immigrants, especially Chinese, in developed countries. The articles reviewed were mainly conducted in developed countries (68.85%) and a lesser portion in developing countries (13.66%), particularly Asian countries.
Practical implications
This study provides future directions for research on ethnic entrepreneurship, such as gender studies of ethnic entrepreneurs and factors affecting the opening of new businesses in new locations.
Originality/value
This study reveals trends in the ethnic entrepreneurship field based on the country in which the study was conducted, the definition of ethnic entrepreneurship, the theories, the research themes, the methodologies, the research setting and the ethnicity studied. It also used the framework of input–process–output to establish a generic road map of the ethnic entrepreneurship research area.