Search results

This paper aims to extend existing research in relation to both the importance of volume effects within housing markets and the specific behaviour of the London housing market. A detailed borough-level examination is undertaken of the relationships between volume, house prices and house price volatility. Support for alternative housing market theories, the degree of heterogeneity in house price behaviour across boroughs and the extent to which housing displays differing properties to other financial assets are examined.

Correlation analyses, causality testing and volatility modelling are undertaken in extended forms which synthesise and extend approaches within the housing, economics and finance literatures. The various modelling and testing techniques are supplemented via the use of alternative variable transformations to evaluate housing market behaviour in detail.

Novel findings are provided concerning both volume effects within housing markets generally and the specific properties of London housing market. Evidence concerning bubbles, the volatility-reducing effects of volume, the importance of geographical and price-related factors underlying the relationship between volume and both house price growth and volatility and the presence of asymmetric adjustment in the London housing market are all provided. The extent and nature of the support available for alternative housing market theories are evaluated.

The volatility-reducing effects of volume within housing markets, along with volume effects and the presence of asymmetric adjustment within the London housing market are examined for the first time. New empirical evidence on the support for alternative housing market theories and the differing empirical characteristics of housing relative to other financial assets are presented.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/09684879610112800. When citing the article, please cite: Sarah Cook, Steve Macaulay, (1996), “Empowered customer service”, Training for Quality, Vol. 4 Iss: 1, pp. 7 - 11.

From the 1970s onwards, studies of the dynamics involved in family food provisioning in Britain and the USA have provided consistent evidence of the centrality of husbands and male breadwinners to food decisions. Recent studies are beginning to show the significance of children or the “junior consumer” to household food decisions. This paper reports on focus groups conducted in Australia in the mid‐1990s that support the argument that children exert considerable influence over family diets. One obvious reason for this trend lies in the activities of food retailers and advertisers/marketers, who target their goods, services and messages to children. These marketplace actors are encouraging children to identify as consumers. A less obvious explanation, and the one explored in this paper, concerns changing parenting practices. Despite the double workload of many family food providers, children's demands are being responded to in unprecedented ways. Metaphorically, children are displacing male adults at the head of the table. The paper comments on the consequences of children's dominance over dietary practices.

The aircraft manufacturing industry places a high priority on safety and spends many billions of pounds in developing and testing new military and civil aircraft to the highest safety standards.

The Looking Glass simulation was developed by behavioural scientists at the Centre for Creative Leadership, North Carolina. Looking Glass, Inc is one of the best known examples of a realistic behavioural simulation. Such simulations allow managers to be studied and trained in situations closely approximating their natural environment. A condensed version of an article which follows one manager through the simulation is presented, giving an insight into the process of self‐assessment and self‐discovery that can take place.

Discusses a recent Industrial Society survey which indicated that customer care and service was a priority for UK organizations. Shows that “the customer is always right” needs an effective customer service initiative to be able to address this and more.

Examines the focus on customer service while at the same time maximizing the use of resources. Suggests that through effective management of resources a balance between the cost and quality of human resources can be achieved. Maintains that customer service is the key to success for an organization, and offers seven suggestions for managing a “superior” service. Concludes that successful customer‐focused organizations: do what they say; make what matters to the customer their priority; find ways to improve; make positive personal contact with the customer; and have well‐trained and motivated staff who work well together.

This paper has two purposes. First, I offer a reading of interpretive biography (Denzin, 1989a) as an alternative method for understanding how individual lives are rendered meaningful in postmodern communication processes. Second, given the importance of many rock performers as cultural heroes, I present an interpretive biography of Pete Townshend, chief songwriter and most visible member of the classic rock band the Who. This method of inquiry is grounded in the more general tradition of interpretive interactionism (Denzin, 1989b, 1990a) and has its roots in C. Wright Mills's (1959) concept of the sociological imagination. Its guiding question is this: How is the postmodern self (or stated more accurately, selves) created within and sustained by the mass media? I argue that as postmodern cultural symbols, Townshend and the band (however ambiguously) mirror a collective search for identity on the part of audiences and society-at-large.

This paper looks at the potential for developing customer relationship strategies using the Internet (electronic customer relationship management) (ECRM) with particular relevance for SMEs. Its basis is in qualitative research and it attempts to integrate the two Internet technologies of the Web and e‐mail into a push‐pull strategy. Aspects of “control” of the message in ECRM are examined and in particular whether democratic e‐communities have a part to play for companies looking to improve their ECRM. In arriving at some conclusions, regarding the implications for commercial organisations, draws on published work in the educational arena. The implications may be particularly important for the SME sector. The paper examines why e‐mail and in particular asynchronous text messaging and conferencing are likely to dominate over other technologies such as chat and video conferencing. Communication paradigms used in television and print publishing have been mapped across on to the Web. The resulting “push‐pull” strategy is determined as the most effective way of harnessing the power of e‐mail with Web‐publishing to develop some aspects of a sound ECRM policy. The strategy involves the development of the Web site as a way of capturing opt‐in subscribers (the pull) who receive proactive outbound communications, and managing that e‐mail address list proactively (the push).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether supplier dependence is related to innovation in supplier firms. Drawing on resource dependence theory, the authors hypothesized that supplier dependence has both positive and negative relationships to the quantity and quality of innovation.

The study is based on data collected from US companies. Negative binomial regression analysis was used to test the proposed hypothesis.

The authors found that the quantity of innovation of a supplier firm initially decreased and then increased with the extent of the dependence upon major customers. This finding supports the idea that the benefits of supplier dependence mitigate the negative outcomes of dependence upon major customers.

This study extends the literature on supplier dependence by empirically examining the relationship between supplier dependence and the quantity and quality of innovation within the context of high-technology industries. The authors provide a holistic understanding of the value of the dependent relationship in boosting innovation in the context of supply chain management.