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This paper aims to examine the direct and indirect effects of the use of electronic markets (e‐markets), access to online data and trading partner collaboration on operational performance.

This study involved survey data from 233 Australian firms. Data were provided by members of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply Australia, who reflected upon relevant practices and performances of their firms. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The results show that whilst all three direct effects are non‐significant, when the indirect effects are taken into account, the total effects are significant in strength. This suggests that use of e‐markets, access to online data and collaboration with trading partners, when taken in isolation, are not as effective as could be expected. However, when these factors are implemented together, their value and impact becomes significant.

The study is limited to Australian firms.

The results highlight that investments in information and communication technology must be deployed in an holistic manner, for example, by combining use of web‐based applications and market mechanisms with effective data sharing and collaboration, if they are to produce significant improvements in operations.

While e‐markets may have been viewed as a mechanism for reducing the costs of inputs and/or as a new demand channel, this study establishes that more value can be extracted when this technology is viewed and exploited in a more strategic manner. E‐markets should be used in concert with access to data and collaboration with trading partners who are able to exploit the opportunities for mutual benefit.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effectiveness of image-repair strategies adopted by organizations to restore their public image and reputation following crisis situations, the lessons learned from these cases and the significance of contextual factors that are likely to affect image-repair efforts and strategies adopted.

Three cases have been reviewed in this paper: Weather, Jordan; Nestlé Waters, Jordan; and Victoria College School, Jordan. Information was obtained from published materials, such as YouTube commentaries, local newspapers and online news agents, primarily the Jordan Times, which is considered the number one daily in the country. The discussion of these cases is original and based on academic theory and literature.

Organizations differ in terms of the ways they respond to corporate crises and the strategies they are likely to adopt to restore/recover their reputation and public image.

Corporate reputation or public image is an asset that is built over time. Organizations within all industries seek to secure positive images in the minds of people. The image of an organization however can be threatened by crises. Trust and public image decline when stakeholders feel they have not been adequately informed in times of crises regarding the different attributes of the situation or how the organization is dealing with the crisis. Organizations have the choice to adopt one image-repair strategy at a time or a combination of strategies according to the requirements of the situation.

Image-repair strategies have been examined in American and European contexts but have, to the author’s knowledge, never been examined in the context of Arab organizations and more specifically in the context of Jordanian organizations. This paper therefore provides a new insight into how to apply these strategies in a unique and new context and will also motivate future research in this regard.

The paper aims to investigate if the performance of older adults on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) were associated or predictive of their functional performance in a geriatric evaluation and management (GEM) inpatient hospital setting. This will inform the occupational therapy assessment and management of older adults admitted to sub-acute GEM settings.

In all, 20 participants (11 men, 9 women, mean age 82 years, SD = 6.93) were recruited from a GEM ward in an Australian hospital. Participants’ cognitive abilities were assessed using the MMSE and MoCA, and their functional performance were assessed using the Functional Independence Measure (FIM). Spearman’s rho correlations and linear regression analyses were completed. Bootstrapping was applied to the regression analyses to accommodate the small study sample size.

No statistically significant correlations were obtained between the total and subscale scores of the MMSE and FIM or between the total and subscale scores of the MoCA and FIM. In other words, the cognitive and functional abilities of older adults admitted to a GEM setting were not significantly associated in this study.

The findings suggest that the MoCA and the MMSE were not predictive of participants’ functional performance as measure by the FIM in a sub-acute GEM setting. Occupational therapists should be cautious when interpreting participants’ MMSE, MoCA and FIM results and not depend solely on these results in the goal setting and intervention planning processes for clients on GEM wards. Further studies are recommended to confirm these findings.

The purpose of this article is to develop and empirically test an extension to the three‐column format SERVQUAL instrument to evaluate passenger rail service quality.

This article combines the literatures of service quality and rail transport quality to develop the conceptual framework. Three new transport dimensions (comfort, connection, and convenience) are added to the original five SERVQUAL dimensions (assurance, empathy, reliability, responsiveness, and tangibles). The instrument was tested on a passenger line in Wellington, New Zealand. Valid responses to 340 questionnaires were statistically analyzed.

High Cronbach alpha values supported the reliability of the instrument. Content and construct validity are demonstrated also. Regression analysis identified assurance, responsiveness and empathy as the quality factors that had significant effects on overall service quality. In addition, customers indicated that reliability and convenience were also very important factors. Service quality “zones of tolerance” were identified for each dimension and attribute.

There are not many published studies to confirm or compare the results of the three‐column SERVQUAL instrument, either in the general service literature or in the rail passenger literature. Although the five original SERVQUAL dimensions have been tested quite extensively, the three new rail transport dimensions require further development and testing, particularly since the sample was drawn from a single passenger line in New Zealand. More development and empirical testing are required to refine this measure.

Based on the eight dimensions, the practical use of the “zones of tolerance” for identifying areas of quality shortfall and managing quality are illustrated in this paper.

This paper provides one of the few empirical applications of the three‐column SERVQUAL instrument and extends it to make it more suitable for evaluating rail passenger service quality.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of k-networks in knowledge creation, as existing literature argues that network structure does not provide sufficient explanation per se. This paper proposed diversity as an important construct to explain knowledge creation in SMEs’ k-networks.

First, by reviewing the literature, this paper proposes a hypothesis that predicts a positive association of content and knowledge creation. Then, focusing on patent co-authorship networks of the biotechnology industry in Victoria, this research used an explanatory multiple case study approach to test the formulated hypothesis.

By introducing new constructs, the results provide more insight on the positive association of knowledge content and knowledge creation. Based on the emergent constructs, rival hypotheses are also developed for further research.

Beyond the role of network structure, which has dominated the knowledge network literature, this research highlights how other factors like knowledge diversity are needed to be consider.

Over the past decade, criminology in Australia, Canada and other settler colonies has increasingly engaged with activist challenges to the penal system. These anti-carceral engagements have been levelled at its laws, institutions and agents. Following a long history of criminology explicating and buttressing penal institutions, the criminological gaze slowly transitioned in the 1970s to a more critical lens, shifting focus from the people who are criminalised to the harms of the apparatus that criminalises. However, the focus remained steadfastly on institutions and dominant players – until much more recently. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the strength of activist organisations and grassroots movements in affecting change and shaping debates in relation to the penal system. This chapter will explore the role of activism in informing criminological scholarship during the pandemic period and how criminologists, in turn, have increasingly recognised the need to build alliances and collaborations with grassroots activists and engage in their own activism. The chapter focuses primarily on Australian and Canadian criminology and its growing imbrication with the prison abolition movement, especially in the shadow of ongoing colonial violence. It considers how activist scholars, including ourselves, attempt to build movements for structural change in the criminal system and beyond.

The Food Bill has emerged from the Grand Committee on Trade, and will shortly be submitted, as amended, to the House of Commons. Whatever further amendments may be introduced, the Bill, when passed into law, will but afford one more example of the impotence of repressive legislation in regard to the production and distribution of adulterated and inferior products. We do not say that the making of such laws and their enforcement are not of the highest importance in the interests of the community; their administration—feeble and inadequate as it must necessarily be—produces a valuable deterrent effect, and tends to educate public opinion and to improve commercial morality. But we say that by the very nature of those laws their working can result only in the exposure of a small portion of that which is bad without affording any indications as to that which is good, and that it is by the Control System alone that the problem can be solved. This fact has been recognised abroad, and is rapidly being recognised here. The system of Permanent Analytical Control was under discussion at the International Congress of Applied Chemistry, held at Brussels in 1894, and at the International Congress of Hygiene at Budapest in 1895, and the facts and explanations put forward have resulted in the introduction of the system into various countries. The establishment of this system in any country must be regarded as the most practical and effective method of ensuring the supply of good and genuine articles, and affords the only means through which public confidence can be ensured.

This chapter from a brief review of the relevant literature on the energy markets points out the changes in the relationships between energy companies and customers through the Web. The objective is to highlight the changes of the energy markets thanks to the web demonstrating that it is able to ensure the raising of the switching rates and hence the competition, goal of the liberalization of public services. To this end, the authors will use secondary data from Accenture researches about the perceptions of customers and energy companies around the relations established via the web, and the CUAC for the switching mode performed in the State of Victoria in Australia.

Given the growth of health maintenance organizations and preferred physician organizations, the purpose of this study was to determine the salient factors considered when choosing a primary care physician. A list of informational items about physicians not normally included in provider directories but which were indicated by the literature to be important were included in the survey instrument. Employees of a major state university in a south‐western state were surveyed. Results indicated that at the point of selection, the degree of patient satisfaction with the quality of care received and the accessibility of the physician were the two most relevant factors that impacted the choice of a physician. Other factors considered important included interpersonal skills and competence.