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The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of customer vulnerability across varying service industries. While the concept of customer vulnerability has been debated in business, marketing, sociology, and psychology scholarly literature, there has been little research conducted that specifically investigates consumers’ perceptions of vulnerability during the service exchange. Specific to this research, customer vulnerability is defined as experiences in which consumers participate in a service exchange with a firm during a time of individual or shared medical, physical, emotional, or spiritual necessity, whether the vulnerability is experienced during the course of the transaction or whether consumers arrive to the firm already immersed in that state. Customer vulnerability is an important concept for research, as the exchanges between service providers and consumers during a time of vulnerability are heightened in emotion and memory. As a result, these exchanges lend themselves to be more likely to become transformative experiences, in that the provider and recipient may be left emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually changed as a result. Therefore, additional focus is needed in this area to understand transformative experiences in service as a result of exchanges between service providers and customers. The explorative study first conducts a critical literature review across disciplines regarding scales that have been used and are considered by the researcher to be important constructs of analysis when exploring vulnerable service encounters. Next, a qualitative investigation of consumer forums is conducted in the air travel, banking, and assisted living industries, which resulted in the finding that similar behavioral attributes within industry, but iv different behavioral attributes between industries, were needed to cater to consumers experiencing vulnerability. The study is followed by a quantitative investigation of vulnerable service experiences through an application of the identified scales combined with the results of the qualitative investigation across the same three industries. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that two industries’ results loaded onto two factors; however, each industry’s factors differed due to the nature of that industry. The air travel factors were entitled task humanism and task functionality. The banking factors were entitled maintenance functionality and maintenance humanism. A third factor was revealed within the assisted living facility segment entitled hospitable humanism, along with factors of personal humanism and personal functionality. The study concludes by presenting a discussion of the findings and practical implications for service industry managers, a presentation of the study limitations, and suggestions for future research.

No description available.

No description available.

For decades, globalization has introduced both opportunities and pressures for companies around the world by introducing freer trade, increasing foreign direct investment and the international use of intellectual property that boosted the diffusion of knowledge and technology. As a result, the international competition has become more intense for many firms. Hence, putting a good or service into the market has never been as demanding as now and the demand to be early mover and have a low time-to-market is increasingly important for first be successful. This research will focus on determining whether a low time-to-market will contribute to a higher firm performance and what relation the time to market has with a firm’s business model framework and business model openness, preference for external funding and type of innovation. A theoretical framework was created based on relevant literature to be able to reach the objective of this thesis. The conceptual model was created from the literature which consisted of the hypotheses and variables that the study aimed to investigate. From the theoretical framework using a confirmatory approach, a survey was designed that was shared online to available network that the authors had. In summary, 43% of respondents had some sort of managing positions (upper management, manager and project management), 83% were mainly based in Sweden but also in Denmark, Germany, USA etc. and the work experience of the respondents was fairly distributed. Overall, 50% of the firms were between 0 to 30 years (1% did not respond) and more than 50% were considered to be a large firm depending if the classification was based on turnover with 51% as large firms (17% did not respond) or based on the number of employees with 58% as large firms. Data with 200 applicable responses (eight were removed i.e., 3.8%) was collected over four weeks of time. With the use of structural equation modeling and exploratory factor analysis, the collected data could be analyzed, and the hypotheses relevance could be answered. The final model was concluded to be adequate, as GOF indices and standardized factor loadings were on a sufficient level. As a result, the research showed that a fast time-to-market had a positive impact on firm performance measured in monetary measures (sales, profit, and market share) and that marketing innovation had a positive mediating effect on time to market and thus financial performance. The hypotheses regarding business model framework and capital structure correlating positive time to market were removed since the model was reworked. However, the study showed that technological innovation (product and process innovation) had a positive correlation to preference for external funding such as debt or issuance of equity. Since the construct validity of open business model and technological innovation was proved to be non-convergent, any deeper conclusion of this must be carefully reviewed. The results reinforced what other studies had shown, which is that open innovation or a more open business model contributes to both technological and marketing innovation. In summary, this demonstrated that a positive mediating effect existed for an open business model and marketing innovation which will speed up the time-to-market and hence increase the financial performance. Suggestion of future work could be to conduct similar studies in specific industry sectors to observe whether there is a difference in time-to-market depending on industry and what effect innovation and business model framework has.

Cross-cultural research requires tests of measurement invariance to determine if different populations have equivalent latent constructs. A psychometric assessment of the Agricultural Production Perspectives Scale (APPS) was necessary to determine the validity of the scale constructed and whether data from multiple countries could be compared. Using 918 farmers sampled from Kenya, Uganda, Mali, and Lesotho, I conducted exploratory factor analysis and scale reliability tests to determine whether the item loadings and factors were equivalent across populations. No factor structure could be obtained across country or agroecological populations. The data were reanalyzed within each agroecology to determine localized factor structures. Results indicate that a market driven factor and agrarian driven factor tend to emerge across multiple agroecologies suggesting some emergence of latent variables. Recommendations for scale revisions are included to increase reliability and measurement invariance. / Master of Science / CCRA-8 (Technology Networks for Sustainable Innovation)

Throughout the scientific literature, researchers have referred to self-respect and self-esteem as being the same construct. However, the present study advocated that they exist as two distinct constructs. In this quantitative study, an instrument was developed to measure self-respect as a construct, and subsequently distinguish that self-respect is distinct from the construct of self-esteem. Exploratory factor analyses (EFA) indicated 32.60% of the variance was accounted for by the 11-item Jefferson Self-Respect instrument (JSR), which measured self-respect as a unidimensional construct. The reliability estimate of the scores from the JSR reached an acceptable α = .82. Fit indices (RMSEA = .031, SRMR = .037, CFI = .982, and TLI = .977) from the confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) signified a well-fitted hypothesized model of self-respect that existed as a unidimensional construct. Additionally, the CFA revealed that the construct of self-respect, and self-esteem was generally distinct, and the strength of the correlation between the two constructs was moderately positive (r = .62).

Social justice within education increasingly has been emphasized over the past decade (Kraft, 2007; Oakes et al., 2000; Riester et al., 2002). Little is known about the demographic trends and the advocacy experiences of school-based social justice advocates such as Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA) advisors despite the established importance of teachers engaging in social justice advocacy within schools. Data were collected from a national sample (N = 262) of GSA advisors to further the understanding of the demographic characteristics and the experiences of these social justice advocates and to investigate the relationships between these variables. An ethnographic survey (Schensul, Schensul, & LeCompte, 1999) was utilized for data collection in which the language and experiences reported by GSA advisors (Graybill et al., 2009; Watson et al., 2010) were incorporated. Using an ecological model established in a previous study with GSA advisors (Watson et al., 2010), the individual-, school-, and sociocultural-level characteristics that affect advisors were examined. The results suggested that this sample of GSA advisors was a demographically homogenous group with 67.3% female, 85.7% White, 72.2% who voted Democrat, and 77.1% who were educated at the Master‟s level or higher. Exploratory factor analysis identified two dimensions (i.e., Barriers, Facilitators) by which the advisors appeared to define their experiences when advocating for LGBT youth. Hierarchical regression analyses suggested that at the individual level, experiencing negative personal and professional consequences to advocating and thelevel of self-perceived preparedness to advocate based on prior training contributed to the variability in the advisors‟ experiences with social justice advocacy. At the sociocultural level, advisors in rural schools reported more barriers and fewer facilitators to advocating. Overall, all seven predictors entered, including those at the individual (i.e., experiencing negative personal or professional consequences to advocating, level of self-perceived preparedness to advocate), school (i.e., school resources, school size), and sociocultural levels (i.e., region of the country, community type), accounted for 33.0% (p < .05) of the variance in the Barriers and 10.6% (p < .05) of the variance in the Facilitators to advocating for LGBT youth in schools.

The high prevalence of substance use disorders is well-documented among criminal offenders. Drug courts are specialty judicial programs designed to: 1) improve public safety outcomes; 2) reduce criminal recidivism and substance abuse among offenders with substance use disorders; and 3) better utilize scarce criminal justice and treatment resources. Drug courts operate through partnerships between the criminal justice, behavioral health and public health systems. Offenders participate in an intensive regimen of substance abuse treatment and case management while under close judicial supervision. Drug courts' effectiveness in reducing criminal recidivism and drug use has been documented through numerous primary studies as well as meta-analytic reviews. The task remains now to determine the causal mechanisms of drug courts. The current study conducted preliminary activities to develop a measure to assess drug court structures and practices based upon the Ten Key Components of drug courts (NADCP, 1997). The creation and use of such a measure is necessary to the understanding of how drug courts work, why and how best to invest scarce judicial and treatment resources to optimize drug court participant and program outcomes. An iterative process was conducted such that results from previous activities informed subsequent steps in the measurement development process. Participants consisted of a convenience sample of drug court personnel at three local drug courts as well as academic experts in drug courts and measurement. Preliminary measurement development activities included: 1) a comprehensive review of the literature; 2) semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders to inform item development; 3) construction of a draft survey protocol; 4) expert reviews of the draft survey protocol and initial item pool to assess item construct and content validity, response format and clarity; 5) pile sort activity, wherein participants sorted items into piles, one for each measure sub-construct and one `other' pile; 6) exploratory factor analyses based on a joint-proportion matrix derived from pile sort activity data on which items best represent measure sub-constructs; 7) cognitive interviews completed by key stakeholders to review items retained from exploratory factor analyses; and 8) final revisions to the item pool based upon results from cognitive interviews. The item pool developed through the current research will be used as the basis for a future large-scale pilot test to determine the true factor structure underlying the preliminary measure developed. Results of this future research are expected to identify similarities and differences in the underlying factor structure compared to the Ten Key Components.

This study formed part of a larger project that is concerned with the adaptation of a test of cognitive academic language proficiency, the Woodcock Muñoz Language Survey (WMLS). The WMLS has been adapted from English into isiXhosa and the present study is located within the broader study that is concerned with establishing overall equivalence between the two language versions of the WMLS. It was primarily concerned with the Verbal Analogies (VA) scale. Previous research on this scale has demonstrated promising results, but continues to find evidence of some inequivalence. This study aimed to cross-validate previous research on the two language versions of the WMLS and improve on methodological issues by employing matched groups. It drew upon an existing dataset from the larger research project. The study employed a monolingual matched two-group design consisting of 150 mainly English speaking and 149 mainly isiXhosa learners in grades 6 and 7. This study had two sub aims. The first was to investigate item bias by identifying DIF items in the VA scale across the isiXhosa and English by conducting a logistic regression and Mantel-Haenszel procedure. Five items were identified by both techniques as DIF. The second sub aim was to evaluate construct equivalence between the isiXhosa and English versions of the WMLS on the VA scale by conducting a factor analysis on the tests after removal of DIF items. Two factors were requested during the factor analysis. The first factor displayed significant loadings across both language versions and was identified as a stable factor. This was confirmed by the Tucker&rsquo;s Phi and scatter plot. The second factor was stable for the English version but not for the isiXhosa version. The Tucker&rsquo;s phi and scatter plot indicated that this factor is not structurally equivalent across the two language versions / Magister Artium (Psychology) - MA(Psych)