This paper seeks to investigate the reasons why, in an increasingly competitive health care milieu, patients choose certain hospitals over others. It introduces the modified importance-performance analysis technique and presents the method and findings of an empirical study which applied importance-performance analysis in a health care setting. The strategies derived from the study findings are discussed.

The effective implementation of just-in-time (JIT) in the US public sector is examined in this empirical study. Specifically, the relationships between organizational modification efforts prior to JIT implementation, problems encountered during implementation and JIT success are investigated using a sample of 86 public sector organizations. The results of this research seem to support the notion that JIT, as a form of "managerialism", has the potential to increase the operational efficiency, service quality and organizational effectiveness of public sector organizations. However, for this potential to be achieved, public sector organizations, like their private sector counterparts, must be willing to modify their procedures and operations. The potential benefits of JIT to public sector organizations are not in doubt. However, the art of designing the right JIT implementation strategy for such organizations is debatable. Therefore, issues related to these concerns are worthy of future research. This study is a modest contribution toward that end.

Corporate espionage is a multifaceted problem causing hundreds of billions of dollars in losses to businesses each year. Health care managers have a wide variety of options available to prevent theft of their organizations' trade secrets and other proprietary information. Organizations should protect their confidential and trade secret information by taking various security measures to limit access to protected material and by using appropriate types of restrictive covenants such as nondisclosure, noncompetition, and nonsolicitation agreements. This article provides helpful guidance for managers to maximize protection against theft of proprietary information.

It has been said that those with the least are often the ones with the most to give. This proved to be true for a Syrian refugee turned cardiologist who provides care in communities that are poor and underserved including refugees, immigrants, minorities, those of low socioeconomic status, and other vulnerable populations. Dr. Heval Kelli is the epitome of a kind-hearted, humble, genuine hero, through his dedication to serving humanity. Between providing health care to those in need, educating future generations of doctors, mentoring high school students, and advocating for the less fortunate, his life is truly his message to the world.

Blockchain was first described in 1991 by Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta as a methodology to timestamp documents and became popular with the introduction of cryptocurrency in 2008. A blockchain can be both public and private and is often described as a special ledger (like a spreadsheet) with five distinctive features. (1) It is distributed, with no central database that if a copy is corrupted others can replace it. Although each participating member on the blockchain has access to the database, there is no single controller of the information. Every member can verify transactions directly without involving intermediaries. (2) Transactions are peer to peer. There is no central node for transactions. Each peer stores and forwards transactions to all other peers. (3) It is transparent, with all transactions visible in the blockchain. Members are given access to the blockchain and all nodes of the transaction. (4) It is immutable. Once a transaction is created in the chain and the accounts are updated, it cannot be altered. (5) It is based in cryptography, the connection of the blocks is cryptographically secured, and the last line of the block is added as the first line in the next block. Each block is connected to the preceding chain making the record chronological and permanent. Furthermore, the blockchain can be programmed to include rules that activate transactions between nodes. Blockchain technology expedites and solves many business challenges. For example, blockchain technology can be used for payment processing, fraud detection, supply chain management, and verification of ownership. Blockchain technology continues to gain recognition by consumers and companies promising to disrupt existing centralized establishments while improving transparency and increasing accountability. This special session has several objectives. First, we will discuss blockchain technology and how it functions. Second, we will introduce cases of how industries are using this technology. Finally, we will propose a research framework that corresponds with four distinct exchange relationships: consumer-to-consumer, firm-to-firm, firm-to-consumer, and consumer-to-firm.

It is estimated that 80% of companies’ data is unstructured. Unstructured data, or data that is not predefined by numerical values, continues to grow at a rapid pace. Images, text, videos and voice are all examples of unstructured data. Companies can use this type of data to leverage novel insights unavailable through more easily manageable, structured data. Unstructured data, however, creates a challenge since it often requires substantial coding prior to performing an analysis. The purpose of this study is to describe the steps and introduce computational methods that can be adopted to further explore unstructured, online reviews. The unstructured nature of online reviews requires extensive text analytics processing. This study introduces methods for text analytics including tokenization at the sentence level, lemmatization or stemming to reduce inflectional forms of the words appearing in the text, and ‘bag of n-grams’ approach. We will also introduce lexicon-based feature engineering and methods to develop new lexicons for capturing theoretically established constructs and relationships that are specific to the domain of study. The numeric features generated in the analysis will then be analyzed using machine learning algorithms. This process can be applied to the analysis of other unstructured data such as dyadic information exchange between customer service, salespeople, customers and channel members. Although not a comprehensive set of examples, companies can apply results from unstructured data analysis to examine a variety of outcomes related to customer decisions, managing channels and mitigating potential crisis situations. Understanding interdisciplinary methods of analyzing unstructured data is critical as the availability of this type of data continues to accelerate and enables researchers to develop theoretical contributions within the marketing discipline.

Die Stadtbibliothek Ebersbach-Neugersdorf liegt in unmittelbarer Nähe zur sächsisch- tschechischen Grenze, die Sprache des Nachbarlandes sowie grenzüberschreitende Begegnungen sind feste Bestandteile des Alltags und des kulturellen Lebens in der Region. Dementsprechend führt die Bibliothek einen kleinen Bestand von Medien in tschechischer Sprache, der bisweilen eine eher zurückhaltende Nachfrage erfahren hat. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden anhand verschiedener Analysen mögliche Ursachen für die geringen Benutzungszahlen aufgezeigt und darüber hinaus potenzielle Zielgruppen für den tschechischen Bestand ermittelt. Die Grundlage dafür bilden u. a. die Bestands- und Ausleih- zahlen der Stadtbibliothek, Informationen aus Gesprächen mit der Bibliotheksleiterin und Sekundärdaten, die durch verschiedene Einrichtungen bereitgestellt bzw. aus diversen Internetdokumenten entnommen wurden. Die Auswertung zweier Studien zum Leseverhalten der tschechischen Bevölkerung sowie eine Experten-Befragung erlauben Rückschlüsse auf die Bedürfnisse dieser Zielgruppen. Anhand der zusammengetragenen Erkenntnisse werden Ziele und Maßnahmen ausgearbeitet, die zukünftig eine bedarfsgerechte Bestandsentwicklung der tschechischen Medien ermöglichen sollen.:3 Abbildungs- und Tabellenverzeichnis 4 1 Einleitung 5 2 Der tschechischsprachige Bestand der Stadtbibliothek Ebersbach-Neugersdorf 8 2.1 Die Stadt Ebersbach-Neugersdorf 8 2.2 Die Stadtbibliothek Ebersbach-Neugersdorf 9 2.3 Aktuelle Umsetzung der Marketinginstrumente 11 2.4 Nutzungsbezogene Bestandsevaluierung 17 2.5 Konkurrenzanalyse 19 2.6 Marktsegmentierung 21 2.7 Nachfrage-Analyse 26 2.7.1 Bedarfe der ersten Hauptzielgruppe 27 2.7.2 Bedarfe der zweiten Hauptzielgruppe und der Kindergartenkinder 28 2.8 Zwischenfazit 30 3 Ziele und Maßnahmen für die Entwicklung des tschechischsprachigen Bestands 32 3.1 Ziele für den tschechischsprachigen Bestand 32 3.2 Maßnahmen zur Umsetzung von Ziel 1 34 3.3 Maßnahmen zur Umsetzung von Ziel 2 38 3.4 Realisierung und Evaluation der Ziele 44 4 Zusammenfassung 49 Literaturverzeichnis 51 Anhang 1: E-Mail-Korrespondenz I Anhang 2: Titelliste der tschechischen Medien mit Ausleihzahlen IV Anhang 3: Umsatz und Aktivierungsgrad der (tschechischen) Medien am Standort „Über die Grenzen geschaut“ VI Anhang 4: Ausleihzahlen tschechischer Medien der Themengebiete „Reisen“ und „Regionales“ VIII Anhang 5: Null-Listen der Standorte mit tschechischen Medien IX Anhang 6: Bibliotheksstandorte im deutsch-tschechischen Grenzgebiet X Anhang 7: Erreichbarkeit tschechischer Bibliotheksstandorte über den öffentlichen Personennahverkehr XI Anhang 8: Nationalitätenstatistik der Stadt Ebersbach-Neugersdorf XII Anhang 9: Teilnahmezahlen der Tschechisch-Kurse der Volkshochschule Dreiländereck XIII Anhang 10: Nachfrageanalyse - ausgefüllte Fragebögen XIV

Title: Management and marketing of the project Sports talent of the year and its implementation for period 2014-2015 Targets: The aim of this thesis is to propose improvements of the project Sports talent of the year for period 2014 - 2015. The project is focused on healthy lifestyle of the primary school pupils in the Czech Republic. The author based on analysis of previous years which were realized by a profit organization. His own contributions are made by the implementation of the project. Methods: There is a case study used to analyze the information about the project Sports talent of the year. Analysis of the conditions is carried out with the aid of PEST analysis, Porter's model of five forces, and analysis of resources. SWOT analysis is applied to synthesize previous analyzes. Results: The study revealed gaps especially in the management activities of the project Sports talent of the year. The greatest gaps can be seen in the branch of staffing, marketing and communications and financing. Key words: sports event, project, non profit organization, SWOT analysis, management and marketing of sports event

The topic of this thesis was the development of the services in the selected hotel. The aim of this thesis was to analyze the market conditions, the internal environment and a proposal to improve the management and ensure the competitiveness of Residence at the Black Tower. Using a questionnaire survey among guests and employees, guided interview with a manager and through additional analyzes were prepared design solutions.

The thesis investigates potential improvements of the competitiveness of accommodation in the tourism in the context of sustainability and responsibility based on an analysis of internal and external business environment. The theoretical part deals with the tourism market, a company in tourism, the business environment of the company and its analysis and the reader is also presented with the process and the types of marketing research. In the practical part the selected accommodation is presented and subsequently examined by means of the individual analyses of its internal and external business environments. One analysis also includes the survey conducted among business customers. Analyses of business environment showed that the company has a great potential for further development. Its strengths outweigh the weaknesses. The practical part includes a structured interview with the owner of the company. The research showed that customers are generally very satisfied and recommend the company further. Despite these positive facts it was estab- lished that the occupancy of this accommodation is much lower than it could be. There- fore the measures were suggested that should help the company to solve this problem and also to further develop in the future. It was recommended for example to introduce an online contextual advertising, to use modern volunteer tourism, or crowdfunding.