Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Ariel Ezrachi
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
Western World ◽  
Competitive Markets ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Competitive Process ◽  
Competitive Activity ◽  
Competition Laws ◽  
Do So

‘Introduction’ provides an overview of the competitive process, which has generated much of the prosperity of the Western world. It is this process that delivers the abundance of choice, the lower prices, the increased innovation, and the better quality of goods and services. The antitrust and competition laws are designed to address risks, remedy possible market failures, and safeguard consumer welfare. Competition agencies and courts are tasked with enforcing the law. As they do so, they face the challenge of correctly identifying what amounts to an anti-competitive activity and curtailing it to ensure dynamic and competitive markets.

1. The power of competition

2021 ◽  
pp. 4-12
Author(s):  
Ariel Ezrachi
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
Perfect Competition ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Intensity Of Competition ◽  
The Ideal

‘The power of competition’ discusses the power of competition. The nature of the product and the structure of the market affect the intensity of competition and subsequently the price and quality of goods and services. The model of perfect competition illustrates the ideal market scenario — a perfect market which maximizes consumer welfare. There are a number of consequences of limited competition in a market dominated by a monopoly. In such a market, a single firm offers the product or service. There is also a type of market called an oligopoly, which is characterized by a few key competitors.

3. The goals and scope of competition and antitrust laws

2021 ◽  
pp. 28-37
Author(s):  
Ariel Ezrachi
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
Antitrust Law ◽  
Competitive Process ◽  
Eu Competition Law ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
The World ◽  
Competition Laws ◽  
The Eu

‘The goals and scope of competition and antitrust laws’ evaluates the goals and scope of competition and antitrust laws. Competition laws seek to protect the competitive process in the marketplace from companies that seek to distort it. By safeguarding free and fair markets, competition laws promote consumer welfare as well as efficiencies in the marketplace. While key competition law principles are similar across the world, competition laws are not internationally uniform, but are instead customized by each jurisdiction. A comparison can be made between US Federal Antitrust Law and the EU competition law. There are also other jurisdictions that apply competition laws, including China, Japan, and South Korea.

Quality Regulation

2019 ◽  
pp. 307-353
Author(s):  
Sheilagh Ogilvie
Keyword(s):  
Market Failure ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Information Asymmetries ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Major Market ◽  
Quality Regulation ◽  
Shed Light

This chapter examines one major market failure that guilds might have helped solve: the potential for information asymmetries between producers and consumers about the quality of goods and services. Many guilds erected market regulations. To address such concerns, guilds required producers and products to be guild-certified, inspected workshops or wares, and penalized quality violations. Guilds also engaged in many unrelated activities which affected quality unintentionally. The chapter then assesses the evidence on information asymmetries about quality, the institutional mechanisms available to solve them, and the outcomes in different sectors of the European economy. It argues that guilds shed light on the balance between market failures, state failures, and the failure of particularized institutions in intermediating between producers and consumers.

Проблемы оценки качества при проектировании транспортных услуг

2020 ◽  
pp. 30-40
Author(s):  
S.U. Lyapina ◽  
◽  
V.N. Tarasova ◽  
V.B. Ruchkin ◽  
E.O. Koscheeva ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Service Industries ◽  
Service Organizations ◽  
Quality Of Services ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Expert Opinions ◽  
Service Life Cycle ◽  
Quantitative Indicators

The quality issues of new services directly affect the competitiveness of service organizations. However, the introduction of new services to the market is often limited only to the construction of the logistics of business processes, and the design applies only to technological equipment and infrastructure, the quality of which ultimately does not always ensure the quality of the services provided. At the same time, quality management affects mainly operational aspects, that is, it covers the later stages of the service life cycle. In resource-intensive service industries (for example, transport, communications, etc.), the high cost of equipment and infrastructure reduces the possibility of changes in service delivery technologies to improve their quality, which leads to inefficiency and market failures due to the fact that the new service does not match the real needs of customers. Despite this, forecasting and planning the quality of a service at the stage «making a decision» to launch a new service on the market remains largely without sufficient attention. The authors prove the need to design the quality of services at the stage «making a decision» to bring new services to the market. The purpose of the article is to describe the approach developed by the authors to assessing the quality of projected services at the early stages of their life cycle, which makes it possible to integrate qualitative and quantitative indicators of the future service and take into account the forecast requests of customers. The proposed approach has two features: (1) forecasting customer requirements for the quality of services is based on the results of machine learning based on data on existing and potential customers, as well as on the basis of the accumulated knowledge base of customer experience and expert opinions; (2) multi-criteria optimization is used, while some of the optimized parameters are discrete and high-quality. In conclusion, the authors demonstrated the advantages of the developed model on the examples of transport and logistics business in the field of passenger and freight transportation in Russia.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES OF CLINICAL AND LABORATORY ACTIVITIES

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 689-693
Author(s):  
Nikola Sabev
Keyword(s):  
Evaluation System ◽  
Quality Of Healthcare ◽  
Laboratory Analysis ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
Administrative Authority ◽  
Specific Level ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Laboratory Activities ◽  
Analytical Accuracy

Providing a specific level of healthcare quality is an important and a complex issue, determined by the extent of influence of number of interrelated and predetermined factors that act at different stages throughout the continuum of healthcare activities. A final healthcare product is a complex conglomerate of goods and services being heterogeneous with a time-varying result and a pronounced individuality. Thus, healthcare managers are required to put its supporting and continuous upgrading at the core of their efforts, which in turn will result in cost reduction, good collaboration between individual professionals, improved financial performance and, ultimately, patients will be optimally serviced and their needs and expectations will be satisfied.Indicators to measure quality of medical services give an idea of their characteristics, conditions and requirements for implementation. In this respect, quality assurance in clinical laboratories is an important process involving a complex system of planned actions at all stages of laboratory analysis in order to achieve the most accurate results with the aim of achieving the most accurate result, of monitoring the effect of the treatment and prognosis of the disease in question. The high quality of laboratory medical services helps modern clinicians in their practical activities and is a guarantor of achieving an adequate healthcare outcome. The ‘Quality in Laboratory Medicine’ concept evolves over time, focusing not only on analytical accuracy but also on a broader and more comprehensive basis that takes into account all the steps of clinical and laboratory analysis, providing valuable information in the process of making clinical decisions that are subordinated entirely to the cares of the patient.All healthcare professionals under the administrative authority of the medical institution, that should guarantee the necessary resources for this process, should participate in providing and improving the quality of services. It is necessary to cover the entire organizational structure, by paying attention to the optimization of the relations between staff and patients. Healthcare managers should provide permanent monitoring and a process evaluation system at each stage, allowing options for choosing alternatives for a solution and precise selectivity, aimed at improving the quality of healthcare, in particular, clinical and laboratory activities and services.

scholarly journals The Efficiency of Cooperation between the Participants in the Supply Chain in the Tourism-Related Branch of Industry in Relation to Client Satisfaction

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (17) ◽  
pp. 4716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Kozicka ◽  
Sebastian Kot ◽  
I Gede Riana
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Consumer Satisfaction ◽  
Client Satisfaction ◽  
Related Services ◽  
Specific Product ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Statistical Relevance ◽  
Tourism Supply Chain ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

Managing a tourism supply chain is predominantly focused on managing a tourism-specific product that can be perceived as all kinds of goods and services utilized by tourists during their trips. The predominant goal of this article is to empirically identify the level of engagement of entities operating in the tourism-oriented branch of industry concerning the satisfaction of end-customers with the offered tourism-related services and products. Within the scope of this study, the statistical relevance of elements of active cooperation within a tourism-specific supply chain was analyzed. Empirical examinations covered the assessment of the cooperation within the framework of the tourism-oriented supply chain and its impact on consumer satisfaction. A research questionnaire was utilized to meet examination-specific goals. Theoretical considerations and the analysis of branches of industry in relation to the available statistical data showed that tourist-oriented supply chain covers various entities, the engagement of which may have a factual impact on the efficiency of managing the entire chain, as well as on the overall client satisfaction, improving tourism sustainability. The obtained results clearly showed that the examined entities considered the analyzed cooperation aspects to be very important with regard to the supply chain management. Said aspects included the total length of cooperation within the framework of a particular supply chain, which, according to the examined entities, directly translated into the quality of cooperation—to either significant or very significant extent, as well as making it much easier to solve certain problems that were strictly connected with the provision of tourism-oriented services. Yet another aspect of cooperation that was touched upon was the transfer of the so-called know-how between the entities engaged in a given supply chain. As proven by the examination, 70% of the surveyed entities claimed that it was of significant or very significant importance. The last analyzed aspect of cooperation were relations between the supply chain-specific partners and their impact on the satisfaction of end customers. According to over half of the sample (61.54%), decent relations between supply chain participants affected the satisfaction of end customers to a notable extent.

The theater of memory: Direct speech in Palestinian oral history

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 633-648
Author(s):  
Kobi Peled
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Striking Feature ◽  
Direct Speech ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theatrical Performance ◽  
Main Thing ◽  
Significant Figures ◽  
Arabic Speaking ◽  
Do So

A striking feature of Palestinian oral history projects is the extensive use that interviewees make of direct speech to communicate their memories—especially those born before the 1948 Arab–Israeli war. They do so irrespective of whether or not they participated in or actually heard the dialogues they wish to convey. This article seeks to characterize and explain this phenomenon. In the interviews conducted by the author—an Arabic-speaking Jew—as well as in other projects, this mode of speech is marked by ease of transition from character to character and between different points in time. It clearly gives pleasure to those engaged in the act of remembering, and it grades readily into a theatrical performance in which tone of speech and the quality of the acting become the main thing. This form of discourse sprang up from the soil of a rural oral culture and still flourishes as a prop for supporting memory, a vessel for collecting and disseminating stories, and a technique for expressing identification with significant figures from the past.

Pursuit of Operational Excellence

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-34
Author(s):  
Christine Welch ◽  
Tammi Sinha ◽  
Nigel Ward
Keyword(s):  
Change Management ◽  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Effective Leadership ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Team Working ◽  
Performance Teams ◽  
Operational Excellence

Operational Excellence (OE) is achieved when high performance teams are seeking for continuous improvement in well-designed processes, using appropriate tools and technologies. Excellence is underpinned by a philosophy in which problem-solving, team-working and effective leadership combine to focus upon customer needs, and all employees are empowered to act to maintain optimal flows of value. OE is clearly a desirable quality of organizations seeking both effectiveness and efficiency in their production of goods and services for customers. OE is underpinned by concepts such as team-working, effective leadership and change management, and depends upon effective flows of value. Systems Thinking (ST) is consequently at the heart of genuine excellence. This paper was conceived in the context of a Community of Practice of business improvement professionals, who took Operational Excellence as their agenda for inquiry during sessions in 2015. Reflection upon practice discussed at these meetings, together with the literature of change management and continuous improvement, have led to development of a systemic ‘landscape' model for pursuit of Operational Excellence. The elements of this model are set out, showing how they can contribute to OE.

Materials Science and Engineering Education

MRS Bulletin ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 18-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Abbaschian
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Materials Science ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Intraocular Lenses ◽  
Science And Engineering ◽  
Materials Science And Engineering ◽  
Do So

Materials science and engineering (MSE), as a field as well as a discipline, has expanded greatly in recent years and will continue to do so, most likely at an even faster pace. It is now well-accepted that materials are crucial to the national defense, to the quality of life, and to the economic security and competitiveness of the nation. Mankind has recognized the importance of manmade materials to the quality of life for many centuries. In many cases, the security and defense of tribes and nations have substantially depended on the availability of materials. It is not surprising that historical periods have been named after materials—the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, etc. The major requirements from materials in those days were their properties and performance. Today, in this age of advanced materials, the importance of materials to defense and quality of life has not changed. However, the critical role of materials has taken an additional dimension: it has become essential to enhancing industrial competitiveness.The knowledge base within MSE has also expanded vastly throughout these years and continues to do so at an increasing rate. We are constantly gaining a deeper understanding of the fundamental nature of materials, developing new ways to produce and shape them for applications extending from automobiles to supersonic airplanes, optoelectronic devices to supercomputers, hip implants to intraocular lenses, or from household appliances to gigantic structures. We are also learning that, in many of these applications, we need to depend on the combinations or composites of different classes of materials (metals, ceramic, polymers, and electronic materials) to enhance their properties.

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