A Review of Methodological Approaches and Modeling Techniques in Service Quality Evaluation of Surface Transportation during the Last Decade

During the duration of the last decade, a growing interest has been noticed among transport practitioners and researchers to better understand the concept of service quality in the field of surface transportation and identify important service quality (SQ) attributes of different transportation services since these results have implications for transport managers. Due to advancements in computer technology and the availability of software packages, researchers are better able to extract meaningful results from passengers’ opinions collected through stated preference surveys and communicate their findings to transport managers looking to ameliorate SQ to boost ridership on a limited budget. Since the concept of SQ is itself complex owing to the nature of the service itself compared to a tangible product and characteristics of SQ attribute, different advanced modelling techniques based on multivariate analysis, machine learning, and artificial intelligence paradigms have become popular tools among researchers. This paper aims to summarize the trends of the SQ research in the field of surface transportation during the last decade with a focus on the methodological approaches and modelling techniques and delineate future directions for research in this field.

Customer experience can play a strategic role for wineries

Purpose This paper aims to consider how customer experience can be used by wineries to enrich their value proposition and improve their competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative research, using a semi-structured interview approach, was conducted on four small sized wineries located in the Bolgheri area (Tuscany, Italy). This study was based on the theoretical model of Pine and Gilmore. Findings All the wineries in the sample are committed to enriching wine – the tangible product. They focus on customer experience to make the process unique and meaningful. They seek to provide a rich experience, but have chosen one experience dimension to create a specific identity for themselves. It is evident, based on interviews and online reviews, that the customers appreciate the efforts of the wineries. Research limitations/implications This study can be further developed, using dimensions such as brand awareness and by building a larger sample, to understand how wineries can further improve their value proposition. Practical implications The adoption of marketing experience requires flawless execution of the experiences, starting from first employee-customer interaction. For this reason, it is essential for companies to invest in the training and development of their employees, who represent the experiential offer, and act as the link between the internal and external world. It is also important to identify new trends and be proactive. Originality/value Very few studies in the literature focus on customer experience in wine sector.

Establishing and Boosting Communication in The European Reference Network For Rare Neurological Diseases (ERN-RND): The Impact of Offering Free Educational Webinars

Background: Since it first started operating in 2017, the European Reference Network for Rare Neurological Diseases (ERN-RND) implemented a multi-channel communication strategy to effectively reach its target audience: healthcare professionals, patients, researchers, industry representatives and the general public. It first created a website containing useful and up to date information followed by social media accounts. We compared the analytical data collected about the ERN-RND website and social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) during two periods: October 2018 to September 2019 and the year after the ERN-RND free educational webinars were launched, from October 2019 to September 2020. This allowed us to quantify the impact of offering a tangible product (webinars) on the communication strategy. Results: The analytical data obtained from October 2018 to September 2019 and from October 2019 to September 2020 clearly shows a significant increase in traffic and followers since the launch of the ERN-RND webinars in November 2019. We also created a communication survey which was disseminated between February and June 2021. We collected responses from 61 people: 38 healthcare professionals, 11 scientists, 10 patients (advocates), 2 industry representatives, 1 patient association, 1 charity representative, 1 resident and 1 master student. Most respondents answered ”webinars” as the number one reason when asked about which content they look for on the ERN-RND website. Conclusions: Offering a tangible product - such as the webinars presented in this report - to a specific target group (healthcare professionals) supported our communication strategy by driving traffic to ERN-RND communication channels. It has also successfully tackled ERN-RND’s general aim: by enabling the flow of knowledge on rare neurological and movement disorders reach the medical community in hospitals treating patients with these rare and complex conditions, patients ultimately benefit from improved and faster diagnosis, care, and treatment. We aim to set up similar strategies to effectively reach other or the same target groups. For healthcare professionals, organising eConsultations via the Clinical Patient Management System (CPMS) or disseminating standards of care such as diagnostic and therapeutic algorithms as well as clinical practice guidelines might offer potential. For the patient community, organising customised and multilingual webinars could also work.

COVID-19 pandemic: different roles for scientific publications and funding face to epidemiological data—an European, country-based perspective

COVID-19 has represented an unprecedented challenge to be faced also concerning the spread of information, with scientific literature being often the sole source of trustworthy knowledge for the global community. However, a massive waste in research was noticed during pandemic, preventing the scientists to produce totally novel and original results, and the citizenship to have the complete support they needed from science. The present work investigated the relationship between planned funding, research grants, scientific publications and epidemiology in the 27 EU countries, retrieving a significant correlation between scientific publications and COVID-19 cases and deaths, as well as with economic data. Interestingly, planned coronavirus-devoted funds were correlated with lower GDP per capita and higher mortality, leading to the hypothesis for a lack of translation into real funds allowed to the respective country, or for a significant research waste, not transformed into a tangible product or effect. Such results could suggest the need for a different approach in the future concerning the redistribution of research funds in case of COVID-19 relapse or future pandemic events.

Perspectives on the pharmacist’s “product”: a narrative review

Clarity about the pharmacist’s “product” is fundamental to developing and communicating the value of pharmacy offerings. It is clear within the profession that pharmacists use their scope of knowledge and technical skills to address medication-related needs of individuals and populations. However, confusion still remains in the professional and public literature about what a pharmacist precisely produces for society. Is it a drug, service, program, solution, or something else? As the profession evolves from one that focuses on dispensing drugs to a profession that seeks to achieve positive patient health outcomes, pharmacists need to better conceptualize and articulate what they produce. This narrative review explores ideas from the marketing, business strategy, and entrepreneurship literature to discuss diverse perspectives on the pharmacist’s product. The four perspectives are the product as (1) a tangible product, (2) an intangible service, (3) a “smart, connected” good or service, and (4) a solution to a customer problem in whatever form provided. Based upon these perspectives, the pharmacist’s product can be any combination of tangible or intangible, face-to-face or virtual offering produced by pharmacists that seeks to satisfy medication-related needs and wants of pharmacy patients and customers. Ideas discussed in this review include the total product concept, classification schemes from the services marketing literature, the theory of service-dominant logic, the concepts of “smart, connected” products and industrialized intimacy, and the jobs-to-be-done framework. These various perspectives offer lessons for pharmacists on how to innovate when serving patients and customers and to communicate the pharmacist’s value proposition to the people they serve.

The Importance of Responsive Design in Times of Crisis

In the span of a year, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered our way of life. Reshaping our public spaces and daily routines, as well as the ways we communicate and connect with others, the crisis has also demonstrated design’s unique ability, as an industry, practice and product, to adapt and respond even in the most trying of times.The World Design Organization (WDO)® has watched with great pride as designers around the world, both within our community and outside of it, have stepped up to offer their skills and resources to develop impactful solutions. There have been a multitude of design innovations aimed at lessening the spread of COVID-19, easing the social and economic burden and safeguarding public health and safety. From tangible product innovations like Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), pop-up isolation units, ventilators and hands-free door openers to harnessing communication design to encourage behavioural changes.

Why are they not accessing it? User barriers to clinical information access

The Medical Library Association’s InSight Initiative provides an open and collaborative environment for library and industry partners to discuss vexing problems and find solutions to better serve their users. The initiative’s fifth summit, continuing work from the previous summit, focused on understanding how users discover and access information in the clinical environment. During the summit, participants were divided into working groups and encouraged to create a tangible product as a result of their discussions. At the end of the summit, participants established a framework for understanding users’ pain points, discussed possible solutions to those points, and received feedback on their work from an End User Advisory Board comprising physicians, clinical researchers, and clinical faculty in biomedicine. In addition to the pain point framework, participants are developing MLA InSight Initiative Learning content with modules to educate librarians and publishers about critical aspects of user behavior. The 2020 Insight Initiative Fall Forum will serve as a virtual home for constructive dialogue between health sciences librarians and publishers on improving discovery and access to information.

Mapping the types of modularity in open-source hardware

The importance of intangible code modularity in open-source software, as well as of tangible product modularity in proprietary hardware, is widely acknowledged. Nevertheless, modularity in open-source hardware (OSH) remains under-researched. This article first describes qualitatively different types of modularity based on two OSH case studies and then quantifies each type of modularity, following a unified network-based approach. The results are discussed and compared within each case to test the ‘mirroring hypothesis’, and between cases to evaluate the impact of physical against intangible modularity types. The ultimate goal is to prompt a discussion into a wide but under-explored subset in OSH.

Citizen Impulse Responses

Echo chambers are both spaces where sounds reflect until they lose their sharp edges and ways for citizens to lose perspective until only one viewpoint is reflected back. Echo chambers and their equivalencies have been used in music for decades. In our social and mass media, echo chambers have only recently made the headlines, particularly leading up to and following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. These cultural and physical echo chambers can be captured and studied, but what about the echo chambers found in the soundscapes of urban streets? The process and creation of the Citizen Impulse Response Library has connected these echo chambers of politics, democracy, media, and the streets of the U.S. capital. It is a collection of impulse response files created from recordings at protests in Washington, D.C. This conceptual yet tangible product grew from the history of spatial sonic effects, urban, and democratic soundscapes.

The Evolution of CEO Compensation in Venture Capital Backed Startups

We document new facts on the evolution of founder-CEO compensation in venture capital-backed startups. Having a tangible product ("product market fit") is a fundamental milestone in CEOs' compensation, marking the point where liquid cash compensation increases significantly – well before an IPO or acquisition. "Product market fit" also coincides with key human capital in the startup becoming more re- placeable. Although increases in cash compensation over the firm lifecycle improves the attractiveness of entrepreneurship relative to a contract with flat pay, we find that low cash compensation in the early years can still deter entrepreneurial entry.