What are the barriers that separate nations? While recent work provides intriguing clues, we have remarkably little concrete evidence as to the nature, size, and shape of barriers. This paper offers direct and indirect evidence on trade barriers, moving us toward a comprehensive geography of...

International trade occurs in physical space and moving goods requires time. This paper examines the importance of time as a trade barrier, estimates the magnitude of time costs, and relates these to patterns of trade and the international organization of production. Estimates indicate that each...

ZusammenfassungAufgrund der Globalisierung der Wirtschaft und der zunehmenden Bedeutung des chinesischen Marktes sind immer mehr Unternehmen mit Fragestellungen, welche die Wahl einer optimalen Markteintrittsstrategie für China betreffen, konfrontiert. Mit der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde der...

Online price comparison agents (shopbots) allow consumers toinstantaneously receive price and other information from many onlineretailers. Online consumer clickstream data from ComScore Inc.demonstrate that consumers are increasingly using shopbots to conductsearch. This phenomenon raises such...

The purpose of this paper is to report on a study based around a commercial facilities management (FM) service provider's creation of an internal benchmark of how services for an acute hospital perform in terms of service quality. Principally, the paper discusses the emergence and significance...

While Information services function’s (ISF) service quality is not a new concept and has received considerable attention for over two decades, cross-cultural research of ISF’s service quality is not very mature. The author argues that the relationship between cultural dimensions and the...

Since the 1980s, industries and researchers have sought to better understand the quality of services due to the rise in their importance (Brogowicz, Delene and Lyth 1990). More recent developments with online services, coupled with growing recognition of service quality (SQ) as a key contributor...

The objective of this research was to assess the quality of service delivered by MTN to itssubscribers. The mobile telecommunications industry in South Africa is not sufficientlycompetitive and so mobile operators can afford to ignore the quality of services theyprovide to their subscribers...

As marketers and researchers we understand quality from the consumer's perspective, and throughout contemporary service quality literature there is an emphasis on what the consumer is looking for, or at least that is the intention. Through examining the underlying assumptions of dominant service...

Service offerings are largely intangible in nature. Customers are thus unable to assess the purchase outcome prior to experience, rendering the risk of possible customer dissatisfaction very high. It is argued that the concept of service guarantees proposed by services management theory can be...