Management practitioners often assume that raises in the contractual absolute maximum bandwidth of Internet connections increase the attitudinal bonds of customers with their access provider. The present study challenges this perspective: In a sample of up to 752 German-speaking Internet users with a wireline Internet access at home, it explores two relative speed characteristics of broadband connections (customer quality experiences in terms of delivered transmission speeds (1) relative to the maximum down- and upload bandwidths as per customer contract, and (2) relative to speeds emphasized in advertisements of a consumer’s access provider) as potential determinants of customer affinity with an access provider. Furthermore, correlations are analyzed between the frequency with which customers use speed tests to check the quality of their wireline Internet connection and their attitudinal bonds with their access provider. Multivariate regression analysis reveals that the impression that advertised wireline access bandwidths are exaggerated compared to the speeds actually delivered and – to a lesser extent – the perception that the contractual maximum speed is reached only in a low share of a customer’s Internet sessions significantly decrease customer satis-faction and significantly increase customer inclination to churn. The effects of the two speed assessments are not independent of one another: Perceived speed exaggerations in a provider’s ads impair customer bonds less (more) strongly if the experienced share of Internet sessions with speeds below the contractual maximum bandwidth is high (low). More frequent speed testing reduces customer bonding, especially in case that advertised speeds of a customer’s provider are experienced as overblown.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influences of self-identity, subjective norm and attitude on the intention to purchase luxury fashion goods. It also demonstrates how purchase intention influences on customers' intention to pay premium prices for luxury fashion goods. A theoretical model is established and assessed in this study on a sample of luxury fashion consumers in Malaysia. By means of a self-structured questionnaire, 240 valid submissions are included for data analysis with the Smart-PLS software 3.2.0. The results support all hypotheses on the correlation of self-identity, subjective norm and attitude with purchase intention and price premium, except the correlation between self-identity and purchase intention. This is the first research paper investigating self-identity as an antecedent of purchase intention, and price premium as a consequence of purchase intention. It also justifies the behavior of luxury fashion consumers with regards to luxury fashion products. Findings from this study may help marketers develop effective strategies which would yield them a competitive advantage within the luxury fashion market.

The purpose of this study is to measure the impact of institutional environment as government regulation and managers’ capabilities to maintain the relationship between the stakeholder networks and the entrepreneurial orientation within the context of the hospital industry in Indonesia. The results of data analysis from 105 small and medium private hospitals in the Jakarta city and surrounding areas show that the hospital entrepreneurial orientation was significantly influenced by government policies reflected by the legal certainty and bureaucratic attitudes that assist the implementation of the policies. Besides, it is proven that management capabilities to establish the relationships with many stakeholders, consisting of all existing partners and employees, also affect the growth of entrepreneurial orientation. Finally, the performance of the hospital is proven to be significantly influenced by the entrepreneurial orientation directly and also mediated by business model innovation. The results of this study become paradoxical because it is different from the opinion that the healthcare industry would not have accepted the concept of entrepreneurship.

Green management is fundamentally referred to the environmental practices and the implementation of the appropriate eco-friendly activities, which improve the level of people’s awareness about the environmental protection. Such green management practices have been investigated namely, redesigning of operation and production processes, innovation and R&D functions, use of technology to save energy and reduce waste, environmental awareness of stakeholders through seminars and training, investment in equipment and technology, and improvement in products or services towards improving firm efficiency in Oil and Gas industry in Jordan. The design of this study has a quantitative approach. Three hypotheses have been developed through literature review and tested using descriptive statistical analysis performed by SPSS. The number of population was 250 employees from different departments that include HR, environment, operation, maintenance, and marketing, a total of 208 completed questionnaires were analyzed as a final sample. The results show a moderate implementation of Green management practices, redesigning of operation and production processes indicated the strongest influence, while innovation and R&D functions indicated the weakest influence. Statistical positive association also was indicated between green management practices and firm efficiency. This study contributes to support the literature of Green management and environment protection that is little in developing countries like Jordan. And it urges firm management to develop effective green innovation culture to improve the implementation level of Green management which may in turn create a high level of environmental efficiency outcome in the medium and long run. Also, it’s very significant for firm management to invest more money in green innovation and R&D functions in order to improve the level of efficiency/ performance.

Branded fashion clothing is developing expeditiously in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi local apparel fashion brand outlets are flourishing with positive customers’ attitude. The aim of this research is to understand the effect of brand equity on customers’ desire to spend on a premium price on a shop-ping store named Aarong. The research tries to discover different aspects of brand equity by analyz-ing the customers’ manner and buying behavior. In this research, Aaker’s brand equity model is used to examine the influence of brand equity on consumers’ intention to pay for a premium cost. The necessary data for the study is collected from 100 respondents using the non-probability judgmental sampling technique. The collected data is analyzed by regression analysis so that the relationship can be examined, properly and the results support the proposed four hypotheses. It is found that among four brand equity variables, brand association maintained the most significant impact on creating positive customer intention to pay the premium price. Other variables such as brand recognition, discerned quality and brand faithfulness only slightly create positive influence on customer intention to pay the premium price. Thus, the results indicate that to ensure good performance and attract customers, Aarong must put more emphasis on improving all brand equity variables and maintain a suitable balance among them.

Over the years, substantial efforts have been given for exploring the halal concepts particularly, in the aspect of consumable goods and services. Concerning the issue of halal cosmetic products, the majority of the studies were undertaken until the stage of consumers’ purchase intention only. Comparatively, only few studies were found in the area of pertaining to Muslims’ purchase behavior of halal cosmetic products. Hence, this study can be considered significant in the sense that it tries to bridge this gap in the existing literature. Therefore, this study gives some new insights to the current body of knowledge by focusing on purchase behavior of halal cosmetics. The findings of the study demonstrate that attitude, perceived behavioral control, and religiosity had significant relationships with purchase intention, whereas subjective norm had an insignificant relationship. Ultimately, the findings would be helpful for generating future researches and offering supplementary resources, especially in the Malaysian context.

This paper addresses the flexible manufacturing system (FMS) problems considering both machines and automated guided vehicles (AGVs), simultaneously. A new fuzzy heuristic (FH) is proposed for solving the simultaneous scheduling problem, in order to minimize the makespan by considering the available resources. For increasing the performance of FMS one of the important factors is scheduling AGV with an integral part of the machine scheduling activity. The algorithm is tested based on 82 benchmark problems and the achieved makespan are compared with other algorithms.

This paper examined the relationship between job stress and job performance, along with the moderating effect of emotional intelligence (EI) and perceived organizational support (POS) among employees in the Istanbul financial sector. 564 employees and their 78 immediate supervisors were surveyed. The findings of this study suggest that job stress was negatively associated with job per-formance, where EI and POS were able to reduce the effect of stress on job performance. The re-sults largely support the significant impact of job stress on job performance, moderated through EI and POS as hypostasized. This paper demonstrates the important role of the job stress on job per-formance which contributes to conceptual understanding of organizational efficiency. The study has used self-reports- as well as supervisor reports to study the effects of job stress on organizational performance.

The demand for property increases every year in line with the population growth in Indonesia. Moreover, the society believes that investing in the property will have future benefits since there is an expectation of an increase in strong middle-class consumer spending made to the residential business segment and also urban society demands for apartments and condominiums. Loans and mortgages are often made by both owners and developers in order to own the property. Therefore, this study investigates the impacts of financial liquidity and leverage on the financial performance of the Indonesian property and real estate enterprises. The study considers three (3) selected companies listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange LQ 45 (IDX LQ 45) over period five (5) years (2012- 2016). The secondary data are obtained from the financial statement (comprehensive income statement and statement of financial position) of selected property and real estate companies listed on IDX. This data is analyzed by using the regression analysis; the t-statistics and F significance ANOVA were used to test the hypothesis. The result of the analysis show that Current Ratio (CR) and Debt-Asset Ratio (DAR) had a negative relationship with Return on Assets (ROA) while Times Interest Earned (TIE) had a positive relationship with ROA in Indonesia property and real estate industry.

This paper aimed to examine a conceptual model for the relationships between hospital service quality, patient satisfaction, hospital utilization, and hospital financial performance. A total of 176 hospitals was selected from California State for this study. The standardized performance measures were used together with precisely defined specifications and standardized data collection protocols. First, an exploratory factor analysis with Varimax rotation was performed. The measurement prop-erties were then assessed in a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The analysis results show that quality had a significant effect on satisfaction, which, in turn, affected the financial performance. The results provide support for the previous findings indicated that service quality was positively associated with patient satisfaction and that satisfaction and utilization had a significant positive effect on financial performance. The analysis results provide support for the previous findings that hospital service quality is positively related to patient satisfaction. The findings also show that patient satisfaction and hospital utilization have a significant positive effect on hospital financial performance.