How to enhance service quality through organizational facilitators,collective work engagement,and relational service competence

This study aims to test how collective work engagement and relational service competence, as affective and cognitive-competent collective states, mediate the relationship between organizational facilitators and customers' perceptions of service quality. In all, 107 service-oriented units were aggregated from 615 service workers and 2165 customers. Structural equation modelling confirmed that organizational facilitators are related to collective work engagement andrelational service competence, which play a mediating role between organizational facilitators and service quality. Whereas collective work engagement plays a partially mediating role between organizational facilitators and relational service competence, relational service competence plays a fully mediating role between collective work engagement and service quality. A discussion and limitations are also provided.     

Learning to read and write in Spanish: phonology in addition to which other processes? / Aprendiendo a leer y escribir en español: además de la fonología, ¿qué otros procesos?

Abstract

This study reviews some of the most relevant cognitive skills related to literacy acquisition in Spanish. Beyond the well-known influence of phonological segmental skills, it highlights the growing importance of other cognitive skills needed for acquisition, whether explicit or implicit in nature, to which too little attention has been devoted, including suprasegmental or prosodic skills, morphological skills and the implicit learning of linguistic regularities. It appears that all these skills constitute relevant factors that should be taken into account in order to understand typical as well as atypical literacy development.     

Determinants of social integration in the community: an exploratory analysis of personal,interpersonal and situational variables

This article aims to explore the effects of personal, interpersonal, and situational variables on social integration in the community. Structural equation analyses from two‐wave panel data (N = 536) of adult participants living in an urban area showed that personal determinants (perceived stress and depressive mood), and situational determinants (undesirable life events) were statistically related to a decrease in social integration in the community. Interpersonal determinants (emotional, guidance, and instrumental support) were positively associated with an increase in social integration in the community. Implications of these and other findings are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Factors associated with eating behavior in pre-adolescents

The goals of this study are the preliminary Spanish adaptation and validation of the following questionnaires: the Children's Eating Attitudes Test (ChEAT), the Lawrence Self-Esteem Questionnaire (LAWSEQ) and the Body Esteem Scale (BES). In addition, we studied bodily self-esteem in pre-adolescent children, and their possible relation to certain eating attitudes and general self-esteem. This study is cross-sectional, analytical and observational. The sample was made up of 457 participants, 55.14% boys and 44.86% girls aged between 8 and 12 (M = 10.14, SD = 1.30). A multivariate analysis of variance (Age x Sex) was carried out with the total scores of LAWSEQ, ChEAT, BES, BIA and BMI. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was .76, .80, and .67 for ChEAT, BES, and LAWSEQ, respectively. The boys presented significantly higher total scores in the ChEAT than the girls. Of the sample, 10.4% (n = 45) scored over the cut-off point of the ChEAT: These subjects presented lower general and bodily self-esteem, a slimmer ideal image and a greater discrepancy between their real self and their social self.     

Religious Experience,Religious Worldviews,and Near-Death Studies

The tense relation prevailing between representatives of conservative religion and other near-death researchers may be illumined by a look at the different functions religion has fulfilled in the past. Religion may be seen as centering on the meaningfulness of the world, on spiritual experience, or on salvation. In this essay, I sketch the place of these themes in the Great Religions. These themes have inherent mutual tensions that in the case of Christianity cannot necessarily be settled by appeal to the Bible, because different Christian groups have somewhat differing views of the source of authority. Furthermore, the Bible's authority is challenged by the results of modern scholarship. In light of these reflections, I see Michael Sabom's Light & Death (1998) as showing valuable data and insights but failing to respond to significant challenges.     

Perceived frequency of domestic violence against women and neighbourhood social disorder

Regression analyses from a nationally representative sample of 10,235 adult Spaniards, provided in 1995 from the Spanish Demands of Security and Victimization Survey, showed a small and positive relationship between high neighbourhood social disorder and perceived frequency of domestic violence against women in Spanish families, after controlling for sociodemographic variables and size of city. Among sociodemographic variables, sex had the strongest association with neighbourhood social disorder, being more than twice as large as neighbourhood social disorder.