Linking Situational Constraints to Customer Satisfaction in a Service Environment

Cet article examine les rapports entre la satisfaction de la clientèle et les contraintes relevant des situations techniques et sociales. A cette fin, une enquête de terrain fut réalisée auprès d'un échantillon de 57 managers et 835 clients d'organisations de service. On a recensé les contraintes sociales et techniques vécues par les managers. La satisfaction des clients a également été mesurée avec plusieurs aspects des services. En général, l'absence de situation contraignante dans les organisations de service était en relation positive avec la satisfaction de la clientèle. Les résultats montrent aussi que la seule contribution des contraintes techniques à la satisfaction des clients était supérieure à celle des contraintes sociales. Nous signalons des implications managériales et des orientations pour les futures recherches portant sur les relations entre les contraintes et la satisfaction des clients.
This paper aims to test the links of social and technical situational constraints to customer satisfaction with services. To this end, a field survey study was conducted using a sample of 57 managers and 835 customers of service organisations. We studied social and technical constraints perceived by managers. Customer satisfaction with several service attributes was also measured. In general, a lack of situational constraints in service organisations was positively associated with customer satisfaction. The results also showed that the unique contribution of technical constraints to customer satisfaction was greater than that of social constraints. We point out managerial implications and future directions for research on constraints–customer satisfaction relationships.     

Jewish Students and Christian Corpses in Interwar Poland: Playing with the Language of Blood Libel

This article focuses on the antisemitic discourse that surrounded the controversy over the provision of cadavers to medical departments in the Second Polish Republic. In the pages of the student press and at student rallies, activists argued that Jewish medical students should be barred from dissecting Christian corpses. They demanded that Jewish communities provide corpses for dissection on a regular basis as a condition for continued training of Jewish doctors. The discourse surrounding the cadaver affair combined nationalist language with religious vocabulary, suggesting that the affair was motivated as much by religious concerns as by nationalist ones. Drawing on notions of Jewish criminality and arrogance, allegations of a Jewish sense of religious superiority and disregard for Christian values, and fears of Jewish exploitation of Christians to fulfill their own collective needs, the cadaver affair played with concepts reminiscent of blood libel.     

The Incidence and Outcomes of Sexual Harassment Among Hispanic and Non–Hispanic White Women: A Comparison Across Levels Of Cultural Affiliation

An extensive body of literature has documented the widespread and damaging nature of sexual harassment among Anglo women, but little attention has focused on the experiences of women of color. The current paper begins to address this gap by comparing sexual harassment incidence rates and psychological and work–related outcomes of Hispanic and non–Hispanic White women across varying levels of cultural affiliation. Chi–square tests of association suggest that risk of harassment increases with affiliation to the mainstream U.S. culture, and hierarchical regression analyses suggest that cultural affiliation moderates the relation between sexual harassment and occupational functioning. These provocative findings are discussed in the context of social and economic vulnerability, socio–sexual norms, and cultural background.     

Rear negativity: Verbal messages coming from behind are perceived as more negative

Many studies have explored the evaluative effects of vertical (up/down) or horizontal (left/right) spatial locations. However, little is known about the role of information that comes from the front and back. Basing our investigations on multiple theoretical considerations, we propose that spatial location of sounds is a cue for message valence, such that a message coming from behind is interpreted as more negative than a message presented in front of a listener. Here we show across a variety of manipulations and dependent measures that this effect occurs in the domain of social information. Our data are most compatible with theoretical accounts which propose that social information presented from behind is associated with uncertainty and lack of control, which is amplified in conditions of self-relevance.     

Individual Pathways Through the Junior-to-Senior Transition: Narratives of Two Swedish Team Sport Athletes

Athletes frequently describe the junior-to-senior transition (JST) as the most difficult within-career transition, and many athletes have acknowledged that they failed to cope well with it. Athletes’ development in the JST is influenced by narratives existing within relevant contexts and settings. This study served as a follow-up to the quantitative longitudinal study to gain a deeper understanding of individual JST paths through a qualitative narrative approach. The aim was to explore 2 team sport athletes’ (John, the football player, and Anna, the basketball player) JST pathways, emphasizing psychosocial factors that were perceived as facilitating and debilitating the process. Narrative type interviews were conducted, and the holistic-form structural analysis was used. Through their narratives, John and Anna reconstructed their JST paths, attaching meanings to certain events, recounting the people involved, and making personal reflections. John had a performance and family narrative and Anna had an enjoyment and relationship narrative. They perceived their key facilitating persons to be their family members and teammates. The debilitating factors were some coaches’ behaviors. At the time of this study, John and Anna had already terminated their athletic careers and had refocused on getting an education. Although they did not reach elite senior levels in their sports, they found their athletic careers to be meaningful life experiences.

Lay Summary: The aim was to explore two team sport athletes’ junior-to-senior transition (JST) pathways, emphasizing psychosocial factors involved in the transition process. The findings revealed two narratives. John (football player) storied his JST as a performance and family narrative and Anna (basketball player) as an enjoyment and relationship narrative.     

Is Segmental Trunk Control Related to Gross Motor Performance in Healthy Preterm and Full-Term Infants?

Abstract

The authors’ aim was to verify the correlation between segmental trunk control and gross motor performance in healthy preterm (PT) and full-term (FT) infants aged 6 and 7?months and to verify if there are differences between groups. All infants were assessed at 6 and 7?months by means of Segmental Assessment of Trunk Control (SATCo) to identify the exact level of segmental trunk control and Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) to measure gross motor performance. A significant correlation between segmental trunk control and gross motor performance was found in healthy PT infants at 7?months and FT infants at 6?months. PT infants showed a delay on segmental trunk control at 6 and 7?months and in supported standing posture at 6?months compared with FT infants. Segmental trunk control and gross motor performance showed an important relationship in healthy PT and FT infants, mainly in sitting posture.