Journal of General Management

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Articles
Winter 2012
An empirical exploration of hospital service quality assessment criteria in China
Zhaofang Mao, John Mercer, John Vaughan, Chengbo Wang, Tong Yang, Lixin Zhang
This paper reports on a research project within the context of the Chinese healthcare sector. From a functional quality aspect, the research identifies, selects and confirms the service quality assessment criteria suitable for Chinese hospitals via literature search, focus group and survey investigation; the numbers of the criteria have also been reduced based on principal component analysis; then through importance-performance analysis, provides further understanding/ prioritisation on the criteria and also groups them accordingly to reflect their influence on service quality. The research produces a set of appropriate service quality criteria suitable for evaluating hospitals\' performance in a Chinese context. Meanwhile, the learning obtained from the research and the grouped criteria (quality performance indicators) can support consequential empirical research projects for obtaining more insights into running hospital businesses, and provide guidance to a wider range of Chinese hospitals on their business operations. They can also be used to guide foreign healthcare providers on developing/implementing their business management strategies while planning to enter the Chinese healthcare marketplace.
Winter 2012
Book reviews
Christabel D. Brownson, Kay Maddox-Daines, Malcolm Warner
Williams, A.P.O. (2010), The history of UK business and management education, Emerald: London

Cohn, J. and Moran, J. (2011), Why are we bad at picking good leaders? A Better Way to Evaluate Leadership Potential, San Francisco, CA: Jossey- Bass, A Wiley Imprint

Henry, R. Nothhaft, with David Kline (2011), Great Again - Revitalizing America's Entrepreneurial Leadership, Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press
Winter 2012
Knowledge resources, learning orientation and firm performance: The mediating effect of organisational capability
Yu Ha Jamie Cheung, Randy Ki-kwan Chiu, Li-Qun Wei, Long-Zeng Wu
Based on the perspective of organisational capability and learning orientation, this study posits that knowledge resources influence firm performance through a positive effect on organisational capability. Tests on a sample of 133 Chinese firms show that organisational learning orientation moderates in a positive relationship between knowledge resources and firm performance. A mediated moderation model is further tested and it is found that organisational capability mediates in the relationship linking the interaction between knowledge resources and learning orientation with firm performance. Discussions of theoretical and practical implications are included as well.
Winter 2012
Managing disruptive innovation: Entrepreneurial strategies and tournaments for corporate longevity
Yanto Chandra, Shu-Jung Sunny Yang
Extant research on disruptive innovation has implicitly incorporated entrepreneurship as the underlying driver of the disruptive phenomenon. This article integrates recent developments from entrepreneurship and innovation research streams to better understand the conditions and causal mechanisms that influence disruptive innovation. Drawing on effectuation, evolutionary entrepreneurship, lead-users, collective intelligence and opportunity tournament literature, a theoretical framework is developed that explains disruptive innovation as a coevolutionary entrepreneurial process at the firm, product, and customer level. The framework offers a set of testable propositions to advance theory and practice in the field. The authors suggest avenues for future research and conclude with entrepreneurial strategies to help general managers create and cope with disruptive innovation.
Winter 2012
What's important for trustful communication with customers? An empirical analysis
Ann-Marie Nienaber, Gerhard Schewe
Trust is very important and essential for relationships. Such statements can be observed in scientific as well as practically-oriented journals. But what is trust and how can it be developed or strengthened? To date, information on this is rather vague. Therefore, this study analyses the different characteristics of trust in a business relationship. In order to answer the research question, an empirical survey has been developed here. The Kano-analysis is used as the methodological approach. It can be shown that three different dimensions of trust can be identified: basic factors are a prerequisite of any relation and have a fundamental character in long-term relationships. The customers expect such factors to be an unquestionable part of any business relationship (e.g. honesty), while attractive factors always strengthen the stability of trust in the relationship (e.g. sympathy). One-dimensional factors not only stabilise trust if implemented, but can cause the relationship to deteriorate if ignored (e.g. timeliness).