O Efeito da Sinalização de Qualidade no Contexto de Serviços

Signaling theory states that signals are firms’ actions that communicate information about the quality of a product. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of signal quality in a service context, through the investigation of the signaling effects of price and responsiveness in a service context. Perceived behavior control, regarded as an individual's perception of the ability to perform a behavior, was proposed as a moderator between signaling variables and perceived quality. Two experimental studies with factorial and inter-subject designs were conducted in order to test the hypotheses formulated from the literature review. Results from both experiments show that signaling quality through price and responsiveness can affect perceived quality. The second experiment supports the hypothesis of perceived behavior control moderation between price as a signaling variable and perceived quality, but not between responsiveness and perceived quality. These results and their implications are discussed in the final section of the paper

Translating shared decision-making into health care clinical practices: Proof of concepts

Background: There is considerable interest today in shared decision-making (SDM), defined as a decision-making process jointly shared by patients and their health care provider. However, the data show that SDM has not been broadly adopted yet. Consequently, the main goal of this proposal is to bring together the resources and the expertise needed to develop an interdisciplinary and international research team on the implementation of SDM in clinical practice using a theory-based dyadic perspective. Methods: Participants include researchers from Canada, US, UK, and Netherlands, representing medicine, nursing, psychology, community health and epidemiology. In order to develop a collaborative research network that takes advantage of the expertise of the team members, the following research activities are planned: 1) establish networking and on-going communication through internet-based forum, conference calls, and a bi-weekly e-bulletin; 2) hold a two-day workshop with two key experts (one in theoretical underpinnings of behavioral change, and a second in dyadic data analysis), and invite all investigators to present their views on the challenges related to the implementation of SDM in clinical practices; 3) conduct a secondary analyses of existing dyadic datasets to ensure that discussion among team members is grounded in empirical data; 4) build capacity with involvement of graduate students in the workshop and online forum; and 5) elaborate a position paper and an international multi-site study protocol. Discussion: This study protocol aims to inform researchers, educators, and clinicians interested in improving their understanding of effective strategies to implement shared decision-making in clinical practice using a theory-based dyadic perspective

What do introduction sections tell us about the intent of scholarly work: A contribution on contributions

This paper presents empirical examination of the semantics of contribution claims in the introduction sections of journal articles, a significantly under-examined area of scholarly activity, which underpins the methodical act of communicating the value of research to an audience. The paper presents a systematic review of 538 papers in three leading industrial marketing journals, Industrial Marketing Management, the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing and the Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing and uses a phased approach to categorize contribution claims made by authors in their introductions and abstracts. The paper identifies four main categories of contribution, defined as incremental, revelatory, replicatory and consolidatory, with sub-categorizations within them, and reports on the proportionality of these strategies in the sample while capturing the semantic games played by authors in pursuit of these claims. Specific findings are of interest to industrial marketers, but the conceptual framework and systematic methods presented in the paper are transferable to any discipline or body of work, and therefore have broader disciplinary appeal. Findings are also of interest to authors, reviewers and editors for coalescing fragmented understanding of contribution strategies into a coherent framework for action

Relational schemas to investigate the process of leadership emergence

Distancing itself from the traditional focus of leadership research on the behaviors and traits characteristic of “leaders,” the paper argues that leaders emerge out of a process of social construction. Drawing from relational schema theory, it is argued that group members form leadership perceptions that conform to a limited set of shared “hierarchical” relational schemas. Accordingly, whenever the leadership perceptions of an individual do not conform (i.e., they are hierarchically inconsistent) with those of other group members, he/she is induced to reduce such inconsistencies by aligning his/her own leadership perceptions. The paper tests this argument using a multi-method, multi-study approach. Study 1 follows the process of leadership emergence within a newly formed social group, showing how hierarchical relational schemas are reflected in the evolving network of leadership choices within the group. Study 2 uses a vignette experiment to directly test how hierarchical relational schemas affect people’s leadership perceptions

Relational schemas to investigate the process of leadership emergence

Distancing itself from the traditional focus of leadership research on the behaviors and traits characteristic of "leaders," the paper argues that leaders emerge out of a process of social construction. Drawing from relational schema theory, it is argued that group members form leadership perceptions that conform to a limited set of shared "hierarchical" relational schemas. Accordingly, whenever the leadership perceptions of an individual do not conform (i.e., they are hierarchically inconsistent) with those of other group members, he/she is induced to reduce such inconsistencies by aligning his/her own leadership perceptions. The paper tests this argument using a multi-method, multi-study approach. Study 1 follows the process of leadership emergence within a newly formed social group, showing how hierarchical relational schemas are reflected in the evolving network of leadership choices within the group. Study 2 uses a vignette experiment to directly test how hierarchical relational schemas affect people's leadership perceptions

Improving Attitude-Behavior Correspondence Through Exposure to Normative Support From a Salient Ingroup

Two experiments were conducted to test predictions derived from social identity/self-categorization theory concerning the role of group norms in attitude-behavior consistency. In Experiment 1, 160 students who could be classified as having a more or less certain target attitude, were exposed to attitude congruent versus incongruent normative support from a relevant reference group (own university) under conditions of low versus high group salience. Experiment 2 was very similar in design and methodology (N = 180), but a different correlate of attitude accessibility was used (an experimental manipulation of repeated expression), the target attitude was changed, and the reference group was gender. Across the two experiments there was consistent support for the hypothesis that participants would behave more in accordance with their attitudes when they received normative support for, rather than opposition to, their original attitude from a relevant reference group (i.e., their ingroup, not an outgroup). There was slightly weaker support for the second hypothesis that this effect would be stronger under high than low salience conditions. The third hypothesis (see Fazio, 1986), that attitude certainty and repeated expression of the attitude would strengthen attitude-behavior consistency, was well supported, as was the expectation that accessibility effects would be independent of reference group norm effects on attitude-behavior consistency