Extant literature characterizes the ties between buyers and sellers in online goods marketplaces–such as EBay or Amazon–as "arm's length" relationships. In such relationships, parties are effectively strangers, and exchange goods under the assumption that they will likely never again meet in the marketplace. The rapid rise of online service marketplaces, however, warrants a thorough examination...

Previous research has evaluated technology-based service encounters (TBSEs) in the delivery of health care by assessing patient satisfaction. This study examined service quality and perceived value of TBSEs used in health organisations from the perspective of clinical staff, with staff technology readiness as a moderator. A quantitative survey was conducted in Taiwan, across private and public ...

Belief in the resource-saving and service-enhancing potential of inter-organizational collaboration has become virtually an article of faith among resource providers, client advocates, and service planners. Yet collaboration in practice encounters myriad difficulties, and successful collaborations seem to be relatively rare. In this paper, we focus on providers’ incentives to collaborate: why m...

to understand the traditional description of medicine as a practice of healing, it is necessary to examine its relationships with both science and ethics. the “scientific” component of medicine includes an acknowledgment of the influence of social, cultural and environmental factors on the functioning of the organism. the “ethical” component is often presented as merely supplementary but actual...