If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Abstract Empirically investigates, using a conjoint methodology, the importance weights given the attributes of quality for acute care hospital services. The study shows consumers evaluated the technical dimensions of nursing care, physician care, and outcome as more important than the accommodation functions of hospital care, and there are significant interactions among the technical dimensions. Both sets of dimensions were important and significant, but technical quality evaluations were not influenced by the perceived quality level of the affective attributes. The relative importance of these attributes were quite stable among various subgroups of past patients.The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at Assessing regression-based importance weights for quality perceptions and satisfaction judgments in the presence of higher order and/or interaction effects'',

Two characteristics of services—intangibility of the offering and simultaneity of production and consumption—have important implications for strategic planning. Four of these implications are described.Life cycle, experience, and market share, which are the usual determinants of profitability that provide guides for strategic planning are not easily applied to the service firm. Therefore growth strategies need to be revised.In its second part the paper suggests alternative growth strategy paths for service firms. It brings forward three main remarks. First, the service firm should not overuse its delivery system and its image by attempting to serve the needs of too many sociodemographic segments. Second, service development and concentric diversification are not sequential choices; the latter is not so distant from the former as may be commonly perceived. Third, expansion to out‐of‐country markets represents a risk discontinuity; it should be approached by service firms with considerable flexibility and willingness to interact with different cultures.

This is the first of a three-part article which provides a comprehensive typology useful in any analysis of how public policies are used to control the operations of market exchanges and marketing systems. The first part, presented here, provides a typology of market failures. The second and third parts, to appear in subsequent issues, provide typologies of regulatory responses and of regulatory failures.

No abstract

Editor's Note: This article reports the findings of an analysis of the implementation of continuous quality improvement (CQI) or total quality management (TQM) programs in 10 hospitals. This analysis is the result of a 2-year study designed to identify and assess the ingredients that lead to the successful implementation of CQI programs in acute care hospitals. This article first appeared in Health Care Management Review 21(1), 48-60. Copyright © 1996 Aspen Publishers, Inc. (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins).