Online Customer Experience: A Review of the Business‐to‐Consumer Online Purchase Context

Customer interactions with an organization's website create opportunities for positive experiences that can lead to long‐term relationship building. The range of potential interactions is now quite diverse, including product information search, purchase transaction and/or service delivery. The domain of customer experience (CE) is well developed in the face‐to‐face context, but little attention has been paid to exploring the concept in the online context. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the online consumer literature in order to inform understanding of the antecedents and consequences of online customer experience (OCE) in the purchase context. The paper offers four important contributions for both academics and practitioners. First, it adds to understanding of OCE in the purchase context and, second, specifically recognizes and discusses the antecedents of OCE by drawing on existing literature relating to online consumer purchase. Third, it proposes the potential consequences of OCE and provides a framework for future testing. Finally, the paper addresses a problem of relevance to both academics and practitioners, and proposes future research and managerial implications.     

Zero and Literature: Introduction

Jean‐Luc Nancy's The Inoperative Community is now one of the most celebrated interventions in rethinking community beyond the traditional substantialist discourses of unity and essence. It challengingly counters contemporary articulations of both communitarianism and liberalism in order to rescue the concept of community from forms of immanentism (Nancy's term for totalitarianism) and absolute individualism. Writing and literature feature quite prominently in Nancy's thesis. They are the “voice of interruption” that destabilises the mythical articulations of community and deconstructs its immanentist figurations. They are the spaces of sharing, exposure and being‐with, which according to Nancy, bring about the experience of community. This paper is, as such, an attempt to engage with Nancy's captivating approach to the concept of community and show how writing and literature provide, to some extent, the condition of possibility for interrupting the metaphysics of subjectivity and opening up an alternative space of community.     

Joint Assessment in Inter‐professional Education: A Consideration of Some of the Difficulties

This paper examines one effort to jointly assess nurses and social workers where professional as well as academic qualifications were at stake. It chronicles an attempt in a Scottish university to integrate assessment of a multi‐disciplinary academic course with assessment within the existing post qualifying framework for social work. In setting up a new course the assessment strategy was designed to meet both the course learning outcomes and the requirements of the Post Qualifying Award for social work. In looking at the tensions between different academic disciplines it is, perhaps, not surprising that this attempt at assessment across professional boundaries ran into difficulties. The context of the assessment issue and the different mechanisms used in repeated attempts to resolve the problems are examined. The tentative conclusion is that, while the inter‐professional education process is highly valued by students, there are tensions between the academic and practice assessment requirements, between different academic traditions and between understandings of reflection and how it is assessed. Mutual trust and understanding are essential to the development of inter‐professional education, including an accreditation system which is flexible enough to meet a range of needs.     

Book review

The ‘Research Governance Framework for Health and Social Care’ has recently been implemented in England and provides a set of standards to be used nationally in the conduct of health and social care research. Explicit and universal standards are to be welcomed in so far as they increase transparency in the contract between researchers and the agencies that participate in research, reiterate the importance of the ethical conduct of studies and the protection of participants. However, there have been some unanticipated consequences of the implementation of the framework which may serve to undermine the quality of research, the comparability of data and the timeliness of findings to inform policy and practice. This article examines these issues with reference to a recently established study involving vulnerable children and families. The potential implications for other studies are also explored and recommendations are made about how these issues may be overcome.     

Compelling Evidence: Research Methods,HIV/AIDS,and Politics in Papua,Indonesia

Increasing calls for an evidence-based public health (EBPH) rely on forms of quantitative evidence to decide HIV/AIDS interventions. A major criticism of this method is it downplays the significance of experiential, cultural or political facets of HIV/AIDS. We apply the concept of ‘rendering technical’ to explore the relationship between methods used in HIV/AIDS research in Papua, Indonesia and current socioeconomic conditions. We analysed research methods used in sixty-two HIV/AIDS studies, assessed presentations at an international AIDS conference, and conducted ethnographic research in Papua. Nation-wide EBPH initiatives are implemented in Papua, yet there remains a critical mass of qualitative ethnographic studies carried out by indigenous scholars emphasising experiences of persons and culture, often within a colonial or post-colonial framework. We argue these studies partially counter approaches which render technical complex realities. In political conditions where indigenous minorities suffer inequities, qualitative ethnographic research may yield critical kinds of evidence, potentially contributing to more nuanced decision-making around HIV.     

The Remains of the Say: Zero,Double‐crossing and the Landscaping of Language

This essay argues for a “landscaping” understanding of language, contrasting this with the more contemporary tradition of deconstruction, through Saussure, on difference. The paper opens with an evocation of the method of “double crossing” in Heidegger's () deconstruction of Western ontology, before drawing extensively on Heidegger's later discussion of the “bridge” to illustrate his landscaping argument over language. By crossing and criss‐crossing this reading of Heidegger with a critique of the same essay by Hillis Miller, a strong similarity in deconstructive technique is elicited despite an apparent clash in their views about language.     

Engaging with Primary-aged Children about their Emotions and Well-being: Methodological Considerations

This article notes that an increasing number of researchers are seeking to carry out studies which engage with children rather than use them as passive sources of data. Often there need to be compromises between ideals of participation and requirements of research sponsors. Some of the relevant methodological issues are illustrated with reference to a qualitative study of children's perceptions of their emotional needs and well-being. The authors describe some of the benefits of combining focus group discussions and individual interviews. Examples are given of a range of techniques that proved helpful.     

Bayesian methods for the cross-design synthesis of epidemiological and toxicological evidence

Summary.  Systematic review and synthesis (meta-analysis) methods are now increasingly used in many areas of health care research. We investigate the potential usefulness of these methods for combining human and animal data in human health risk assessment of exposure to environmental chemicals. Currently, risk assessments are often based on narrative review and expert judgment, but systematic review and formal synthesis methods offer a more transparent and rigorous approach. The method is illustrated by using the example of trihalomethane exposure and its possible association with low birth weight. A systematic literature review identified 13 relevant studies (five epidemiological and eight toxicological). Study-specific dose–response slope estimates were obtained for each of the studies and synthesized by using Bayesian meta-analysis models. Sensitivity analyses of the results obtained to the assumptions made suggest that some assumptions are critical. It is concluded that systematic review methods should be used in the synthesis of evidence for environmental standard setting, that meta-analysis will often be a valuable approach in these contexts and that sensitivity analyses are an important component of the approach whether or not formal synthesis methods (such as systematic review and meta-analysis) are used.     

Adolescents' Expenditure On Alcohol: A Pilot Study

Minimal research has examined the extent to which underage youth access and purchase alcohol. This pilot study investigated adolescents' expenditure on alcohol, and the circumstances in which underage youth access alcohol. A street intercept survey was used to interview 187 young people aged 13 to 17 years in shopping centres in metropolitan and rural Victoria, Australia. Seventy percent of the sample self‐reported that they drink alcohol. Young people were more likely to report that they were drinkers as their income increased. More than one‐third of the sample and over half of drinkers purchased alcohol with their own money, spending on average $22 when they last purchased alcohol. Drinkers obtained their alcohol from a variety of other sources including friends over 18 years old and their parents. This study shows that underage youth have access to and pay for alcohol even if they do not purchase it personally. Further research in this area with a larger sample is clearly warranted to inform both prevention strategies and effective practice.