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The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) over higher education institutions' (HEIs) students' emotional appeal and the effect of two mediating variables, corporate image, and reputation. A sample of 211 students surveyed was obtained, and the study was conducted using partial least squares path modeling (PLS‐SEM) technique. The results showed that emotional appeal is influenced by corporate reputation, corporate image, and CSR practices. These effects are not only direct and positive but significant indirect effects are also obtained, which allow the positive effects of CSR to be heightened. This paper contributes to the literature on CSR considering mediating effects of corporative image and reputation in the relationship between CSR and emotional appeal. The findings provide important implications for theory and practice, indicating consistent strategies for competitive advantage in HEIs by achieving stakeholder engagement and new lines of research in terms of emotional marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demand for e-learning in higher education is rising, competition is increasing, and universities are investing significant resources towards improving the quality of their e-learning offerings. Thus, effective quality measures for e-learning are urgently required. With the aim of following the total quality management practices of raising students' satisfaction and continuous improvement, a performance-evaluation model was applied in a sample of business students. The application of this model was useful for selecting the quality items that most urgently require improvement to achieve student satisfaction and for identifying the items of surplus resource investment, thereby helping to provide the means to minimise resource wastage. This way, an effective and efficient improvement plan to enhance the efficient use of resources in e-learning and to meet an adequate level of quality was established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt to enhance their effectiveness, public health institutions are making a great effort to develop online health care services targeted to all citizens. The initial acceptance of these services by patients is important but their success depends on its continued use, that is, on patients' electronic loyalty (eLoyalty). In this research, an integrated model combining the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Seddon's Model is developed to test online health care services success from a sample of 256 healthcare end users. The results obtained suggest that quality perception dimensions (i.e. information quality and system quality) are antecedents of perceptual dimensions of individual benefits (i.e., perceived usefulness and satisfaction) and of organizational impact dimensions (i.e. eLoyalty). In other words, by promoting the idea that citizens can become more aware of health care services success and respond to them, they will benefit themselves and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a two-year field study was carried out to analyse how satisfaction differs across the traditional and blended learning methods. Altogether, 21 courses for graduate and postgraduate engineering students were evaluated. Several variables and their relationship with student satisfaction in the first year, with all courses delivered in traditional mode, were compared with student satisfaction in the second year, which had the same courses delivered in blended mode. Results suggest that student satisfaction is greater in blended courses than in face-to-face courses. This can be explained because the levels of class attendance, motivation and collaboration with classmates were higher in blended learning than in classroom instruction. In addition, class attendance, access to teachers, collaboration with classmates and motivation were found to be leading predictors of student satisfaction in blended environments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

E-learning may help to open up new channels for the traditional teaching of engineering but there are many questions about what makes e-learning an effective and satisfactory method, in particular, in the field of industrial engineering. This article evaluates the potential factors affecting the effectiveness of engineering e-learning courses by applying structural equation modeling in a sample of students of multiple production management courses for industrial engineering students. This way, the gaps and methodological weaknesses detected in prior studies has been avoided. The findings of this study suggest that interaction is key to getting successful outcomes, that the right mixture of human and technology must be found, that it is crucial to teach students to learn online and that special attention must be directed to non-traditional students who have the additional pressure of resolving time conflicts between e-learning, work and/or family life. These findings can help engineering colleges and schools offering e-learning courses to learn more about how to enhance students' success. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 19: 572-581, 2011 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spanish healthcare system has undergone important changes, particularly with respect to the development of new hospital services. Today, more than ever, the factors that define the nature and structured of the Spanish healthcare environment (e.g. demand, costs, system deregulation) are undergoing rapid change thus obliging hospital administrators to develop and implement flexible and adaptive strategies in order to survive in an increasingly challenging environment facing hospital management. This work examines how the existence of some learning practices is linked to knowledge transfer and how this component is linked to relational capital. These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 54 doctors and 62 nurses belonging to 44 Hospital-in-the-Home Units. In an applied sense, the findings provide homecare practitioners with identifiable factors, which enable two learning models (conceptual and operational) and address the relevant issues by changing strategies at both the individual and organisational levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]