Mary Beth Pinto

On the Nature and Properties of Appeals Used in Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs:

The past decade has seen a steady rise in expenditures for direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. While total revenues across all media are approaching the

Relationship of Credit Attitude and Debt to Self-Esteem and Locus of Control in College-Age Consumers

1 billion dollar mark, surprisingly little is known about the effectiveness of these types of advertisements, including the appropriateness of various forms of emotional and informational appeal. A content analysis of direct-to-consumer advertising in 24 popular magazines shows that these advertisements are found in every category of magazine, the advertisements employ a mix of informational and emotional appeals, all types of emotional appeals are used, and to date, the type of appeal (emotional and/or informational) tends not to be based on the type of drug advertised. Implications of this content analysis are considered and directions for research on appeals used in direct-to-consumer advertising are suggested.

Social media's contribution to customer satisfaction with services

College-age consumers are one of the groups most highly targeted by credit card marketers. While some college students use their credit cards wisely, others are unable to control their spending. The objective of this study was to investigate differences in attitude toward credit cards and the psychological factors of self-esteem and locus of control among college students who possess one or more credit cards. Attitude was operationalized to include three underlying components: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. We separated credit users into subcategories based on amount of installment debt. Convenience users were defined as those consumers who paid the credit-card balance in full each month. Installment users were classified as consumers who carried a balance month-to-month. Convenience users were compared to mild and heavy installment users to assess significance of differences in attitudinal and psychological factors. There were no significant differences in the psychological factors across the credit-card user groups. In addition, there was a statistically significant difference on each of the attitude components (knowledge/beliefs, affect, and behavior) across user groups; convenience users, mild installment, and heavy installment users.

Project Personnel, Job Demands, and Workplace Burnout: The Differential Effects of Job Title and Project Type

An important recent initiative in the effective transmission of healthcare services is the establishment of the patient-centered medicine (PCM) philosophy as a mechanism for enhancing customer satisfaction. Although the goals of PCM are important, there is less understanding of the means by which service providers can promote this philosophy. This study examines the relationship between customers’ attitude toward and use of social media, PCM, and their satisfaction with healthcare services. Data were collected from a large, urban-based pediatric office in the northeast. The sample consisted of 234 respondents who were classified as ‘e-Patients’ – that is, they reported having access to the Internet and going online for health information. A three-stage regression analysis, conducted to establish the path coefficients for each stage in the model, shows that customers’ (patients’) attitude toward social media can be an effective method to enhance PCM and, ultimately, satisfaction. The findings contribute to theory in services by exploring the challenges of managing service delivery at the interface between customer satisfaction and the role and usefulness of adopting and effectively using social media.

Patient Satisfaction With Outpatient Physical Therapy: Instrument Validation

As a result of the frenetic and demanding working conditions associated with projects, much research and theory has addressed the stress and burn-out propensity of members of project teams. However, research has generally not taken into consideration the differential effects of job title or types of project organizations on job demands, perhaps assuming that all levels within a project team and all project types offer similar levels of job demands. This study addresses the question of how the perception of job demands varies by job title (project manager, engineer, and project team member) and across project type (construction, research and development, and information technology). Using a sample of 208 project personnel, we examined the dimensions of burnout (emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced personal efficacy) for the evidence of their differential impact across both job title and project type. Our findings suggest that there is no significant difference in perceived job demands across both job title and project type. However, we found that project managers have a significantly higher level of the emotional exhaustion form of burnout than other job classifications and construction project personnel suffer from a significantly higher level of emotional exhaustion than those working on other classes of project.