In 3 separate studies, the authors developed measures of different social mechanisms used in the interaction between a customer and a service provider and examined their effects. Service relationships occur when a customer has repeated contact with the same provider. Service encounters occur when the customer interacts with a different provider each time. Service pseudorelationships are a particular kind of encounter in which a customer interacts with a different provider each time, but within a single company. The 3 studies showed consistently that customers having a service relationship with a specific provider had more service interactions and were more satisfied than those who did not have one. These results held across 7 different service areas, 3 diverse samples, and 2 different ways of measuring a service relationship.

This article explores the experiences of customers who receive service in relationships (customers who return to the same provider for service), pseudorelationships (the same organization but a different provider), and encounters (neither a regular provider nor a regular firm). We examined interactions with hairstylists, auto mechanics, and physicians to test hypotheses about customers' reactions to service delivery. Although customers respond particularly well to service relationships, based on our results for auto mechanics, it appears possible for firms to design pseudorelationships that also are relatively high in trust.

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Develops a model whereby information literacy competencies are formally adopted as learning outcomes for an undergraduate business curriculum. The information competencies are some of the mission driven competencies developed by a College of Business Administration at a regional university in keeping with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business standards. In one class, develops an assessment instrument to measure student learning of information literacy competencies tied to the course objectives. The performance measures and learning outcomes in the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education were used to plan an information literacy curriculum within an upper division discipline program. Provides an example of how the learning outcomes can offer guidance to course instructors when designing activities and assignments that seek to measure information competence in business courses.

Previous research has documented the impact of self-derived expectations as reference points in the evaluation of outcomes (e.g. Ordóñez, Connolly, & Coughlan, 2000;van den Bos et al., 1998). In the present paper we extend these studies by investigating the effects of individuals' performance expectations on their subsequent evaluations of personally-relevant outcomes. In three separate studies, both in the laboratory and in the field, students' actual grade outcomes fell short, met, or exceeded grade expectations. From this information, the students evaluated their fairness and satisfaction with the actual grade outcome. The studies provide complementary results that distinguish fairness and satisfaction as different constructs based on the impact of expectations on evaluations of actual outcomes. Results demonstrate that expectations are important to perceptions of fairness and are less important to perceptions of satisfaction. Fairness judgments appear to be governed by an expectation matching proposition; whereby if the expectation is met, the outcome is fair. Whereas, satisfaction judgments are determined by the value of the actual outcome to the individual. Participants also evaluate the fairness of outcomes differently using hypothetical scenarios than they do when they experience actual outcomes in natural contexts.