Purpose-The paper aims to fill the gap in the literature in relation to the determinants of customer value within the research and development (R&D) industry and word-of-mouth. It investigates whether context specific variables, such as organizational type and contract length, change customer value evaluations and the value-intention to repurchaserecommend system. Design/methodology/approach-A survey of Australian customers of a research and development service organization was conducted. Structural equation modelling was used to develop a model investigating factors that affect customer value, intent to re-purchase, and word-of-mouth/recommendation. Findings-Relationship benefits, service benefits and sacrifice all had a significant influence on customer value. Efficient use of time is crucial for sacrifice evaluation. Relationship benefits were larger for government organizations than private organizations. Importance of value to recommend the organisation to others was higher for longer contracts and government customers. Research limitation/implications-Results show that R&D organizations need to concentrate on both the technical service/ science aspects and the relationship aspects in their contracts. Government institutions tended to emphasize the relationship benefits while private businesses considered service benefits, relationship benefits and sacrifice nearly equal in their determination of value. Intent to contract R&D organization for further work and the willingness to recommend it to others as a highly specialised and competent service provider seem to be higher for government customers and longer contracts. Originality/ Value-This paper investigates customer value in a little researched industry, R&D. The findings are relevant for similar professional business-to-business services.

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This article draws upon Diffusion of Innovations and Configurational theories to investigate how website features and email responses by 200 Swiss hotels reflect evolving Internet adoption. Complementary multivariate and artificial neural network (ANN) techniques support classifying the hotels into three clusters based on their website features. These clusters and the results of a structural equation model confirm that Internet adoption evolves from static to dynamic use, as organizations add website features and provide quality responses to customer emails. Practically, differences among these clusters suggest caution in adopting some website features. Academically, the study extends diffusion research and introduces metrics, particularly domain name age and quality email responses, for future research of organizational Internet adoption. Finally, the study illustrates how ANNs complement and help overcome limitations of multivariate techniques.

Abstract：Approximately one-fifth of Perth's population is aged 60 or older. Projections suggest that this proportion will continue to increase as a result of the large number of children born after the World War II (1946)(1947)(1948)(1949)(1950)(1951)(1952)(1953)(1954)(1955)(1956)(1957)(1958)(1959)(1960)(1961)(1962)(1963)(1964). Access to and accessibility around train stations for the aging population is and will become a more important issue as the elderly population continues to grow. The aim of the paper is to develop and apply a new measure of accessibility to train stations at a fine spatial scale, justified by the special circumstance of the elderly using a case study in Perth, Western Australia. Intercept surveys are used to collect data on factors affecting train station accessibility for patrons aged 60 years or older, at seven highly dispersed train stations. Overall accessibility is measured separately using a composite index based on three travel modes (walk-and-ride, park-and-ride and bus-and-ride). The results illustrate that key variables, such as distance from an origin to a station, walking or driving route directness, land-use diversity, service and facility quality, bus connection to train stations, all affect the accessibility to train stations for the elderly. This implies that improvements to these factors will improve accessibility for this population group.

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