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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to describe the experiences of a wholesaler with time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC). Three research questions are addressed: How are complex logistics operations modeled by TDABC? Does TDABC provide more accurate cost information than activity-based costing (ABC)? How is TDABC cost information used? Design/methodology/approach -Case study research was performed at a Belgian wholesaler. Interviews were conducted. The cost and activity database was analyzed.Findings -This case study illustrates that there are logistics operations that cannot be modeled using a single cost driver, as is done with ABC. TDABC uses time equations to estimate the time spent on each activity. The results herein show how the time equations can capture the different complexities, by including different terms or interaction terms in the time equations. The database analysis clearly demonstrates that TDABC provided more accurate cost information than ABC at this case company. ABC oversimplified 64 percent of the activities, and misallocated 55 percent of all indirect costs. Research limitations/implications -This study is one of the first, investigating the experiences with TDABC. The results are derived from analyzing all activities, at a single case company. Practical implications -The study illustrates the technique of TDABC and provides a real company example of time equations in logistics. The users declared the TDABC model very useful for profitability reporting and profit management. The time drivers provided insight into the causes of excessive distribution and logistics costs. Originality/value -This paper complements current discussion on cost drivers and subtasks and logistics costing.

Pain is influenced by many factors other than external sources of tissue damage. Among these, the clinician-patient relationship is particularly important for pain diagnosis and treatment. However, the effects of the clinician-patient relationship on pain remain under-examined. We tested the hypothesis that patients who believe they share core beliefs and values with their clinician will report less pain than patients who do not. We also measured feelings of perceived clinician-patient similarity and trust to see if these interpersonal factors influenced pain. We did so by experimentally manipulating perceptions of similarity between participants playing the role of clinicians and participants playing the role of patients in simulated clinical interactions. Participants were placed in two groups based on their responses to a personal beliefs and values questionnaire and painful thermal stimulation was used as an analogue of a painful medical procedure. We found that patients reported feeling more similarity and trust toward their clinician when they were paired with clinicians from their own group. In turn, patients’ positive feelings of similarity and trust toward their clinicians — but not clinicians’ feelings toward patients or whether the clinician and patient were from the same group — predicted lower pain ratings. Finally, the most anxious patients exhibited the strongest relationship between their feelings about their clinicians and their pain report. These findings increase our understanding of context-driven pain modulation and suggest that interventions aimed at increasing patients’ feelings of similarity to and trust in health care providers may help reduce the pain experienced during medical care.

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