Sinds het einde van vorige eeuw is de interesse en aandacht voor samenwerken tussen bedrijven toegenomen. Veelal wordt de samenwerking gezocht om gezamenlijk effectiever of efficiënter, sneller en wendbaarder te opereren. Deze strategische samenwerkingsverbanden kennen vele verschijningsvormen. In sommige gevallen worden concurrenten zelfs partners of wordt de samenwerking gezocht met branchevreemde bedrijven. Maar wat behelst samenwerking eigenlijk? Uit welke fases bestaat het? En wordt de samenwerking gezocht in de keten of juist ook daarbuiten? En zijn er vuistregels die bedrijven helpen een succes te maken van samenwerken met andere bedrijven of organisaties?
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Purpose Due to the recent economic crisis, competition has considerably increased in the legal profession in the Netherlands. However, marketing in legal services is mostly in its infancy and value research in this context is scarce. We therefore used a contingency approach in exploring the origin of customer value and the association with loyal behaviour in legal services for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Methodology Because professional services are effectively provided by means of a relationship, the emergence of value was studied in the interaction between lawyers and clients in an explorative way, by means of a case study: in-depth interviews with ten lawyers and ten SMEs led to provider and client perspectives on value driving in twenty-eight legal cases. The underlying research model was based on the Service logic for marketing (e.g. Grönroos and Voima, 2013), which proposes that interaction is conditional for the emergence of value. Findings We assumed that value could only derive from the interaction during the service encounter. Field findings however, confirmed that previous, current and anticipated service experiences influences value. Due to the credential character of legal services, antecedent recommendation of others and the track record of lawyers, for example, are also important value drivers. The relational value perspective appears to be insufficient in analysing the emergence of value in credence services, because value drivers outside the joint sphere help clients to reduce perceived purchase risks. Originality Our study enriches the limited literature and offers a more holistic understanding of the origin of value in credential contexts like legal services. Our findings agree not only with insights from the Service logic (e.g. Grönroos and Voima, 2013) but also from the Customer-dominant logic (e.g. Heinonen et al., 2013).
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One of the most important societal trends affecting our workplace and workforce in the following decade concerns the combination of a smaller number of younger workers relative to their older counterparts, and the current ‘early exit’ culture in Europe. Because of the staff shortages and possible knowledge loss (e.g., Calo 2008; Joe et al. 2013) that may accompany these demographic changes, there is a strong financial reason to retain and sustain ageing employees at work (Kooij et al. 2014; Truxillo and Fraccaroli 2013). In order to respond to today’s labour market needs, many governments have chosen to increase the official retirement age to 66 or even higher. In the Netherlands, for example, retirement age will be gradually raised to 66 years in 2019 and to 67 years in 2023. Other European Union countries have similar plans to steadily raise their retirement ages to 67 years in 2023 (France), 2027 (Spain), or 2031 (Germany). In the UK and Ireland, the retirement age will increase to 68 in 2028 (Ireland) and in 2046 (the UK). However, the reality of older workers’ current employment does not yet match these political ambitions. According to figures collected by the European Union Labour Force in the European Union Labour Force Survey (Eurostat 2014), the EU-28 (i.e., average of the 28 European Union countries) employment rate for persons aged 15–64 was 64.1 per cent in 2013. However, when looking more closely at the country level or when differentiating between age categories, the active labor participation of older European employees does not appear to be as high. The EU employment rate of older workers—calculated by dividing the number of persons in employment and aged 55–64 by the total population of the same age group—was 49.5 per cent in 2013 (OECD 2014), whereas the OECD average was 54.9 per cent in the same year. In the USA and Korea, for example, employment rates of workers of 55–64 years old were, respectively, 60.9 per cent and 64.3 per cent in 2013.
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