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For the financial service industry, company–customer conflict is a topic that deserves special attention. This study explores the impacts of ethics institutionalization on the life insurance agents' ethical decision-making under the company–customer conflicts.

Two types of company–customer conflicts are studied. In one situation, selling the life insurance product is profitable to the life insurance company, but the product is unsuitable for the customer. In another situation, selling the life insurance product is unprofitable to the life insurance company, while the product will fully satisfy the customer's interests. The study selects Taiwan's full-time life insurance agents as a sample.

The main results show that implicit ethics institutionalization has a stronger influence on teleological evaluations and deontological evaluations. This study then finds that different types of company–customer conflicts would change the influences of teleological evaluations on ethical intentions and cause different influences of implicit ethics institutionalization on teleological evaluations and deontological evaluations.

Ethics institutionalization and company–customer conflicts are important issues in the literature. This is the first study to discuss the roles that ethics institutionalization and company–customer conflicts play in the ethical decision-making of life insurance agents.

The objective of this paper is to describe the teleological actions needed to assess and manage critical incidents that cause negative emotions in service encounters. Teleological actions are movements into the future that are believed to be move either towards a predictable/known or unpredictable/unknown state or condition. The authors distinguish between, define and apply three categories: transformative – ad hoc and present-based actions; formative – pre-determined and past-based actions; and rationalist – goal-directed and future-based actions.

A qualitative study, based upon a two-phase approach applying convenience and judgemental sampling, was used. Focussing on one teleological theory, a process of abductive matching was applied throughout the study. Abductive matching refers to recurring themes, patterns and categories that are uncovered through the iterative processes of analysis. The teleological framework structured and guided the data collection and empirical observations.

Seen through the perspective of teleological actions, the study enhances our understanding of the manner in which critical incidents generate negative emotions in service encounters. Through the same perspective, the investigation also reveals that the outcome of a negative service encounter depends upon the interactive interface between service provider and service receiver.

The teleological actions between service providers and service receivers in negative service encounters appear to be mediators between cause-and-effect on the one hand (critical incident and negative emotions) and a perceptual gap on the other (outcome of negative service encounter). The teleological perspective also provides numerous opportunities for further research in this area.

Managers should strive to understand the teleological actions potentially undertaken by service receivers, so that they can deal with the teleological actions of their front-line staff accordingly. The interactive interface between a service provider and a service receiver is crucial in assessing and managing critical incidents.

Based on teleological actions, the investigation provides both a valuable and complementary contribution on assessing and managing critical incidents and the negative emotions that are often triggered in the service-encounter interface between a service provider and a service receiver. Providers also need to educate their staff on what can occur and on how to react appropriately.

The study aims to describe the interactive gaps between service receiver learning curves and service provider adaptive curves, as well as the cause-effect-outcome in processes and interfaces of service encounters, through the perspective of teleological actions.

This paper includes a qualitative study based on non-probability sampling of informants (air passengers).

The empirical findings indicate interactive gaps in teleological service encounters and a cause-effect-outcome sequence in the associated processes and interfaces.

The study provides knowledge on how to manage the interactive interface between a service provider and a service receiver and a foundation for enhancing complaint handling in service encounters after critical incidents have occurred.

Service providers need to balance their teleological actions in relation to the service receivers’ teleological actions when critical incidents occur.

The paper takes into account service receiver teleological learning curves in relation to service provider teleological adaptive curves in an interactive transformative service encounter (TSE)-model that provides multiple opportunities for further research.

Provides a critique of teleological information systems development methodologies. Argues that these methodologies lead to “dead” systems that make very little sense to their users. Presents the work of the architect Christopher Alexander as an example from another discipline of ateleological development. Using principles gleaned from his work, presents some ideas of how information systems development may become more ateleological. Narrative, metaphor and myth seem to provide some indicators of how such ateleological development may be achieved. Acknowledges that there is no simple answer to the issues involved, except for the conviction that more precision or automation in teleological development methodologies would not do much to solve the enormous problems occurring in practice today.

The purpose of the paper is to define a range of entrepreneurial concepts and provide a critical review of their content in order to map the forms of the entrepreneurial actions within their teleological context.

Based on the authors' definition of teleology as the process of heading towards an end, entrepreneurship was categorized into a three‐item typology, namely subject, process and object. The latter served as a platform for the analysis, which reveals some key qualities about research in entrepreneurship.

The paper provides a categorization of entrepreneurship both at the distinction (subject, process, object) and the contextual level and the commonalities and differences among entrepreneurship's different teleological approaches are analyzed and the potential is offered for further avenues of research to emerge. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the teleological approaches represent distinct approaches to interpret diverse aspects of the entrepreneurial phenomenon and provide insights into the way in which the entrepreneurial process itself unfolds.

The paper provides an innovative categorization of entrepreneurship as subject, process and object while discussing a variety of various entrepreneurial forms through their teleological nature within each of the three categories. The paper is valuable to scholars seeking to further advance their understanding in the various fields of entrepreneurship, understand the function of the particular set of activities to be undertaken, the role of particular individuals/agents involved in the entrepreneurial process, the opportunity identification/exploitation process as well as the particular objective that each entrepreneurial form aims at fulfilling.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and apply teleological approaches from complexity sciences in services.

The performance of service encounters and the outcome of service quality are dependent upon complex and dynamic interactions between service providers and service receivers. A set of teleological approaches from complexity sciences is incorporated and applied in the context of service settings.

A teleological application from complexity sciences in relation to the interactive nature of the performance of service encounters and the outcome of service quality offers opportunities to apply innovative research designs and alternative methodological approaches to future research problems in services.

Future research could focus on where and how the insights from other research disciplines can be used that have encapsulated teleological approaches from complexity sciences more sophisticated, and how this knowledge could be incorporated and applied in services.

The inclusion and consideration of teleological approaches from complexity sciences in the performance of service encounters and the outcome of service quality generates a series of managerial and research implications regarding the dynamics and complexity of the interactive nature in services.

The research opportunities into service quality and service encounters by applying teleological approaches from complexity sciences are extensive. They might also stimulate innovative analytical techniques that may generate important empirical findings, in extension, with relevant and valuable implications for practice in services. A maintained focus on multi‐disciplinary aspects of research may enhance contemporary research and practice of services.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a framework and illustration to assess and manage the perceived content and experiences in hospitality processes through the lens of teleological actions. Teleological actions are movements into the future that are believed to move either towards a predictable/known or unpredictable/unknown state or condition: transformative – ad hoc and present-based actions; formative – pre-determined and past-based actions; and rationalist – goal-directed and future-based actions.

A framework of teleological actions and its underlying logic illustrates how critical hospitality processes may be assessed and managed in both research and practice.

The lens of teleological actions offers a non-traditional and unusual, potentially unique, perspective on hospitality processes. It reveals additional insights to assess and manage critical incidents in hospitality processes between service providers and service receivers.

Assessing and managing hospitality processes through the lens of teleological actions makes both a contribution to and provides opportunities for further research in the field of hospitality management.

It opens up the possibility of examining different hospitality processes based upon the lens of teleological actions. It provides interesting and valuable insights in relation to contemporary approaches to assess and manage critical incidents in the literature of hospitality processes.

It sheds a different and additional light upon current theory and practice in hospitality management. It explicitly addresses the meaning of time and how to relate to the content and experiences of previous, current and forthcoming hospitality processes.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize and describe how service providers’ and service receivers’ teleological actions relate to negative emotions after critical incidents in service encounters have occurred.

Three categories of teleological actions are used: transformative – ad hoc and present-based actions, formative – pre-determined and past-based actions and rationalist – goal-directed and future-based actions.

The empirical findings indicate that airline ground staff should interact differently with air passengers based on the negative emotions involved and the teleological actions undertaken after critical incidents in service encounters have occurred.

The current research improves the interactive and sequential understanding of how to manage negative emotions through teleological actions in service encounters between a service provider and a service receiver after critical incidents have occurred, as well as providing numerous opportunities for further research in services.

It is an important and relevant insight that it is necessary to understand both the initial and derived causes of negative emotions and the subsequent effects and outcomes occurring in service encounters after critical incidents have arisen.

This current study provides theoretical and managerial contributions to manage negative emotions after critical incidents have occurred in service encounters.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights and describe teleological approaches in the context of Supply Chain Management (SCM).

A conceptual framework is outlined derived from complexity sciences to widen and enhance the exploration and understanding of SCM.

Research and literature in the field of SCM have to a large extent neglected the possible underlying formative and rationalist nature of it, rather than considering or highlighting its potentially transformative nature.

Teleological approaches of SCM provide valuable insights in managing supply chains. They also provide innovative and challenging opportunities for further research in the field of SCM.

The application of teleological approaches in supply chains may encourage and lead to managerial ideas and insights to anticipate and avoid deficient or erroneous grounds in the planning, implementation and evaluation of SCM.

Teleological approaches make a contribution to the ongoing exploration and discussion of SCM, such as: incorporating a frame of reference from complexity sciences. The author believes that it also provides a timely topic in times of crisis as it compares different teleological approaches – some more dynamic and flexible than others.

The literature on enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation has been dominated by variance theories which have identified numerous lists of critical success factors (CSFs) for managing implementation but there has been relatively little research adopting a process theory approach which explains how change occurs. One such theory, the teleological process, has been criticised in the IS literature for its capability to evolve and learn due to its convergence towards an end goal. Drawing upon the field of organisational development (OD), the purpose of this paper is to illustrate the usefulness of the theory and contend that, whilst it exhibits planned behaviour, events are adaptive and learned and emerge though social construction of actors in organisations.

An in‐depth interpretive study of eight public‐sector organisations is used. During the investigation, two primary methods of data collection were analysed: survey questionnaires (2) and in‐depth interviews (38).

The data were analysed and contrasted with themes and attributes associated with teleological design. The article highlights how the central role of an agent or entity, and its interaction with eight key attributes, is critical to the success of the change process.

The article proposes benefits of applying teleological theory to the context of designing the change, pre and post project implementation. Whilst the data are based in the UK, the framework also provides a useful starting point for further research in ERP implementation in developing and emerging nations of areas likely to be problematic.