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Firms involved in international logistics must develop a system of service attributes that give them a way to be profitable and to satisfy customers' needs at the same time. How customers trade-off these various attributes in forming satisfaction with competing international logistics providers has not been explored well in the literature. This study explores the ocean freight shipping sector to identify the system of attributes that maximizes customers' satisfaction. Data were collected from shipping managers in Singapore using personal interviews to identify the chief concerns in choosing and evaluating ocean freight services. The data were then examined using neural networks and decision trees, among other approaches to identify the system of attributes that is connected with customer satisfaction. The results illustrate the power of these methods in understanding how industrial customers with global operations process attributes to derive satisfaction. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore various adaptive factors that can influence the emergence of a communication system that benefits the receiver of signals (the hearer) but not the emitter (the speaker). Using computer simulations of a population of interacting agents whose behaviour is determined by a neural network, we show that a stable communication system does not emerge in groups of unrelated individuals because of its altruistic character. None the less, another set of simulations shows that the emergence of a language that confers an advantage only to hearers, not to speakers, is possible under at least three conditions: (1) if the hearer and the speaker tend to share the same genes, as predicted by kin selection theory; (2) if the population is ‘docile’ and the communication system is culturally transmitted together with other adaptive behaviours, as predicted by Simon’s docility theory; and (3) if the linguistic system is used not only for social communication, but also for talking to oneself, in particular as an aid to memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]