Marketing linen services to hospitals: a conceptual framework and empirical investigation.

In light of the recent diagnosis related groups of illnesses (DRG) regulation, a very timely problem must be addressed concerning how linen service contractors can increase their penetration into the health care market. A conceptual framework is developed to understand the decision making porcess of hospitals with respect to linen services. An empirical investigation is reported, which assesses the relative importance of the factors involved in various phases of the decision making process using Thurstone's Case V analysis. Implications of the findings are discussed.