Moment Of Truth Research Articles

The Service Industry and the "Moment of Truth": The Quest for the Holy Grail

The Service Industry and the "Moment of Truth": The Quest for the Holy Grail

UKRAINIANS DON'T WANT THIRD ‘ORANGE REVOLUTION'

UKRAINIANS DON'T WANT THIRD ‘ORANGE REVOLUTION'

A Structural Equation Model Perspective-Service Quality on Customer Satisfaction towards selected Indian Mobile Network Service Providers

Service Quality (SQ) results from complete customer service and consistent customer satisfaction and it suits not only to the manufacturing industry but also to the service sector, where the customer is very important. In fact, customers in the service industry are quite keen on service quality and service delivery than in manufacturing because they always interact with front-line service personnel. It is not the same as factory workers. These points-of-purchase contact or “moments of truth” determine whether the customer will return or move to another competitor. The objective of this study is to improve and prove a model for customer satisfaction assisted with service quality. Based on the research and literature the construct and hypotheses were framed. It consists of several questions related to demographics, service quality, and customer satisfaction. Hypotheses were tested through Structural equation modeling and paired t-test were employed in the research. Results revealed that all the dimensions of service quality had a significant gap with regard to expectation and perception of mobile customers and that all the service quality dimensions have a considerable impact on customer satisfaction. It is estimated that the findings of the study may provide a significant knowledge to the service providers and contribute to improving their strategies and marketing operations.

Classical Education: Preparing for an Epiphany

Classical Education:Preparing for an Epiphany Florian Hild (bio) The present state of things is the consequence of the former, and it is natural to inquire what were the sources of the good that we enjoy, or of the evil that we suffer. If we act only for ourselves, to neglect the study of history is not prudent: if we are entrusted with the care of others, it is not just. Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may properly be charged with evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it. —Samuel Johnson, Rasselas Instead, I find a kind of cultural void, an ignorance of the past, a sense of rootlessness and aimlessness, as though not only the students but also the world was born yesterday, a feeling that they are attached to the society in which they live only incidentally and accidentally. —Donald Kagan, “Ave atque Vale” While progressive education in America’s K-12 schools aims at vacuous commonplaces, such as “children will demonstrate levels of achievement in learning skills and content knowledge consistent with high expectations across all academic areas in the Colorado State Standards” (from my district’s “educational philosophy”), classical education aims at epiphany. While the “bankruptcy of progressive education” (Hannah Arendt in 1958) has been documented repeatedly—comically as well as tragically, anecdotally as well as through hard data—classical K-12 education conserves the lessons of culture and graduates students prepared for the “high” in higher education. As a teacher and principal at a classical K-12 charter school in Colorado, I have had a front-row seat to “the good that we enjoy” in the studies of the best of our culture as well as to “the evil that we suffer” from the sometimes ludicrously absurd demands from our [End Page 553] department of education. I have seen students have epiphanies, and I have seen students bored to death by acronymic testing nonsense. The promise of classical education is that working through “the best which has been thought and said” prepares us for the epiphany of Anton Chekhov’s “The Student”: Joy suddenly stirred in his soul. . . . The past, he thought, is connected with the present in an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of the other. And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain: he touched one end and the other moved. Ivan, Chekhov’s seminary student, had just told two widows the story of Peter’s denial of Christ, causing tears and anguish in his listeners. The widow’s tears and Peter’s tears now flow together in Ivan’s mind as past and present respond to each other in a moment of truth and beauty. Classical, liberal education forges the chains between the present and the past, because it seeks to free us from the fashions du jour by giving voice to the timeless. In “The Student,” Chekhov’s favorite and most optimistic story, Ivan can transcend the misery of his time and touch the unbroken chain of events connecting him to the past because he knows and communicates a deeply human story with sensitivity. Ivan had to be prepared for this epiphany, since epiphanies about our connections to the past don’t just happen: Peter’s denial leaves us cold if we have never meditated on his dilemma, Hecuba is nothing to us if we haven’t read The Aeneid, and self-evident truths we don’t hold won’t change the fate of nations or individuals. Culture, the whole heap of human creativity, only speaks to us when we listen, and listen we must, because, as Donald Kagan said in his 2013 “Ave atque vale” address at Yale, we must be freed from the tyranny that comes from the accident of being born at a particular time in a particular place, but that liberation can only come from a return to the belief that we may have something to learn from the past. The challenge to [End Page 554] the relativism, nihilism, and privatism of the present can best be presented by a careful and respectful examination of earlier ideas, ideas that have not been...

Schein’s common sense emergency abdominal surgery (4th edition)

“To cut or not to cut” is the ultimate challenge for any surgeon confronted with a patient who suffers from unclear abdominal symptoms. The decision of initiating appropriate and timely care with a surgical blade, weighed against the risk of delayed or negligent care by choosing observation or non-operative treatment reflects the eternal “moment of truth” for any surgeon on call. The current widespread fear of medicolegal litigation led to a modern practice of defensive medicine under which–as collateral damage–a surgeon’s experience and “common sense” approach has been all but extinguished. Who would be opposed to obtaining a CT scan for every unclear abdomen these days? It’s time for a wake-up call. Schein’s Common Sense book series provides a refreshing, pragmatic and compelling advocacy for providing appropriate timely care to individual patients guided by practical tips and tricks, clinical decision-making, and sound judgment. The brand-new 4th edition of the Emergency Abdominal Surgery textbook (Box) brings Moshe Schein’s classic “Common Sense” series to a new pinnacle of quality and value for the reader. Building on the legacy of the three preceding editions, the new textbook expands into unchartered territory by emphasizing new concepts and modern developments, including an emphasis on the evolving role of laparoscopic approaches in the Acute Care Surgery paradigm. Book information “Schein’s Common Sense: Emergency Abdominal Surgery“ (4th edition). Edited by Moshe Schein, Paul N. Rogers, Ari Leppaniemi, Danny Rosin, Jonathan E. Efron; TFM Publishing, Shropshire, UK, 2016. (ISBN: 978-1-910079-11-9) The 4th edition has been significantly updated and features three new editors, additional authors, and new chapters. All existing chapters were extensively revised, expanded or rewritten. The main value of this encompassing textbook of 752 pages consists of the practical information conveyed to surgeons “in the trenches” by internationally renowned experts who have “seen it all and done it all.” The pragmatic approach of providing valuable technical tricks, decision-making algorithms and intraoperative bailout strategies is facilitated by the editors’ unwavering humorous style that has been established in the preceding editions as well as in other textbooks in the same series (e.g. Schein’s Common SensePrevention and Management of Surgical Complications, TFM, 2013, ISBN 978-1-903378-93-9). Each chapter opens and ends with pertinent quotes, helpful mnemonics and suitable jokes that convey the content in a memorable fashion. The book’s “common sense” approach is amplified by the editors’ unique sense of humor that occasionally challenges our perception of political correctness (e.g. “There are two things in life that we will never understand: women and acute appendicitis.” or “You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit”). Impressively, the editors are able to walk the narrow margin of a sound sense of humor by continuously making fun of themselves, as portrayed in the opening cartoon that depicts the editors from an unfiltered human perspective (notably, with a bottle of milk, vodka, single malt whiskey and Italian wine on the editorial board desk). The need to have some fun to establish an honest and transparent educational approach is substantiated by the editors’ unquestionable credibility. The opening quote in the preface states suitably: “Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humor are without judgment and should be trusted with nothing.” The professional drawings that illustrate the textbook from A-Z have been comprehensively published in The Little Book of Surgical Cartoons (TFM, 2016, ISBN 978-1-910079-34-8). Clearly, these cartoons apply the final touch to a work that has been unequivocally cast in stone with the 4th edition as a “classic” among all available textbooks of surgery. From a patient safety perspective, all 50 chapters focus on practical algorithms and technical tricks to keep our patients safe. In addition, common complications and respective bailout strategies are described in sufficient detail to allow even for junior surgeons on call to “get through the night” safely. Most importantly, this textbook allows surgeons to navigate the dangerous waters and temptation of providing unneeded surgery as one of the first and foremost root causes of preventable harm for our patients. In this regard, the final chapter on the “Aftermath and M&M meeting” provides the final authority from a patient safety perspective and strong imperative for open transparent reporting and analysis of all complications that occur under our watch, whether by errors in judgment or surgical technique, or both. In summary, this exemplary textbook in its updated and expanded 4th edition represents an absolute “must” for the junior trauma and acute care surgeon on call, and an easy and entertaining read for any other adjunctive specialties (e.g. internal medicine or emergency medicine physicians) at risk of being confronted with the eternal conundrum in medicine: managing the patient with an acute and unclear abdomen.

“Shakespeare was wrong”: Counter-discursive intertextuality in Gail Jones’s Sorry

In what is presented as a moment of truth in Gail Jones’s novel Sorry, the narrator’s brief statement that “Shakespeare was wrong” appears to call into question the English dramatist’s literary and epistemological supremacy. Starting from this unsettling premise, this article seeks to define Jones’s counter-discursive use of Shakespearean intertextuality. While it has, for decades, proved a risky task for both historians and novelists to write about the delicate issue of silence in Australia without risking the appropriation of an Aboriginal voice, the article examines how Jones exploits defamiliarizing techniques in order to undermine the dominant European discourse (as encoded in the Shakespearean text) without assuming an Aboriginal perspective. Her aim is to facilitate the emergence of an incipient, tentatively defined counter-discourse sufficiently attuned to the specific realities of Australia. The article argues that by adopting an Australian cultural perspective designed to decentre Shakespeare, Jones hopes to reconcile history and writing, and also the divided aspects of White Australia’s twofold identity at a time of profound national changes.

Heidegger and the signs of history

AbstractHeidegger’s conception of the sign formulated in Sein und Zeit (1996 [1927]) may shed some light on his disastrous, philosophical and political experience with Nazism. In order to show this, I propose to assess how Heidegger establishes the relationship between signs and history in his magnum opus. Then, relying on the fact – central to Heidegger’s thinking, and to sign studies in general – that ideas are linked to the world, I will proceed to examine how Heidegger’s philosophical meditations stand up to his real-life engagements. My final remarks, more interrogative than declarative, will raise the question as to how Heidegger was lured into believing that Nazism represented a moment of truth.

Flower Freak: how things fall apart in Mohamed Choukri's short stories

Mohamed Choukri's short story collection Flower Freak teems with social and political themes ranging from extreme poverty, madness, and censorship to violence, exploitation, and political repression. The focus in the present paper is on the title story, which brings to a head the different issues raised by the writer in the other stories of the collection. In fact, simple as it appears to be, the story ushers us into that world with which the writer was obsessed – the underworld of prostitution in which people's moral compass has lost its heading, a world in which the haves inhumanly exploit the have-nots, divesting them of all human dignity by reducing them to commodities at the mercy of the ruthless regulations of a neoliberal market economy. The story maps out the position of this phenomenon within the labyrinth of complex forces at its origin, and then follows the reverberations of its practice on the individual, the surrounding environment, and society at large. By narrowing his Chekhov-like focus, Choukri explores the density of the dramatised moment by cutting through the multiple layers of the dramatised situation in such a way that it appears to interrogate the depicted reality for a moment of truth in which the essence of the drama is revealed, and the whole story is suddenly infused with new significance.

Is Waiting the Hardest Part? Comparing the Emotional Experiences of Awaiting and Receiving Bad News.

Awaiting uncertain news is stressful, but is it more stressful than receiving bad news? We compared these emotional experiences in two studies. Participants in Study 1 reflected on a personal experience awaiting news that ultimately turned out badly, and participants in Study 2 were law graduates awaiting their results on the bar exam who ultimately failed the exam. In Study 1, participants were ambivalent as to whether awaiting or receiving bad news was more difficult, and emotion ratings in both studies confirmed this ambivalence. Anxiety was higher in anticipation of bad news (at least at the moment of truth) than in the face of it, whereas other negative emotions were more intense following the news than during the waiting period. Thus, whether waiting is "the hardest part" depends on whether one prefers to be racked with anxiety or afflicted with other negative emotions such as anger, disappointment, depression, and regret.

El servicio como principio que une y potencia las organizaciones. Una revisión y propuesta conceptual en torno a la cultura de servicio

En este artículo se hace una reflexión y una revisión sobre los distintos autoresque han expuesto sus conceptos acerca del servicio. Se busca rescatar la idea deque todas las organizaciones ofrecen un servicio a la sociedad. Además el artículo busca aproximarse a la naturaleza del servicio, sus cualidades y sus características; indagar en el servicio como experiencia humana, de cara al cliente y dentro de la empresa; distinguir los conceptos de cliente, cliente interno, momentos de la verdad, ciclos y mapas de servicio, para luego adentrarse en la posibilidad de configurar una auténtica cultura del servicio. Y en todo este desarrollo, se indaga también sobre la posibilidad que tiene el servicio como un principio noble que une y que potencia a las personas que trabajan en organizaciones que poseen una cultura centrada en sus clientes internos y externos.

Reading as the Moment of Truth

There is evaluated the relevance and scientific importance of publications prepared by the Chelyabinsk school of library science. There is substantiated the necessity to mainstream the reading topic in the structure of library and information technology education.

Retreats from Theatricality in Contemporary Irish Drama

Retreats from Theatricality in Contemporary Irish Drama Michal Lachman Irish drama is routinely associated with play, performance, make-believe, and role-playing, and as a result, the characters are very often seen as artists, performers, poets, or simply as creative talkers.1 It has become a critical cliché to picture the protagonists of Irish drama as split, doubled, torn apart, and hetero-topic; in other words, as individuals who are imaginatively engaged with self-fashioned fictions about themselves. However, a closer look at many Irish plays reveals that often their strategic aim is to suspend the sense of theatricality and to subvert the work’s fictional nature. Dramatic characters strive to verbalize their private experience in such a way as to stress the fact that it is presented in a pure, unmediated mode, reaching deeper into the internal truth of the dramatic personae. It is time for critics to reconsider the notions of staged “authenticity” and “actuality” in Irish drama. Usually, what springs from the competitive presence of voices, stories, imagined realities, and fantasy worlds on stage is the characters’ eager need to find their own voice and express the unrehearsed, authentic self. In most plays, the moments in which this need is expressed are marked with an altered diction, and sometimes, in a language of distinctively greater grammatical simplicity and clarity. Moreover, many playwrights make a particular effort to set the scene for sequences of such confessional naturality by marking the passage from acted behavior to authentic presence with rearrangements in set design and space. Just as there are specific ways of presenting the theatrical and staged variety of individual identity, there are also methods of staging authenticity and of creating a sense of an unmediated contact with the character and their self. There are, then, vital questions to be answered: Where is the space for character’s authenticity of expression? How is it possible that the reader is allowed to sense that the moment of truth is coming or that the text is about to bring a vital revelation? [End Page 110] The discussion that follows concerns the literary concept of theatricality and representations of authenticity described in dramatic texts, rather than actual theatrical performances. And this discussion is general, and perhaps selective, as it attempts trace a connecting line that highlights the presence of theatricality in Irish drama. Most of the plays discussed are recent, including works by Brian Friel, Frank McGuinness, Martin McDonagh, and Enda Walsh; but Yeats’s Words Upon the Window Pane (1930) is also a noteworthy text. The key issue is the question of how characters in Irish drama relate to their own stories and fictions they live in—and consequently, of how they investigate, subvert, and circumvent the layers of artifice in the attempt to control them and reach a deeper, more authentic vision or understanding of themselves and the world around them. The character in search of his or her voice raises a complex set of theoretical and practical problems. Central to this discussion is the concept of a dramatic character who is, on the one hand, a generator of stories and producer of fiction and illusion, and on the other hand, a person involved in activities that subvert or question the pretense and theatricality of the fictional world of which he or she is part. This ambivalent attitude toward theatricality—simultaneously accepting it and questioning it—defines the experience of many protagonists in Irish drama, who see beyond the artificial in order to undertake a quest leading to a more direct contact with the self or the world. Frequently, the internal questioning of theatricality and artifice takes the form of a phenomenological “rediscovery” of the world. The known and familiar reality presents itself to the characters in a new way; it reveals itself in its more essential and immediate mode despite the existing layers of theatricality, linguistic bravado, or verbosity. The search helps the characters develop a different attitude toward other protagonists, as well as discover and establish new practices of action. The rejection of artifice and the retreats from theatricality undertaken by dramatic characters remain vital turning points in the structural and philosophical composition of the plays. Even if...

Wellness Tourism among Seniors in Taiwan: Previous Experience, Service Encounter Expectations, Organizational Characteristics, Employee Characteristics, and Customer Satisfaction

This study aimed to investigate the influence of the service encounter expectations of senior customers during wellness tours on customer satisfaction. The organizational attributes of hotels, organizational characteristics and employee characteristics, were adopted as mediating variables. A total of 346 valid questionnaires were retrieved from 50 year-old and above seniors in Taiwan. The results showed that the service encounter expectations of seniors had an indirect influence on customer satisfaction and the organizational attributes mediated the service encounter expectations of seniors and customer satisfaction. The moment of truth in the interactions between service staff members and seniors represents the pivotal management implication of this study.

Existential crises in two religious patients: Vicissitudes of faith and the emergence of the true self

The authors present two clinical cases involving an existential crisis which led the patients to lose what had been the foundation in their lives, their faith. Although the therapeutic settings differ – the first patient had a few psychotherapy sessions following a psychotic episode with a mystical background, while the second was in the final stage of analytic treatment – the authors highlight how in both clinical cases a loss of faith becomes a total and urgent crisis of the Self. The fracture which ensues seems to generate an intense engagement of the body which, paradoxically during a loss of faith, induces an experience of ecstasy of the kind that has traditionally been reported. In the first case the experience of ecstasy was lived first‐hand by the patient who thereafter redefined the psychotic breakdown as a “moment of truth”; whereas the second patient, through a deep projective identification, induces an eerie countertransferential feeling of ‘metaphysical’ shortfall in the agnostic psychoanalyst, triggering bewilderment, physical discomfort and awe in him. In both cases the authors believe that the notable somatic involvement may be correlated to a potentially profound and unprecedented contact with the True Self.

Lincoln's political thought

Lincoln's Political Thought. By George Kateb. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. xiv, 218, bibliography, index. Cloth, $24.95.)While Abraham Lincoln is routinely praised as a brilliant politician, he is less often taken seriously as a political thinker. His pragmatism is partly to blame; some people mistake his willingness to compromise with opponents as suggesting he possessed no real political philosophy. Nor did he produce a systematic body of writing or treatise addressing abstract political principles-there is no Lincolnian version of Edmund Burkes Reflections on the French Revolution nor a grand correspondence like the letters between John Adams Thomas Jefferson. His political ideas are instead scattered in speeches letters largely crafted to address the concerns of a given moment.George Kateb's Lincolns Political Thought is an attempt to look past this state of affairs identify the key components of Lincolns overall political philosophy. He sees the heart of Lincolns political thought as his commitment to human (p. xi), which drove both his prewar critique of slavery his wartime defense of the Union. It was a commitment that withstood the vicissitudes of political compromise, military success failure, the inherent difficulties democracy imposes on its practitioners. As a politician, Kateb writes, Lincoln was required to dissemble, even conceal facts. However, for all of Lincolns contrivance, Kateb notes, and this is part of his greatness-he erupted into moments of truth(p. 49).This ongoing tension between the need to address blatantly political concerns still maintain a firm moral commitment to human equality lay at the heart of Lincoln's political career presidency. Kateb sees Lincoln standing squarely at the intersection of belief politics of both doing the right thing acting effectively in a contentious political environment of competing interests priorities. Kateb asks, in effect, how could Lincoln manage to be at once both principled pragmatic?This is an excellent (and timely) question; unfortunately, while Lincolns Political Thought does contain some flashes of insight, it never coheres into a comprehensible argument. The reader is often left with vague pronouncements that are not terribly useful or original. His observation that Lincoln's core political belief was a commitment to human equality, while accurate enough as far it goes, has been made many times in many other places, with far more nuance elucidation than is offered in this book. …

“Moment of Truth” in Educational Marketing. Factors That Contribute to the Decision Making on the Educational Market in Romania

This paper represents an analysis of the concepts of educational marketing and educational market offers in Romania. The paper intends to underline the main actors involved on the Romanian educational market and their predilect manners of presenting themselves on the market. We present the role of the marketing initiatives in the context of the management of the educational institutions, as marketing is an intrinsic component and a function of the institutional marketing. We make a distinction between the general marketing and the educationally focused marketing, on the bases of the market segmenting principles, that are traditional marketing principles, yet relatively new in the educational field. We present results of a research on the factors that lead to decisions in parents or students’ decision in choosing the school, in their relative order of importance. The research focused on the analysis of the factors which parents from Romania consider important when choosing a school in comparison with the factors recognized worldwide.

Do Internal Branding Efforts Help Ensure Positive Service Delivery Experiences?

Think of your last visit to a big box retailer. Did that experience live up to your expectations? Did the employees you encounter deliver great service? Or was your service experience something that would drive you to a competitor down the road? Branding is a major focus for all companies in today’s hypercompetitive marketplace. Firms have to continually focus on how to shape—and protect— the image of their brand. Indeed, companies have to play “brand defense,” monitoring social media for feedback that could quickly sour a brand’s image. For service companies, the branding equation is complicated and less controllable due to the human element involved in service delivery. All the positive “feel good” advertising in the world that builds-up a customer’s brand perception can be ruined in an instant if he or she encounters a “feel bad” employee. The importance of each customer’s interaction with every service employee was captured by Jan Carlzon, the former CEO of Scandinavian Airlines (Carlzon, 1987). Central to the airline’s operational turnaround was the fact that Carlzon focused on making certain that Scandinavian Airlines’ customers had the best experience possible when they interacted with each employee during their individual journeys. He termed these interactions “moments of truth,” in which customers form their unique impressions—positive or negative—of the company and its brand through their interactions with employee. Scholars have noted that it is difficult for service company executives to overcome the inherent challenge of managing these “moments of truth” that enable front-line employees to spark a positive connection with customers (Beaujean, Davidson, & Madge, 2006) and how little research has been done on such interactions (Punjaisri & Wilson, 2007). Indeed, while we typically think of corporate branding efforts as aimed at external audiences, a recent research study examined the recently developed concept of internal branding. The study, coauthored by Thomas Baker and Adam Rapp (both of the University of Alabama), Tracy Meyer (University of North Carolina Wilmington), and Ryan Mullins (Clemson University), provides new insights into the importance of internal branding efforts in influencing a company’s critical frontline employees to provide brand-reinforcing levels of service.

Pytanie o status (nie)narodzonego dziecka w Starym Testamencie. Wj 21,22–25 jako przypadek szczególny

Birth of a child in the Old Testament is connected with the creative activity of God. Giving birth is the moment of truth. Then the new-born child is called either an alive child (a boy or a girl) or a miscarried foetus. Ex 21,22–25 allows us to state that from the conception to birth the foetus is protected by law in the same way as an adult Israelite

The Service Encounter in Radiology: Acing the “Moments of Truth” to Achieve Patient-Centered Care

Radiologists are increasingly recognizing their role as direct service providers to patients and seeking to offer an exceptional patient experience as part of high-quality service delivery. Patients' perceptions of service delivery are derived from the chain of numerous individual real-time encounters that occur throughout their visit. These so-called "moments of truth" define the overall experience and form the lasting impression of the given practice in their mind. Providing excellent service can be difficult to achieve in practice given its intangible nature as well as the heterogeneity and unpredictability of the large number of patients, frontline staff, and environmental circumstances that define the patient experience. Thus, broad commitment and team effort among all members of a radiology practice are required. This article explores important areas to be considered by a radiology practice to ensure positive and meaningful patient experiences. Specific ways in which every member within the practice, including schedulers, receptionists, technologists, nurses, and radiologists, can contribute to achieving high-quality patient service are discussed. Examples of patient-oriented language that may be useful in particular scenarios in radiology practice are given. The role of the practice's physical facility, including all aspects of its aesthetics and amenities, as well as of Internet services, in shaping the patient experience is also described. Throughout this work, a proactive approach to promoting a service-oriented organizational culture is provided. By improving the patient experience, these strategies may serve to enhance patients' perceptions of radiology and radiologists.

Discurso prescriptivo, ficción literaria y cacotopía: "La hora de la verdad", de Santiago Eximeno, en su contexto genérico = Prescriptive discourse, literary fiction and cacotopia: Santiago Eximeno’s the "Moment of Truth" in its genre context

Varios textos recientes sugieren que la ficcion es un concepto que habria que distinguir del de narracion. Incluso el discurso prescriptivo (normas, instrucciones, etc.) puede servir para crear un mundo posible de ficcion, sin necesidad de narracion ni de personajes. El ejemplo de la ficcion de zombis La hora de la verdad, de Santiago Eximeno (2003), indica que la introduccion de elementos fantasticos en un discurso normativo contribuye a configurar un universo ficcional integro, que se caracteriza por sus rasgos distopicos en esa obra de Eximeno por indicarse mediante su ficcion los mecanismos represivos del poder prescriptivo estatal. Several recent texts suggest that fiction is a concept which should be distinguished from the narrative. Even prescriptive discourse (rules, instructions, etc.) can be used to create a possible fictional world, without narration or characters. The example of Santiago Eximeno’s zombie fiction The Moment of Truth (2003) shows that the introduction of fantastic elements in a normative discourse can contribute to the shaping of a whole fictional universe. This presents dystopian features in the above-mentioned work, as it indicates the repressive mechanisms exercised through the prescriptive power of the State.