Today we identify service articles published in Marketing, Management, Operations, Productions, Information Systems & Practioner-oriented Journals in the last month.
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Umashankar, N., M. K. Ward and D. W. Dahl (2017): The Benefit of Becoming Friends: Complaining After Service Failures Leads Customers with Strong Ties to Increase Loyalty, Journal of Marketing, 81(6), pp.79-98
Service firms spend considerable resources soliciting complaints to initiate recovery efforts and improve their offerings. However, managersmay be overlooking the fact that complaints serve an equally important role in engendering loyalty. The authors demonstrate that the strength of social ties between customers and service providers influences the degree to which complaining drives loyalty. Paradoxically, while strongly tied customers fear that complaining threatens their ties with the provider, when they are encouraged to complain, their loyalty increases because offering feedback serves as an effective way to preserve social ties. Conversely, for weakly tied customers, complaining has no effect on loyalty. Furthermore, complaints are more effective in driving loyalty for strongly tied customers when the feedback is directed toward the provider who failed, rather than to an entity external to the failure. Finally, when providers signal an authentic openness to feedback, strongly tied customers are more loyal after complaining, whereas authenticity does little to engender loyalty for weakly tied customers who complain. The value of complaints in driving loyalty is promising both for customers who perceive a strong tie to a particular provider within the firm and, more generally, in service industries wherein strong ties naturally occur.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/ [Google]
Zervas, G., D. Proserpio and J. W. Byers (2017): The Rise of the Sharing Economy: Estimating the Impact of Airbnb on the Hotel Industry, Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), 54(5), pp.687-705
Peer-to-peer markets, collectively known as the sharing economy, have emerged as alternative suppliers of goods and services traditionally provided by long-established industries. The authors explore the economic impact of the sharing economy on incumbent firms by studying the case of Airbnb, a prominent platform for short-term accommodations. They analyze Airbnb’s entry into the state of Texas and quantify its impact on the Texas hotel industry over the subsequent decade. In Austin, where Airbnb supply is highest, the causal impact on hotel revenue is in the 8%–10% range; moreover, the impact is nonuniform, with lower-priced hotels and hotels that do not cater to business travelers being the most affected. The impact manifests itself primarily through less aggressive hotel room pricing, benefiting all consumers, not just participants in the sharing economy. The price response is especially pronounced during periods of peak demand, such as during the South by Southwest festival, and is due to a differentiating feature of peer-to-peer platforms—enabling instantaneous supply to scale to meet demand.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/ [Google]
Fay, S. and R. Zeithammer (2017): Bidding for Bidders? How the Format for Soliciting Supplier Participation in NYOP Auctions Impacts Channel Profit, Management Science, 63(12), pp.4324-4344
In a name-your-own-price (NYOP) auction, consumers bid for a product or service. If a bid exceeds the concealed threshold price, the consumer receives the product at her bid price. This paper examines how to optimize the interactions between the NYOP retailer and service providers, while, at the same time, managing the bid acceptance rates in order to induce the desired consumer bidding behavior. Channel profit is impacted by how the retailer decides whether or not a given consumer bid will be accepted and, if so, which service provider is chosen to supply a unit of the product to the consumer. We devise a mechanism, the modified second-price auction, which maximizes channel profit. This paper was accepted by J. Miguel Villas-Boas, marketing.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2556 [Google]
Ye, J., B. Dong and J.-Y. Lee (2017): The long-term impact of service empathy and responsiveness on customer satisfaction and profitability: a longitudinal investigation in a healthcare context, Marketing Letters, 28(4), pp.551-564
Rising labor costs in healthcare industries have led many firms to underinvest in service empathy and responsiveness by downsizing staffing levels. Although such a strategy may help contain operating costs and improve productivity in the short run, its sustainability and long-term effect remain unclear, as the literature offers competing explanations of such an effect on customer satisfaction and overall profitability. Using 24 quarters of longitudinal patient satisfaction data and archival financial data from 25 clinical units in a large healthcare organization, this study examines how empathy and responsiveness influence profitability over time. The findings show that downgrading empathy and responsiveness allows firms to lower costs, resulting in immediate productivity benefits; however, this strategy has an enduring negative effect on customer satisfaction and ultimately hurts profitability in the long run.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11002-017-9429-2 [Google]
Tifferet, S. and I. Vilnai-Yavetz (2018): Self-presentation in LinkedIn portraits: Common features, gender, and occupational differences, Computers in Human Behavior, 80(0), pp.33-48
LinkedIn is the largest professional social network site in the world, designed for professional networking, job seeking, and recruitment. The current study explores visual self-presentation in LinkedIn user portraits. LinkedIn portraits serve alongside explicit data posted in users’ profiles as a tool for professional self-presentation, yet they have hardly been studied. In the absence of scientific recommendations, non-academic websites offer recommendations for the optimal portrait. In this study, we aimed, first, to identify the common features of LinkedIn portraits and to determine whether they adhere to the popular recommendations found on the Internet. Second, we offered grounded hypotheses suggesting that LinkedIn portraits, and other features of LinkedIn accounts, would show gender and occupational differences. Using a representative city in the United States, 480 LinkedIn portraits and accounts were selected and analyzed. Results indicate that LinkedIn portraits display common features and tend to adhere to popular recommendations. Women were more likely than men to signal emotions, whereas men were more likely to signal status. No occupational differences were detected. The findings suggest that two opposing forces shape self-presentation in LinkedIn portraits. Specifically, social norms, corporate culture, and popular advice drive users to display standard business-like portraits, while gender-related self-expression inspires users to display their uniqueness and attractiveness. These pioneering findings can inform scholars and practitioners on impression management processes in professional online settings.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.10.013 [Google]
Vilnai-Yavetz, I. and O. Levina (2018): Motivating social sharing of e-business content: Intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, or crowding-out effect?, Computers in Human Behavior, 79(0), pp.181-191
This work examines users’ motives for sharing commercial content on social networking services (SNS). We first interviewed Internet users to map sharing behaviors and SNS use (n = 409). We then used a mixed-methods design combining self-reports and a scenario-based experimental manipulation to compare intrinsic and extrinsic incentive models among those who already shared commercial content (n = 134). The findings reveal a contradiction between the self-reports, where intrinsic motives for sharing dominated, and the experimental manipulation, where extrinsic (financial) incentives induced greater willingness to share. We suggest two possible processes that may be at play in our results. First, based on the theory of planned behavior, whereby actions which are not motivated by financial incentives are associated with more positive normative beliefs, SNS users are likely to perceive – and therefore self-report – intrinsic motives for social sharing (e.g., altruism) as more important to them than extrinsic motives (e.g., financial rewards). Second, assuming that reported intrinsic motives are real and not a product of social desirability bias, financial incentives may dilute the impact of intrinsic incentives via a crowding-out effect, shifting users’ motives for sharing e-commerce content from intrinsic reasons (e.g., enjoyment) toward extrinsic ones with the application of financial incentives (e.g., a discount). The findings have implications for planning incentive models that fit marketing communication strategies and enhance customer engagement efforts.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.10.034 [Google]
Porter, M. E. and J. E. Heppelmann (2017): WHY EVERY ORGANIZATION NEEDS AN AUGMENTED REALITY STRATEGY, Harvard Business Review, 95(6), pp.46-57
While the physical world is three-dimensional, most data is trapped on two-dimensional pages and screens. This gulf between the real and digital worlds prevents us from fully exploiting the volumes of information now available to us. Augmented reality, a set of technologies that superimposes digital data and images on physical objects and environments, is closing this gap. By putting information directly into the context in which we’ll apply it, AR increases our ability to absorb and act on it. AR will become the new interface between humans and machines, say Michael E. Porter of Harvard and James E. Heppelmann, the CEO of the industrial software maker PTC. Many people are familiar with AR entertainment applications, such as Snapchat filters, but AR is being applied in far more consequential ways in business. Pioneering organizations are already implementing it in product development, manufacturing, logistics, marketing, service, and training—and are seeing major gains in quality and productivity. AR improves how users visualize information, receive and follow instructions, and interact with products. AccuVein, for instance, uses AR technology that converts the heat signature of a patient’s veins into an image superimposed on the skin, making them much easier to locate. Boeing uses AR to show trainees how to assemble an aircraft wing—and has cut the time it takes them to do that task by 35%. At GE, factory workers have achieved a similar gain in efficiency by using voice commands in AR experiences to perform complex wiring. AR will have a wide impact on how companies compete. This article walks readers through the questions firms need to ask when integrating it into their strategies and operations. The article also includes HBR’s first embedded AR experiences, which readers can launch by downloading a new HBR app on their mobile devices and then pointing them at targeted images in the magazine’s pages.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/ [Google]
Mustak, M. (2017): Customer participation in knowledge intensive business services: Perceived value outcomes from a dyadic perspective, Industrial Marketing Management, (), pp.
Knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) are considered a cornerstone of contemporary developed economies. Successful production and delivery of these services, and thus their perceived value outcomes, highly depend on customer participation (CP) in the service processes. However, the extant understanding of the perceived value outcomes of CP, which is crucial to the appropriate inducement and integration of organizational resources in service processes, is limited. Through the exploratory investigation of three dyadic cases, each comprising one customer and one service provider organization engaged in a knowledge-based service project, this study addressed this crucial topic. Results indicated four categories of perceived value outcomes emerged through CP: functional, economic, relational, and strategic values. The study provides insights on the evolution of value perceptions over time, the individual value components within each value category, and perceptual similarities and differences between customer and provider organizations. Further, these results indicate that various value outcomes of CP receive divergent levels of attention from personnel in different organizational hierarchies. The paper provides useful and applicable suggestions for managers, especially in the context of technology-based KIBS and solutions.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2017.09.017 [Google]
Habel, J., S. Alavi and D. Pick (2017): When serving customers includes correcting them: Understanding the ambivalent effects of enforcing service rules, International Journal of Research in Marketing, 34(4), pp.919-941
Service employees frequently must enforce rules upon their customers to mitigate dysfunctional customer behavior and ensure proper service delivery (e.g., enforce “fasten seatbelt” signs on flights). However, the consequences of enforcing service rules (ESR) are not well understood. To elucidate the effect of ESR, the authors present seven studies involving > 6800 customers and consisting of cross-sectional and longitudinal data from customer surveys and company records as well as experiments. The results indicate that ESR exerts ambivalent effects: customers who experience ESR directed at other customers perceive service employees as more competent, which increases customer loyalty. However, if ESR is directed at customers themselves, they perceive a self-concept threat, leading them to devalue service employees’ warmth and competence and to become less loyal. The effects of ESR hinge on a number of factors, including the harm that dysfunctional behavior potentially causes, the way ESR is communicated, and customers’ experience with the service situation. Furthermore, the authors show that service employees can alleviate the negative effects of ESR by communicating service rules in advance and justifying ESR appropriately.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2017.09.002 [Google]
Mann, M. and S.-E. Byun (2017): To retrench or invest? Turnaround strategies during a recessionary time, Journal of Business Research, 80(), pp.24-34
By analyzing retail news published between 2008 and 2011, we examined retrenchment and investment strategies employed by retailers in the U.S. in response to the Great Recession. We found four categories of retrenchment (store closings, buyouts, bankruptcies, and pull backs) and five categories of investment (market expansion, product development, service development, strategic partnerships, and corporate social responsibility). Retrenchment decisions were constrained by retailers’ financial strength, whereas investment decisions varied with firms’ strategic orientations and resource capabilities. Findings of this study enhance theoretical understanding of underlying factors of specific retrenchment and investment decisions that retailers pursued during a challenging economic time.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.06.018 [Google]
Quach, S. and P. Thaichon (2017): From connoisseur luxury to mass luxury: Value co-creation and co-destruction in the online environment, Journal of Business Research, 81(), pp.163-172
This exploratory study examines the processes of value co-creation and co-destruction between luxury brands and consumers from the consumer perspective using the social resource theory. The study adopted a qualitative, inductive approach using a sample of 24 in-depth interviews with luxury customers, both local residents and tourists, in Thailand. Love, status, information, and services are the four main types of resources involved in online interactions between luxury brands and customers. It is acknowledged that customers have different expectations, determining the way which they use their resources in interaction with the brand. In addition, the co-creation and co-destruction of the luxury brand experience include conversations and sophisticated interactions between many parties, such as the brand itself, staff, customers, and other related groups, for example, consumption communities and social network users.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.06.015 [Google]
Cheshin, A., A. Amit and G. A. van Kleef (2018): The interpersonal effects of emotion intensity in customer service: Perceived appropriateness and authenticity of attendants’ emotional displays shape customer trust and satisfaction, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 144(0), pp.97-111
Emotional expressions have a pervasive impact on organizational behavior. However, it is unclear how such effects are modulated by the intensity of emotional displays. We investigated in online, laboratory, and field experiments how varying intensities of service providers’ emotional displays (expressed through text, intonation, or physical displays) influence customer service outcomes. We show that in mundane service interactions, displays of intense happiness or sadness are interpreted as inappropriate and inauthentic, and lead to reduced trust in the service provider. We further demonstrate the mediating effect of trust on satisfaction with the service (Study 1), expected satisfaction with the product (Studies 2 and 3), and actual product use (Study 4). The studies highlight perceptions of appropriateness and sincerity as mechanisms underlying the interpersonal effects of emotional intensity. We propose that emotional intensity be incorporated in theorizing and research on organizational behavior to arrive at a more complete understanding of emotional dynamics.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2017.10.002 [Google]
Allon, G., A. Bassamboo and E. B. Çil (2017): Skill Management in Large-Scale Service Marketplaces, Production & Operations Management, 26(11), pp.2050-2070
Large-scale, web-based service marketplaces have recently emerged as a new resource for customers who need quick resolutions for their short-term problems. Due to the temporary nature of the relations between customers and service providers (agents) in these marketplaces, customers may not have an opportunity to assess the ability of an agent before their service completion. On the other hand, the moderating firm has a more sustained relationship with agents, and thus it can provide customers with more information about the abilities of agents through skill screening mechanisms. In this study, we consider a marketplace where the moderating firm can run two skills tests on agents to assess if their skills are above certain thresholds. Our main objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of skill screening as a revenue maximization tool. We, specifically, analyze how much benefit the firm obtains after each additional skill test. We find that skill screening leads to negligible revenue improvements in marketplaces where agent skills are highly compatible and the average service times are similar for all customers. As the compatibility of agent skills weakens or the customers start to vary in their processing time needs, we show that the firm starts to experience sizable improvements in revenue from skill screening. Apparently, the firm can reap the most of these substantial benefits when it runs only one test. For instance, in marketplaces where agents posses uncorrelated skills, the second skill test only brings an additional 2% improvement in revenue. Accounting for possible skill screening costs, we then show the optimality of offering only one test when the compatibility between agent skills is sufficiently low. The results of this study also have important implications in terms of the right level of intervention in the marketplaces we study.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.12741 [Google]
Khuntia, J., S. Mithas and R. Agarwal (2017): How Service Offerings and Operational Maturity Influence the Viability of Health Information Exchanges, Production & Operations Management, 26(11), pp.1989-2005
Health information exchanges ( HIEs) are new organizational forms in the United States that facilitate digital exchange of health data across participants. Many believe that these multi-sided digital platforms will become key enablers of the digital transformation of healthcare in the United States. However, like other entrepreneurial ventures, HIEs face challenges to achieve operational maturity and financial viability. Entrepreneurial ventures often fail to attain financial viability due to the initial design of the business model and the inability to evolve the model over time. We focus on the influence of service offerings, revenue models, and their evolution on the viability of HIEs. Using a unique archival dataset constructed from surveys of HIEs in the United States from 2008 to 2010, we find that providing an extensive service bundle may lead to higher operational maturity with the HIE’s increasing age, but this may deter the HIE’s potential to achieve financial viability. The findings also show that the influence of service offerings on financial viability is mediated by operational maturity. Qualitative evidence corroborates these findings and suggests that HIEs need to move from providing a set of foundational services to offering more advanced services as they evolve and that they need to appropriately bundle the services using transaction-, subscription- or mixed-fee models. We discuss how these findings contribute to research at the intersection of operations management and information systems and offer important implications for HIEs with regard to crafting and evolving appropriate service offerings and revenue models.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.12735 [Google]
Qian, Q., P. Guo and R. Lindsey (2017): Comparison of Subsidy Schemes for Reducing Waiting Times in Healthcare Systems, Production & Operations Management, 26(11), pp.2033-2049
This study analyzes subsidy schemes that are widely used in reducing waiting times for public healthcare service. We assume that public healthcare service has no user fee but an observable delay, while private healthcare service has a fee but no delay. Patients in the public system are given a subsidy s to use private service if their waiting times exceed a pre-determined threshold t. We call these subsidy schemes ( s, t) policies. As two extreme cases, the ( s, t) policy is called an unconditional subsidy scheme if t = 0, and a full subsidy scheme if s is equal to the private service fee. There is a fixed budget constraint so that a scheme with larger s has a larger t. We assess policies using two criteria: total patient cost and serviceability (i.e., the probability of meeting a waiting time target for public service). We prove analytically that, if patients are equally sensitive to delay, a scheme with a smaller subsidy outperforms one with a larger subsidy on both criteria. Thus, the unconditional scheme dominates all other policies. Using empirically derived parameter values from the Hong Kong Cataract Surgery Program, we then compare policies numerically when patients differ in delay sensitivity. Total patient cost is now unimodal in subsidy amount: the unconditional scheme still yields the lowest total patient cost, but the full subsidy scheme can outperform some intermediate policies. Serviceability is unimodal too, and the full subsidy scheme can outperform the unconditional scheme in serviceability when the waiting time target is long.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.12738 [Google]
White, D. L., E. Torabi and C. M. Froehle (2017): Ice-Breaker vs. Standalone: Comparing Alternative Workflow Modes of Mid-level Care Providers, Production & Operations Management, 26(11), pp.2089-2106
Capitalizing on the operational concept of division-of-labor, clinics often reduce physician service time by off-loading some of his/her clinical activities to lower-cost personnel. These personnel, such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, are often collectively referred to as ‘mid-level providers’ (MLPs) and can perform many patient-consultation tasks. The common rationale is that using an MLP allows the physician to serve more patients, increase patients’ access to care, and, due to MLPs’ lower salaries, improve the clinic’s financial performance. An MLP is typically integrated into the outpatient clinic process in one of two modes: as an ‘ice-breaker,’ seeing each patient before the physician, or as a ‘standalone’ provider, a substitute for the physician for the entirety of some patients’ visits. Despite both of these modes being widely used in practice, we find no research that identifies the circumstances under which either one is preferable. This study examines these two modes’ effects on operational performance, such as patient flow and throughput, as well as on financial measures. Using queueing and bottleneck analysis, discrete-event simulation, and profit modeling, we compare these two deployment modes and identify the optimal policies for deploying MLPs as either ice-breakers or as standalone providers. Interestingly, we also find there exists a range of scenarios where not hiring an MLP at all (i.e., the physician works alone) is likely to be most profitable for the clinic. Implications for practice are discussed.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.12743 [Google]
Chen, Y.-M., H.-H. Liu and Y.-C. Chiu (2017): Customer benefits and value creation in streaming services marketing: a managerial cognitive capability approach, Psychology & Marketing, 34(12), pp.1101-1108
Customer value analysis and management is a key theoretical and empirical issue in marketing management and strategic management. However, little is known about the influence of customer benefit on customer value from the microfoundations of the dynamic capabilities perspective. Currently, a boom in online video and music streaming services is changing the entertainment industry structure. Thus, marketing managers in the fast-growing streaming services industry should have dynamic managerial capabilities to anticipate other service elements that customers consider valuable. Based on managerial cognitive dynamic capabilities, this research explored the influences of customer-perceived functional benefit, experiential benefit, financial benefit, and psychosocial benefit on perceived instrumental and terminal values. General linear model (GLM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) were conducted to gain a more nuanced understanding of how different customers’ perceived benefits have different impacts on perceived value. The findings illuminate complex benefit configurations that drive perceived instrumental and terminal values and contribute to the development of value creation and its drivers. The proposed framework can help managers develop managerial cognitive dynamic capabilities by increasing their understanding of the impact of different perceived benefits on value creation for different types of customers.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21050 [Google]
Kreye, M. E. (2017): Can you put too much on your plate? Uncertainty exposure in servitized triads, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 37(12), pp.1722-1740
Purpose Servitization increases the uncertainty exposure of provider firms due to the operational differences between services and production which is further increased when operations are set in triads. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the uncertainty exposure in servitized triads and explore suitable organisational responses.Design/methodology/approach A conceptual frame is defined detailing three uncertainty types (environmental, organisational and relational uncertainty) and suitable organisational responses to these. This frame guided the analysis of in-depth case evidence from a cross-national servitized triad in a European-North African set-up which was collected through 29 semi-structured interviews and secondary data.Findings The empirical study identified the existence of the three uncertainty types and directional knock-on effects between them. Specifically, environmental uncertainty created organisational uncertainty which in turn created relational uncertainty. The uncertainty types were reduced through targeted organisational responses where formal relational governance reduced environmental uncertainty, service capabilities reduced organisational uncertainty and informal relational governance reduced relational uncertainty. The knock-on effects were reduced through organisational and relational responses.Originality/value This paper makes two contributions. First, a structured analysis of the uncertainty exposure in servitized triads is presented which shows the existence of three individual uncertainty types and the knock-on effects between them. Second, organisational responses to reduce the three uncertainty types individually and the knock-on effects between them are presented.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-06-2016-0357 [Google]
Raja, J. Z. and T. Frandsen (2017): Exploring servitization in China, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 37(11), pp.1654-1682
Purpose Previous research has predominately focused on the servitization strategies of western manufacturers in advanced economies, neglecting the potential for servitization in those which are emerging, such as China. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the external service partner network of a European manufacturer providing services in China, in order to develop a better understanding of the resulting and associated challenges.Design/methodology/approach An in-depth case study approach was used to examine the parent company, its subsidiary in China and the related service partner network. Data collection involved all three actors and took place in Denmark and China.Findings The findings suggest that motivation, opportunity and ability (MOA) need not only be mutually reinforcing for the organization attempting to move toward services but also aligned between organizational units, as well as with the service partner network. Furthermore, the findings suggest that while service partners are typically closer to the market, they may not be able to deliver the higher value-added services requiring customization.Research limitations/implications This study is limited to a single manufacturer attempting servitization in China. Future studies may consider other case firms in other markets.Practical implications The MOA framework provides a basis for understanding the managerial challenges of aligning and coordinating the MOA elements amongst different actors.Originality/value This paper contributes by exploring servitization in an emerging market through the MOA framework in order to better understand the challenges and complexities. Servitization is found to be a dynamic phenomenon which should be understood as a movement that is also dependent on an external service partner possessing the necessary capabilities. In turn, this requires understanding the MOAs of all actors in a network and how they may be influenced in order for the MOA elements to be mutually reinforcing.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-12-2015-0755 [Google]
Smith, J., S. Anderson and G. Fox (2017): A quality system’s impact on the service experience, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 37(12), pp.1817-1839
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the interplay between technical and social systems within an organization that potentially affect the service experience, as perceived by end customers.Design/methodology/approach The paper explores the potential impact of an integrated service quality system on the service experience. A conceptual model is presented, accompanied by a detailed development of the hypotheses. Two samples (Study 1: n=474, Study 2: n=225) of consumers are used to empirically test the proposed model.Findings The analysis reveals the impact a technical system has on employees’ inherent abilities (i.e. the social system), which, in turn, affect the overall assessment by customers. Additionally, the situation in which an employee works (i.e. operating environmental conditions) results in differences in the model.Research limitations/implications This paper’s main implication is this paper employs established theory to develop a model that is empirically tested to show that implementing and maintaining a quality-oriented service system can positively influence the overall customer experience. The limitations are based primarily on the methodology in which individual employees assessed all aspects of both the social and technical systems.Practical implications Managers should be diligent in their design and implementation of the quality components as these affect the work setting in which employees operate.Originality/value Prior research has neither explored an integrated service quality system’s impact on the service experience nor employed an established theoretical framework. This work accomplishes both with the results providing contributions to both theory and practice.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-12-2015-0737 [Google]
