Call for Papers of the Journal of Business Research
“Customer Engagement and Relationships in Multi-Actor Service Ecosystems”
Major dates
Submission Deadline: April 30, 2019
Guest co-editors
Piyush Sharma, Kokil Jain, Russel PJ Kingshott, Akiko Ueno
Introduction
Early research on service encounters defines these as dyadic interactions between customers
and service providers who both play specific roles (Suprenant & Solomon, 1987). However,
broader interpretation have become more common subsequently, moving beyond the service
dyad, and including customer interactions with elements other than the frontline service
employees, such as the physical environment, service processes, other customers and
technology (Patrício et al., 2011). Moreover, relationships beyond the dyad are being regarded from the perspective of service dominant logic (S-D logic) (Chandler & Vargo, 2011).
Recent research focuses on advancing the knowledge about customer engagements in a multifactor service ecosystem, which is theoretically grounded within the S-D logic (Alexander, Jaakkola & Hollebeek, 2018; Fehrer, Woratschek, Germelmann & Brodie, 2018; Vargo &
Lusch, 2017). An extended view of the service eco-system highlights the interdependent role
of different participants that may be engaged in multiple co-existing processes, indicating a
many-to-many service experience (Vargo & Lusch, 2016). Future direction in service
engagement research, therefore calls for exploring how different service engagement contexts
are interconnected and how different individuals within the service ecosystem coordinate their
engagement with multiple objects at the same time (Dessart, Veloutsou & Morgan-Thomas,
2015), as observed by Vargo and Lusch’s (2017, p. 13) – “one cannot fully understand the
activity at one level without viewing it from another”.
In an increasingly networked environment, the customer – service provider relationships are
witnessing changing dynamics. A service eco-system consists of multiple participants, the
employees, the focal customer, the fellow customers, social media communities and
technology that are constantly interacting with each other. With such interdependent
relationships, it has become crucial for managers to take into account the role of multiple actors
when framing strategies for service encounters as well as recovery in case of service failure.
For example, service consumption may take place in the presence of an audience, many of
whom may be fellow customers. The experiences of the focal customers and their subsequent
emotions may influence the fellow customer’s perceptions about the service delivery process
and outcomes. This influence, however, is not only restricted to an interactive and experiential
service setting or during the consumption process.
With rapid growth of technology-enabled interfaces such as the social media or customer
complaint forums in recent years, the impact of a customer’s experience on other potential
customers may transcend beyond the service setting, through e-Word-of-Mouth (eWOM),
which is emerging as a very powerful social tool. Additionally, the rapid growth of Artificial
Intelligence (AI) and new intervening digital technologies and devices such as smartphones
apps, advanced robotics, Intelligent Agents, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Self-serving
technologies (SST), are fundamentally altering the interplay between customers and
organizations – thereby changing the roles of all involved actors (Larivière et al., 2017).
Literature Review
Research on customer engagement generally focuses on dyadic interactions, a micro-level
engagement that involves customers’ relationships with specific focal objects such as the
product, the firm or the frontline employees (Alexander et. al., 2017). In this context, Larivière
et. al. (2017) indicate that “service encounter 2.0” is paving way for changing interdependent
roles of technology, employees, and customers as enabler, innovator, coordinator and
differentiator. However, exploring a broader context of service encounter within which
individuals operate and interact influencing each other is still overlooked. A recent research
stream calls for broadening the scope of engagement research in multi-actor service encounters
(e.g., Alexander et al., 2017; Breidbach & Brodie, 2017; Li, Juric & Brodie, 2017).
Another niche areas that may require special attention is the role of other customers or fellow
customers within a service ecosystem because customers may affect each another directly
through interpersonal encounters or indirectly by being a part of the environment (Martin,
1996). Similarly, Tombs and McColl-Kennedy (2003) indicate that by being a part of the
service environment, other customers may affect the focal customer’s affective and cognitive
responses. More recently, Ludwig, Barnes and Gouthier (2017) evaluate the emotional and
cognitive reactions of the observing customers and suggest that firms should embrace the
positive contagion that occurs between the delighted customer and observer while attempting
to minimize the impact of jealousy.
The effect of social presence on focal customer’s reaction to service failure has been studied
by He, Hu, Chen, Alden and He (2017), who found that social presence may lead to higher
negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) intentions for customers after a service failure compared
with when they are alone. Another stream of literature focuses on individual customers’
reactions to justice directed towards other customers during service recovery (Mattila, Hanks
& Wang, 2013) and suggests that the strength of the recovery attempt influences the observing
customer’s reactions and evaluations. Through a series of experimental studies, Hillebrandt
and Barclay (2017) show that individuals make judgments about the overall justice and
outcome satisfaction based on other people’s emotions like anger or guilt.
In a social networking context, Pan, Hou, Lin and Niu (2018) study the impact of friends’ and
crowd’s reviews on customers’ posting behavior. Weitzl and Hutzinger (2017) investigate the
effect of firm generated responses to negative comments posted online on bystanders’
favorable and unfavorable brand-related reactions. Others explore the growing importance of
customer – to – customer interaction (C2C) and inter customer helping during service failures
and its impact on focal customer’s satisfaction with the brand (Yi & Kim, 2016; Kim, 2017).
However, despite the growing influence of third parties in service research, the role of other
customers has received limited attention, possibly because it is not easy to predict or manage
the reactions of other customers in any service settings (Kim & Baker, 2017).
Based on the above review, there seems to be a pertinent and persistent need to widen the lens
of service encounters beyond a one-to-one interaction perspective and to accommodate the role
of other customers in customer engagement and relationships research. We aim to address this
need in this special issue of the Journal of Business Research by identifying the following
specific gaps in the customer engagement and relationships literature about the role of the other
customers; the ways in which they interact with the firm and the focal customers; the impact
of the interdependent nature of their relationships with each other on the service delivery
process and outcomes, and the responses from all the participants involved in these interactions.
Research Gaps
Recent research emphasizes the importance of a holistic engagement involving other actors and
not just the customers (Harmeling, Moffett, Arnold & Carlson 2017; Alexander et al., 2018).
There are multiple aspects that need to be investigated when studying the role of fellow
customers, in order to provide a holistic view of the multi-actor service ecosystems.
1) Customer to customer (C2C) interactions: C2C interaction is a way of co-creating and
co-producing service experience (McColl-Kennedy, Vargo, Dagger, Sweeney & van
Kasteren, 2012). For example, Yi and Kim (2016) study inter-customer helping as a form
of C2C interaction in the context of self-service technology failure. There is, however, a
growing need to explore the importance of C2C interaction in other service recovery
contexts (e.g., shared service space like hospitality). Potential areas of future research may
include the following topics, among others:
a. Factors that promote or inhibit C2C interactions
b. Different motives that encourage inter-customer helping
c. Customers characteristics that influence their preference for receiving or refusing
help from other customer or from frontline employees
d. How inter-customer helping can influence focal customer behavior?
e. Customer citizenship behavior (CCB) from the perspective of other customers
f. Potential use of C2C interactions as a service recovery strategy
2) Role of fellow customers in inferring justice-related outcomes: Following a recent
incident, where United Airlines violently yanked a passenger from an overbooked flight,
backlash erupted from other passengers who were present during the incident. In no time,
the video went viral on social media and soon other customers, who were not present during
the incident, joined the flurry of outrage. Days after the incident, United, the world’s third
largest airline in terms of revenue and fourth-largest in terms of passengers carried, suffered
a $1.3 billion drop in market value. This clearly suggests the growing power of the ‘other’
customer on social media and impact it can have on the brand value. This incident throws
light on the significant role of fellow customers in forming justice perceptions based on
other’s emotions, even when they themselves were not the subject of unfair treatment. This
provides for the following possible avenues for future research:
a. Impact of fellow customers’ and other employees’ presence on the affective
reactions and cognitive responses of the focal customers
b. Impact of focal customers’ emotions and actions on third-party observers (e.g.,
empathy, jealousy or even disgust) depending on their nature
c. Social effects of the focal customers’ emotions and actions on the fairness and
justice perceptions of the other customers.
3) Role of fellow customers in pre- and post- service delivery situation: One might think
that the role of fellow customer is relevant only during the service consumption process.
However, with technology playing the role of an enabler of connections and relationships,
the role of fellow customers has gained salience even in pre- and post- service encounters.
A pre-service encounter may involve focal customer seeking advice on a service provider
from other customers (a customer asking for hotel suggestions on trip-advisor for example).
A post-service encounter may be a situation where the customer shares his/her
(un)favorable experiences online. In both situations, the other customers can influence the
focal customer’s perception about the service firm. Hence, future research may explore the
following topics to provider deeper insights into this phenomenon:
a. Impact of other customer’s presence or experiences on the focal customer’s
evaluations and judgments during their decision-making process
b. Effects of the focal customer’s experiences on the other customers’ evaluations and
judgments about their own experiences
4) Role of other customers in causing service failures: Service failures are inevitable in
service encounters due to intangibility and heterogeneity of services. Dysfunctional
customer behavior or negative C2C interaction in a service environment can cause
perception of negative service experience, and has a direct influence on the focal
customer’s overall service experience and may lead to decreased loyalty and repurchase
intentions and increased negative word-of-mouth (Harris & Reynolds, 2004; Huang, 2010)
and customer cynicism (Balaji, Jha, Sengupta & Krishnan, 2018). Hence, future research
may explore the following topics:
a. Possible antecedents of service failures caused by other customers (e.g., perceived
incompatibility, types of customers, susceptibility to emotional contagion, social
norms conformation and other individual as well as contextual factors
b. How to formulate and manage recovery strategies pertaining to service failures
caused by other customers?
5) Influence of other customers on customer brand relationships: Other customers’
perceptions may also influence customer brand relationship (Sreejesh et al., 2017).
Previous research shows that an individual’s evaluation of fellow customers can
significantly influence focal customer’s satisfaction (Grove & Fisk, 1997; Wu, 2007) but
there is still limited research on the effects of fellow customers’ perceptions on the focal
customer’s relationship with the brand or service satisfaction. This is another potential topic
for future research that may be included in this special issue.
Scope
We welcome papers with a wide range of contributions, including new theoretical insights,
new concepts or models as well as new methods of data collection and analysis. We welcome
both conceptual and empirical papers; however we discourage simple literature reviews that do
not synthesize the current research and do not present any conceptual framework or testable
propositions. We would also not accept simple descriptive or case studies or mere empirical
replications of existing theories or models. We are particularly keen to publish papers that
provide insights that can be generalized to broader services context and not those that are
specific to a particular service category or target customer segment.
Procedure
All the authors will need to submit manuscripts for this special issue on the submission system
for the Journal of Business Research. Please indicate that it is a submission for the special issue
(e.g., Article Type: “SI: Multi-actor Ecosystems”). All submissions will go through the regular
JBR review process with at least two rounds of double-blind peer reviews of each manuscript.
Each submitted manuscript would be randomly assigned to one of the four guest co-editors to
ensure complete fairness and transparency in the review process. All the guest co-editors would
declare their conflict of interest if they know or are working with any of the contributing authors
for the manuscripts assigned to them. Each guest co-editor would handle the complete review
process for the manuscripts assigned to them but the final recommendations would be made in
consultation with all the guest co-editors and the chief editors would make the final decisions.
Major dates
Submissions Open: January 1, 2019
Submission Deadline: April 30, 2019
Final Acceptance Deadline: March 31, 2020
Guest co-editors
1) Piyush Sharma, Curtin University, Australia
2) Kokil Jain, Amity International Business School, India
3) Russel PJ Kingshott, Curtin University, Australia
4) Akiko Ueno, Middlesex University, UK
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