Today we identify service articles published in Marketing, Management, Operations, Productions, Information Systems & Practioner-oriented Journals in the last month.
For more information about the alert system methodology go here
For all previous alerts go here
Berry, L. L. (2019): Service innovation is urgent in healthcare, AMS Review, (), pp.1-15
Healthcare is a service setting where meeting the needs of customers (patients and their families) is uniquely challenging. But the necessity, complexity, cost, and high-emotion nature of the service, as well as technological advances and competitive dynamics in the industry, make the imperative for service innovation in healthcare especially urgent. Forward-thinking healthcare institu- tions around the United States are succeeding in establishing a value-creating innovation culture and in implementing operational and strategic service innovations that benefit them and their stakeholders. They view continuous innovation as a non-negotiable goal, prize institutional self-confidence, and include patients and families on the innovation team. Cancer care, in particular, faces a pressing need for service innovation, and some progressive oncology centers are demonstrating what is possible to improve the patient and family service experience. The imperatives, now, are for service innovation to become part of the fabric of how all healthcare institutions, not just the groundbreakers discussed in this article, operate—and for academics in the field of marketing to play a crucial role in that effort.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13162-019-00135-x [Google]
Kranzbühler, A.-M., M. H. P. Kleijnen, P. W. J. Verlegh and M. Teerling (2019): When Similarity Beats Expertise—Differential Effects of Patient and Expert Ratings on Physician Choice: Field and Experimental Study, Journal of medical Internet research., 21(6), pp.e12454
Increasing numbers of patients consult Web-based rating platforms before making health care decisions. These platforms often provide ratings from other patients, reflecting their subjective experience. However, patients often lack the knowledge to be able to judge the objective quality of health services. To account for this potential bias, many rating platforms complement patient ratings with more objective expert ratings, which can lead to conflicting signals as these different types of evaluations are not always aligned. This study aimed to fill the gap on how consumers combine information from 2 different sources-patients or experts-to form opinions and make purchase decisions in a health care context. More specifically, we assessed prospective patients’ decision making when considering both types of ratings simultaneously on a Web-based rating platform. In addition, we examined how the influence of patient and expert ratings is conditional upon rating volume (ie, the number of patient opinions). In a field study, we analyzed a dataset from a Web-based physician rating platform containing clickstream data for more than 5000 US doctors. We complemented this with an experimental lab study consisting of a sample of 112 students from a Dutch university. The average age was 23.1 years, and 60.7% (68/112) of the respondents were female. The field data illustrated the moderating effect of rating volume. If the patient advice was based on small numbers, prospective patients tended to base their selection of a physician on expert rather than patient advice (profile clicks beta=.14, P<.001; call clicks beta=.28, P=.03). However, when the group of patients substantially grew in size, prospective patients started to rely on patients rather than the expert (profile clicks beta=.23, SE=0.07, P=.004; call clicks beta=.43, SE=0.32, P=.10). The experimental study replicated and validated these findings for conflicting patient versus expert advice in a controlled setting. When patient ratings were aggregated from a high number of opinions, prospective patients’ evaluations were affected more strongly by patient than expert advice (mean=3.06, SD=0.94; mean=2.55, SD=0.89; F=4.93, P=.03). Conversely, when patient ratings were aggregated from a low volume, participants were affected more strongly by expert compared with patient advice (mean=2.36, SD=0.76; mean=3.01, SD=0.81; F=8.42, P=.004). This effect occurred despite the fact that they considered the patients to be less knowledgeable than experts. When confronted with information from both sources simultaneously, prospective patients are influenced more strongly by other patients. This effect reverses when the patient rating has been aggregated from a (very) small number of individual opinions. This has important implications for how to present health care provider ratings to prospective patients to aid their decision-making process.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/12454 [Google]
Winkler, T. J. and J. Wulf (2019): Effectiveness of IT Service Management Capability: Value Co-Creation and Value Facilitation Mechanisms, Journal of Management Information Systems, 36(2), pp.639-675
Information technology service management (ITSM) has become the prevalent management approach to the provision of IT services worldwide. Researchers and practitioners, however, still lack an understanding regarding through which mechanisms and in which strategic contexts an ITSM capability contributes most to information systems (IS) effectiveness. Grounded in a service-dominant logic, we hypothesize that ITSM capability contributes to IS effectiveness through sustaining the alignment of the IS function with the business and contingent upon organizational IS strategic conservativeness. Data collected from 256 organizations confirms that direct effects from ITSM capability are mediated by IS-business alignment and strengthened by IS strategic conservativeness. Our findings provide evidence for a co-occurrence of value co-creation and value facilitation mechanisms in internal IT service relationships and for a greater value of ITSM capability in stable strategic contexts. Overall, our results contribute a novel understanding to the service literature of the distinct mechanisms and the facilitating contextual contingencies of value creation in IT service relationships.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2019.1599513 [Google]
Benoit, S., H. Evanschitzky and C. Teller (2019): Retail format selection in on-the-go shopping situations, Journal of Business Research, 100(), pp.268-278
Consumers patronize different store formats to purchase products. Prior literature describes store and format choices for big, multi-item shopping baskets, but limited insights determine consumers’ unique shopping routines when they seek to buy just one or a few items while on the go. Such shopping situations might affect consumers’ format selections for both search and experience goods. This study uses multi-attribute utility theory to develop a framework, tested with a scenario-based experiment. For search goods, a format’s economic utility (price level, speed) is more important; its functional utility (quality, variety) and psychological utility (atmosphere, service) become less important considerations. Furthermore, the tolerable range of formats is larger for search goods. The level of on-the-go purchase and consumption frequency moderates these effects. Therefore, this research helps to clarify what drives consumers’ format selections in on-the-go shopping situations, with useful managerial insights for how retailers can compete in the growing on-the-go market. • Research focus: impact of an on-the-go situation on retail format selection • For goods easy to evaluate (search good; e.g., can of Coke), a format’s price level and speed are more important • For goods hard to evaluate (experience good; e.g., salad), quality, variety, atmosphere, and service are more important • More formats are relevant when shopping for search goods compared to experience goods • Frequent on-the-go shoppers consider even more formats when shopping for search goods compared to experience goods
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.04.007 [Google]
Sugathan, P. and K. R. Ranjan (2019): Co-creating the tourism experience, Journal of Business Research, 100(), pp.207-217
Consumer-firm co-creation is increasing in the tourism industry. In light of the central role of customer experience in tourism, this research is motivated by the limited understanding of the effects that customer co-creations have on the tourism experience. We examine the importance of co-creation in terms of its influence on the tourism experience and the customer’s intention to revisit the destination. Using three independent experiments, this study theorizes and establishes empirical support for three hypotheses: 1) Effect of customer experience on customer intention to return to the tourism service, 2) Effect of degree of co-creation on customer experience of the tourism service, and 3) Moderating effect of co-creation on the relationship between customer experience and intention to revisit. Our results suggest that co-creation influences the tourism experience. Co-creation is found to moderate the effect of the tourism experience on customer revisit intentions in high co-creation situations, but not in low co-creation situations. We discuss several implications of our research for a number of domains, such as novelty-seeking in tourism, collaborations between different stakeholders, employee motivation, and the antecedent effect of co-creation. • Co-creation influences tourism experience. • Co-creation influences tourist revisit intentions. • Role of novelty seeking in tourism services
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.03.032 [Google]
Previte, J., R. Russell-Bennett, R. Mulcahy and C. Hartel (2019): The role of emotional value for reading and giving eWOM in altruistic services, Journal of Business Research, 99(), pp.157-166
To date there is limited research on the role of customer perceived value for reading and giving positive and negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) of an altruistic service within a singular study. Further, emotions have been shown to be important in altruistic services, yet there is no investigation of the role of emotional value for eWOM. This paper investigates these gaps by proposing and empirically testing a model with data from an online survey of 366 consumers of an altruistic service (blood donation) using structural equation modelling. The results show emotional value is a central value concept that mediates the relationship between reading eWOM and other value dimensions, whereas altruistic value is shown to be important for giving eWOM. The findings have theoretical importance for understanding the nature of customer perceived value in altruistic services and are also useful to managers of altruistic services seeking to increase eWOM as a customer recruitment and retention strategy.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.02.030 [Google]
Gallan, A. S., J. R. McColl-Kennedy, T. Barakshina, B. Figueiredo, J. G. Jefferies, J. Gollnhofer, S. Hibbert, N. Luca, S. Roy, J. Spanjol and H. Winklhofer (2019): Transforming community well-being through patients’ lived experiences, Journal of Business Research, 100(), pp.376-391
The purpose of this article is to (1) explicate micro-to-meso linkages of well-being, (2) provide a theoretical framework to guide research on connecting patient experiences to community well-being, and (3) offer guidelines to policymakers. We develop a conceptual framework establishing connections between micro and meso levels through the expansion of patients’ lived ecosystems. We introduce the concept of patient ecosystem management (PEM), an organizational process that focuses on treating patients differently in terms of assessing, managing, and expanding resources to achieve patient health and well-being goals. This process establishes a foundational perspective that is necessary to connect patients’ ecosystems and to facilitate community well-being. Theoretically, this research creates ties between micro-level interactions and a collective measure (community well-being). Policymakers and healthcare professionals should take a PEM perspective, which will require new roles and behaviors, and leverage technology to expand and overlap patients’ individual service ecosystems (intra-alignment), thus enlarging community well-being (inter-alignment).
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.12.029 [Google]
Akbar, P. (2019): Guiding empirical generalization in research on access-based services, Journal of Business Research, 100(), pp.16-26
The empirical generalization of research on access-based services is central in ensuring the integrity of the domain’s findings and for developing knowledge. Study 1 conducts a co-citation analysis, which includes 2340 publications and reveals that Lamberton and Rose’s (2012) adjustment of Hennig-Thurau, Henning, and Sattler’s (2007) utility model to commercial sharing contributes significantly to current knowledge about access-based services. Study 2 investigates whether Lamberton and Rose’s (2012) findings are replicable and generalizable. Although commercial sharing is nowadays more common, this study (n = 384) replicates previous findings, but also identifies divergent results in the context of car sharing. This replication with extension study also confirms that the absolute personal usage has a moderating influence on the relationship between the perceived risk of product scarcity and the likelihood of choosing a commercial sharing program, as well as further drivers that explain consumers’ willingness to share.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.02.044 [Google]
Li, H. and K. Srinivasan (2019): Competitive Dynamics in the Sharing Economy: An Analysis in the Context of Airbnb and Hotels, Marketing Science, 38(3), pp.365-391
This paper studies how the sharing economy fundamentally changes the way the industry accommodates demand fluctuations and how incumbent firms should strategically respond in the context of Airbnb and hotels. The entry of flexible-capacity sharing economy platforms (e.g., Airbnb and Uber) has potentially changed the competitive landscape in traditional industries with fixed-capacity incumbents and volatile demand. Leveraging panel data on hotels and Airbnb, we study how the sharing economy fundamentally changes the way the industry accommodates demand fluctuations and how incumbent firms should strategically respond. The demand estimates suggest that Airbnb’s flexible supply helps recover the lost underlying demand due to hotel seasonal pricing (i.e., higher prices during high-demand seasons) and even stimulates more demand in some cities. The counterfactual results suggest that some hotel types in some cities may benefit from conducting less seasonal pricing and even considering counter-seasonal pricing. Market conditions (e.g., seasonality patterns, hotel prices and quality, consumer composition, and Airbnb supply elasticity) play a crucial role in determining the impact of Airbnb on hotel sales and hotels’ strategic response. Finally, recent Airbnb and policy changes (e.g., higher Airbnb hosting costs due to hotel taxes or lower Airbnb hosting costs due to third-party services and the “professionalism” of hosts) affect the competitive dynamics. The profits of high-end hotels are the most sensitive to the changes in Airbnb hosting costs. Airbnb’s recent attempt to behave more like hotels can increase hotels’ vulnerability to lower Airbnb hosting costs. Data files and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1143.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1143 [Google]
Dukes, A. and Y. Zhu (2019): Why Customer Service Frustrates Consumers: Using a Tiered Organizational Structure to Exploit Hassle Costs, Marketing Science, 38(3), pp.500-515
Tiered customer service organizations are common and their tiered structure can frustrate customers so that they seek lower levels of redress. Many customer service organizations (CSOs) reflect a tiered, or multilevel, organizational structure, which we argue imposes hassle costs for dissatisfied customers seeking high levels of redress. The tiered structure specifies that first-level CSO agents (e.g., call center operators) be restricted in their payout authority. Only by escalating a claim to a higher level (e.g., a manager), and incurring extra hassles, can a dissatisfied customer obtain more redress from the firm. We argue that the tiered structure helps the firm to control redress costs by (1) screening less severe claims so that such customers do not escalate their claims to a manager and (2) screening illegitimate claims. Our main result is that a firm can be more profitable if it uses a tiered CSO. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2019.1149.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2019.1149 [Google]
Kuntz, L., S. Scholtes and S. Sülz (2019): Separate and Concentrate: Accounting for Patient Complexity in General Hospitals, Management Science, 65(6), pp.2482-2501
Scholars have recently suggested the reorganization of general hospitals into organizationally separate divisions for routine and non-routine services to overcome operational misalignments between the two types of services. We provide empirical evidence for this proposal from a quality perspective, using over 250,000 patient discharge records from 60 German hospitals across 39 high-mortality disease segments, and focusing on in-hospital mortality as outcome. Disentangling the effects of high, absolute, and relative hospital volumes in a disease group, our analysis suggests that routine and complex patients would benefit from a hospital organization with a multi-specialty hub for emergency and non-routine elective services at its core, complemented by organizationally separate disease-focused hospitals-within-hospitals for routine services. We also provide evidence that the hub hospital can further improve service quality for complex patients by adopting a disease-based rather than medical specialty-based departmental routing strategy for newly arriving patients. A counterfactual analysis, based on a simultaneous equations probit model that simultaneously controls for endogeneity of volume, focus, and routing strategy, suggests that the proposed reorganization could have reduced mortality in the sample by 13.43% (95% CI [6.87%; 18.95%]) for routine patients and by 11.67% (95% CI [6.13%; 16.86%]) for the most complex patients. The supplementary material is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3064. This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3064 [Google]
Kim, K., K. Chung and N. Lim (2019): Third-Party Reviews and Quality Provision, Management Science, 65(6), pp.2695-2716
This paper seeks to understand the relational factors that may affect the decisions of both third-party raters and service providers in a setting where service providers compete with one another. We employ laboratory economics experiments to examine how removing anonymity and allowing for repeated interactions between the rater and the service provider impact both the ratings assigned by the rater and the quality levels expended by the service provider. Our methodology enables us to observe the true quality level chosen by a service provider, which allows us to accurately detect any bias in the assessment of the third-party rater. The experimental results show that the decisions of both the rater and the service provider are very sensitive to the relational factors that govern their interaction. When the rater and the service provider know each other’s identities, we observe a high proportion of overrating even though raters earn less monetary rewards for doing so, and the propensity to overrate is even stronger with repeated interactions. Furthermore, the service provider chooses low quality levels. We develop and estimate a model that captures the rater’s psychological trade-off between remaining objective and helping the service provider compete in the marketplace, and the evolution of the service provider’s beliefs about the rater’s preferences. Data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3082. This paper was accepted by Juanjuan Zhang, marketing.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3082 [Google]
