Join us in congratulating the winners for the JSR best paper published in 2020, and the best reviewer and outstanding associate editor of the year, as well as the awards’ finalists!
Best Paper Award Winners
Valarie A. Zeithaml, Katrien Verleye, Isabella Hatak, Monika Koller, and Alexander Zauner (2020), “Three Decades of Customer Value Research: Paradigmatic Roots and Future Research Avenues“
The last three decades have witnessed a resurgence of research on the topic of customer value. In search of a comprehensive integration and analysis of this research—including conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement—we examined the myriad journal publications on the construct. We acknowledge that while some of the literature can be fully integrated, other parts are more difficult because they represent three different paradigms: positivist, interpretive, and social constructionist. We begin by briefly describing these three paradigms. Next, we detail the many studies representing the positivist paradigm, literature capturing customer value from just the customer’s perspective and using deductive logic. We designate the second paradigm as interpretive, in that researchers are interested in understanding the subjective nature of customer value along with its emergence through inductive logic. The third paradigm, the social constructionist, frames customer value as emerging from value co-creation practices in complex ecosystems. Building upon the commonalities and differences among research studies stemming from the positivist, interpretive, and social constructionist paradigms, we propose how researchers can complement one another to move the customer value field forward.
Best Paper Award Finalists
Arne De Keyser, Katrien Verleye, Katherine N. Lemon, Timothy L. Keiningham, and Philipp Klaus (2020) “Moving the Customer Experience Field Forward: Introducing the Touchpoints, Context, Qualities (TCQ) Nomenclature”
In response to initial voices that put the customer experience (management) (CX(M)) movement into question, this article aims to introduce a formal nomenclature to push the CX(M) field toward a more mature state. First, drawing from an inductive analysis of 143 CX(M) papers, the authors identify 12 basic CX components that aggregate into three overarching building blocks— touchpoints (T, i.e., points of interaction between the customer and brand/firm), context (C, i.e., situationally available resources internal and/or external to the customer), and qualities (Q, i.e., attributes that reflect the nature of customer responses and reactions to interactions with the brand/firm). The TCQ nomenclature offers a language to make CX actionable, moving beyond the breadth of the current definition and frameworks by disentangling CX into small bite-sized chunks (i.e., the CX components) that any academic and practitioner, regardless of their discipline, may understand and use to discuss and manage CX. Second, using the TCQ nomenclature, the authors assess the current state of the CX(M) literature and identify mature (e.g., firm- controlled touchpoints and cognitive and emotional qualities associated with CX) and underdeveloped (e.g., nonfirm controlled touchpoints and the market and environmental context in which CX emerges) areas ripe for future research. In addition, they also provide a set of recommendations to strengthen the methodological rigor of the field. Third, the TCQ nomenclature may support managers in auditing their current CXM practices and/or serve as a basis for CX design and innovation.
Markus Blut, Nima Heirati, and Klaus Schoefer (2020), “The Dark Side of Customer Participation: When Customer Participation in Service Co-Development Leads to Role Stress”
While numerous studies have examined the benefits of customer participation (CP), understanding of the dark side of involving customers in service firms’ processes is limited. This study proposes that the changing role of customers who actively participate in service co-development can cause role stress and negative feelings, which may, in turn, reduce customer satisfaction and the perceived value of participation. We develop and test a comprehensive role theory-based framework for CP–role stress. Using a video-based experiment, behavioral lab experiment, and field study, we find that greater CP leads to heightened role stress, including role conflict, role overload, and role ambiguity. These adverse effects occur contingent on customers’ prior participation experience and firm- provided support. Furthermore, role stress effects vary across service co-development types depending on (a) the scope of the task (i.e., open task, closed task) and (b) the beneficiary of participation (i.e., customer, general market). Specifically, adverse effects are stronger for open than for closed tasks, and they also tend to be stronger when the beneficiary is the general market rather than the individual customer. These findings emphasize the need for more cross-context theorizing in CP research. Managers should consider these adverse effects and implement measures that reduce role stress.
Best Reviewer Award
Stephanie Noble, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Best Reviewer Finalists
– Christoph Breidbach, University of Melbourne
– Jennifer Chandler, Cal State Fullerton
– Christian Kowalkowski, Linköping University
– Yves Van Vaerenbergh, KU Leuven
Outstanding Associate Editor Award
Rod Brodie, University of Auckland
Outstanding AE Finalists
– Tom Baker, University of Alabama
– Cheryl Burke-Jarvis, Florida Atlantic University
– Dawn Iacobucci, Vanderbilt University
– Jenny Van Doorn, University of Groningen
