Today we identify service articles published in Marketing, Management, Operations, Productions, Information Systems & Practioner-oriented Journals in the last months.
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Shin, M., J. Shin, S. Ghili and J. Kim (2023): The Impact of the Gig Economy on Product Quality Through the Labor Market: Evidence from Ridesharing and Restaurant Quality, Management Science, 69(3405), pp.2620-2638
This paper seeks to demonstrate the impact of the gig economy on product quality in seemingly unrelated local industries through the labor market. Our empirical context is the quality of service for restaurants in the city of Austin, and we examine how they were impacted by the exogenous exit and reentry of rideshare platforms, Uber and Lyft, because of regulatory changes. We leverage these exogenous shocks and combine them with sentiment-analyzed data from Yelp reviews that capture how customers assess the quality of service at each restaurant. We show that, compared with control cities, customers in Austin become more negative about service quality when Uber and Lyft are present in the city. Additionally, we use rich data on employee turnover and wages to demonstrate that service staff turnover increases in Austin when Uber and Lyft are present compared with the control cities. We also conduct several additional studies and robustness checks that are all congruent with our hypothesis that Uber and Lyft lower the quality of service in Austin restaurants by raising their staff turnover. Together, these results suggest significant ramifications of the gig economy on the broader industries through the labor market. This paper was This paper was accepted by Matt Shum, marketing. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4481.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4481 [Google]
van Pinxteren, M. M. E., M. Pluymaekers, J. Lemmink and A. Krispin (2023): Effects of communication style on relational outcomes in interactions between customers and embodied conversational agents, Psychology & Marketing, 40(3406), pp.938-953
Conversational agents are increasingly used to substitute or augment human service employees. Due to their ability to use human‐like communicative behaviors, these agents are theorized to establish social connections with customers. However, the existing literature is ambiguous on how conversational agents should verbally communicate with customers and whether they should be adaptive to customers’ verbal behavior. The current study aims to address these gaps, by focusing on the effects of the conversational agent’s communication style on the perceived social connection. Two experiments were conducted in which a virtual agent in a hedonic service (Experiment 1) or a utilitarian service (Experiment 2) was manipulated to adapt either a static task‐ or a social‐oriented communication style or mimic the communication style used by the customer in the previous turn. Guided by marketing and human–computer interaction literature, measures for engagement and rapport were used to reveal customers’ perceived social connection. Results show that for the hedonic service, rapport was significantly affected by the presence of social cues in the agent’s communication style (whether statically or mimicked), while engagement was significantly affected by mimicry. For the utilitarian service, only social cues significantly affected rapport. These findings enrich the Computers As Social Actors paradigm and provide clear guidelines for practitioners.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21792 [Google]
Garbas, J., M. Blaurock, M. Büttgen and Z. Ates (2023): How can customers cope with cognitive demands of professional services? The role of employee coping support, Psychology & Marketing, 40(3407), pp.867-887
Even though researchers are increasingly acknowledging the dark side of customer participation (i.e., behavioral customer engagement), particularly in professional services with high cognitive demands that cause customer participation stress (i.e., negative psychological state resulting from the customer’s overextension by required customer participation efforts), insights on how firms can effectively mitigate customer participation stress remains limited. Building on transactional stress theory, we investigate whether customers can effectively cope with the expected cognitive demands of professional services. Moreover, by introducing an adapted coping construct (i.e., coping support), we examine whether employees can provide coping support to help decrease customer participation stress. The findings of a time‐lagged field study with customers of a large German bank (N = 117) suggest that customer coping before the encounter cannot mitigate the effect of anticipated cognitive demands on customer participation stress. Instead, the results of both the field study and a follow‐up experimental study (N = 218) show that a certain set of employee coping support during service encounters is crucial. While focusing on action coping support is not ideal in situations with high cognitive demands, firms should advise their professional service employees to offer emotional coping support to attenuate the unfavorable effect of cognitive demands on customer participation stress.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21788 [Google]
Temerak, M. S., R. W. Zhang and C. R. Lages (2023): Observing customer stress and engagement: An intercultural perspective, Psychology & Marketing, 40(3408), pp.910-925
Since observing customers outnumber focal customers in most service interactions, service managers aim to engage them despite triggers, such as service incivility. This research contributes to the understanding of the role of stress in observing customers’ engagement (CE). It answers two RQs: (1) What is the relationship between their stress and engagement?; (2) What are the triggers of stress? Since ethnically different people pay different levels of attention to contextual and social factors, two sequential scenario‐based experiments are adopted to study two triggers of stress (i.e., availability of information about an incivility incident, and ethnic similarity between the observing customer and the mistreated employee), which impacts CE in an intercultural service encounter. Study 1 compares being exposed to full versus partial information and demonstrates that full information about the incivility incident increases observers’ psychological stress, which reduces their behavioral and emotional engagement. Study 2 compares how white and black observers react to ethnic similarity between the observing customer and the mistreated employee. Results show that incivility triggers outward psychological stress in white and black observers. In turn, black observers’ outward stress reduces their behavioral engagement, while white observers’ behavioral engagement is reduced by both their inward and outward stress.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21791 [Google]
Robertson, N., J. Rotman, L. McQuilken and A. Ringer (2023): The customer is often wrong: Investigating the influence of customer failures and apologies on frontline service employee well‐being, Psychology & Marketing, 40(3409), pp.825-844
A well‐established research area is service failure and recovery. Nevertheless, the considerable service failures generated by customers, or customer failures, surprisingly remain relatively underexplored. Specifically, customer failures have a detrimental effect on frontline service employee well‐being, which has not been investigated. We advance that a customer apology can alleviate this by customers taking the blame for their failures. We present three studies that investigate this phenomenon. In Study 1, applying the critical incident technique, we develop a taxonomy of customer failures and find evidence of their negative influence on (frontline) service employee well‐being, which can be offset by customer apologies and perceived supervisor support. In Studies 2 and 3, using a scenario‐based experiment, we triangulate the Study 1 results by testing the relationship between customer apology (Study 2) and its interacting relationship with perceived supervisor support (Study 3) on service employee well‐being following a customer failure. While customer apologies have a positive impact on well‐being, interestingly, when perceived supervisor support is lacking, this washes out the positive effect of a customer apology and similarly, perceived supervisor support nullifies the negative effect of the customer not apologizing for their failure. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21789 [Google]
Shen, M., S. Gao and H. Wang (2023): The effect of social crowding on self‐perceived health risks in healthcare services, Psychology & Marketing, 40(3410), pp.845-862
Overcrowding in healthcare environments (e.g., hospitals) has become a widely identified problem in today’s healthcare. This research documents whether and how social crowding affects consumers’ self‐perceived health risks in healthcare environments and its downstream effect. One pilot study (secondary data analysis), seven laboratory experiments, and a field survey (Study 6) demonstrated that social crowding increased individuals’ self‐perceived health risks through a lack of control (Studies 1–6), thereby leading to overspending on the healthcare products (Study 5). Furthermore, the mediating process was moderated by choice and disease symptom severity (Studies 3 and 4). The findings of this research theoretically enrich our understanding of how social crowding interacts with individual disease symptoms and the services provided in the healthcare environment, and practically provide important implications for healthcare practitioners in managing consumers’ health risks and consumption behavior.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21771 [Google]
Culiberg, B., I. Abosag and B. Čater (2023): Psychological contract breach and opportunism in the sharing economy: Examining the platform-provider relationship, Industrial Marketing Management, 111(3411), pp.189-201
In the sharing economy market, B2B relationships between service providers and sharing economy platforms are largely built on the platforms’ promise of ensuring a successful sharing experience, which is not always delivered. Moreover, platforms have the opportunity to take advantage of their dominant positions in the market. Despite the growing number of studies on the dark side of the sharing economy, little is known about psychological contract breach and opportunism in the context of B2B platforms. Building on these notions, this study set out to examine the determinants of individual service providers’ relationship with a sharing economy platform using psychological contract theory. The study was conducted in the UK on a sample of 252 Airbnb hosts who were recruited through an online consumer panel. The results show that psychological contract breach is an important construct within platform B2B relationships which increases feelings of violation and reduces trust. Furthermore, perceived opportunism was found to be negatively related to feelings of violation. These feelings contribute positively to negative word-of-mouth, while trust leads to continuance intentions. In addition, the indirect effects of opportunism on negative word-of-mouth and of psychological contract breach on continuance intentions were confirmed. • Psychological contract breach increases feelings of violation and reduces trust. • Perceived opportunism is negatively related to feelings of violation. • Feelings of violation contribute positively to negative word-of-mouth. • Opportunism indirectly effects negative word-of-mouth. • Psychological contract breach indirectly effects continuance intentions.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2023.04.007 [Google]
Deshpande, V. and P. K. Pendem (2023): Logistics Performance, Ratings, and Its Impact on Customer Purchasing Behavior and Sales in E-Commerce Platforms, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 25(3412), pp.827-845
Problem definition: We examine the impact of logistics performance metrics such as delivery time and customer’s requested delivery speed on logistics service ratings and third-party sellers’ sales on an e-commerce platform. Academic/practical relevance: Although e-commerce retailers like Amazon have recently invested heavily in their logistics networks to provide faster delivery to customers, there is scant academic literature that tests and quantifies the premise that convenient and fast delivery will drive sales. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence on whether this relationship holds in practice by analyzing a mechanism that connects delivery performance to sales through logistics ratings. Prior academic work on online ratings in e-commerce platforms has mostly analyzed customers’ response to product functional performance and biases that exist within. Our study contributes to this stream of literature by examining customer experience from a service quality perspective by analyzing logistics service performance, logistics ratings, and its impact on customer purchase probability and sales. Methodology: Using an extensive data set of more than 15 million customer orders on the Tmall platform and Cainiao network (logistics arm of Alibaba), we use the Heckman ordered regression model to explain the variation in customers’ rating of logistics performance and the likelihood of customers posting a logistics rating. Next, we develop a generic customer choice model that links the customer’s likelihood of making a purchase to the logistics ratings provided by prior customers. We implement a two-step estimation of the choice model to quantify the impact of logistics ratings on customer purchase probability and third-party seller sales. Results: We surprisingly find that even customers with no promise on delivery speed are likely to post lower logistics ratings for delivery times longer than two days. Although these customers are not promised an explicit delivery deadline, they seem to have a mental threshold of two days and expect deliveries to be made within that time. Similarly, we find that priority customers (those with two-day and one-day promise speed) provide lower logistics ratings for delivery times longer than their anticipated delivery date. We estimate that reducing the delivery time of all three-day delivered orders on this platform (which makeup ≈ 35% of the total orders) to two days would improve the average daily third-party seller sales by 13.3% on this platform. The impact of delivery time performance on sales is more significant for sellers with a higher percentage of three-day delivered orders and a higher spend per order. Managerial implications: Our study emphasizes that delivery performance and logistics ratings, which measure service quality, are essential drivers of the customer purchase decision on e-commerce platforms. Furthermore, by quantifying the impact of delivery time performance on sales, our study also provides a framework for online retailers to assess if the increase in sales because of improved logistics performance can offset the increase in additional infrastructure costs required for faster deliveries. Our study’s insights are relevant to third-party sellers and e-commerce platform managers who aim to improve long-term online customer traffic and sales. History: This paper has been accepted as part of the 2018 MSOM Data Driven Research Challenge. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2021.1045.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/msom.2021.1045 [Google]
Bray, R. L. (2023): Operational Transparency: Showing When Work Gets Done, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 25(3413), pp.812-826
Problem definition: Do the benefits of operational transparency depend on when the work is done? Academic/practical relevance: This work connects the operations management literature on operational transparency with the psychology literature on the peak-end effect. Methodology: This study examines how customers respond to operational transparency with parcel delivery data from the Cainiao Network, the logistics arm of Alibaba. The sample comprises 4.68 million deliveries. Each delivery has between 4 and 10 track-package activities, which customers can check in real time, and a delivery service score, which customers leave after receiving the package. Instrumental-variable regressions quantify the causal effect of track-package-activity times on delivery scores. Results: The regressions suggest that customers punish early idleness less than late idleness, leaving higher delivery service scores when track-package activities cluster toward the end of the shipping horizon. For example, if a shipment takes 100 hours, then delaying the time of the average action from hour 20 to hour 80 increases the expected delivery score by approximately the same amount as expediting the arrival time from hour 100 to hour 73. Managerial implications: Memory limitations make customers especially sensitive to how service operations end. History: This paper has been accepted as part of the 2018 MSOM Data Driven Research Challenge.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/msom.2020.0899 [Google]
Agarwal, S., D. Mani and R. Telang (2023): The Impact of Ride-Hailing Services on Congestion: Evidence from Indian Cities, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 25(3414), pp.862-883
Problem definition: Early research has documented significant growth in ride-hailing services worldwide and allied benefits. However, growing evidence of their negative externalities is leading to significant policy scrutiny. Despite demonstrated socioeconomic benefits and consumer surplus worth billions of dollars, cities are choosing to curb these services in a bid to mitigate first order urban mobility problems. Existing studies on the congestion effects of ride-hailing are limited, report mixed evidence, and exclusively focus on the United States, where the supply consists primarily of part-time drivers. Methodology/results: We study how the absence of ride-hailing services affects congestion levels in three major cities in India, a market where most ride-hailing drivers participate full time. Using rich real-time traffic and route trajectory data from Google Maps, we show that in, all three cities, periods of ride-hailing unavailability due to driver strikes see a discernible drop in travel time. The effects are largest for the most congested regions during the busiest hours, which see 10.1%–14.8% reduction in travel times. Additionally, we provide suggestive evidence for some of the mechanisms behind the observed effects, including deadheading elimination, substitution with public transit, and opening up of shorter alternative routes. Managerial implications: These results suggest that despite their paltry modal share, ride-hailing vehicles are substituting more sustainable means of transport and are contributing significantly to congestion in the cities studied. The reported effect sizes quantify the maximum travel time gains that can be expected on curbing them. Funding: This work was supported by the Srini Raju Center for Information Technology and the Networked Economy at Indian School of Business. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2022.1158.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/msom.2022.1158 [Google]
Bolton, G. E., S. Bonzelet, T. Stangl and U. W. Thonemann (2023): Decision making under service‐level contracts: The role of cost saliency, Production & Operations Management, 32(3415), pp.1243-1261
This study examines human ordering behavior in service‐level inventory contracts, a class of contracts important in practice. Studies of wholesale price contracts find that people tend to place orders that are suboptimal and biased toward mean demand. Unlike wholesale price contracts, service‐level contracts can be parameterized such that they have steep expected profit functions, making the expected profit‐maximizing order more salient, in the sense that deviations from optimal ordering are more costly. Utilizing an analytical model and results from existing literature, we hypothesize that people will order closer to optimality under service‐level contracts with steeper expected profit functions. In a laboratory experiment, we find that subjects achieve up to 97.2% supply chain efficiency under a steep service‐level contract, compared with 92.2% under a flat service‐level contract, and steep service contract ordering also exhibits lower variability. Our results suggest that managers can benefit by designing service‐level contracts with higher penalty costs and lower fill rates.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.13925 [Google]
Wang, L., N. Huang, Y. Hong, L. Liu, X. Guo and G. Chen (2023): Voice‐based AI in call center customer service: A natural field experiment, Production & Operations Management, 32(3416), pp.1002-1018
Voice‐based artificial intelligence (AI) systems have been recently deployed to replace traditional interactive voice response (IVR) systems in call center customer service. However, there is little evidence that sheds light on how the implementation of AI systems impacts customer behavior, as well as AI systems’ effects on call center customer service performance. By leveraging the proprietary data obtained from a natural field experiment in a large telecommunication company, we examine how the introduction of a voice‐based AI system affects call length, customers’ demand for human service, and customer complaints in call center customer service. We find that the implementation of the AI system temporarily increases the duration of machine service and customers’ demand for human service; however, it persistently reduces customer complaints. Furthermore, our results reveal interesting heterogeneity in the effectiveness of the voice‐based AI system. For relatively simple service requests, the AI system reduces customer complaints for both experienced and inexperienced customers. However, for complex requests, customers appear to learn from the prior experience of interacting with the AI system, which leads to fewer complaints. Moreover, the AI‐based system has a significantly larger effect on reducing customer complaints for older and female customers as well as for customers who have had extensive experience using the IVR system. Finally, we find that speech‐recognition failures in customer‐AI interactions lead to increases in customers’ demand for human service and customer complaints. The results from this study provide implications for the implementation of an AI system in call center operations.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.13953 [Google]
Duhaylongsod, J. B., F. Papier and A. Onculer (2023): Reference‐dependent preferences in flat penalty service‐level contracts, Journal of Operations Management, (3417), pp.1
This paper investigates a supply chain governed by a flat penalty service‐level contract in which missing the target fill rate can lead to costly operational disruption. We focus on near‐miss bias: (1) the preference for near‐miss events, that is, risky production quantities that reach the target but narrowly avoid disruption; and (2) riskier decision‐making due to such preferences. We propose a reference‐dependent behavioral model that explains the near‐miss bias. The findings of a laboratory experiment show that production quantities are evaluated based on realized profits and are below the optimal model prediction. Contracts associated with lower perceived severity, that is, the ratio of flat penalty to wholesale price, result in lower production quantities than those with higher perceived severity, even though the standard model does not predict any effect. A structural estimation analysis indicates that the behavioral model performs better than the standard model in terms of predictive accuracy and goodness of fit. Our analysis provides insights for managers who design supply chain contracts in settings with considerable risk of disruption due to a shortage of critical parts.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joom.1251 [Google]
Mahavarpour, N., R. Marvi and P. Foroudi (2023): A brief history of service innovation: The evolution of past, present, and future service innovation, Journal of Business Research, 160(3418), pp.N.PAG-N.PAG
Service innovation emerged more than a decade ago and is considered as the main source of competitive advantage between the market and firms. Due to the growing attention to service innovation in recent years, this study investigates the phenomenon of service innovation in greater depth to understand how service innovation has emerged, evolved, and how it will potentially advance. Considering a systematic investigation, the foundational research areas and historical development of service innovation are explored by conducting a comprehensive performance analysis (qualitative and quantitative) employing 255 articles published in two periods between 1970 and 2021. The results revealed four distinguishable clusters with each showing different characteristics of the service innovation domain including: resource focus, process focus, solution focus, and actors’ focus. In particular, we analyse which research streams are related to service innovation and compare these themes over time. The findings show that the major themes in the first period (1992–2014) included innovation, customer, service, and product, while the second period (2014–2021) encompassed service, customer, value, and information as the main themes. This paper supports the assertion that service innovation has an interdisciplinary theoretical foundation and that the structure of the foundation of service innovation research changed significantly over time.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113795 [Google]
Hakkarainen, T. and A. Colicev (2023): Blockchain-enabled advances (BEAs): Implications for consumers and brands, Journal of Business Research, 160(3419), pp.N.PAG-N.PAG
Blockchain-enabled advances (BEAs) are state-of-the-art innovations based on blockchain technology. Recent years have witnessed the proliferation of the four BEAs: smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, play-to-earn games, and non-fungible tokens. These BEAs have implications for the marketing field as they affect consumers and brands. We propose a novel theoretical framework that articulates how the principles that underpin BEAs can impact consumers and then explains how brands can use BEAs to innovate their products and services. The core principles of blockchain technology, as well as enhanced digital connectivity, imply that consumers can become more in control of their data and privacy rights, responsible for their choices, and digitally connected. To cater to consumers, brands can use BEAs to roll out technology-focused service innovations, customer-focused service innovations, and product innovations. Based on this perspective, we then advance ten future research questions. This article aims to advance the nascent field of blockchain in marketing.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113763 [Google]
Qi, J., S. Wang and K. K. Lindsey Hall (2023): Bridging employee engagement and customer engagement in a service context, Journal of Business Research, 160(3420), pp.N.PAG-N.PAG
Grounded in social exchange theory and service logic, this study investigates how customers’ evaluations of service experiences and interactions with employees and the resulting customer gratitude toward the firm mediate the positive relationship between employee engagement (EE) and customer engagement (CE). Using data from 423 employee–customer dyads, this study demonstrates that customer perceived value and employee–customer rapport serve as significant dual mediators between EE and customer gratitude toward the firm, which subsequently leads to CE. These findings advance the engagement literature by offering more granular evidence of mechanisms through which EE promotes CE, affording several insights for theory and practice.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113803 [Google]
Berry, C. and K. Douglas Hoffman (2023): Communicating intent: Effects of employer-controlled tipping strategy disclosures on tip amount and firm evaluations, Journal of Business Research, 160(3421), pp.N.PAG-N.PAG
Drawing from attribution theory and extant research on disclosure of firm actions, a conceptual framework is developed for the effects of disclosures communicating employer-controlled tipping strategies. In four experiments, the direct and indirect effects of disclosures pertaining to restaurant ownership of tips on tip amount, repatronage intentions, attitude toward the firm, and perceptions of the firm’s concern for employee well-being are examined. Disclosures providing additional rationale that management is utilizing tips to pay a living wage, as well as the level of service, are found to moderate these effects. Findings contribute to marketing communications (i.e., disclosures) and public policy literatures and have implications for marketing communications, firm management, and federal and state-level tipping policymakers.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113752 [Google]
Sakiyama, R., W. Dony Dahana, C. Baumann and M. Ye (2023): Cross-industrial study on satisfaction-commitment-PWOM linkage: The role of competition, consumption visibility, and service relationship, Journal of Business Research, 160(3422), pp.N.PAG-N.PAG
[Display omitted] • Stoichiometrically controlled synthesis of seven– and eight–coordinate complexes, [Ln(fod) 3 (im)] and [Ln(fod) 3 (im) 2 ] is presented. • The photoluminescence of the complexes reveals that the seven–coordinate display extensive stark splitting of emission transitions and longer lifetime of the excited states than their corresponding eight–coordinate complexes. • It has been shown that the asymmetry of the ligand field could have profound effects on the luminescence properties (emission intensity, radiative lifetime, quantum yield and stark splitting of the emission transitions) of a lanthanide complex. • Bright red emission is observed for the samarium and europium complexes, while the terbium complexes emit green. This study investigates how industry characteristics affect the relationships between customer satisfaction, commitment, and positive word-of-mouth (PWOM) intention. Specifically, it examines the moderating roles of competition, consumption visibility (private or public), and service relationship (contractual or noncontractual) within the satisfaction-commitment-PWOM linkage. A theoretical model was developed and validated by analyzing large-scale survey data encompassing 174,719 customer responses across 40 industries using the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. As expected, we found that customer satisfaction positively affects PWOM intention. However, the impact was more pronounced in industries with lower competition intensity, higher consumption visibility, and longer service relationship, whereas the link between commitment and PWOM appears to be the same across industries. These findings suggest that industry characteristics should be addressed in WOM research, and uniform marketing methods should not be implemented in practice, as there are differences in WOM generation mechanisms in different industries.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113715 [Google]
Manohar, S., J. Paul, C. Strong and A. Mittal (2023): INNOSERV: Generalized scale for perceived service innovation, Journal of Business Research, 160(3423), pp.N.PAG-N.PAG
Existing scales for Service Innovation focused mostly on technological newness in firms where the non-technological components were ignored. This study emphasizes the need for measures that could include both technological and non-technological constructs from customer perspective across a range of sectors. Mixed Method approach was adopted where qualitative techniques like in-depth interview, focus group discussion were used for item generation and purification followed by quantitative tests like PCA, EFA and path analysis to establish the item validation. A 22 items scale named INNOSERV with seven major typologies that measure service innovation was developed. Theoretically this study helps in emphasizing the importance of considering non-technological innovation to be viewed while measuring performance by the service industry. Managerially, the scale could be adopted by the service industry in understanding how their customers perceive or diffuse their innovation activity. For society, this scale organization understands that non-technological innovation also plays a major role in contributing to economic, social and environmental sustainability. This study highlights the need for exclusive approaches, theories and measurement tools which are essential to be defined in the service sector.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113723 [Google]
Jia, Y., J. Su, L. Cui, L. Wu and K. Hua Tan (2023): Platform business model innovation in the digitalization era: A “driver-process-result” perspective, Journal of Business Research, 160(3424), pp.N.PAG-N.PAG
In the digitalization era, business model innovation (BMI) has become the critical keystone for platforms to gain a sustainable competitive advantage in turbulent environments. However, platform BMI is currently not clearly understood. Through a longitudinal case study of a Chinese financial service platform, this paper integratively addresses issues related to platform BMI in terms of drivers, change process, and value co-creation dynamics based on the “driver-process-result” perspective. The findings indicate that platform BMI type experiences a change process from Focus BMI to Complex BMI at different development stages. At different stages, platform BMI is highly interconnected because of the continuous accumulation and utilization of digital resources. The two drivers, external pressure and management cognition, act as trigger and filter, respectively, in the process of platform BMI. These results also suggest that platforms have successively formed three different value co-creation models in the BMI process.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113818 [Google]
Struwe, S. and D. Slepniov (2023): Unlocking digital servitization: A conceptualization of value co-creation capabilities, Journal of Business Research, 160(3425), pp.N.PAG-N.PAG
Industrial and service firms alike are increasingly adopting digital servitization to achieve service-driven growth and establish a competitive advantage. Firms must develop sufficient capabilities to benefit from digital servitization, which is an underinvestigated topic in the literature. This study contributes to bridging this gap by taking a service-dominant logic (SDL) perspective and focusing on value co-creation capabilities in B2B firms that offer digital service platforms and services based on them. It draws on a multiple-case study design involving leading cases from sectors such as manufacturing, engineering and shipping. The findings identify a set of four value co-creation capabilities: digital literacy, aligning, reflecting and coping. Moreover, this study highlights how these capabilities can facilitate value co-creation in the context of digital servitization initiatives. For managers, the findings provide insights into what characterizes value co-creation capabilities in digital servitization and why, how and when these capabilities are relevant.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113825 [Google]
Zou, Y., A. C. R. van Riel, S. Streukens and J. Bloemer (2023): Wanted! Investigating how elements from the personal usage context affect Gen Z consumers’ value-in-use experience and engagement with mobile service, Journal of Business Research, 160(3426), pp.N.PAG-N.PAG
• Gen Z evaluate mobile self-service apps considering the personal usage context. • Service innovation should consider the personal usage context of self-service apps. • Challenges in the usage context increase perceived value of self-service apps. • Context-determined conditional value increases engagement with apps in Gen Z. For Gen Z, mobile apps largely equal ‘self-service’. App vendors must understand key determinants of these users’ value-in-use experience and customer engagement. Recent research highlights how usage context co-determines value-in-use experience. In this article, how the personal usage context affects app evaluation is theorized and empirically investigated. Hypotheses about effects of three relevant service intensifiers, i.e., perceived task complexity, uncertainty, and time pressure on value-in-use and customer engagement are experimentally investigated. Conditional value is proposed as a mediator. Results show that value-in-use experience, and ensuing engagement with a service are contingent on conditional value, which is informed by two of the investigated context elements and their interaction effect. The theoretical implications of how usage context impacts value-in-use and engagement are provided. Findings allow service vendors to improve their services by considering the personal usage context of Gen Z. Limitations of the study are discussed and an agenda for further research is provided.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113824 [Google]
