Today we identify service articles published in Marketing, Management, Operations, Productions, Information Systems & Practioner-oriented Journals in the last months.
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Ferras-Hernández, X., P. A. Nylund and A. Brem (2023): The Emergence of Dominant Designs in Artificial Intelligence, California Management Review, 65(3507), pp.73-91
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are engaged in a harsh battle for market dominance. This article examines the emergence of a dominant design in terms of technology, service, and business model innovation. We conduct a theoretical synthesis of the literature on industrial organization, technology management, network economics, operations management, and strategic management—with the implications of each theory related to the dominant-design battle in AI. The findings indicate a dominant design for AI will be based on innovation concerning business models as much as on technology, and that the dominant business model will include AI as a service.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00081256231164362 [Google]
Antonetti, P. and I. Baghi (2023): Projecting lower competence to boost apology effectiveness: Underlying mechanism and boundary conditions, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 51(3531), pp.695-715
Apologies represent a common strategy to respond to crises or product/service failures. In five experiments, involving different failures, we show that projecting lower competence in a specific, non-core domain of activity provides a significant boost to apology effectiveness. A projection of lower competence, operationalized as a lack of skills or expertise required to effectively execute a specific task, increases the perceived costliness of the apology because the organization accepts a symbolic cost. Perceived costliness, in turn, increases the perceived sincerity of the apology and leads to more favorable responses. This strategy, however, is effective only under certain circumstances and can backfire if misapplied. First, organizations might project lower competence only when stakeholders have no other reason to question their competence. Second, projecting lower competence is effective only when the failure is not relevant to the core business. Finally, the strategy is not effective for consumers with low communal relationship orientation.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11747-022-00903-5 [Google]
Trujillo-Torres, L., E. Anlamlier, L. Mimoun, L. Chatterjee and D. Dion (2023): Access-based customer journeys, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, (3532), pp.1-20
Despite the popularity of access-based platforms, the understanding of customer journeys remains anchored in traditional market contexts that overlook prosumers’ extended value-chain roles, interconnected experiences, and instrumental sociality in access-based consumption. Using a qualitative study on the access-based platform Rent the Runway, the authors discuss the nature of customer journeys in access-based platforms and showcase how customers perform these journeys. The study reveals two key elements: (1) systemic dynamics, which encompass just-in-time circularity and tightly coupled customer interdependencies, and (2) job crafting, which involves customer work practices that allow pain point avoidance, circulation flow adjustments, and journey stickiness increases. Job crafting can create unpredictable disruptions in other customer journeys and affect systemic flows. This investigation expands research on customer experience management and journey design by developing an access-based platform journey model differentiated from ownership- and service-based platform models, showcasing its systemic instability dynamics, and elaborating how to manage these customer journeys.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11747-023-00942-6 [Google]
Scott, M. L., S. A. Bone, G. L. Christensen, A. Lederer, M. Mende, B. G. Christensen and M. Cozac (2023): Revealing and Mitigating Racial Bias and Discrimination in Financial Services, Journal of Marketing Research, (3523), pp.2.2243723118e+14
Three field studies and a laboratory experiment reveal racial discrimination in financial loan services. The results show that (1) service employees provide Black (vs. White) customers with inferior service outcomes (i.e., products offered), (2) Black (vs. White) customers experience inferior service processes (employees? warmth/competence), and (3) Black (vs. White) customers report lower loyalty intentions toward the firm. Such discrimination is not only morally wrong and illegal; it is also bad for business. Therefore, the authors also show when and why racial discrimination is mitigated: namely, when Black customers signal higher socioeconomic status, or a Black customer’s company (for which they seek the loan) has a more complex and sophisticated legal structure (corporation vs. sole proprietorship). Exploring this mitigation effect further, the authors show that a more sophisticated business structure increases the employee’s trust toward Black customers, which reduces the perceived default likelihood and increases the likelihood to offer a loan; yet, this process does not emerge for White applicants. The findings point to managerial and policy implications to mitigate racial discrimination.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00222437231176470 [Google]
Guo, L. (2023): Overage Charge or Loyalty Discount: When Should Extra Consumptions Be Penalized or Rewarded?, Marketing Science, 42(3537), pp.614-633
Firms can design tariffs with either an overage charge or a loyalty discount (but not both) to sequentially screen consumers who are heterogenous in consumption value distribution and demand frequency. It is prevalent in many markets that customers are provided menus of tariffs with usage-dependent marginal prices. One instance of such a nonlinear pricing scheme is additional payments on excess consumptions (e.g., overage charge, late fee, and add-on charge for ancillary features or services). Conversely, firms may offer loyalty credit for repeated purchases or consumptions (e.g., quantity discount contracts and redemption points or mileage in reward programs). Interestingly, both increasing and diminishing marginal prices may exist across and within markets but not concurrently on a menu. In this paper, we present a new perspective on whether and when firms should penalize or reward extra consumptions. We consider the standard problem of how a monopoly firm may design a menu of tariffs to sequentially screen consumers with multiple-period consumptions who are heterogenous in consumption value distribution and demand frequency. To relinquish less information rent to the high-type consumers, the optimal design should involve a tariff with increasing (diminishing) marginal price when the demand frequency of the high-value consumers is above or sufficiently lower (slightly lower) than that of the low-value consumers. This general pattern continues to hold under alternative settings on consumer heterogeneity and on uncertainty resolution about multiple-unit demand. History: K. Sudhir served as the senior editor and Sanjay Jain served as associate editor for this article.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2022.1391 [Google]
Bone, S. A., G. L. Christensen, J. D. Williams, S. N. N. Cross and S. Dellande (2022): Moving beyond Perceptions: Examining Service Disparities among Consumers, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 8(3533), pp.107-119
AbstractDiscrimination in service encounters with underrepresented ethnoracial (UER) consumers is especially challenging to identify and remediate when the behavior is microaggressive. Such subtle behaviors often cause harm, even if recipients do not perceive them. Affected individuals may become desensitized, indifferent, or even accepting of this inferior treatment. In this research, we measure and compare actual and perceived service between providers and ethnoracial (ER) consumers. In the context of banking, study 1 of three compares satisfaction ratings across ER consumers (UER and White) and examines actual behaviors of employees across video recordings of service encounters. Study 2 employs a video scenario experiment to demonstrate how ER consumer perceptions differ in evaluating the same encounter. In study 3, subjects evaluate positive and negative service encounters. Our findings show that if actual service is objectively measured, then managers and policy makers will be able to identify and address undetected instances of discrimination.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/722689 [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(3508), 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]
Chen, R. R., E. Gerstner, D. Halbheer and P. Roma (2023): Managing service shutdowns: Cash refunds or vouchers?, International Journal of Research in Marketing, 40(3512), pp.294-315
Service shutdowns—extended disruptions of operations—caused by exogenous events are on the rise. Such shutdowns pose major challenges for service providers, customers, and regulators. Providers prefer vouchers as a means of service recovery to limit bankruptcy risk, whereas customers demand cash refunds or vouchers that include a generous bonus. Regulators, on the other hand, insist that customers must be granted the right to be reimbursed in cash. This paper shows that a zero bonus is optimal under the voucher-only strategy, whereas the provider should always include a positive bonus with the voucher under the hybrid strategy that allows customers to choose between the cash refund and voucher options. Surprisingly, despite its higher flexibility in service recovery design, the hybrid strategy can be dominated by the voucher-only strategy in terms of profit and welfare. Moreover, we show that the ranking of strategies differs across the two important dimensions of expected profit and survival under shutdown. Finally, we study competition among providers and show that a high-quality provider is more likely to use cash-back as the service recovery strategy than its low-quality competitor.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2022.11.002 [Google]
Hutzinger, C. and W. J. Weitzl (2023): Double jeopardy: effects of inter-failures and webcare on (un-)committed online complainants’ revenge, Internet Research, 33(3513), pp.19-45
Purpose The purpose of this research is the exploration of online complainants’ revenge based on their consumer-brand relationship strength and received webcare. The authors introduce inter-failures (i.e. the perceived number of earlier independent service failures that a customer has experienced with the same brand involved in the current service failure) as the central frame condition. Design/methodology/approach To test our hypotheses, both a scenario-based online experiment (n = 316) and an online survey (n = 492) were conducted. Findings With an increasing number of inter-failures, online complainants with a high-relationship strength move from the “love is blind” effect (no inter-failures) to the “love becomes hate” effect (multiple inter-failures), when they ultimately become more revengeful than their low-relationship strength counterparts. In addition, the authors show that in the case of no or few inter-failures, accommodative webcare has a lasting positive effect over no/defensive webcare for both low- and high-relationship complainants. More importantly, however, when consumers have experienced multiple inter-failures, accommodative webcare becomes ineffective (for low-relationship complainants) or boomerangs by cultivating revenge towards the brand (among high-relationship complainants), but not strategic avoidance. Research limitations/implications The findings have pronounced implications for the literature on customer–brand relationships following service failures and the literature, which predominantly emphasizes the unconditionally positive effects of accommodative webcare. Originality/value This study is the first that simultaneously considers the prior customer–brand relationship, inter-failures and webcare to explain online complainants’ revenge.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/INTR-02-2022-0115 [Google]
Caruelle, D., L. Lervik-Olsen and A. Gustafsson (2023): The clock is ticking—Or is it? Customer satisfaction response to waiting shorter vs. longer than expected during a service encounter, Journal of Retailing, 99(3527), pp.247-264
• Customers are very satisfied with waiting shorter than expected. • Customers are relatively indifferent to waiting slightly longer than expected. • When waiting much longer than expected, customers become more dissatisfied. Customer waits are commonplace in retail settings. To develop efficient wait management strategies, retailers need insights into how customers respond to waiting during service encounters. An intuitive insight supported by extensive research is that a longer wait duration decreases customer satisfaction. However, the same wait duration might have different effects on customers depending on whether it is shorter or longer than what customers expected. To address this question, we draw upon the research on time value and predict asymmetry in the customer satisfaction response to waiting shorter versus longer than expected: Though the clock is often said to be ticking, waiting longer than expected leads to a minor decrease in satisfaction, whereas waiting shorter than expected substantially increases satisfaction. We provide evidence for this asymmetric effect across three studies and identify two boundary conditions: if the source of the expectation is external (e.g., wait time estimate provided by the retailer) or if the wait is much longer than expected. Overall, our research encourages retailers to put the customer response to waiting into perspective: Customers will tolerate waiting longer than expected, up to a certain point. [Display omitted]
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2023.03.003 [Google]
Marder, B., R. Angell and E. Boyd (2023): How and why (imagined) online reviews impact frontline retail encounters, Journal of Retailing, 99(3528), pp.265-279
• Retail frontline employees often think customers might review encounters online. • This spurs “above and beyond” service for the customer during the encounter. • This occurs because the employees experience a rise in determination. • Retailers can harness these effects by socializing an online review orientation. This research examines how frontline retail employees respond to customers whom they think might write an online review about their experience. Across six experiments (one field and five online) we show that when employees identify potential online review authors, often by what the customer says or does, it catalyzes them to deliver better service. This ensues because they experience a rise in determination to do well, motivated by the prospect of being associated with a positive review, which they believe will impress the retailer. Thus, they go ‘above and beyond’. However, determination is tempered by two boundary conditions. When employees (i) do not consider that being associated with an online review is beneficial (i.e., not goal relevant) or (ii) feel poorly equipped to serve the customer (i.e., low in self-efficacy), then a better service delivery will not occur. We also show that retailers can enhance customer service through internal championing of the importance of online reviews, so long as this is framed as promotional rather than punitive. [Display omitted]
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2023.03.004 [Google]
Sok, K. M., T. S. Danaher and P. Sok (2023): Multiple psychological climates and employee self-regulatory focus: Implications for frontline employee work behavior and service performance, Journal of Retailing, 99(3529), pp.228-246
• Different FLEs will thrive or languish under different psychological climates. • Psychological climate affects FLE performance via different FLE work behaviors. • Employee’s regulatory focus moderates the effect of climate on FLE work behaviors. • Cultivating multiple climates can backfire and diminish FLE performance. • Clear climate-based signals must be conveyed to FLEs. Frontline employees (FLEs) play a critical role in shaping customer experiences and purchase intentions in retail settings. Yet not all FLEs display the same work behaviors or motivational tendencies. Adopting person-environment fit theory, this research investigates whether multiple work climates can coexist within a workplace to support FLEs with different work behaviors. Using multisource data from 285 FLEs and 31 supervisors in the retail banking sector, this study examines whether a quality-focused climate and an initiative-focused climate positively influence FLE service performance via different FLE behaviors. It also examines the moderating effect of FLE self-regulatory focus on the relationship between work climate and FLE behaviors. The results demonstrate that when FLEs are willing to innovate and take risks, a work climate that supports initiative-taking will encourage them to go beyond prescribed job roles to satisfy customer needs. In contrast, when FLEs seek to minimize or avoid risks, a work climate that reinforces rule adherence will support them in using standardized procedures to satisfy customer needs. Managers should not assume that one climate fits all or that one climate is better than the other as this study shows that a quality-focused and an initiative-focused climate can operate in tandem to enhance FLE service performance. [Display omitted]
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2023.03.002 [Google]
von Walter, B., D. Wentzel and S. Raff (2023): Should service firms introduce algorithmic advice to their existing customers? The moderating effect of service relationships, Journal of Retailing, 99(3530), pp.280-296
• We explore the effects of introducing algorithmic advice to existing customers. • Algorithmic advice has different effects across different customer relationships. • Exchange-oriented customers respond more positively to algorithmic advice. • Communally-oriented customers respond more negatively to algorithmic advice. • Offering a human fallback option has different effects across relationship types. An increasing number of service firms are introducing algorithmic advice to their customers. In this research, we examine the introduction of such tools from a relational perspective and show that the type of relationship a customer has with a service firm moderates his or her response to algorithmic advice. Studies 1 and 2 find that customers in communal relationships are more reluctant to use algorithmic advice instead of human advice than customers in exchange relationships. Study 3 shows that offering customers algorithmic advice may harm communal relationships but not exchange relationships. Building on these findings, Studies 4, 5, and 6 examine how firms can mitigate the potentially negative relational consequences of algorithmic advice. While a fallback option that signals that customers can request additional human advice if needed is effective in preventing relational damages in communal relationships, this same intervention backfires in exchange relationships. These findings have important implications by showing that managers need to consider the relational consequences of introducing algorithmic advice to existing customers. [Display omitted]
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2023.05.001 [Google]
Fan, W., Q. Zhou, L. Qiu and S. Kumar (2023): Should Doctors Open Online Consultation Services? An Empirical Investigation of Their Impact on Offline Appointments, Information Systems Research, 34(3509), pp.629-651
Online healthcare portals have become prevalent worldwide in recent years. One common form of healthcare portal is the online consultation website, which provides a bridge between patients and doctors and reduces patients’ time and cost when seeking healthcare services. Another form is the healthcare service appointment website, which facilitates offline visits for patients. Though nominally separate, the behaviors of the users (including patients and doctors) on these two types of websites could be related to each other. In particular, how does opening online consultation services impact the offline appointments of doctors? Although this is an important question for healthcare portals, doctors, and policy makers, it has not been rigorously examined in the literature. We examine the overall impact of opening online consultation services on offline appointments and show that the number of offline appointments for doctors increases after opening online consultation services. Given that online consultation is a new but important way to connect patients and doctors, our findings provide useful implications for all the stakeholders—doctors, patients, hospitals, and policy makers—regarding how to integrate online and offline channels in the healthcare context. Online healthcare portals have become prevalent worldwide in recent years. One common form of a healthcare portal is the online consultation website, which provides a bridge between patients and doctors and reduces patients’ time and cost when seeking healthcare services. Another form is the healthcare service appointment website, which facilitates offline visits for patients. Although nominally separate, the behaviors of the users (including patients and doctors) on these two types of websites could be related to each other. In particular, how does opening online consultation services impact the offline appointments of doctors? Although this is an important question for healthcare portals, doctors, and policy makers, it has not been rigorously examined in the literature. In this paper, we attempt to bridge this important gap by examining the overall impact of offering online consultations on offline appointments. Our results show that the number of offline appointments for doctors increases after opening an online consultation service. Additionally, we examine how several factors, such as recommendation heat, hospital ranking, and doctor title, moderate the impact of opening online consultation services on doctors’ offline appointments. Given that online consultation is a new but important way to connect patients and doctors, our findings provide useful implications for all the stakeholders—doctors, patients, hospitals, and policy makers—regarding how to integrate online and offline channels in the healthcare context. History: Param Singh, Senior Editor; Yuliang (Oliver) Yao, Associate Editor. Funding: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 72071057, 71922009, 71871080, and 72188101]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1145.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1145 [Google]
Fernández-Loría, C., M. C. Cohen and A. Ghose (2023): Evolution of Referrals over Customers’ Life Cycle: Evidence from a Ride-Sharing Platform, Information Systems Research, 34(3510), pp.698-720
This paper addresses how referral generation and referral value evolve throughout the customer’s life cycle as a function of service usage, experience level, and past referral behavior. We look at the referral behavior of 400,000 users of a large ride-sharing platform over the duration of a year. The upshot is that users make more and higher value referrals as they become more experienced with the service and when they are using the service intensively. However, as users make referrals, they are more likely to run out of friends to refer, leading to fewer (and lower value) referrals in the future. Based on these results, we suggest how digital platforms can improve their referral programs by tailoring them to how referral generation and referral value evolve over time. The richness of our data set allows us to address two shortcomings from previous studies: modeling dynamic behavior, such as the relationship between past and future referrals, and accounting for unobserved heterogeneity across users. Online platforms often ask their users to refer friends in exchange for a reward. This paper addresses how referral generation and referral value evolve throughout the customer’s life cycle as a function of service usage, experience level, and past referral behavior. Our analysis is based on a longitudinal data set that comprises the transactions and referral actions of 400,000 users in a ride-sharing platform over a year. The richness of our data set allows us to address two shortcomings from previous studies: modeling dynamic behavior (i.e., the relationship between past and future referrals) and accounting for unobserved heterogeneity across users. Our results show that users make more referrals when they have used the service recently and intensively. For example, users become 9% less likely to make referrals for each week they have not used the service. Furthermore, users make more high-value referrals as they become more experienced with the service. The referral generation and referral value of the top 10% most experienced users are more than 18% higher relative to when they first used the service. Finally, as users make more referrals, they become more likely to run out of friends to whom they can refer the service, leading to less referrals in the future. After users make their first referral, the probability of making additional referrals decreases by more than 78% and the value of subsequent referrals reduces by 19% on average. The results imply that platforms should consider tailoring their referral programs according to how referral generation and referral value evolve over time. History: Xiaoquan (Michael) Zhang, Senior Editor; Khim Yong Goh, Associate Editor.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1138 [Google]
Sahaym, A., J. Vithayathil, S. Sarker, S. Sarker and N. Bjørn-Andersen (2023): Value Destruction in Information Technology Ecosystems: A Mixed-Method Investigation with Interpretive Case Study and Analytical Modeling, Information Systems Research, 34(3511), pp.508-531
Value destruction is intertwined with value co-creation in the technology alliances and ecosystems; this is a key reason that most partnerships fail in the real world. Managers and policymakers will be enabled to identify destructive behavioral signals right from the onset drawing on our findings that opportunism, unjust appropriation of rents, shirking, exploitation of asymmetric power, and undue dependence can initiate the value destruction process. For the partners in an ecosystem, our findings underscore that opportunistic and exploitative behaviors do not pay off in the long run as these result in collateral and unintended losses for all. Dominant partner’s opportunism and exploitation of power asymmetry could give rise to a proverbial “pack of wolves,” a collective of resentful partners, for “challenging/killing the lion”—replacing the hub firm itself. In this vicious cycle, original intent of value co-creation gets lost with multidimensional losses on multiple fronts to the extent that opportunities open up even for the competitors with the help of hub’s former resentful complementors. Equipped with this knowledge, leaders can proactively manage ecosystem relationships keeping them on the path of originally intended value co-creation by remaining alert toward catching the signals of value destruction and reverting it deftly toward value co-creation. Many of today’s software systems are created by leveraging ecosystems consisting of heterogeneous “complementors” and “hub” firms. In fact, the reliance on ecosystems is prevalent in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) domain, where larger ERP vendors form collaborative relationships with smaller industry-specific vendors to co-create value for themselves and their customers. However, value creation and destruction processes are often intertwined. A key motivation for this study is to shed light on the behavioral contingencies and underlying mechanisms that might lead to value destruction over time instead of the initially intended value co-creation. Furthermore, although value co-creation in collaborative relationships associated with ecosystems is often highlighted, research has been scarce on offering an in-depth analysis of the challenges in these relationships that can destroy value. This study attempts to address this issue by uncovering the underlying mechanisms that lead a hub firm and its complementors toward value destruction. Our mixed-methods approach involves the use of a combination of interpretive case study and analytical modeling to highlight nuances and develop conceptual propositions about the conditions that can potentially lead to value destruction. Our context is a globally reputed information technology (IT) firm known for providing business solutions (SOFTCo, a pseudonym) and numerous relatively small, less powerful customer-facing service firms (PartnerCos, a pseudonym). Our findings show that opportunism, unjust appropriation of rents, shirking, exploitation of asymmetric power, and undue dependence can initiate a value destruction process. Furthermore, our study revealed an unexpected emergence of a “pack of wolves,” where resentful PartnerCos formed a collective to tackle the opportunistic behaviors of SOFTCo by starting to align with its competitor, further destroying value for SOFTCo’s ecosystem. Overall, this study contributes to the literature on value co-creation/destruction in IT ecosystems. It also offers an illustration of a mixed-methods study where seemingly incommensurable approaches are harnessed to develop a theoretical understanding. History: Ola Henfridsson, Senior Editor; Likoebe Maruping, Associate Editor. Funding: The authors acknowledge the financial support of the 3gERP project at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, the Dean’s Summer Research Fund of the McIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia, and the Huber Dean’s Fellowship of the Carson College of Business, Washington State University. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1119. [ABSTRCopyright of Information Systems Research is the property of INFORMS: Institute for Operations Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1119 [Google]
Sampson, S. E. and R. P. Santos (2023): Reengineering professional services through automation, remote outsourcing, and task delegation, Journal of Operations Management, (3525), pp.1
Digital technology has enabled significant productivity gains in many industries. Manufacturers have benefited from robotics, and service businesses have benefited from self‐service technologies. An area that has seen only meager productivity gains is professional services, such as healthcare, consulting, legal services, and higher education. Despite the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and other new technologies, professional services continue to be labor intensive with high labor costs. In 2021, Sampson published an empirically‐based framework suggesting that emerging technologies would allow professional services to improve productivity by automating some tasks with self‐service technologies, outsourcing some tasks to remote professionals, and delegating some tasks to semiprofessional workers. The underlying theory was that this restructuring hinges on the creative and interpersonal skill requirements of various tasks. Our research builds on Sampson’s framework by modeling a professional service operation and studying the influence of task offloading on costs and quality. Our model involves discrete event simulation parameterized by empirical data. We consider labor costs, managerial costs, delay costs (including customer balking), and assessment costs. Results show contexts wherein increased task offloading can reduce costs with negligible impact on quality, suggesting great opportunities for reengineering professional services through increased automation, offshore outsourcing, and task delegation.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joom.1268 [Google]
Sternberg, H., M. Mathauer and E. Hofmann (2023): Technology management in multi‐tier chains: A case study of agency in logistics service outsourcing, Journal of Operations Management, 69(3526), pp.536-557
Shippers and logistics service providers implement information communication technology (ICT) in outsourced logistics to increase efficiency and remedy information asymmetry. However, the nature of outsourced logistics operations can create technology management challenges due to the organizational distances between the technology initiator and the technology users. Here, we apply the lens of positivist agency theory to study four cases of technology management and agency in multi‐tier outsourced logistics services. Our findings suggest that while ICT remedies some information asymmetry, it also creates new information asymmetry—and gives rise to user privacy concerns. Furthermore, the setting of multi‐tier subcontracted logistics services appears to be a critical factor in designing governance mechanisms for effective technology management. In addition to our theoretical contributions to technology management in multi‐tier outsourcing, we offer an empirical account of agency, proposals for future research, and practical suggestions to help managers tackle agency issues that arise from information asymmetry.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joom.1219 [Google]
Fainmesser, I. P., A. Galeotti and R. Momot (2023): Digital Privacy, Management Science, 69(3534), pp.3157-3173
We study the incentives of a digital business to collect and protect users’ data. The users’ data the business collects improve the service it provides to consumers, but they may also be accessed, at a cost, by strategic third parties in a way that harms users, imposing endogenous users’ privacy costs. We characterize how the revenue model of the business shapes its optimal data strategy: collection and protection of users’ data. A business with a more data-driven revenue model will collect more users’ data and provide more data protection than a similar business that is more usage driven. Consequently, if users have small direct benefit from data collection, then more usage-driven businesses generate larger consumer surplus than their more data-driven counterparts (the reverse holds if users have large direct benefit from data collection). Relative to the socially desired data strategy, the business may over- or undercollect users’ data and may over- or underprotect it. Restoring efficiency requires a two-pronged regulatory policy, covering both data collection and data protection; one such policy combines a minimal data protection requirement with a tax proportional to the amount of collected data. We finally show that existing regulation in the United States, which focuses only on data protection, may even harm consumer surplus and overall welfare. This paper was accepted by Itai Ashlagi, revenue management and market analytics. Funding: A. Galeotti acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council [European Research Council Consolidator Grant 724356]. R. Momot acknowledges financial support from the HEC Paris Foundation and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (French National Research Agency) “Investissements d’Avenir” [Grant LabEx Ecodec/ANR-11-LABX-0047]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4513.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4513 [Google]
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(3535), 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]
Yoganarasimhan, H., E. Barzegary and A. Pani (2023): Design and Evaluation of Optimal Free Trials, Management Science, 69(3536), pp.3220-3240
Free trial promotions are a commonly used customer acquisition strategy in the Software as a Service industry. We use data from a large-scale field experiment to study the effect of trial length on customer-level outcomes. We find that, on average, shorter trial lengths (surprisingly) maximize customer acquisition, retention, and profitability. Next, we examine the mechanism through which trial length affects conversions and rule out the demand cannibalization theory, find support for the consumer learning hypothesis, and show that long stretches of inactivity at the end of the trial are associated with lower conversions. We then develop a personalized targeting policy that allocates the optimal treatment to each user based on individual-level predictions of the outcome of interest (e.g., subscriptions) using a lasso model. We evaluate this policy using the inverse propensity score reward estimator and show that it leads to 6.8% improvement in subscription compared with a uniform 30-days for-all policy. It also performs well on long-term customer retention and revenues in our setting. Further analysis of this policy suggests that skilled and experienced users are more likely to benefit from longer trials, whereas beginners are more responsive to shorter trials. Finally, we show that personalized policies do not always outperform uniform policies, and we should be careful when designing and evaluating personalized policies. In our setting, personalized policies based on other methods (e.g., causal forests, random forests) perform worse than a simple uniform policy that assigns a short trial length to all users. This paper was accepted by Duncan Simester, marketing. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4507.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4507 [Google]
Chen, S., X. Li, K. Liu and X. Wang (2023): Chatbot or human? The impact of online customer service on consumers’ purchase intentions, Psychology & Marketing, (3544), pp.1
Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and human employees have emerged as the dominant forms of online customer service. However, existing research rarely connects the service differences between them in terms of product type, ignoring the interactivity between the two. This study reveals the effect of matching customer service type (AI chatbot vs. human) to product type (search vs. experience) on consumers’ purchase intentions through four experiments, revealing the psychological mechanism and boundary condition for the existence of this effect. It shows that (1) the match between customer service type and product type positively affects consumers’ purchase intentions; (2) this matching effect is mediated by processing fluency and perceived service quality; and (3) the matching effect works only when consumers’ demand certainty is low. These findings enrich the theoretical study of online customer service, and provide marketing insights for companies to improve the adoption of AI chatbots and human employees.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21862 [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(3545), 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]
Hollebeek, L. D., W. Hammedi and D. E. Sprott (2023): Consumer engagement, stress, and conservation of resources theory: A review, conceptual development, and future research agenda, Psychology & Marketing, 40(3546), pp.926-937
While scholarly acumen of consumer engagement, defined as a consumer’s resource investment in his/her brand interactions, is burgeoning, its theoretical interface with consumer stress remains tenuous, exposing an important literature‐based gap. Specifically, consumers’ engagement with brands, or brand‐related elements (e.g., online brand communities, frontline staff, service robots, social media pages, etc.), may either induce, or ensue from, individuals’ consumption‐related stress (e.g., through perceived resource depletion, brand‐related performance anxiety, choice overload, pandemics, climate change, supply shortages, etc.). Addressing this gap, we develop a conservation of resources theory‐informed framework of the consumer engagement/stress interface that identifies consumer engagement as either (i) a consumer stressor (e.g., by placing demands on consumers, including in self‐service or coproduction tasks), or (ii) a stress‐reducing coping mechanism (e.g., by facilitating the development of brand‐related learning, skills, or resilience). We, then, introduce the articles contained in this section, which are also linked to the proposed framework. We conclude by outlining avenues for further research in the integrative area of consumer engagement/stress.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21807 [Google]
Lindsey‐Hall, K. K., S. Jaramillo, T. L. Baker and D. G. Bachrach (2023): An examination of frontline employee–customer incidental similarities in service failure and recovery contexts, Psychology & Marketing, 40(3547), pp.1047-1060
Developing rapport during the “moment of truth” when frontline employees (FLEs) interact with customers has long been an important topic for researchers and managers. We suggest incidental similarities—seemingly trivial shared points of comparison between customers and FLEs—can play a vital role during this juncture in service failure and recovery contexts. Across two experimental studies, we investigate several relationships impacted by the presence or absence of an incidental similarity between FLEs and customers for their effect on satisfaction and repatronage intentions. Results suggest incidental similarities can reduce failure attributions toward service providers and improve these important customer‐related outcomes (study 1). Results of study 2 extend our findings, demonstrating that rapport can serve as a mediating mechanism explaining the relationship between incidental similarities and these key service outcomes. Study 2 also reveals that FLE authenticity acts as a boundary condition of this relationship, accentuating the indirect, conditional relationships between incidental similarities, and satisfaction and repatronage intentions. Critically, we demonstrate that an incidental similarity can be even more effective when there is no recovery. By pointing out the role of incidental similarities in service encounters, our research makes significant contributions to aiding understanding of how rapport can be developed during the relatively brief time customers interact with service employees.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21809 [Google]
Lteif, L., D. Rubin, J. Ball and C. Lamberton (2023): There’s not much to tell: The impact of emotional resilience on negative word‐of‐mouth following service failure, Psychology & Marketing, (3548), pp.1
Consumers routinely experience service failures in their daily lives. Research regarding such service failures has primarily focused on characteristics of and actions taken by the
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21856 [Google]
Mehran, J., H. Olya and H. Han (2023): Psychology of space tourism marketing, technology, and sustainable development: From a literature review to an integrative framework, Psychology & Marketing, 40(3549), pp.1130-1151
Space tourism, a niche segment of the aviation industry, has radically altered the private sector. A noticeable trend in this market has been the development of commercial space with numerous start‐ups and ventures underway. Adopting a concept‐driven approach, we conduct a hybrid review to sketch the emerging market areas in space tourism and provided insights into tourists’ behavioral responses. Our results are supplemented by an analysis of public viewpoints on space‐faring to gauge their alignment with academic views on space tourism. We also develop an integrative framework to elucidate how personality interacts with scenario to influence the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of space tourists and their responses toward space tourism. We recognize critical gaps in previous literature and propose the following recommendations to guide future research: 1) Conceptualization of travel services and tourism typology in the new space market; 2) theoretical contribution on pragmatic and semantic levels; 3) need for empirical and multi‐disciplinary studies; 4) investigating the role of ethical issues on bilateral arguments toward commercialized space tourism; 5) integrating stakeholders’ perspectives to maximize the socioeconomic impacts of space tourism and environmental sustainability; 6) media platforms and application of new technologies; and 7) role of scientific journals in knowledge enhancement.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21795 [Google]
Söderlund, M. (2023): What is it like to be idle versus busy for a service machine?, Psychology & Marketing, 40(3550), pp.1237-1248
Customers have since long received service from various machines, and this development is expected to accelerate when AI‐powered synthetic agents—such as chatbots and embodied service robots—become more common. Existing research on customers’ interactions with service machines is typically focused on perceptions of machine attributes when the machine is busy. However, many machines are idle for a considerable time (i.e., they are not used), and little is known about consumer perceptions of machine idleness—despite the fact that idle machine behavior can contribute to the user experience, too. In the present study, it is assumed that (a) idleness and busyness represent differently valenced states in a human‐to‐human context (i.e., idleness is more negatively charged than busyness for most humans). It is also assumed that (b) anthropomorphism can occur in relation to a service machine, and that (c) beliefs about idleness and busyness from a human‐to‐human context can carry over and inform views of machines’ minds. Three experiments were conducted to explore these assumptions, and they show that an idle service machine is attributed less positively charged mind states than a busy service machine. The results also show that such attribution activities affect the overall evaluation of the service machine.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21806 [Google]
Temerak, M. S., R. W. Zhang and C. R. Lages (2023): Observing customer stress and engagement: An intercultural perspective, Psychology & Marketing, 40(3551), 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]
Akhter Shareef, M., M. Shakaib Akram, F. Tegwen Malik, V. Kumar, Y. K. Dwivedi and M. Giannakis (2023): An attitude-behavioral model to understand people’s behavior towards tourism during COVID-19 pandemic, Journal of Business Research, 161(3514), pp.N.PAG-N.PAG
• Continuous mental stress of losing job due to Covid-19 has crippled tourists to move around globally for enjoyment and recreation. • Covid-19 has detoured, changed, and toppled human habit, daily life pattern, and global pattern of business. • The effect and consequences of pandemics should be explored and understood from the service seekers’ (Tourist) perspective. • Covid-19 has influenced people’s psychological state substantially. • Covid-19 may have an enduring impact on the mobility of people in the future due to the change of human attitude and life pattern. The impact of pandemics on the tourism industry should be explored from the perspective of those who will travel, go to the tourist places on vacation, and avail services from tourism and hospitality-related organizations. This study has aimed to identify the reasons for the changed human psychology towards tourism during the COVID-19 Pandemic to develop an attitude-behavioral model. This investigation thus conducted an extensive empirical study among tourists to capture their social, emotional, and financial beliefs. The research then examined the measurement model through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) before investigating the cause-effect relationship through the structural model. Analysis revealed that the negative effect of attitude on behavioral intention toward this new equilibrium is controlled by the emotional aspect of attitude. Furthermore this paper made several contributions to the literature on human psychology, crisis management, human behavior, marketing, and tourism.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113839 [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(3515), 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]
Lages, C. R., R. Perez-Vega, S. Kadić-Maglajlić and N. Borghei-Razavi (2023): A systematic review and bibliometric analysis of the dark side of customer behavior: An integrative customer incivility framework, Journal of Business Research, 161(3516), pp.N.PAG-N.PAG
• The dark side of customer behavior has grown in interest among academics. • Three clusters within the dark side of customer behavior literature are identified: (1) customer dysfunctional behavior; (2) customer revenge and rage as forms of customer misbehavior; and (3) customer mistreatment and incivility-related clusters. • Customer incivility is the most prominent concept investigated in the field of the dark side of customer behavior. • The Journal of Business Research is a knowledge hub for the field of the dark side of customer behavior. • Research on the dark side of customer behavior started in marketing journals. • More recently, research in this area has emerged in context-specific journals such as tourism and hospitality journals. The dark side of customer behavior has been receiving increasing attention in the business and management literature in recent years. Scholars have used various terminologies to study those customer behaviors that disrupt service delivery, affect organizational performance, and impact on employees’ well-being. In this study, through a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of 246 academic articles, we identify three clusters within the dark side of customer behavior literature: (1) customer dysfunctional behavior; (2) customer revenge and rage as forms of customer misbehavior; and (3) customer mistreatment and incivility-related clusters. Based on these three identified clusters of the literature, we propose an integrative framework of customer incivility as customer incivility is the current centerpiece of the literature on the dark side of customer behavior. In doing so, we identify various research gaps and suggest effective avenues for future works in this research stream.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113779 [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(3517), 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]
Manohar, S., J. Paul, C. Strong and A. Mittal (2023): INNOSERV: Generalized scale for perceived service innovation, Journal of Business Research, 160(3518), 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]
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(3519), 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]
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(3520), 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]
Struwe, S. and D. Slepniov (2023): Unlocking digital servitization: A conceptualization of value co-creation capabilities, Journal of Business Research, 160(3521), 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(3522), 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]
Babashov, V., A. Sauré, O. Ozturk and J. Patrick (2023): Setting wait time targets in a multi‐priority patient setting, Production & Operations Management, 32(3538), pp.1958-1974
In current clinical practice, priority‐specific wait time targets are usually determined based on the consensus of medical specialists and health care administrators. The rationale behind this approach considers clinical urgency but it does not consider the efficient use of clinical resources and the patient volume associated with each priority class. The approach we present here aims to determine wait time targets in a systematic fashion that both respects clinically acceptable maximum recommended wait times and considers clinic size and demand distribution across patient classes. First, we discuss the performance of several advance patient scheduling policies in the literature in terms of average wait times and overtime and select one for illustrative purposes. Second, we simulate the chosen policy given a demand distribution and a fixed system capacity and approximate (using regression and neural networks) the average wait time for each priority class and the use of overtime as a function of potential wait time targets. Finally, using a parameterized cost function, we formulate forward and inverse mathematical problems to determine when the implicit unit wait time costs drop to zero as wait time target values increase. Using illustrative examples with two patient classes, and a practical application with four patient classes, we demonstrate the potential managerial benefits of the proposed approach in terms of improved clinic efficiency and reduced wait times. This approach ensures that wait times are set to the minimum value that still achieves the maximal resource efficiency ensuring that patients wait for service is not extended unnecessarily.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.13951 [Google]
Guda, H., M. Dawande and G. Janakiraman (2023): The economics of process transparency, Production & Operations Management, 32(3539), pp.1812-1829
We propose and analyze a novel framework to understand the role of noninstrumental information sharing in service operations management, that is, information shared by the firm not to affect consumers’ actions, but to better manage their experience in the firm’s process. The operations of the firm are organized as a process, consisting of a sequence of tasks, each of random duration. The firm shares real‐time information with the consumer about the progress of their flow unit in the firm’s process via a process tracker. The consumer is delay‐sensitive and experiences gain–loss utility (loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity) over time due to changes in beliefs about anticipated delay, as he awaits completion of the process. We analyze when providing such real‐time progress information via process trackers help, or can possibly hurt a consumer. Our work draws upon the recent literature on belief‐based/news utility in Economics. We find that in the presence of loss aversion alone, not sharing progress information is beneficial. In the presence of loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity, if low delays are likely, then sharing information is beneficial; otherwise, not sharing information is preferred. Our findings inform a service firm’s post‐sales transparency strategy.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.13942 [Google]
Kouvelis, P., H. Matsuo, Y. Xiao and Q. Yuan (2023): Long‐term service agreement in electricity supply chain with renewable energy penetration, Production & Operations Management, 32(3540), pp.1830-1845
We study a long‐term service agreement (LTSA) between an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of a conventional power generator and a utility firm in the electricity supply chain. The OEM offers the LTSA to the utility firm, which specifies the service fee and the maintenance interval. The utility firm dynamically chooses among different resources (conventional, renewable, or emergency) to meet energy demand. An LTSA contracts on a generator’s long‐term production schedule (i.e., the usage time and number of starts). We first characterize that the conventional generator’s optimal operating mode (i.e., on or off) follows a two‐threshold policy, which shows a hysteresis phenomenon. Then, the optimal production from different resources can be obtained by minimizing the utility firm’s cost of the current period. We prove that the OEM’s optimal LTSA design on the maintenance interval and service fee can be solved sequentially, and capture the trade‐off between the service margin and the usage of conventional generator. Our numerical results show that the utility firm starts the conventional generator less often as the maintenance service fee of a start increases and the minimum conventional output decreases. The OEM has incentives to reduce the minimum output to make the conventional generator more flexible, but such improvement may not benefit the utility firm. Finally, increasing renewable penetration leads to more frequent cycling of the conventional generator and less conventional output. With more renewable generation and less conventional and emergency generation, higher renewable penetration reduces the utility firm’s cost, the OEM’s profit, and the total emission.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.13943 [Google]
Liu, C. W., M. Yang and M. H. Wen (2023): Judge me on my losers: Do robo‐advisors outperform human investors during the COVID‐19 financial market crash?, Production & Operations Management, (3541), pp.1
As financial institutions increasingly offer robo‐advisors (RAs) as a service, the empirical evidence on their performance, particularly during market downturns, remains limited. We study the impact of using RAs on investment performance during the 2020 financial crisis caused by the COVID‐19 global pandemic. We obtain daily portfolio and transaction data of investors on an online investment platform. Besides making investment decisions by themselves, investors can also leverage an RA system offered by the platform. We match RA users with other investors who did not use the RA with similar investor and portfolio characteristics before the market crash, then compare their portfolio returns after the crash. We find that RA users experienced significantly fewer losses during the market downturn, and this performance advantage came from the RA‐managed assets (rather than assets managed by RA users themselves). We further show that the RA system adjusted its portfolios to hold less risky funds, whereas human investors stayed with their status quo and did not reduce the risk of their portfolios, which partly accounted for the performance discrepancy. Importantly, the RA’s superior performance was not simply a continuation of its performance in a normal market; in fact, we find RA users to have similar portfolio returns as non‐RA investors during normal markets, and the benefits of RA’s risk‐reduction trading strategy only manifested during the financial crisis. Our work offers an empirical assessment of RAs’ performance under different market conditions and advances the understanding of algorithmic decision making in financial markets.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.14029 [Google]
Liu, J., Y. P. Zhou and J. Chen (2023): Customer segmentation and ex ante fairness: A queueing perspective, Production & Operations Management, (3542), pp.1
In this study, we analyze how customer perceptions of ex ante unfairness affect a service provider that offers a priority service option. Customers differ in their waiting time costs, but that information is private to each customer. To address this issue and maximize revenue, the service provider offers a regular queue and a priority queue with an additional fee, thereby inducing the self‐selection of customers into those two queues. The customers make their service‐joining decision, based on the publicized queue terms, before entering the queue. In such a service system, the priority customers pay to reduce their waiting time, which increases the average waiting time for regular customers, as compared with a “first come, first served” (FCFS) queue. This increase in the waiting time can lead to a perception of unfairness by the regular customers. In this paper, we model this ex ante unfairness perception as a negative utility for the regular customers that is proportional to the difference in the expected waiting times between the segmented regular queue and a nonsegmented FCFS queueing system and investigate the service provider’s optimal decisions regarding segmentation and pricing. We find that, in a service system where customers can balk, the service provider should focus on only one service offering through a lower priority fee or differentiated services under certain conditions and charge a higher priority fee once the perception of unfairness is taken into consideration. An equilibrium sensitivity study provides guidance on how best to design, construct, and operate queues. Finally, we examine two extension cases in which (1) the customer ex ante unfairness perception is defined as proportional to the waiting time difference between regular and priority queues or (2) priority customers exhibit either a “negative ex ante unfairness perception” or “positive ex ante unfairness perception” of queueing. Our results are robust, and we identify conditions under which a heightened unfairness perception could be beneficial or detrimental to the service provider.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.14033 [Google]
Zhang, R., X. Han, R. Wang, J. Zhang and Y. Zhang (2023): Please don’t make me wait! Influence of customers’ waiting preference and no‐show behavior on appointment systems, Production & Operations Management, 32(3543), pp.1597-1616
Appointment systems are widely adopted in many service organizations. The simplest and most common format is the equally‐spaced (ES) system, in which the inter‐appointment times between consecutive arrivals are equal. One major drawback of such a system is the long expected waiting time for later arrivals, which makes later appointment positions unappealing to customers. As a result, customers who take these positions are more likely to abandon their appointments, leading to a higher no‐show rate. To address this issue, we examine a novel equal‐waiting (EW) scheduling system under which the expected waiting times are equal across appointments. Through a series of controlled lab experiments, we establish that the EW system increases the attractiveness of later appointments and that customers who are willing to take these appointments are more likely to show up. We then incorporate this individual‐level preference and no‐show behavior into models to evaluate its impact on the system‐level performance. We find that, compared with the traditional ES system, the EW system can significantly increase customers’ show‐up rate and improve system utilization.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.13928 [Google]
