Today, we identify service articles published in Marketing, Management, Operations, Productions, Information Systems, and Practitioner-Oriented Journals in the last months.
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Zhe, W., G. Hong and L. Dengpan (2024): ECONOMICS OF ANALYTICS SERVICES ON A MARKETPLACE PLATFORM, MIS Quarterly, 48(3956), pp.775-823
Analytics services provided by marketplace platforms have become increasingly important for sellers seeking market insights. In this paper, we examine a scenario in which an analytics service plays a vital role in enhancing sellers’ understanding of market size and improving their decision-making. Using a game-theoretic model, we analyze the pricing strategies of the platform and the adoption strategies of sellers for the analytics service. Our study identifies two distinct effects of analytics services: the competition effect and the accuracy effect. Specifically, the competition effect manifests in opposing ways across different market scenarios, with a competition-intensifying effect in lowdemand markets and a competition-weakening effect in high-demand markets. Consequently, sellers using an analytics service command lower prices in low-demand markets and higher prices in highdemand markets. More interestingly, our results reveal that offering an analytics service could potentially hurt the total market demand, subsequently impacting the platform’s revenue from the marketplace service and potentially leaving the platform worse off. Additionally, driven by both the accuracy and competition effects, adopting an analytics service may adversely affect seller profitability and consumer surplus without necessarily improving overall welfare. Moreover, the transaction fee for the marketplace service plays a crucial role in the interplay between the analytics and marketplace services. Specifically, in low-demand (high-demand) markets, as the transaction fee increases, platforms should consider reducing (increasing) the subscription fee to encourage more (fewer) sellers to adopt the analytics service, thereby enhancing overall market demand and increasing revenue from the marketplace service. Our findings also suggest that platforms should refrain from offering analytics services in high-demand markets when the transaction fee is relatively high. Furthermore, policymakers (sellers) should be mindful of the potential negative consequences associated with the adoption of analytics services in high-demand (low-demand) markets.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2023/16452 [Google]
Chen, M. and M. Hu (2024): Courier Dispatch in On-Demand Delivery, Management Science, 70(3957), pp.3789-3807
We study a courier dispatching problem in an on-demand delivery system in which customers are sensitive to delay. Specifically, we evaluate the effect of temporal pooling by comparing systems using the dedicated strategy, with which only one order is delivered per trip, versus the pooling strategy, with which a batch of consecutive orders is delivered on each trip. We capture the courier delivery system’s spatial dimension by assuming that, following a Poisson process, demand arises at a uniformly generated point within a service region. With the same objective of revenue maximization, we find that the dispatching strategy depends critically on customers’ patience level, the size of the service region, and whether the firm can endogenize the demand. We obtain concise but informative results with a single courier and assuming that customers’ underlying arrival rate is large enough, meaning a crowded market, such as rush hour delivery. In particular, when the firm has a growth target and needs to achieve an exogenously given demand rate, using the pooling strategy is optimal if the service area is large enough to fully exploit the pooling efficiency in delivery. Otherwise, using the dedicated strategy is optimal. In contrast, if the firm can endogenize the demand rate by varying the delivery fee, using the dedicated strategy is optimal for a large service area. The reason is that it is optimal for the firm to sustain a relatively low demand rate by charging a high fee for a large service radius: within this large area, the pooling strategy leads to a long wait because it takes a long time for multiple orders to accumulate. Moreover, with an exogenous demand rate to meet, customers’ patience level has no impact on the dispatch strategy. However, when the demand rate can be endogenized, the dedicated strategy is preferable if customers are impatient. Furthermore, we extend our model to account for social welfare maximization, a hybrid contingent delivery policy, a general arrival rate that does not have to be large, a nonuniform distribution of orders in the service region, and multiple couriers. We also conduct numerical analysis and simulations to complement our main results and find that most insights in our base model still hold in these extensions and numerical studies. This paper was accepted by Jeannette Song, operations management. Funding: This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [Grants RGPIN-2015-06757 and RGPIN-2021-04295]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4858.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4858 [Google]
Bavafa, H. and J. O. Jónasson (2024): The Distributional Impact of Fatigue on Performance, Management Science, 70(3958), pp.3319-3337
Little is known about how people-centric factors affect the shape of service time distributions despite distributional statistics (variance or quantiles) being key drivers of system performance in many service industries. We investigate the impact of one people-centric factor—worker fatigue—on the average, variance, and quantiles of service times in paramedic operations. Our analysis uses data on the performance of 368,634 paramedic teams in the London Ambulance Service over 10 years. We measure fatigue by the number of prior jobs a paramedic crew has completed during a shift and estimate its impact on the time it takes the crew to respond to incidents and bring patients to hospitals. Using a recentered influence function regression approach with multiple fixed effects, we find that the average time to hospital increases by 5% throughout the course of an average shift. In addition, the workers become less consistent with fatigue; service time variance increases by 39% during a normal shift. Furthermore, we find that in addition to an upward shift in mean service times, both the upper and lower tails of the distribution have more weight for fatigued paramedics. These effects are driven mostly by the performance of paramedics at the scene, rather than their driving to or from the incident. The distributional effects of fatigue are only slightly mitigated by increased experience or reduced system workload. Our work demonstrates that the impact of people-centric factors can be highly nonuniform across the service time distribution. This paper was accepted by Jayashankar Swaminathan, operations management. Funding: The authors are grateful for financial research support from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Supplemental Material: The data files and e-companion are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4855.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4855 [Google]
He, L. and T. Ni (2024): Crowd-Starting a Shared (Shuttle) Service With Customer Suggestions, Production & Operations Management, (3959), pp.1
Digital platforms have improved the efficiency and quality of smart city operations by soliciting more customer inputs, for example, in the form of suggestions. One innovative option in urban transportation is the shared shuttle service, which lies between traditional public transportation and ride-hailing services. Platforms that offer these services can gather customer suggestions in a “crowd-starting” manner, which provides valuable insights into customer needs. However, this also presents a challenge in balancing service coverage and quality to meet customer needs implied by their suggestions. To address this issue, we introduce an optimization framework designed to maximize expected profit by leveraging customer response models which characterize how customers will respond to different service attributes and how their suggestions inform these responses. When estimating these response models, we present methods involving isotonic penalty and shrinkage tailored for handling small datasets. To demonstrate the practical implications, we apply our model to a shared shuttle service case study and discuss practical considerations, such as the value of information, the effectiveness of our estimation approaches, and the benefits of involving customers in the service design process.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10591478241256383 [Google]
Yu, H., M. Huang and X. Yue (2024): Sharing the Shared Rides: Multi-Party Carpooling Supported Strategy-Proof Double Auctions, Production & Operations Management, (3960), pp.1
Multi-party carpooling emerges as a burgeoning shared transportation scheme whereby the trip shared by each driver is shared among multi-party riders whose itineraries coincide. Confronting the information asymmetry and the voluntary self-interested nature of bilateral participants in matching and pricing operations, this study designs
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10591478241252746 [Google]
Rosenzweig, E. D., K. Kelley and E. Bendoly (2024): Diversity in Frontline Employee Perceptions: Policies and Procedures, Training, and Leadership as Drivers of Service Equality, Production & Operations Management, (3961), pp.1
Excellent service is often discussed with an assumption of equivalency in its application, yet the reality is far more complex. Customers have distinct needs that pose distinct challenges for frontline service employees. In hotel settings, providing excellent service to a diverse set of guests is more nuanced when frontline employees themselves are from a wide variety of backgrounds. Whereas the literature considers operational tactics to promote excellence in guest service, it is unclear whether training, policies and procedures, and leadership designed to advance excellence have the same impact on employees who, by virtue of their background, are more attuned to guests’ needs. We extend the literature by empirically demonstrating that operational tactics impact frontline employees’ perceptions of service equality, with racial/ethnic minority employees seeing statistically distinct impacts. Employing a sample of 25,698 employee-year observations across 32 luxury hotels in the United States over 3 years, we find that codified policies and procedures, as well as training, improve assessments of guest service equality. In contrast, racial/ethnic minority employees are less impacted than their White counterparts by leadership stances that seem to promote equality more broadly. After controlling for time and other relevant employee- and hotel-level variables, operational tactics (a) improve perceptions of service equality, and (b) reduce the disparity between White and racial/ethnic-minority service-quality assessments. Our findings provide further direction for managers to elevate such perceptions of customer service equality across the board by leveraging training and by reinforcing clear operating policies and procedures.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10591478241252150 [Google]
Ozuem, W., S. Ranfagni, M. Willis, G. Salvietti and K. Howell (2024): Exploring the relationship between chatbots, service failure recovery and customer loyalty: A frustration–aggression perspective, Psychology & Marketing, (3962), pp.1
An increasing number of companies are introducing chatbot‐led contexts in service failure recovery. Existing studies are inconclusive on whether humanlike chatbot‐driven service failure recovery enhances customer loyalty. Grounding our work in phenomenological hermeneutics and utilizing frustration–aggression theory, we concentrate on the historical circumstance and the participatory nature of understanding customers’ chatbot‐driven interactions and loyalty. We conducted 47 in‐depth interviews with millennials from four countries (United States, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom). By analyzing interview data through thematic analysis, our study offers two significant contributions. First, through thematic analysis, we define the dynamics occurring between customers and chatbots in a service recovery journey, such as customers’ priorities and expectations. Second, we present a chatbot‐led service failure recovery typology framework that identifies four types of customers based on their interactions with a chatbot and their emotions, specifically frustration and aggression, and the effects of the interactions on their brand loyalty and intention to use chatbots. The identification of four customer types can help managers shape strategies to effectively turn negative customer experiences into opportunities to strengthen their loyalty, such as making more than one touchpoint available (human and chatbot). Our study shows that customers’ emotions, specifically frustration and aggression, affect not only customer loyalty but also technology adoption. The concluding section suggests future avenues for research in the service recovery literature.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.22051 [Google]
Hofmann, V., N. E. Stokburger‐Sauer and M. Wetzels (2024): The role of a smile in customer–employee interactions: Primitive emotional contagion and its boundary conditions, Psychology & Marketing, (3963), pp.1
By investigating emotional contagion in customer–employee interactions using the emotional facial action coding system, this study offers a means to separate primitive emotional contagion from its conscious counterpart. As an empirical validation of primitive emotional contagion and its impact on customer satisfaction, the multifaceted research approach, involving an experimental laboratory study and two field studies in hospitality and retail settings, reveals consistent findings. Additionally, the influence of emotional contagion on customer satisfaction is moderated by the esthetic appeal of the interior design. This work advances the theoretical understanding of the dynamics of primitive emotional contagion; it also offers practical insights regarding the importance of interior designs and busyness for enhancing service interactions.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.22047 [Google]
Malekshah, N. N., O. Kamran‐Disfani, J. Mousavi and S. Aghaie (2024): Customers’ political ideology and Self‐Service Technologies: Do political leanings predict usage of Self‐Service Technologies?, Psychology & Marketing, (3964), pp.1
Self‐service technologies are widely used in business, and retailers and service firms invest significant resources to obtain and improve their Self‐Service Technology capabilities. To allocate resources efficiently, it is crucial for firms to predict Self‐Service Technology usage by their customers. However, predictors in the extant literature (e.g., customers’ perceptions and personality traits) are not easy to objectively measure or obtain secondary data about. This research proposes and examines political ideology, for which fairly accurate and objective data can be obtained, as a novel predictor of customer Self‐Service Technology usage. In four studies in different contexts, the authors consistently find that political ideology is significantly related to customers’ intention to use and actual use of Self‐Service Technologies; Liberals, on average, are found to be significantly more likely to use Self‐Service Technologies compared to conservatives. Moreover, process complexity is identified as a moderator of this effect. In addition, two mediators, customers’ need for interaction and customers’ perceived control, through which political ideology affects intention to use Self‐Service Technologies are uncovered. The manuscript concludes with a discussion of contributions and practical implications for managers and practitioners as well as avenues for future research.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.22018 [Google]
Sáez‐Ortuño, L., S. Forgas‐Coll, R. Huertas‐Garcia and E. Puertas‐Prats (2024): Chasing spammers: Using the Internet protocol address for detection, Psychology & Marketing, 41(3965), pp.1363-1382
The proliferation of reviews evaluating different services on social networks and online platforms and their importance in consumer decision‐making has led some unscrupulous individuals to take advantage of the anonymity offered by the Internet to manipulate these reviews and influence customers’ decisions. The main objectives of this study are: (1) to test whether spammers usually perform their misdemeanors from the same IP address; (2) to explore whether there are differences between stated sexes in this regard; (3) to detect the main motivations for posting fraudulent reviews; and (4) to determine the motivations for doing so from the same IP address. These objectives were achieved by means of a quasi‐experiment with a sample of 7,192,487 users, and a qualitative investigation in which 37 users who had falsified information were interviewed. The results show that spammers who tend to fake their identity do so from the same IP address and that they tend to be male. Four types of motivation are presented: revenge, entertainment, opportunity for profit, and self‐esteem; as well as a further three to explain the use of the same IP: convenience, limited resources, and complacency.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21985 [Google]
