Today we identify service articles published in Marketing, Management, Operations, Productions, Information Systems & Practioner-oriented Journals in the last month.
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Lehdonvirta, V., O. Kässi, I. Hjorth, H. Barnard and M. Graham (2019): The Global Platform Economy: A New Offshoring Institution Enabling Emerging-Economy Microproviders, Journal of Management, 45(2), pp.567-599
Global online platforms match firms with service providers around the world, in services ranging from software development to copywriting and graphic design. Unlike in traditional offshore outsourcing, service providers are predominantly one-person microproviders located in emerging-economy countries not necessarily associated with offshoring and often disadvantaged by negative country images. How do these microproviders survive and thrive? We theorize global platforms through transaction cost economics (TCE), arguing that they are a new technology-enabled offshoring institution that emerges in response to cross-border information asymmetries that hitherto prevented microproviders from participating in offshoring markets. To explain how platforms achieve this, we adapt signaling theory to a TCE-based model and test our hypotheses by analyzing 6 months of transaction records from a leading platform. To help interpret the results and generalize them beyond a single platform, we introduce supplementary data from 107 face-to-face interviews with microproviders in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Individuals choose microprovidership when it provides a better return on their skills and labor than employment at a local (offshoring) firm. The platform acts as a signaling environment that allows microproviders to inform foreign clients of their quality, with platform-generated signals being the most informative signaling type. Platform signaling disproportionately benefits emerging-economy providers, allowing them to partly overcome the effects of negative country images and thus diminishing the importance of home country institutions. Global platforms in other factor and product markets likely promote cross-border microbusiness through similar mechanisms.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0149206318786781 [Google]
Chi, N.-W. and A. A. Grandey (2019): Emotional Labor Predicts Service Performance Depending on Activation and Inhibition Regulatory Fit, Journal of Management, 45(2), pp.673-700
When service providers regulate their moods and expressions (i.e., deep acting and surface acting), are they better performers? Drawing on the framework of activation-inhibition regulatory systems and regulatory fit, we propose (a) that deep acting represents an activation-oriented regulation strategy and surface acting, an inhibition-oriented regulation strategy; (b) that these strategies have separate pathways to desirable performance (i.e., affective delivery) and counterproductive performance (i.e., service sabotage), respectively; and (c) that performance is optimized when momentary regulation strategies are aligned with activation- and inhibition-oriented traits. Empirically, across two studies, we employ a multilevel approach (i.e., within- and between-person), a multisource approach (i.e., self, coworker, customer), and a multicontext approach (i.e., banks and restaurants) to test regulatory fit as applied to emotional labor. In two studies, we support separate activation and inhibition pathways, plus regulatory fit, in that deep acting is beneficial to affective delivery for those higher in two activation traits—namely, extraversion and openness—and that surface acting predicts service sabotage for those lower in an inhibition trait: conscientiousness. We empirically rule out mood as the explanation for these effects, propose future research to apply regulatory fit to other outcomes and contexts, and suggest practical implications for services.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0149206316672530 [Google]
Biswas, D. and C. Szocs (2019): The Smell of Healthy Choices: Cross-Modal Sensory Compensation Effects of Ambient Scent on Food Purchases, Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), 56(1), pp.123-141
Managers are using ambient scent as an important strategic element in various service settings, with food-related scents being especially common. This research examines the effects of food-related ambient scents on children’s and adults’ food purchases/choices. The results of a series of experiments, including field studies at a supermarket and at a middle school cafeteria, show that extended exposure (of more than two minutes) to an indulgent food–related ambient scent (e.g., cookie scent) leads to lower purchases of unhealthy foods compared with no ambient scent or a nonindulgent food–related ambient scent (e.g., strawberry scent). The effects seem to be driven by cross-modal sensory compensation, whereby prolonged exposure to an indulgent/rewarding food scent induces pleasure in the reward circuitry, which in turn diminishes the desire for actual consumption of indulgent foods. Notably, the effects reverse with brief (<30 seconds) exposure to the scent. Whereas prior research has examined cross-modal effects, this research adopts the novel approach of examining cross-modal sensory compensation effects, whereby stimuli in one sensory modality (olfactory) can compensate/satisfy the desire related to another sensory modality (gustatory).
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022243718820585 [Google]
Kumar, V., B. Rajan, S. Gupta and I. D. Pozza (2019): Customer engagement in service, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 47(1), pp.138-160
We develop a framework to facilitate customer engagement in service (CES) based on the service-dominant (S-D) logic. A novel feature of this framework is its applicability and relevance for firms operating both in developed and emerging markets. First, we conduct a qualitative study involving service managers from multinational companies (MNCs) across the developed and emerging markets to understand the practitioner viewpoints. By integrating the insights from the interviews and the relevant academic literature, this framework explores how interaction orientation and omnichannel model can be used to create positive service experience. We also identify the factors that moderate the service experience, and categorize them as follows: offering-related, value-related, enabler-related, and market-related. Further, we also propose that perceived variation in service experience moderates the influence of service experience on satisfaction and emotional attachment, which ultimately impacts customer engagement (CE). From these factors, we advance research propositions that discuss the creation of positive service experience. One of the study’s key contributions is that MNCs can focus their attention on the moderators to ensure consistency in positive service experience, in an effort to enhance CE.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11747-017-0565-2 [Google]
Hollebeek, L. D., R. K. Srivastava and T. Chen (2019): S-D logic-informed customer engagement: integrative framework, revised fundamental propositions, and application to CRM, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 47(1), pp.161-185
Research addressing the micro-foundational theoretical entity of customer engagement (CE) has proliferated in recent years. In parallel, the macro-foundational theory of service-dominant (S-D) logic is thriving. While the fit of CE/S-D logic has been recognized, insight into this theoretical interface remains tenuous, as explored in this paper. We develop an integrative, S-D logic-informed framework of CE comprising three CE foundational processes, which are required (for customer resource integration), or conducive (for customer knowledge sharing/learning) CE antecedents. While customer resource integration, in some form, extends to coincide with CE, customer knowledge sharing/learning can also do so. We also identify three CE benefits (customer individual/interpersonal operant resource development, cocreation) as CE consequences, which can also coincide with CE. Deploying the framework, we revise Brodie et al.’s (Journal of Service Research, 14(3), 252-271, 2011) fundamental propositions of CE and apply these to customer relationship management. We conclude with theoretical and managerial implications, followed by future research avenues.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11747-016-0494-5 [Google]
Chi, N.-W. and P.-C. Chen (2019): Relationship matters: How relational factors moderate the effects of emotional labor on long-term customer outcomes, Journal of Business Research, 95(), pp.277-291
Previous studies have examined the immediate effects of emotional labor (EL) on short-term customer outcomes in service encounters. We replicated and extended prior findings by examining whether EL can have lagged effects on long-term customer outcomes (i.e., purchase amount, willingness to maintain a long-term relationship/to recommend) and how relationship strength and service sweethearting moderate these effects in service relationships. Using two-wave time-lagged designs, Study 1 collected data from 122 insurance agent-customer dyads, and Study 2 included 177 employee-customer dyads from various service occupations. The results show that deep (surface) acting increases (reduces) long-term customer outcomes via increased (decreased) satisfaction. Contrary to previous findings, we find that relationship strength enhances the positive (negative) indirect effects of deep (surface) acting. Finally, service sweethearting enhances (weakens) the positive (negative) indirect effects of deep (surface) acting. These findings indicate that service sweethearting is an important yet neglected moderator of the EL–customer outcomes relationship.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.08.019 [Google]
Harrison-Walker, L. J. (2019): The critical role of customer forgiveness in successful service recovery, Journal of Business Research, 95(), pp.376-391
Service failures occur when the service provided is less than adequate or fails to live up to the customer’s expectations. When service failures inevitably occur, providers implement recovery strategies such as apologizing, offering compensation, or allowing customers to voice their concerns. However, such strategies do not always lead to desired outcomes such as repatronage intentions, reduced negative WOM, or reconciliation. The current research explores the very rich concept of forgiveness with regard to service recovery and empirically examines the links among recovery strategies, customer forgiveness and recovery outcomes. Although differences in terms of optimal recovery strategies depend on industry type, forgiveness is demonstrated to mediate the relationship between recovery strategies and desirable outcomes, suggesting that forgiveness be included in all future models of service recovery. Highlights • Forgiveness mediates the relationship between recovery strategies and outcomes. • Recovery strategies that lead to forgiveness vary by industry. • Reconciliation is a more important outcome than repatronage intentions. • Repatronage intentions contribute to reconciliation and NWOM reduction.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.07.049 [Google]
van Gils, S. and K. E. Horton (2019): How can ethical brands respond to service failures? Understanding how moral identity motivates compensation preferences through self-consistency and social approval, Journal of Business Research, 95(), pp.455-463
We examine how the two dimensions of moral identity – internalization and symbolization – impact on customers’ relationships with ethical brands, as well as their satisfaction with different types of (private versus public) compensation and apologies following service failures. We propose and find in a field study of customers of a green social enterprise (N = 159) and in an online scenario study (N = 214) that high moral identity internalization is associated with higher satisfaction with private apologies, but not with public apologies and compensation, while high moral identity symbolization is associated with higher satisfaction with public compensation and apologies, but not with private apologies and compensation. Study 2 extends these findings by confirming that self-consistency mediates the relationships between moral identity internalization and private apologies and compensation, while social approval mediates the relationships between moral identity symbolization and public apologies and compensation. Unexpectedly self-consistency also mediated the effect of symbolization on public compensation. Implications of these findings are discussed. Highlights • Proper service recovery is critical for green companies’ relationships with customers. • Moral identity influences preferences for compensation types after service failures. • Moral identity internalization is associated with private service recovery types. • Moral identity symbolization is associated with public service recovery types. • Self-consistency and social approval mediate these effects.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.07.042 [Google]
Salomonson, N. (2019): Consumer vulnerability during mobility service interactions: causes, forms and coping AU – Echeverri, Per, Journal of Marketing Management, (), pp.1-26
ABSTRACTResearch on how vulnerable consumers navigate various marketplaces and service interactions, developing specific consumer skills in order to empower themselves during such exchanges, has received inadequate attention. This paper contributes to this area by empirically drawing on a multi-perspective go-along travel study, consisting of a combination of in-depth interviews and observations of consumer and service provider interactions in mobility services. It addresses both factors that are a source of vulnerability and forms thereof during service interactions, thus unearthing critical mechanisms that explain why vulnerability comes into being. Further, the finding of four distinct forms of active coping strategies, building on the dimensions of proactiveness/reactiveness and explicit/implicit articulation, and how these are related to different forms of vulnerability, provides an understanding of coping with vulnerability during consumer and service provider interactions.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2019.1568281 [Google]
