Today we identify service articles published in Marketing, Management, Operations, Productions, Information Systems & Practioner-oriented Journals in the last month.
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Holmqvist, J., Y. Van Vaerenbergh, R. Lunardo and M. Dahlén (2019): The Language Backfire Effect: How Frontline Employees Decrease Customer Satisfaction through Language Use, Journal of Retailing, 95(2), pp.115-129
• Switching language to serve customers leaves customers dissatisfied. • Even when switching to the customers’ own language, dissatisfaction occurs. • The language switch also reduces word-of-mouth and repurchase intentions. • Perceived identity threat explains the dissatisfaction after a language switch. • By complimenting the customer’s language skills, all negative effects are offset. Extant marketing research holds that customers prefer frontline personnel to speak the customers’ first language. Furthermore, current managerial practices instruct frontline employees to either use the customers’ first language or, in international settings, to use English. Through five studies in different retail and service contexts, we identify situations where the opposite is true. The results of the first two studies suggest that if customers initiate contact in a second language, the frontline employee’s switch to the customer’s first language constitutes an identity threat leading customers to feel less satisfied; an effect we term the language backfire effect. Our third study extends these results to a domestic context to test for the impact of linguistic acculturation on how immigrant customers perceive frontline employees’ language switch. The fourth study replicates the findings in a real-life retail context. These results present a paradox for marketing research: although frontline employees switch to customers’ first language to accommodate them, these actions might not have the desired consequences. Having identified and described the problem of the language backfire effect, our final study introduces and verifies a managerially actionable solution: combining the language switch with a language proficiency compliment offsets the language backfire effect.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2019.03.004 [Google]
Eisingerich, A. B., A. Marchand, M. P. Fritze and L. Dong (2019): Hook vs. hope: How to enhance customer engagement through gamification, International Journal of Research in Marketing, 36(2), pp.200-215
Many digital service providers have adopted gamification to promote customer engagement. Critical questions, however, remain about the most effective way to enhance customer engagement and increase sales by applying gamification. With a research design that combines qualitative and quantitative methods, including the use of objective sales data from a large field study and replication of the findings across different contexts, this study explores how gamification fosters customer engagement. Both field study results and a simulation study reveal gamification principles (i.e., social interaction, sense of control, goals, progress tracking, rewards, and prompts) that promote hope and consequently increase customer engagement and digital sales. Furthermore, we find that hope is more strongly associated with customer engagement than the psychological condition of compulsion, which even exerts a negative impact. This research thus explores how gamification creates value for customers and provides actionable insights for managers to foster hope through gamification as opposed to get customers hooked.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2019.02.003 [Google]
Jaakkola, E. and L. Aarikka-Stenroos (2019): Customer referencing as business actor engagement behavior – Creating value in and beyond triadic settings, Industrial Marketing Management, 80(), pp.27-42
The rising impact of customer engagement is increasingly evident in business markets. This paper studies customer referencing as an important manifestation of engagement behavior in the business-to-business (B2B) context. To extend extant research, which has thus far examined referencing almost exclusively from the seller’s viewpoint, we study how referencing affects value creation in business networks. We explore resources contributed and gained though referencing and the resulting value outcomes for the entire reference triad (the seller, the reference customer, and the prospective buyer). Empirically, the paper draws on an extensive field study conducted in knowledge-intensive business service industries. The results explicate how customer referencing affects value creation within and beyond the triad, by i) enhancing or impairing actors’ internal processes; ii) strengthening or damaging relationships between the triad actors; and iii) facilitating exchange in their broader business network. The paper contributes to research on customer referencing by explicating its role in value creation on a network level. As one of the first studies on engagement in the B2B context, this paper contributes to the emerging actor engagement research by analyzing how influencing behavior operates in a business network. These insights can help firms to facilitate exchange in complex markets. • Customer referencing is a manifestation of business actor engagement. • Referencing affects value creation on actor, relationship, and network level. • References can transfer reputation, convey experiences, and evidence value • Referencing can also detract from the value experienced by the actors involved.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2018.06.014 [Google]
Shell, M. A. and R. W. Buell (2019): How Necessary Is the Human Touch?, Harvard Business Review, 97(4), pp.28-28
The article discusses the effect that human customer service has on reducing customer anxiety and increasing consumer confidence in their investments, including within the context of market conditions, referencing a working paper by Michelle A. Shell and Ryan W. Buell.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/ [Google]
Fountaine, T., B. McCarthy and T. Saleh (2019): Building the AI-Powered Organization. (cover story), Harvard Business Review, 97(4), pp.62-73
Artificial intelligence seems to be on the brink of a boom. It’s now guiding decisions on everything from crop harvests to bank loans, and uses like totally automated customer service are on the horizon. Indeed, McKinsey estimates that AI will add $13 trillion to the global economy in the next decade. Yet companies are struggling to scale up their AI efforts. Most have run only ad hoc projects or applied AI in just a single business process. In surveys of thousands of executives and work with hundreds of clients, McKinsey has identified how firms can capture the full AI opportunity. The key is to understand the organizational and cultural barriers AI initiatives face and work to lower them. That means shifting workers away from traditional mindsets, like relying on top-down decision making, which often run counter to those needed for AI. Leaders can also set up AI projects for success by conveying their urgency and benefits; investing heavily in AI education and adoption; and accounting for the company’s AI maturity, business complexity, and innovation pace when deciding how work should be organized. INSET: 10 WAYS TO DERAIL AN AI PROGRAM.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/ [Google]
Weiss, E. N. and R. Goldberg (2019): Robust services: People or processes?, Business Horizons, 62(4), pp.521-527
Service systems are inherently subject to variability, whether through customers, service providers, suppliers, or unexpected events. Yet, customers demand excellence and consistency regardless of this variability. In general, there are two ways to handle this variability: with people or with processes. We use the concept of robustness to describe these two approaches, address when one or the other might be appropriate, and discuss how and why one might transition from one approach to the other. Robust people and robust processes within a system can inform and build upon one another in a cycle that mirrors that of continuous improvement. Investing in this cycle can help an organization move toward a system that relies more on robust processes and less on hiring and training robust people, allowing the organization to be scalable while simultaneously creating new opportunities for incumbent robust people.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2019.03.006 [Google]
Secchi, E., A. Roth and R. Verma (2019): The Impact of Service Improvisation Competence on Customer Satisfaction: Evidence from the Hospitality Industry, Production and Operations Management, 28(6), pp.1329-1346
This study formally develops and empirically tests a new construct, termed service improvisation competence (Serv-IC), that constitutes a novel way to improve customer experience in high-contact service contexts. Serv-IC is operationalized as the systemic ability of a service firm’s employees to deviate from established service delivery processes and routines to respond in a timely manner to unforeseen events using available resources. Serv-IC is a realized operational competence resulting from a deliberate set of service design choices consistent with a firm’s service concept. The construct embodies a multidisciplinary perspective that explains, in part, how some firms can systemically use employee improvisation to align service processes and employee behaviors in the presence of customer-induced uncertainty. As a first, theory-building step we follow a rigorous, two-stage approach to develop a reliable and valid multi-item measurement scale for Serv-IC, emphasizing discriminant validity with related concepts. We then introduce a set of experientially based service design choices that constitute a Serv-IC deployment strategy. Finally, we investigate its effect on customer satisfaction. Our empirical results show that Serv-IC can play an important role in satisfying customers within certain boundaries. Counter to conventional wisdom, Serv-IC increases customer satisfaction in lower-tier hotels more than in upscale ones.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.12969 [Google]
Shen, X., L. Bao, Y. Yu and Z. Hua (2019): Managing Supply Chains with Expediting and Multiple Demand Classes, Production & Operations Management, 28(5), pp.1129-1148
We consider a periodic review, single‐stage inventory system with multiple demand classes and a fixed replenishment lead time. Inventory expediting is allowed to alleviate demand–supply mismatches. Priority demands are commonly used in practice to provide differentiated services for customers, and inventory expediting is an effective strategy to improve the service levels of high‐priority demands. However, it is challenging to coordinate the inventory ordering, expediting and allocation decisions in supply chains. We partially characterize the structure of the optimal policy. We also derive various monotone properties of the optimal policy with limited sensitivities. Moreover, we show that a state‐dependent rationing level policy is optimal for inventory allocation and the optimal rationing levels are in fact independent of the backorder quantity of each demand class. We also show when some simple policies are indeed optimal. Numerically, we illustrate the optimal policy and investigate the performances of three proposed simple heuristics. Finally, we extend the results to more general systems, such as serial systems, systems with convex backordering costs, etc.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.12974 [Google]
Handley, S. M., J. Jong and W. C. Benton (2019): How Service Provider Dependence Perceptions Moderate the Power–Opportunism Relationship with Professional Services, Production & Operations Management, 28(7), pp.1692-1715
In this study, we develop a novel theoretical model of how the relationship between the buyer’s use of power and the service provider’s opportunism is moderated by the provider’s perceptions of dependence advantage. Analyzing a dyadic dataset of 109 professional service relationships, we find that the extent to which the buyer’s use of mediated and non‐mediated power aligns with the service provider’s perceptions of relative dependence is germane to the power–opportunism relationship. The notion that firm A’s opportunism, in response to firm B’s use of power, is in part influenced by firm A’s perceptions of the relative dependence in the relationship, constitutes a significant theoretical contribution to the power‐dependence literature. Our findings underline the importance of (i) understanding the relative dependence in an inter‐organizational relationship, (ii) managing the other firm’s perception of this dependence, and (iii) ensuring that the use of power is aligned with the other firm’s perception of the relative dependence in the relationship.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.13013 [Google]
Batt, R. J., D. S. Kc, B. R. Staats and B. W. Patterson (2019): The Effects of Discrete Work Shifts on a Nonterminating Service System, Production & Operations Management, 28(6), pp.1528-1544
Hospital emergency departments (EDs) provide around‐the‐clock medical care, and as such are generally modeled as nonterminating queues. However, from the care provider’s point of view, ED care is not a never‐ending process, but rather occurs in discrete work shifts and may require passing unfinished work to the next care provider at the end of the shift. We use data from a large, academic medical center ED to show that the patients’ rate of service completion varies over the course of the physician shift. Furthermore, patients that have experienced a physician handoff have a higher rate of service completion than nonhanded off patients. As a result, a patient’s expected treatment time is impacted by when the physician’s shift treatment begins. We also show that patients that have been handed off are more likely to revisit the ED within three days, suggesting that patient handoffs lower clinical quality. Lastly, we use simulation to show that shift length and new‐patient cutoff rules can be used to reduce handoffs, but at the expense of system throughput.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/poms.12999 [Google]
Daskalopoulou, A., M. Palmer, K. Keeling and R. Pritchard Jones (2019): Discretionary technology bootlegging tensions in institutional healthcare work, New Technology, Work and Employment, 34(1), pp.73-89
We explore individuals who take some of their technology use ?underground?, described as ?bootlegging?, to enhance healthcare work. We find that healthcare professionals? informal use of mobile applications in healthcare work sometimes ?sticks out? and this produces professional identity tensions: (1) conflict with perceptions of professional behaviour, and (2) defilement of expert judgment. Our analysis, moreover, reveals that identity work (i.e. ?accepting? and ?sensemaking?) provides a coping mechanism to deal with these unresolved professional identity tensions. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the constitutive entanglements and two-way interactions of discretionary technology bootlegging, professional identity and autonomy in institutional healthcare work.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12133 [Google]
Stuart, B., T. Danaher, R. Awdish and L. Berry (2019): Finding Hope and Healing When Cure Is Not Possible, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 94(4), pp.677-685
Traditional medical training focused on curing disease may not prepare clinicians to provide comfort and solace to their patients facing life-limiting illness. But dying patients and their families still need healing, and clinicians can actively facilitate it. We explore the clinician’s role in the healing journey through the lens of pediatric brain cancer. Specifically, we examine how clinicians can help affected families find their way from ?focused hope? (which centers on cure) to ?intrinsic hope,? which offers a more realistic and resilient emotional foundation as the child’s death approaches and letting go becomes essential. Drawing on their clinical experience and medical knowledge, clinicians can help families comprehend the lessons that their seriously ill child’s body has to teach, highlighting the importance of cherishing the present and creating new memories that outlast the disease. Clinicians can avoid the mindset of ?nothing more can be done,? emphasizing that there is plenty to do in providing physical, emotional, and spiritual comfort. Clinicians can learn how to be ?unconditionally present? for patients and families without immersing themselves in anguish and, eventually, how to help the family find freedom from despair and a full life that still honors the child’s memory.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2019.01.006 [Google]
Visnjic, I., D. Ringov and S. Arts (2019): Which Service? How Industry Conditions Shape Firms’ Service‐Type Choices, Journal of Product Innovation Management, 36(3), pp.381-407
This article studies the role of industry conditions as determinants of manufacturing and software firms’ decisions to offer services. It draws on the competence perspective on industry evolution and servitization to theorize and provide empirical evidence on how industry conditions affect firms’ choice to offer two distinct types of services—product‐oriented services and customer‐oriented services. It is argued that firms are likely to offer product‐oriented services in Schumpeterian industry environments to address high technological uncertainty by leveraging and reinforcing capabilities in the existing technology. In contrast, firms are likely to offer customer‐oriented services in non‐Schumpeterian industry environments to address value generation uncertainty by building competences in new technological or market areas. Based on longitudinal data on 410 public firms from manufacturing industries and the software industry, empirical evidence suggests that firms are indeed more likely to offer product‐oriented services in Schumpeterian industry environments, such as in the early stage of the industry life cycle and under conditions of high R&D intensity and competition, whereas they are more likely to offer customer‐oriented services in non‐Schumpeterian environments, such as in the later stages of the industry life cycle and in highly cyclical industries.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jpim.12483 [Google]
Johnston, D., A. Diamant and F. Quereshy (2019): Why do surgeons schedule their own surgeries?, Journal of Operations Management, 65(3), pp.262-281
Surgery is a knowledge intensive, high‐risk professional service. Most hospitals give surgeons considerable autonomy in deciding which patients to operate on and when. In theory, this allows surgeons the operational flexibility to prioritize surgeries based on intimate knowledge of their patient’s clinical needs. At odds with this strategy is the operations management literature, which favors the standardization and centralization of scheduling focused on achieving the efficient use of all resources, such as operating room capacity. Unfortunately, a little is known as to how surgeons customize their schedules and why they value such control. To this end, we conduct an exploratory qualitative study of the scheduling behavior of surgeons at a large Canadian teaching hospital. We identify significant differences between surgeons as to their priorities when scheduling. Two constructs are formative in surgeon decision‐making: the timeliness of treatment for their patients and idiosyncratic personal priorities. Our work has implications for achieving surgeon support for initiatives to standardize and centralize routines for patient scheduling. Accordingly, we formulate propositions that address the conditions under which such efforts will achieve the desired balance between flexibility and efficiency.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joom.1012 [Google
