Considered Service-specific journals were Journal of Service Research, Journal of Service Management, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Service Industries Journal, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, and Service Science.
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Alkire, L., C. Mooney, F. A. Gur, S. Kabadayi, M. Renko and J. Vink (2020): Transformative service research, service design, and social entrepreneurship: An interdisciplinary framework advancing wellbeing and social impact, Journal of Service Management, 31(1), pp.24-50
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an interdisciplinary framework bridging service design and social entrepreneurship with transformative service research (TSR) to create greater synergetic effects to advance wellbeing and drive social impact. Design/methodology/approach: This research provides an interdisciplinary review and synthesis of literature to establish a basis for a conceptual framework advancing human wellbeing and driving social impact. Findings: The overarching framework created incorporates various concepts, methods and tools across the three research domains. At the core of the framework is the ultimate goal of multilevel wellbeing and social impact. The core is subsequently supported by established social entrepreneurship concepts and strategies: prosocial motivation, hybrid identity, social bricolage, entrepreneurial thinking, community engagement, business model design and innovative delivery. The implementation of these concepts could benefit from the methods and tools used in service design, such as: design probes, service blueprints, appreciative inquiry, contextual interviews, actor maps, sustainable business model canvas and service prototyping. Practical implications: The paper uses the refugee crisis as an illustrative example of how the proposed framework can be put into action by service organizations. Originality/value: By bridging literature in TSR, service design and social entrepreneurship, this paper provides service managers with a framework to guide scalable systemic solutions for service organizations interested in advancing human wellbeing and driving social impact.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-05-2019-0139 [Google]
Fliess, S. and M. Volkers (2020): Trapped in a service encounter: Exploring customer lock-in and its effect on well-being and coping responses during service encounters, Journal of Service Management, 31(1), pp.79-114
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the reasons why customers often cannot or do not exit a negative service encounter (lock-in) and to discuss how this affects their well-being and coping responses. This contributes to the research on how negative service encounters emerge and evolve and how such encounters impact customer well-being and subsequent responses. Design/methodology/approach: An inductive, exploratory approach was used. Interviews with 20 service customers yielded over 90 detailed lock-in experiences across 25 different services. A multi-step, iterative coding process was used with a mixture of coding techniques that stem from a grounded theory approach. Findings: Four categories of factors that caused customers to endure a negative event were identified (physical lock-in, dependency on the service, social lock-in and psychological lock-in). Customers either experienced inner turmoil (if they perceived having the option to stay or leave) or felt captive; both impacted their well-being and coping strategies in different ways. Three characteristics of negative events that caused lock-in to persist over time were identified. Research limitations/implications: This is a qualitative study that aims to identify factors behind customer lock-in, reduced well-being and coping strategies across different types of service encounters. Future research may build on these themes to investigate lock-in during specific service encounters in greater depth. Practical implications: This research provides insights regarding how service providers can anticipate lock-in situations. In addition, the findings point to several ways in which frontline employees can assist customers with the coping process, during lock-in. Originality/value: Customer lock-in during a service encounter is a common, yet unexplored phenomenon. This research contributes to a better understanding of why customers endure negative events and how such perceptions are reflected in their experiences and behaviors.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-01-2019-0013 [Google]
Soderlund, M. and H. Berg (2020): Employee emotional displays in the extended service encounter: A happiness-based examination of the impact of employees depicted in service advertising, Journal of Service Management, 31(1), pp.115-136
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of happiness expressed by service firm employees when they are depicted in marketing communications materials, such as printed ads and videos. Design/methodology/approach: Two experiments were conducted in a fitness service setting, in which employee display of happiness was manipulated (low vs high). Findings: Both experiments showed that expressions of high levels of happiness produced a more positive attitude toward the service employee than expressions of low levels of happiness. Moreover, the impact of the expression of happiness on the evaluation of the employee was mediated by several variables, which suggests that the influence of depicted employees’ emotional expressions can take several routes. Practical implications: The results imply that service firms should not only be mindful about which specific employee they select for appearing in marketing communications materials, they should also pay attention to the emotional displays of selected employees. Originality/value: The present study contributes to previous research by assessing a set of potential mediators to explain why displays of happiness influence consumers, and by examining these effects in a marketing communications setting in which the customer is exposed to still images or video-based representations of the employee. The present study also focuses explicitly on happiness rather than on smiles.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-06-2019-0208 [Google]
Stein, A. and B. Ramaseshan (2020): The customer experience – loyalty link: moderating role of motivation orientation, Journal of Service Management, 31(1), pp.51-78
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to examine the effects of different touch points on customer experience, second, effects of customer experience on loyalty intentions, and actual spend, and third, the moderating role of motivation orientation on these effects. Design/methodology/approach: By recognizing the importance of capturing customer experience assessments at the “time of the experience”, a smartphone technology mobile app was developed for the purpose of this study. Real time customer experience data were collected at individual touch points. Findings: The results show that the real-time touch point evaluations significantly effect overall customer experience and that these effects significantly differ for utilitarian and hedonic motivation orientations. The effects of technology, atmospherics, employee–customer interaction and service/product interaction touch points on overall customer experience are significantly stronger for hedonic orientation than for utilitarian orientation. In contrast, the effect of process touch point on overall customer experience is significantly stronger for utilitarian than hedonic orientation. Also, favorable overall customer experience evaluations exert significant positive influence on loyalty intentions, and actual spend, and these influences are significantly stronger for consumers with hedonic than utilitarian motivation orientations. Practical implications: The findings of this study will enable companies to manage customer experience programs effectively by providing an understanding of the distinct touch points that occur along the customer journey and the relative importance of each of these touch points in enhancing customer experience. Originality/value: This is the first empirical study that offers important insights on the effects of different touch points on customer experience, and on the moderating role of consumer motivation orientations on the touch points – customer experience – loyalty link by using real-time data.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-04-2019-0113 [Google]
Tsai, K.-H. and S. C.-T. Huang (2020): Service creativity reinforcement and firm performance: The roles of innovation intensity and contexts, Journal of Service Management, 31(1), pp.1-23
Purpose: Many service firms have adopted creativity reinforcement mechanisms to manage employee-based service creativity so as to pursue their performance growth. However, its impact on firm performance has rarely been investigated in the extant research. The purpose of this paper is to satisfy this knowledge gap through an examination of how service creativity reinforcement (SCR) affects a firm’s performance. Design/methodology/approach: Two samples were used to test the hypotheses. The first sample included a total of 4,381 service firms and was analyzed by using a traditional moderated regression method in relation to sales growth as the outcome variable. Due to a number of missing values, the second sample was reduced to 1,481 service firms. This sample was analyzed by using a moderated fractional regression method and the outcome variable was innovation performance. Furthermore, a multi-valued treatment approach with the augmented inverse-propensity weighted estimator was adopted to assess the performance effect that was associated with each of the SCR mechanisms. Findings: Statistical analyses suggested that SCR positively affected both the firm’s performance and its innovation performance. Specifically, the stronger performance effects of SCR were associated with firms that had high innovation intensity, were small service firms and were part of the knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) sector. The results also found that brainstorming sessions, a multi-disciplinary team approach, task rotation and non-financial incentives had greater performance effects than other mechanisms, especially for firms in the KIBS sector that had high innovation intensity. In addition, the results indicated that team-level mechanisms were more effective in developing highly innovative services than were individual-level mechanisms. Originality/value: This study has contributed to the service literature by developing a contingency framework for SCR. This study has also advanced service research through the presentation of contextual effects associated with each mechanism of SCR.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-02-2018-0041 [Google]
Fernandez, S., F. Dufour, V. Costa, C. de Boer, L. Terrier and P. Golay (2020): Increasing Tips in Less Than Two Hours: Impact of a Training Intervention on the Amount of Tips Received by Restaurant Employees, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 61(1), pp.98-107
Previous studies have shown that restaurant employees who use tip-enhancing behaviors such as smiling, introducing oneself by one’s name or writing “thank you” on the bill receive more tips. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of a training intervention about tip-enhancing behaviors on the amount of tips received by restaurant employees. The sample of this study comprised 143 employees working in 62 restaurants. Sixty-nine participants took part in the training intervention and 74 were in the control condition. After the training intervention, the amount of tips received by the employees was tracked over 5 days. Results showed that participants who followed the training intervention used more tip-enhancing behaviors than the participants in the control group, that a higher use of tip-enhancing behaviors was related to higher amount of tips and that the effect of the training intervention on the amount of tips was fully mediated by an increase in the use of tip-enhancing behaviors.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1938965519863297 [Google]
Han, B., L. Wang and X. Li (2020): To Collaborate or Serve? Effects of Anthropomorphized Brand Roles and Implicit Theories on Consumer Responses, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 61(1), pp.53-67
This article extends on the literature regarding brand anthropomorphism and contributes to hospitality and tourism literature by demonstrating that positioning of different anthropomorphic brand roles (partner vs. servant) attracts diverse consumers. Drawing from the results of three experiments in various contexts, we theorize that brand role and consumer implicit theories can interactively influence consumer responses. Specifically, consumers who subscribe to entity theory (vs. incremental theory) express more favorable responses to a brand anthropomorphized as a servant (vs. a partner) than to that as a partner (vs. a servant). Moreover, this study confirms that consumers’ perceived self-efficacy mediates this interaction effect. Findings enrich the hospitality and tourism literature by introducing a matching effect between brand role and implicit theories and offering insightful implications for hospitality and tourism brand managers, especially advertisers, around modifying brand roles based on consumers’ mind-sets.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1938965519874879 [Google]
Kim, Y. S. and M. A. Baker (2020): I Earn It, But They Just Get It: Loyalty Program Customer Reactions to Unearned Preferential Treatment in the Social Servicescape, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 61(1), pp.84-97
Hospitality and tourism firms use two different strategies in customer relationship management: rewarding loyalty program customers with earned rewards (earned preferential treatment) and delighting the nonprogram customers with surprise rewards (unearned preferential treatment). However, research overlooks the key impact of how these two customer relationship management strategies may negatively affect the observing loyalty program customers. To address these gaps, Study 1 finds that providing a nonprogram customer with a high-value unearned treatment significantly decreases perceptions of distributive justice, status, and loyalty among the observing loyalty program customers. No significant interaction effects of a firm’s explanation were found, suggesting that the practice of unearned preferential treatment cannot be justified simply by presenting a reason for the practice. Study 2 finds that compensating the affected program customers with tangible compensation is the only significant factor that enhances the observing loyalty program customers’ perceived trust, suggesting rebuilding customers’ trust as the key element in recovery. This research is grounded in social comparison and justice theory and builds upon the loyalty, social servicescape, and customer delight literature to explicitly examine the reward comparison stemming from the social presence of other customers.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1938965519857539 [Google]
Madera, J. M., D. C. Taylor and N. A. Barber (2020): Customer Service Evaluations of Employees With Disabilities: The Roles of Perceived Competence and Service Failure, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 61(1), pp.5-18
Although employees with disabilities represent a significant percentage of the American hospitality labor force, they often face workplace discrimination. Despite this reality, no research has examined whether customer service evaluations are affected by employees with visible disabilities and the mechanisms behind why and when customer service evaluations can be negatively impacted by employee disability status. This is a significant gap in the literature focusing on disability discrimination because customers—through their customer service evaluations—play a significant role in the evaluation of hospitality employees. Therefore, the current article examined if employee disability status (i.e., does or does not have a disability) influences customer service evaluations using experimental methods in which a hotel service experience is performed by an employee who does or does not have a disability. The current research found that (a) customers do evaluate hospitality employees with disabilities lower than employees without disabilities, (b) customer service evaluations are negatively impacted by employee disability status because they are perceived as less competent than employees without disabilities, and (c) customers are more likely to do so in the presence of a service failure.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1938965519882315 [Google]
Mody, M., C. Suess and T. Dogru (2020): Restorative Servicescapes in Health Care: Examining the Influence of Hotel-Like Attributes on Patient Well-Being, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 61(1), pp.19-39
This study examines how 527 patients across different health states assessed the influence of hotel-like attributes on their well-being. Using theoretical mechanisms of attention restoration underlying restorative servicescapes, we postulated that hotel-like products and services will enhance patients’ perceived well-being, which, in turn, will favorably affect their behavioral intentions. We also tested an alternative model that included additional direct relationships between hotel-like products and services and behavioral intentions, based on the tenets of cue utilization theory. After conducting a series of nested model comparison procedures, we confirmed that the alternative model provided a theoretically and empirically stronger explanation for the dynamics of hotel-like restorative servicescapes. Although the differences between less healthy and more healthy patients were not statistically significant, the less healthy group demonstrated the same pattern of relationships as in the overall model, indicating that such patients may be more likely to derive greater restorative benefits from hotel-like hospital rooms, which may also make them more likely to pay higher out-of-pocket expenses for such rooms. The study furthers the empirical research agenda on evidence-based design (EBD) and the role of hospitality in health care.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1938965519879430 [Google]
Shin, J. and A. S. Mattila (2020): Healthy Taste of High Status: Signaling Status at Restaurants, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 61(1), pp.40-52
Despite the prevalence of a common belief associating healthy eating with high status, the effect of such an intuitive association on consumer behavior remains unexamined. To fill this void, this research explores status signaling in a restaurant context. Two studies were conducted to examine the impact of consumers’ need for status on their preferences for healthy dining options. Results from Study 1 show that need for status has a positive effect on consumer preferences for a restaurant with a healthy (vs. less healthy) menu. These results indicate that although dining out can be a means to convey high status, such a symbolic role is limited to restaurants with healthy (vs. less healthy) options. Results from Study 2 demonstrate that need for status has a positive effect on anticipated satisfaction with healthy dining options when consumers’ choice is unconstrained (vs. constrained). These results indicate that restaurants offering healthy foods can inadvertently lose their status-signaling value by limiting consumers’ freedom of choice. This research adds to the hospitality literature by illuminating an unexamined facilitator of healthy dining: need for status. It also extends the literature by demonstrating that consumers may derive status-signaling value not only from luxury goods but also from more mundane hospitality experiences. Additional theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1938965519877807 [Google]
Zhang, L., Y. Gao and X. Zheng (2020): Let’s Talk About This in Public: Consumer Expectations for Online Review Response, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 61(1), pp.68-83
Online consumer reviews are becoming one of the key drivers of hospitality firm performance. Although research has investigated different aspects of online reviews such as their volume and length, issues regarding the effectiveness of review response demand for further investigation. Drawing on theories of expectancy value and communication, we develop and test a framework of consumer expectations regarding company responses. Results from two experiments show that consumer preferences for responses to their online reviews depend on the factors of valence (positive vs. negative), explanation type (explained action vs. explained reaction), and response channel (private vs. public). Perceived usefulness is found to be the underlying mechanism that explains these effects. The study’s theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1938965519864864 [Google]
