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Piloting personalization research through data-rich environments: a literature review and future research agenda

Khalid Mehmood (Center for Service Intelligence, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium) (Department of Marketing, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium) (Department of Business Administration, Ghazi University, Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan)
Katrien Verleye (Center for Service Intelligence, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium)
Arne De Keyser (Department of Marketing, EDHEC Business School, Roubaix, France)
Bart Larivière (Department of Marketing, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium) (Center for Service Intelligence, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium)

Journal of Service Management

ISSN: 1757-5818

Article publication date: 21 June 2022

Issue publication date: 13 April 2023

1712

Abstract

Purpose

Over the last 50 years, increased attention for personalization paved the way for one-to-one marketing efforts, but firms struggle to deliver on this promise. The purpose of this manuscript is to provide a complete picture on personalization, develop a future research agenda and put forth concrete advice on how to move the field forward from a theoretical, methodological, contextual, and practical viewpoint.

Design/methodology/approach

This research follows a systematic literature review process, providing an in-depth analysis of 135 articles (covering 184 studies) to distill the (1) key building blocks and components of personalization and (2) theoretical, contextual, and methodological aspects of the studies.

Findings

This manuscript uncovers six personalization components that can be linked to two personalization building blocks: (1) learning: manner, transparency, and timing and (2) tailoring: touchpoints, level, and dynamics. For each of these components, the authors propose future research avenues to stimulate personalization research that accounts for challenges in today's data-rich environments (e.g. data privacy, dealing with new data types). A theoretical, contextual, and methodological (i.e. industry, country and personalization object) review of the selected studies leads to a set of concrete recommendations for future work: account for heterogeneity, embed theoretical perspectives, infuse methodological innovation, adopt appropriate evaluation metrics, and deal with legal/ethical challenges in data-rich environments. Finally, several managerial implications are put forth to support practitioners in their personalization efforts.

Originality/value

This research provides an integration of personalization research beyond existing and outdated review papers. Doing so, it accounts for the impact of new technologies and Artificial Intelligence and aims to advance the next generation of knowledge development on personalization.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the members of the Center for Service Intelligence for their constructive feedback during Happy Friday meetings. Additionally, the authors would like to thank the review team for their constructive comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Funding: Bart Larivière and Khalid Mehmood acknowledge support from the internal funds KU Leuven (STG-18-067).

Citation

Mehmood, K., Verleye, K., De Keyser, A. and Larivière, B. (2023), "Piloting personalization research through data-rich environments: a literature review and future research agenda", Journal of Service Management, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 520-552. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-10-2021-0405

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited

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