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Based on stimulus-organism-response theory, this study aims to explore how digital service communication strategies affected customers’ e-service agent use intentions through perceived warmth and competence.

A 2 × 2 scenario-based experiment was conducted to test the proposed relationships.

Findings indicated when a high-authority conversation party was engaged in digital service communications, customers showed higher e-service agent use intentions through perceived warmth and competence in an emoji-presence conversation style.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the effects of digital service communication strategies on customers’ internal and behavioral responses.

基于刺激-有机体-反应理论, 本研究探讨了数字服务沟通策略如何通过感知亲切和感知能力的方式影响了顾客对电子服务代理的使用意愿。

本研究进行了一项基于2x2情境的实验, 以测试所提出的关系。

研究结果表明, 当高权威的对话方参与数字服务沟通时, 顾客在表情存在的对话风格中通过亲切和能力的认知表现出更高的电子服务代理使用意愿。

本研究调查了对话方和对话方式作为数字服务沟通策略在顾客-数字服务互动中的影响。

本研究是第一个探讨数字服务沟通策略对顾客内部和行为反应影响的研究。

Customer service conversations are becoming increasingly digital and automated, leaving service encounters impersonal. The purpose of this paper is to identify how customer service agents and conversational artificial intelligence (AI) applications can provide a personal touch and improve the customer experience in customer service. The authors offer a conceptual framework delineating how text-based customer service communication should be designed to increase relational personalization.

This paper presents a systematic literature review on conversation styles of conversational AI and integrates the extant research to inform the development of the proposed conceptual framework. Using social information processing theory as a theoretical lens, the authors extend the concept of relational personalization for text-based customer service communication.

The conceptual framework identifies conversation styles, whose degree of expression needs to be personalized to provide a personal touch and improve the customer experience in service. The personalization of these conversation styles depends on available psychological and individual customer knowledge, contextual factors such as the interaction and service type, as well as the freedom of communication the conversational AI or customer service agent has.

The article is the first to conduct a systematic literature review on conversation styles of conversational AI in customer service and to conceptualize critical elements of text-based customer service communication required to provide a personal touch with conversational AI. Furthermore, the authors provide managerial implications to advance customer service conversations with three types of conversational AI applications used in collaboration with customer service agents, namely conversational analytics, conversational coaching and chatbots.

Despite their centrality to organizing – acknowledged by several theorists – unplanned conversations are often marginalized in organizational theory. To remedy this oversight, we recenter attention on this understudied aspect of organizing. We draw on the affordances perspective to elaborate on the spatial and temporal factors influencing unplanned conversations.

This conceptual paper integrates multidisciplinary literature on unplanned conversations to identify a range of spatiotemporal factors influencing unplanned conversations. Our approach emphasizes how various situational factors afford or hinder opportunities for unplanned conversations among organizational members.

Unplanned conversations were precisely defined as opportunistic or spontaneous conversations, characterized by the absence of pre-planning, that can be work or non-work-related. Then, the characteristics of unplanned conversations (emergent, episodic and brief, interrelated, convenient, and improvisational) were outlined, indicating their distinct organizing and structuring capabilities. The spatial (i.e. spatial proximity, visibility, legitimacy, and psychological safety) and temporal (i.e. work time pressure, work history, work expertise, and work routineness) factors identified in the study both afford and constrain individuals’ unplanned conversations. The empirically testable propositions offered in the study have significant theoretical and practical implications.

This study enriches our understanding of unplanned conversations by offering a precise conceptual definition, outlining their essential characteristics, and underscoring their theoretical and practical significance in organizing. The study highlights the need for organizations to consider the spatiotemporal factors that influence unplanned conversations.

Transaction cost economics sees a broad spectrum of governance structures spanned by two types of economic adaptation: autonomous and cooperative. Stakeholder theorists have drawn much inspiration from transaction cost economics but have not paid explicit attention to the centrality of the idea of adaptation in this literature. This study aims to address this gap.

The authors develop a novel conceptual framework applying the distinction between the two types of economic adaptation to stakeholder theory.

The authors argue that the idea of cooperative adaptation is particularly useful for describing the firm’s collaboration with primary stakeholders in the joint value creation process. In contrast, autonomous adaptation is more relevant for firms interacting with secondary stakeholders who are not directly engaged in joint value creation and may not have formal contractual relationships with the firm. Accordingly, cooperative adaptation can be seen as vital for resolving team production problems affecting joint value creation, whereas autonomous adaptation addresses how the firm maintains legitimacy within the larger stakeholder environment.

Similar to its significance for transaction cost economics, the distinction between the two types of adaptation equips stakeholder theory with a new systematic understanding of a potentially broad spectrum of firm–stakeholder collaboration forms.

This paper aims to offer a reflection on the alliance between accounting theory and social research in general, focussing on the conjunction of accounting theory and ethnography in particular.

The author builds on Stefan Hirschauer’s methodological reflections on ethnography and the “silence of the social” to briefly re-articulate some of the ideas the author had associated, in an earlier piece, with the investigation of tacit coordination in accounting.

Ethnography is an intrinsically theoretical practice and also a particular form of accounting. As such, it presents a paradigm case for how accounting theory builds on, and emerges from, social research in joint efforts of breaking the silence of the social. Ethnographic research, like the practice of accounting and social research more generally, is associated with a stewardship of silence and an “ethics of mattering” (Karen Barad), and accounting theory is an invitation to reflect on the underlying practices of (dis-)articulation.

The paper invites readers to engage with accounting practice as a topic of systematic theoretical interest in exploring how we put the world on the record, understand the choices we make in the process and the silences we let lie.

This paper has a dual purpose: to produce a clear panorama of microfactors behind the implementation of environmental, social and governance (ESG) in emergent economies, and to identify long-term versus short-term implications of ESG and its impacts on sustainable transformation. In particular, the paper investigates the moderating role of ownership concentration on ESG performance and firm value relationship in Southeast Asia during 2010–2022 and COVID-19 period 2020–2022.

By adopting stakeholder and agency theory lenses, this study analyzes 591 nonfinancial listed companies in Southeast Asia from 2010 to 2022 with 2,673 firm-year observations. Data has been collected from Refinitiv and companies' annual reports. Ordinary least squares (OLS) and two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimators are main strategies.

During 2010–2022, the links between ESG performances and firm value are negative. Ownership concentration negatively moderates the nexus between governance pillar and firm value in both short and long run. In COVID-19, ownership concentration also plays an antagonistic moderating role in ESG combined score-firm value association. The results show a crucial role of blockholders in Southeast Asian firms and their strong support to ESG in conquering crisis period, suggesting that managers develop balancing mechanisms in making ESG-related decisions; policymakers and regulators improve effective control instruments with strong legal systems and enhanced law enforcement to protect minority shareholders.

This is the first study to test the connection between ESG performance, ownership concentration and firm value in Southeast Asia that has: (1) utilized different proxies of firm value and ownership concentration in robustness tests, (2) controlled heteroskedasticity defects, (3) eliminated companies in the Banking and Finance sector from the sample to avoid distorting the conclusions and (4) empirically verified the driven role of governance pillar in ESG performance and ownership concentration reversely moderated the impact of governance pillar on firm value.

Although student evaluation of teaching (SET) is widely used, there has been a significant disparity between its potential benefits with the actual impact on improving educational quality. This study aims to inquire into the factors contributing to this discrepancy and the underlying mechanisms hindering the effective utilisation of SET.

This qualitative case study used problem-based methodology to investigate the theories of action of administrators involved in SET. The study uses SET documents and individual interviews with 18 administrators from six Vietnamese higher education institutions.

While the administrators monitored SET data and addressed SET problems, few used it for quality improvement. The participants’ SET approaches were influenced by various constraints, especially the intricate interaction between neoliberal agendas with professional and cultural values.

Despite a lack of statistical generalisability, this study contributes to analytical generalisation by vividly portraying the complexity of the SET practice in a higher education context.

This study suggests a more inclusive approach to quality improvement that prioritises multi-stakeholder engagement.

The constraint analysis offers invaluable insights into the challenges and dynamics of SET practice, which can be used to enhance SET effectiveness and overall educational quality.

This paper addresses the need to examine the theories of action of administrators involved in SET, emphasising the significance of a comprehensive understanding of the stakeholders’ underlying reasoning process for successful evaluation implementation.

Through critically reflecting on existing research on information and communication technology (ICT) in hospitality, the purpose of this study is to propose recommendations for future research to further narrow the theory-practice gap.

Personal experiences along with evidence from the literature provide a foundation for discussion, which is further enriched by integrating industry practitioners’ points of view.

Single-perspective and technology adoption studies have dominated ICT research in the hospitality literature. Technology effectiveness has often been measured indirectly. Oversimplifying technological issues has limited the generalizability of research findings.

Future studies are suggested to go beyond examining technology adoption, embrace multi-perspective approaches and incorporate a wider range of situational and contextual factors.

Through a unique perspective, this study highlights the limitations of previous ICT research in the hospitality literature and provides suggestions for future research to better meet the needs of practitioners. The arguments presented are not purely from an academic standpoint, as they have been endorsed by senior industry executives.

As brands progressively become instruments for consumers to advocate for social change, many feel pressure to engage in social purpose branding (SPB) through addressing social issues. In a rush to remain socially relevant, brands have approached SPB differently; some genuinely intend to advance the social issue, while some intend to capitalise on social movements to mobilise the brand. This paper aims to explain these differences by theoretically outlining various approaches to SPB.

This mixed method paper draws on theory, interviews with marketing practitioners, and practical exemplars to present a typology of SPB approaches. 

Using institutional logics theory, SPB is categorised into four approaches: social purpose-driving, social purpose-driven, social purpose-aligning and social purpose-washing.

The typological framework for SPB advances this domain to outline effective and ineffective ways for brands to engage with social issues. A detailed agenda for further research is provided to guide ongoing SPB research. 

The typology presented reduces complexity and helps marketers understand the different approaches to engaging with a social issue. Given the growing intertwinement of brands and social issues, this research is essential for brands seeking to advance a social issue and remain relevant.

This paper offers a novel conceptualisation of SPB by defining it, identifying a framework of its characteristics, and detailing four SPB approaches. 

Despite the growing interest in the field of supply chain sustainability (SCS), little exploration of new theories exists. Therefore, this paper aims to introduce practice theories to SCS studies through a practice turn.

This is a conceptual paper in nature. Hence, based on theoretical arguments, the authors elaborate on how the practice turn can arise in the SCS field.

The theoretical elaboration is rooted in the understanding that sustainability is not limited to the materiality of environmental and social issues, as often observed. Instead, there is a need to include immaterial, emotional and intangible elements to better comprehend SCS practice. The authors argue that a continuum exists for a practice turn, including practice-based view, practice-based studies and critical practice theory.

The authors provide a research agenda with a comprehensive perspective of understanding the application and implications of practice theories to SCS.

The practice turn in SCS studies can support managers to better understand their practices not only through recognizing explicit activities but also mainly by reflecting on hidden elements that affect their performance.

SCS studies can better engage with grand challenges through a practice turn, which helps increase its contribution to solving social problems.

Unlike previous literature, the paper elaborates on how practice theories are powerful in supporting both scholars and practitioners in moving away from an extremely economic focus to genuinely embrace sustainability practice. In doing so, the practice turn appears as an important phase for SCS field maturity.