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The purpose of this paper is to contribute toward the current limited understanding of service bundles by investigating how purchasers of combined product-service bundles (bundle customers) differ from those purchasing a product and associated service separately (non-bundle customers).

The hypothesized effects were tested on a representative sample of mobile phone subscribers in Finland, through a multi-group moderated analysis using variance-based structural equation modeling.

While functional value had a stronger effect on attitude for bundle customers, price value is a stronger determinant of attitude for non-bundle customers. There was no difference between the groups in terms of how attitude determines the word-of-mouth (WOM) intent. The total influence of functional value on positive WOM intent was stronger for bundle customers vs non-bundle customers; in contrast, the total influence of price value on positive WOM was weaker for the bundle customers.

Two interrelated frameworks, prospect theory and mental accounting theory, are used to analyze customer response to service bundles. The results demonstrate that bundles play a powerful role in determining engagement behaviors critical to firms. Purchasing a service bundle vs a non-bundle influences how price value and functional value determine attitude and WOM intent in fundamentally different ways.

In devising communication strategies to maximize positive WOM, managers need to emphasize functional benefits for bundle purchasers and price benefits for non-bundle customers. The results also demonstrate that it is more important for firms to track perceived value, as value and not attitude differentiates WOM generation in the two groups.

This is the first study to demonstrate how bundle and non-bundle customers determine value, and how functional value and price value determine WOM generation and attitude toward service provider in fundamentally different ways. The comparison of the bundle group where the firm acts as the main resource integrator to a non-bundle group where the customer is the main resource integrator in creating value helps demonstrate the need for firms to treat the two groups in distinct ways.

In 2020, the Journal of Service Theory and Practice (JSTP), previously titled Managing Service Quality, celebrates its 30th anniversary. This study provides a retrospective of the evolution and contribution of the journal to service research by identifying its major trends, research constituents, factors contributing to citations and thematic structure over its 29 active years (1991–2019). The paper concludes by providing directions and ideas for progressing service research

The study uses the Scopus database to extract JSTP's bibliographic data. It employs bibliometric methods to study the trends of the journal, such as the citation structure and most-contributing authors, institutions and countries. Bibliographic coupling and keyword co-occurrence analyses are used to study the intellectual structure of the journal. Regression analysis discloses the factors influencing citations of JSTP articles. Factors explaining the citation count of JSTP articles include article age, number of author keywords, article length, title length and number of references.

JSTP's influence has grown significantly in the scientific community, which is evidenced by findings relating to the citation counts, the thematic scope/variety and authorship features of the JSTP papers published during the last 30 years. JSTP attracts publications from around the globe, but most contributions come from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Although JSTP has continuously evolved with new and varied themes, a bibliographic coupling analysis clustered JSTP articles into five major clusters.

The limitations of the Scopus database may impact the study's results.

This study is the first to provide a comprehensive review of JSTP since its launch. It is useful to the editorial board and other JSTP stakeholders as well as service scholars alike.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the expectations and evaluations of services provided by members of an ethnic minority using the lens of ethnic stereotypes. The authors also examine how ethnic service providers (ESPs) are evaluated by customers from the majority group vs the same ethnic group as the provider.

In Study 1, the authors measure the stereotypes about skills, abilities, and typical professions associated with different ethnic groups (i.e. Chinese, South Asians and white). The authors then measure the effect of these stereotypes on the performance expectations from ESPs in different professional services. In Study 2, the authors manipulate the service domain (stereotypical vs counter-stereotypical) and the level of service performance (good: above average performance vs mediocre: below average) of a Chinese ESP, and subsequently measure the evaluation of the ESP by the same ethnic group (Chinese) vs majority group (white) participants.

Performance expectations from ESPs closely match the stereotypes associated with the ethnic group. But the performance of an ESP (especially mediocre-level service) is evaluated differently by the same ethnic group vs majority group customers, depending upon the domain of service. A Chinese ESP providing mediocre service in a stereotypical domain (martial arts instructor) is evaluated more critically by same ethnic group (Chinese) participants as compared to white participants. In contrast, a Chinese ESP providing mediocre service in a counter-stereotypical domain (fitness instructor) is evaluated more favourably by same ethnic group (Chinese) participants as compared to white participants. There is no such difference when performance is good.

It is a common practice to employ ESPs to serve same ethnic group customers. While this strategy can be effective in a counter-stereotypical domain even if the ESP provides mediocre service, the findings suggest that this strategy can backfire when the performance is mediocre in a stereotypical service domain.

The results demonstrate the need for emphasizing outcome (vis-à-vis interaction) quality where ESPs are employed to serve same ethnic group customers in a stereotypical service setting. However, when an ESP is offering a counter-stereotypical service, the emphasis needs to be more on the interpersonal processes (vis-à-vis outcome). Firms can gain by taking this into account in their hiring and training practices.

Prior research has primarily used cultural distance to examine inter-cultural service encounters. The authors show that ethnic stereotypes pertaining to the skills and abilities of an ESP can affect evaluations beyond the role of cultural distance alone.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how digital content marketing (DCM) users can be engaged with business-to-business (B2B) brands and determine how such engagement leads to value-laden trusted brand relationships.

Through an online survey, data were collected from the email marketing list of a large B2B brand, and the hypothesised research model was analysed using covariance-based structural equation modelling.

This paper identifies a bundle of helpful brand actions – providing relevant topics and ideas; approaching content with a problem solving orientation; as well as investing in efforts to interpret, analyse and explain topics through DCM – to foster relationship value perceptions and brand trust. Critically however, cognitive-emotional brand engagement is shown to be a necessary requirement for converting these actions into relationship value perceptions.

This paper furthers the understanding of the dual role of helpful brand actions in functionally oriented DCM. Additionally, this paper offers evidence of the central role of cognitive-emotional brand engagement in influencing value-laden customer–brand relationships.

This paper introduces a bundle of helpful brand actions that forms the basis for the dual roles of a brand in enhancing customer value and in fostering brand engagement and building relationships. This approach helps practitioners to steer brand-related perceptions arising from DCM interactions towards building trusted brand relationships.

This paper contributes to the marketing literature by revealing a potential approach to DCM in managing customer relationships. Instead of focusing solely on the content benefit-usage link to support engagement, this paper reveals the potential of helpfulness as a brand-initiated DCM engagement trigger in engaging customers with the brand, vis-à-vis the content.

Journal of services marketing (JSM) is a leading journal that has published cutting-edge research in services marketing over the past 34 years. The main objective of this paper is to provide a retrospective of the thematic structure of papers published in JSM over its publication history.

This study uses bibliometric methods to present a retrospective overview of JSM themes between 1987 and 2019. Using keywords co-occurrence analysis, this paper unveils the thematic structure of JSM’s most prolific themes. Bibliographic coupling analysis uncovers the research trends of the journal.

Leading authors, leading institutions, authors’ affiliated countries and critically, the dominant themes of JSM are identified. As its founding, JSM has published approximately 40 papers each year, with 2019 being its most productive year. On average, lead JSM authors to collaborate with 1.30 others. Keywords co-occurrence analysis identifies nine prominent thematic clusters, namely, “marketing to service”, “quality, satisfaction and delivery systems”, “service industries”, “relationship marketing”, “service failure, complaining and recovery”, “service dominant logic”, “technology, innovation and design”, “wellbeing” and “service encounters”. Bibliographic coupling analysis groups JSM papers into four clusters, namely, “brand & customer engagement behaviour”, “service co-creation”, “service encounters & service recovery” and “social networking”.

This study is the first to analyse the thematic structure of JSM themes over its history. The themes are analysed across time periods and then compared to dominant themes identified in contemporary service research agendas. Recommendations are made based on the gaps found. This retrospective review will be useful to numerous key stakeholders including the editorial board and both existing and aspiring JSM contributors. The selection of literature is confined to Scopus.

JSM’s retrospection is likely to attract readership to the journal. The study’s recommendations regarding which areas have matured and which are still ripe for future contributions will offer useful guidelines for all stakeholders.

Actors who participate in co-created service experiences typically assume that they will experience improved well-being. However, a growing body of literature demonstrates that the reverse is also likely to be true, with one or more actors experiencing value co-destruction (VCD), rather than value co-creation, in the service system. Building on the notion of resource misintegration as a trigger of the VCD process, this paper offers a typology of resource misintegration manifestations and to present a dynamic conceptualization of the VCD process.

A systematic, iterative VCD literature review was conducted with a priori aims to uncover the manifestations of resource misintegration and illustrate its connection to VCD for an actor or actors.

Ten distinct manifestations of resource misintegration are identified that provide evidence or an early warning sign of the potential for negative well-being for one or more actors in the service system. Furthermore, a dynamic framework illustrates how an affected actor uses proactive and reactive coping and support resources to prevent VCD or restore well-being.

The study presents a typology of manifestations of resource misintegration that signal or warn of the potential for VCD, thus providing an opportunity to prevent or curtail the VCD process.

Systematic research examining the mechanisms that mediate the dynamic capability–performance relationship remains scarce. So too is research on the conditions under which these mechanisms might be influential. Accordingly, this study aims to build upon business network research to examine how a firm’s dynamic network capability (DNC) impacts firm performance, mediated by the speed of product reconfiguration (i.e. new product development [NPD] speed) and bounded by firm age.

The authors conduct moderated mediation analysis on survey data from small- and medium-sized manufacturing and technology firms in the USA. This study uses an initial survey and then a follow-up survey.

The findings support the general view that DNC is instrumental to firm performance, regardless of firm age. However, DNC operates differently for younger vs older firms. That is, DNC’s impact on the performance of younger firms is enabled by speeding up NPD, while much of the performance impact for older firms appears to be through alternative resource reconfiguration route(s). This study identifies the need to include a mediating variable such as resource reconfiguration to detect how DNC impacts performance.

The model could include different dimensions of mediating resource reconfigurations, alternative boundary conditions and longer-term data.

This study provides managers with insight on how speed of product reconfiguration (in terms of NPD) operates in the DNC–performance relationship. It also helps them understand how this relationship changes in younger vs older firms.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide empirical evidence on how DNC operates to influence performance in firms that are younger vs older.

This study investigates service adaptation in a business-to-business context and explores the characteristics of service adaptation and how it takes place in business-to-business markets.

Two case studies were employed to obtain both suppliers’ and customers’ perceptions of service adaptation in a business-to-business context.

The findings captured both suppliers’ and customers’ adaptation in a business-to-business service context. It revealed customers’ active adaptation in assisting suppliers in the business-to-business service process. Suppliers’ willingness to make adaptation appears to have an impact on their relationships with customers. Business-to-business service adaptation is a dynamic and interactive process.

The findings shed light for practitioners not to neglect customers’ active participation, but to understand customers’ role in making adaptation with suppliers in the service process to enhance their service experience and business-to-business relationships. The research is exploratory and the findings of these two case studies may be influenced by the manufacturing sector in which the case study firms are based.

This paper illustrates that the interactive nature of service adaptation is particularly pertinent in a business-to-business context and that the phenomena needs much more careful attention as it provides a potential area for marketing managers to achieve service differentiation.

The purpose of this editorial paper is to set out the vision for the Journal of Service Theory and Practice (JSTP).

Together with personal reflections of the authors, it is based on a review of literature on the past, the present and the future of service research, an analysis of a broad range of global environmental trends, as well as interviews, communications and feedback from eminent scholars in the field of service research.

The paper sets out the expanded aims and scope for the JSTP. It also explains the rationale for the change in title and elaborates upon expectations for manuscripts submitted to the journal.

It identifies a set of research priorities for the journal and the field.

It highlights the importance of translating theory into practice by making meaningful recommendations and action plans for firms and managers.

This paper is written at a time when the journal has been undergoing considerable change, including retitling as well as the complete restructuring of the editorial team. It is also written at a time when the field of service management is being transformed by new approaches and research perspectives. As such, it is both necessary and timely.

Primarily, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the interaction and direct effects of tie strength between sender and receiver of word of mouth (WOM) and the receiver’s service purchase decision involvement on WOM influence. A secondary aim is to investigate how a distinctive conceptualization of perceived risk, consisting of two types (outcome risk and psychosocial risk), affects service purchase decision involvement. A conceptual model incorporating these constructs and associated hypotheses is developed and tested.

In a survey of actual service consumers, respondents were asked to recall a recent instance where they had received service purchase information via WOM, and relate their responses to this instance. Established scales were used to measure the constructs. The hypothesized model was tested using structural equation modeling.

Principally, findings demonstrate a strong interaction effect between service purchase decision involvement and tie strength. Also, results highlight the complexity of the perceived risk construct, suggesting that it is appropriately modeled as two types: outcome risk, and psychosocial risk.

This research has contributed to the service marketing literature by testing a model that predicts WOM influence. Evidence confirmed that the effect of service purchase decision involvement on WOM influence is moderated by tie strength. Additionally, a conceptualization of two different types of risk associated with purchase decisions was suggested, together with empirical confirmation of their hypothesized antecedent effects on service purchase decision involvement. Findings have special implications for the literatures of persuasion, social and interpersonal influence, as well as consumer behavior in general.

To harness the power of WOM, managers should understand who their target audience is and how consumers are related to each other (tie strength) and to the service purchase decision (service purchase decision involvement). Recommendations are made with specific illustrations of how firms can leverage tie strength under conditions of low service purchase decision involvement to enhance WOM influence.

The formidable power of WOM wields substantial influence on consumers, particularly within a service (vs goods) purchase context, typically characterized by higher perceived risk and lower search qualities. The significant interaction between tie strength and service purchase decision involvement is a unique contribution to the service WOM literature.