Search results

The purpose of this paper is to review customer experience formation (CXF) by first locating and analyzing how researchers approach CXF in the service literature and the theoretical underpinnings of these approaches, and then assessing which approaches are best suited for understanding, facilitating, and examining CXF in today’s service landscape.

This study systematically reviews 163 articles published between 1998 and 2015 in the service field.

This study illustrates how researchers approach CXF on the individual level by applying stimulus- interaction- or sense-making-based perspectives. These reflect researchers’ theoretical underpinnings for how individuals realize the customer experience within environmental, social, and temporal contexts through intermediation. Researchers further apply contextual lenses, including the dyadic and service- or customer-ecosystem lenses, which reflect their theoretical underpinnings for explaining how various actor constellations and contextual boundaries frame individual-level CXF. Finally, this study shows why the sense-making-based perspective, together with a service- or customer-ecosystem lens, is particularly suitable for approaching complex CXF in today’s service settings.

To advance theory, researchers should choose the approaches resonant with their research problem and worldview but also consider that today’s complex service landscape favors holistic and systemic approaches over atomistic and dyadic ones.

This study provides managers with recommendations for understanding, facilitating, and evaluating contemporary CXF.

This study advances the understanding of CXF by systematically reviewing its multiple layers, approaches, and dimensions and the opportunities and challenges of each approach.

The purpose of this study is to explore the agile project management (APM) approach through the contextual ambidextrous lens by overcoming the traditional perspective that separates projects within the opposite planned-exploitation- and emergent-exploration-oriented forms.

This study uses a grounded approach to five different agile-oriented companies for discovering how agile adoption shows both emergent (exploration-oriented) and planned (exploitation-oriented) tensions in a perspective that connects, rather than separates, them.

This study discovers five main categories, namely, approach, objectives, boundaries, leadership and feedback, that capture the tensions between planned and emergent issues of agile projects. The identified variables interact with different intervening conditions of the APM attributes (i.e. road map, product backlog, team backlog and solution delivery), activating different response actions (“exploitation embedded in exploration” and vice-versa), requiring, as a consequence, the need for contextual ambidexterity.

This study identifies different implications based on real project contexts, as the importance of a more complete picture of the APM approach, which also considers the combination of planned and emergent aspects of projects and, as consequence, the needs for dual capacities (T-shaped skills) both at project management and team levels.

This study identifies, in real project contexts, the relevance of integration between the corporate level and the agile project team. This implies the search for constant dialogue, with feedback exchange spread across all levels, also enabled by an integrated leadership approach.

This study highlights agile tensions in a real-world project context by describing how APM connects both explorative and exploitative aspects of change within the same APM initiative, in order to manage such tensions, which differs from previous studies that consider APM in alternation with a linear project management approach as stage-gate.

Intervention for young people engaging in harmful sexual behaviour has been largely based on individual-level conceptualisations and assessment. Prevention efforts reflect this individual-focus, relying primarily on offender management and justice responses. Risk of sexual abuse, however, is often situated outside the individual, within the broader social and physical systems in which young people are embedded. Lack of recognition for how contextual factors contribute to sexual abuse narrows the focus of prevention and intervention, overlooking the very contexts and circumstances in which this behaviour occurs. This paper aims to demonstrate the utility of contextual practice with young people who sexually harm, and implications for prevention.

An Australian case study is used to showcase the “why”, “what” and “how” of a contextual approach to assessment and treatment of young people who sexually harm.

Contextual approaches extend the focus of clinical practice beyond the individual to include the physical and social contexts that may contribute to risk. Adding a contextual lens broadens the approach to assessment, affording new opportunities to tailor the intervention to local contextual dynamics, and identifying new targets for primary and secondary prevention.

This is the first known attempt to extend understanding of contextual approaches to clinical assessment and intervention for young people who sexually harm, using a case study method. The case study showcases contextual assessment and intervention processes that challenge traditional thinking and practice in this field. Importantly, the case study also reveals new opportunities for primary and secondary prevention that emerge through this contextual clinical practice.

Delivering housing to resource-constrained communities (RCCs) is a complex process beset with difficulties. The purpose of this study is to use a complexity lens to examine the approach taken by a social enterprise (SE) in Australia to develop and manage a housebuilding supply chain for RCCs.

The research team used a longitudinal case study approach from 2017 to 2022, which used mixed methods to understand the phenomenon and gain an in-depth understanding of the complex issues and problem-solving undertaken by an SE start-up.

Balancing mission logic with commercial viability is challenging for an SE. The supply chain solution that evolved accommodated the particulars of geography and the needs of many stakeholders, including the end-user community and government sponsors. Extensive and time-consuming socialisation and customisation led to a successful technical design and sustainable supply chain operation.

Analysing supply chain intricacies via a complexity framework is valuable for scholars and practitioners, assisting in designing and developing supply chain configurations and understanding their dynamics. Meeting the housing construction needs of RCCs requires the SE to place societal focus at the centre of the supply chain rather than merely being a system output. The developed business model complements the engineering solution to empower a community-led housing construction supply chain.

This longitudinal case study contributes to knowledge by providing rich insights into the roles of SEs and how they develop and operate supply chains to fit with the needs of RCCs. Adding a contextual response dimension to an established complexity framework helped to explain how hybrid organisations balance commercial viability demands with social mission logic by amending traditional supply chain and governance practices. The case provides insights into supply chain configuration, needed changes and potential impacts when an SE as a focal actor inserts into a traditional for-profit construction supply chain.

This paper aims to present an analysis of a “county lines” safeguarding partnership in a large city region of England. A critical analysis of current literature and practice responses to “county lines” is followed by the presentation of an analytical framework that draws on three contextual and social theories of (child) harm. This framework is applied to the partnership work to ask: are the interconnected conditions of criminal exploitation of children via “county lines” understood?; do interventions target the contexts of harm?; and is social and institutional harm acknowledged and addressed?

The analytical framework is applied to a data set collected by the author throughout a two-year study of the “county lines” partnership. Qualitative data collected by the author and quantitative data published by the partnership are coded and thematically analysed in NVivo against the analytic framework.

Critical tensions are surfaced in the praxis of multi-agency, child welfare responses to “county lines” affected young people. Generalising these findings to the child welfare sector at large, it is proposed that the contextual dynamics of child harm via “county lines” must be understood in a broader sense, including how multi-agency child welfare practices contribute to the harm experienced by young people.

There are limited peer-reviewed analyses of child welfare responses to “county lines”. This paper contributes to that limited scholarship, extending the analysis by adopting a critical analytic framework to a regional county lines partnership at the juncture of future national, child welfare responses to “county lines”.

Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs (RWMEs) are amongst the largest EU migrant communities in the UK and make significant socioeconomic contributions to both their host and origin nations, but academic research and policy discussions have ignored them. Intersectionality raises complex contextual issues that require comprehensive examination and inclusive policies and programmes. This study is aimed at exploring how Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs experience their transnational intersectional journeys of belonging, as they create, negotiate and enact their intersectional identities of the country of origin, gender and being entrepreneurs in the UK and Romania.

This Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) draws on draws upon Crenshaw's (1991) intersectional and Social Identity theories (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) to investigate how nine interviewed RWMEs have experienced their transnational journeys of acculturative belonging in the UK and Romania.

The study findings show how RWMEs undo and negotiate their intersecting identities to adhere to socio-cultural standards in both their host and native nations. In the UK, they feel empowered as women entrepreneurs, but in patriarchal Romania, their entrepreneurial identity is revoked, contradicting the prescribed socio-cultural roles.

This study responds to the call regarding inequalities in entrepreneurship opportunities (Vershinina et al., 2022). By focussing on the understudied community of RWMEs and exploring new intersectional and transnational contextual insights, it contributes to the literature and practice of migrant entrepreneurship. These empirical findings are essential for the development of evidence-based, disaggregated entrepreneurship programmes and policies.

This study responds to the call regarding inequalities in entrepreneurship opportunities (Vershinina et al., 2022). By focussing on the understudied community of RWMEs and exploring new intersectional and transnational contextual insights, it contributes to the literature and practice of migrant entrepreneurship. These empirical findings are essential for the development of evidence-based, disaggregated entrepreneurship programmes and policies.

While online classes have enabled many universities to carry out their regular academic activities, they have also given rise to new and unanticipated ethical concerns. We focus on the “dark side” of online class settings and attempt to illuminate the ethical problems associated with them. The purpose of this study is to investigate the affordances stemming from the technology-user interaction that can result in negative outcomes. We also attempt to understand the context in which these deleterious affordances are actualized.

We obtain the data from narratives written by students at a top private university in Bangladesh about their experiences of online classes and exams and from focus group discussions with them. We use the lens of affordance theory to identify the abilities that goal-oriented actors – primarily students – obtain from the technology-user interactions, which result in negative outcomes. We also attempt to understand the contextual actualization of those affordances through the lens of Routine Activity Theory (RAT).

We find three deleterious affordances and three associated deviant outcomes. Non-monitorability which results in academic dishonesty, disguiseability which results in cyber-truancy, and intrudeability which results in embarrassment and harassment. Our findings reveal a deeper underlying problem with the existing educational approach in the universities of Bangladesh and suggest that there is a need to introduce more modern teaching techniques focused on issues such as student engagement and interactive learning.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that combines affordance theory with RAT to identify unethical practices observed in online class settings in the context of a least developed country like Bangladesh and to examine the environmental components that give rise to the pre-conditions for the unethical practices to surface.

This study aims to explain the value of using critical realist case research in supply chain management (SCM). While positivist case research focuses on generalizable law-like rules, and interpretivist research explores social meaning, critical realist case research seeks to make objective explanations that are bound by the case context. This study demonstrates how a critical realist synthesis of causal reasoning and contextual complexity allows for stronger theorizing in SCM.

This study highlights the possibilities of conducting critical realist case research in SCM by investigating philosophical perspectives in existing literature.

Based on existing literature, this study identifies which parts of contemporary SCM research will benefit from the critical realist perspective. This study also contends that supply chain scholars can use critical realist case research to develop new types of contextualized middle-range theories.

This study proposes to complement the qualitative SCM toolbox with critical realist case research to further refine the development of novel theories. This will benefit not only researchers but also managers, as it opens the doors to new and inspiring research.

This study takes an important step toward establishing critical realist case studies as a key methodology in SCM. While other scholars have introduced critical realism as a paradigmatic approach in SCM, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first article that develops a qualitative critical realist case research approach.

The increased utilization of artificial intelligence-enabled applications (AI-ETs) across the customer journey has transformed customer experience (CX), introducing entirely new forms of the concept. This paper aims to explore existing academic research on the AI-enabled customer experience (AICX), identifying gaps in literature and opportunities for future research in this domain.

A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted in March 2022. Using 16 different keyword combinations, literature search was carried across five databases, where 98 articles were included and analysed. Descriptive analysis that made use of the Theory, Characteristics, Context, Methods (TCCM) framework was followed by content analysis.

This study provides an overview of available literature on the AICX, develops a typology for classifying the identified AI-ETs, identifies gaps in literature and puts forward opportunities for future research under five key emerging themes: definition and dynamics; implementation; outcomes and measurement; consumer perspectives; and contextual lenses.

This study establishes a fresh perspective on the interplay between AI and CX, introducing the AICX as a novel form of the experience construct. It also presents the AI-ETs as an integrated and holistic unit capturing the full range of AI technologies. Remarkably, it represents a pioneering review exclusively concentrating on the customer-facing dimension of AI applications.

随着人工智能应用程序 (AI-ET)在旅途中的使用不断增加, 消费者体验 (CX)得以转变, 引入了全新的概念形式。 本文旨在探索有关人工智能客户体验（AICX）的现有学术研究, 从中找出文献中的空白以及该领域未来研究的机会。

本系统性文献综述（SLR）于2022 年 3 月开工。基于16 个不同的关键词组合, 本综述统共收录并分析了来自 5 个数据库98 篇文献, 采用理论-特征-背景-方法 (TCCM) 框架先后进行描述性分析和内容分析。

该研究概述了 AICX 的现有文献, 开发了对已识别的 AI-ET 进行分类的类型学, 确定了现有文献中的空白, 并在 5 个关键新兴主题下提出了未来研究的机会：1. 定义和动态, 2 . 实施, 3. 结果和衡量, 4. 消费者视角, 5. 情境视角。

本研究建立了全新的视角看待 AI 和 CX 之间的相互作用, 引入了 AICX 这种新颖的体验构造形式, 还将 AI-ET 展示为一个集成了全方位人工智能技术的整体单元。 值得一提的是, 本文代表了一项专门关注人工智能应用面向客户维度的开创性综述。

La creciente utilización de aplicaciones habilitadas por inteligencia artificial (AI-ET) a lo largo del recorrido del cliente han transformado la experiencia del cliente (CX), introduciendo formas totalmente nuevas del concepto. Este artículo pretende explorar la investigación académica existente sobre la experiencia del cliente a través de la IA (AICX), identificando las lagunas en la literatura y las oportunidades para futuras investigaciones en este ámbito.

En marzo de 2022 se llevó a cabo una revisión bibliográfica sistemática (SLR). Utilizando 16 combinaciones diferentes de palabras clave, se realizó una búsqueda bibliográfica en 5 bases de datos en las que se incluyeron y analizaron 98 artículos. El análisis descriptivo que hizo uso del marco Teoría, Características, Contexto, Métodos (TCCM) fue seguido del análisis de contenido.

El estudio ofrece una visión general de la bibliografía disponible sobre la AICX, desarrolla una tipología para clasificar las AICX detectadas, identifica lagunas en la literatura y plantea oportunidades para futuras investigaciones bajo cinco temas emergentes claves: 1. Definición y dinámica, 2. Implementación, 3. Resultados y medición, 4. Perspectivas del consumidor, 5. Lentes contextuales.

El estudio establece una nueva perspectiva sobre la interacción entre la IA y la CX, introduciendo la AICX como una forma novedosa del constructo experiencia. También presenta las AICX como una unidad integrada y holística que capta toda la gama de tecnologías de la IA. Notablemente, representa una revisión pionera que se concentra exclusivamente en la dimensión orientada al cliente de las aplicaciones de la IA.

Food waste occurs in every stage of the supply chain, but the value-added lost to waste is the highest when consumers waste food. The purpose of this paper is to understand the food waste behaviour of consumers to support policies for minimising food waste.

Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as a theoretical lens, the authors design a questionnaire that incorporates contextual factors to explain food waste behaviour. The authors test two models: base (four constructs of TPB) and extended (four constructs of TPB plus six contextual factors). The authors build partial least squares structural equation models to test the hypotheses.

The data confirm significant relationships between food waste and contextual factors such as motives, financial attitudes, planning routines, food surplus, social relationships and Ramadan.

The data comes from an agriculturally resource-constrained country: Qatar.

Food waste originating from various causes means more food should flow through the supply chains to reach consumers’ homes. Contextual factors identified in this work increase the explanatory power of the base model by 75 per cent.

Changing eating habits during certain periods of the year and food surplus have a strong impact on food waste behaviour.

A country is considered to be food secure if it can provide its citizens with stable access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. The findings and conclusions inform and impact upon the development of food waste and food security policies.