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The main purpose of this research is exploring the tipping points for a radical shift in supplier (dis)satisfaction. This study identifies triggers and links them to consequences for the buyer–supplier relationship.

The Critical Incident Technique (CIT) was used to interview Dutch supplier representatives in the infrastructure sector, resulting in rich descriptions of 29 critical incidents, extracting first-hand information.

Safety issues, technical disputes and recruitment of supplier’s technical staff have been identified as tipping points for suppliers to become dissatisfied. Implementing performance-based contracting is another critical incident that caused irritation and disappointment. On a more operational level, dissatisfaction was provoked by tender errors and price discussions with the buyer. This study also identified tipping points by which dissatisfied suppliers abruptly turned into satisfied suppliers. The effect of a solution-oriented buyer intervention appears to be most powerful if this behaviour transcends prior expectations.

Consequences of misunderstandings and discussion between supplier and buyer may be manageable or repairable, depending on the causes and triggers that influenced a supplier’s dissatisfaction. An early warning system could prove its worth, so that buyers are not faced with unpleasant surprises.

Despite the growing number of studies, processes of how antecedents lead to supplier (dis)satisfaction are not well understood. Antecedents are predominantly investigated by cross-sectional survey data, giving little insights into micro-processes and actual interaction between buyers and suppliers. Although CIT has been applied in many disciplines, the technique is hardly used within the context of purchasing and supply management research.

There are numerous studies on satisfaction, but not enough on dissatisfaction when its consequences can be harmful. This study aims to examine different unsatisfactory situations during customer–supplier relationships in industrial markets combining the appraisal theory with the critical incident technique to identify potential problems and strategies to minimize their effect.

This research follows an exploratory qualitative approach based on 18 in-depth interviews with managers from business-to-business firms. The information obtained was object of a textual and conceptual analysis using the analytical software ATLAS TI 9.0.

The results show that negative cognitions have greater influence than negative emotions, and those dissatisfied customers may respond by expressing complaints, ending transactional relationships, reporting the other party legally, asking for explanations or continuing commercial relationships, even though they are dissatisfied. This will depend on the severity of the critical incident and the negative cognitions and emotions perceived. Proactivity and understanding of this situation will allow for understanding what specific actions to take to resolve conflicts and mitigate the negative effects among the parties.

This paper focuses on dissatisfaction, instead of satisfaction, in industrial markets through the appraisal theory. Furthermore, it applies the critical incident technique to understand the cognitions and emotions related with dissatisfaction in the commercial relationships. Finally, it provides ideas on what are the main source of dissatisfaction and how to manage them to anticipate and better manage those incidents.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of using structured reflection via the critical incident analysis method to develop multicultural awareness and intercultural empathy in undergraduate-level pre-service teachers. This research is important, given the striking demographic mismatch between students and teachers in US schools.

This study adopts a convergent parallel mixed methods research design that combines both qualitative analysis of completed written critical incident analysis assignments and quantitative analysis of responses from a brief survey.

In most cases, engaging with the critical incident analysis method did lead participants reexamine their own experiences and develop a better understanding of their own biases and actions. While students followed different pathways with the assignment, participants were able to better understand the crucial role that teachers play in creating a space that values and welcomes diversity for the benefit of all students.

This study diverges from future research on the critical incident analysis method by asking students to examine specific moments from their past in the process of deep, targeted self-reflection.

Tourists’ resource integration both offers opportunities and presents challenges to tourism service providers. Focussing on the tour guide perspective, the purpose of this paper is to explore how tour guides experience knowledge/information-based asymmetry in encounters with tourists and identifies the roles and coping strategies used by guides to facilitate service co-production.

Critical incident technique is used in qualitative interviews with 47 tour guides in Scotland, broadly representative of the Scottish tour guiding context. 107 critical incidents were analysed, with an average of 2.32 incidents per interview. Narrative analysis of the incidents was performed inductively in four iterative steps using QSR NVivo.

Three resource asymmetry incident categories are identified: probing – Guide-Oracle is questioned by inquiring tourists and copes through diverting, evasion, and follow-up strategies; learning – Guide-Magpie learns from expert tourists through acknowledging and co-delivery; and negotiation – Guide-Diplomat with greater knowledge helps misguided tourists save face through appeasing, following the official line and tactfully correcting.

The paper contributes to service co-production research in tourism by theorising about contexts where knowledge/information asymmetry exists between tour guides and tourists, particularly where fluid power relations between guides and knowledgeable tourists occur or where misguided tourists co-produce the service by prioritising own meanings. Findings highlight the importance of soft skills and other non-content capabilities of guides, and suggestions are offered for effective training and resource sharing/ learning initiatives for tour guiding services.

游客资源整合为旅游服务提供商提供了机遇, 同时也带来了挑战。本文以导游视角为重点, 探讨了导游在与游客接触中如何体验知识/信息不对称, 并识别了导游用于促进服务共同生产的角色和应对策略。

本研究采用关键事件技术（CIT）进行质性访谈, 对象为苏格兰的47名导游, 广泛代表苏格兰导游环境。分析了107个关键事件, 每次访谈平均2.32个事件。对事件的叙述分析在QSR NVivo中通过四个迭代步骤进行归纳性分析。

确定了三个资源不对称的事件类别：1）探询 - 导游-神谕被询问, 通过转移、回避和后续策略来应对询问的游客; 2）学习 - 导游-喜鹊通过承认和共同交付从专业游客中学到经验; 3）协商 - 导游-外交官以更多知识帮助误导的游客保全体面, 通过安抚、追随官方路线和巧妙纠正来应对。

本文通过理论化导游和游客之间存在知识/信息不对称的情境, 特别是在导游和知识丰富的游客之间存在流动权力关系的情况下, 或者误导的游客通过优先考虑自己的意义来共同生产服务的情境, 为旅游服务的共同生产研究做出了贡献。研究结果强调了导游的软技能和其他非内容能力的重要性, 并提出了关于为导游服务提供有效培训和资源共享/学习倡议的建议。

La integración de recursos de los turistas ofrece oportunidades y presenta desafíos para los proveedores de servicios turísticos. Centrándose en la perspectiva de los guías turísticos, este artículo explora cómo los guías turísticos experimentan una asimetría basada en conocimiento/información en encuentros con turistas, e identifica los roles y estrategias de afrontamiento utilizados por los guías para facilitar la coproducción de servicios.

La técnica de incidentes críticos (CIT) se utiliza en entrevistas cualitativas con 47 guías turísticos en Escocia, ampliamente representativos del contexto de los guías turísticos escoceses. Se analizaron 107 incidentes críticos, con una media de 2,32 incidentes por entrevista. El análisis narrativo de los incidentes se realizó de forma inductiva en cuatro pasos iterativos utilizando QSR NVivo.

Se identifican tres categorías de incidentes de asimetría de recursos: 1) Sondeo: los turistas interrogan a Guide-Oracle y lo afronta mediante estrategias de desvío, evasión y seguimiento; 2) Aprendizaje: Guide-Magpie aprende de turistas expertos a través del reconocimiento y la entrega conjunta; y 3) Negociación: el guía-diplomático con mayor conocimiento ayuda a los turistas descarriados a salvar las apariencias apaciguándolos, siguiendo la línea oficial y corrigiendo con tacto.

El artículo contribuye a la investigación de la coproducción de servicios en el turismo al teorizar sobre contextos donde existe asimetría de conocimiento/información entre guías turísticos y turistas, particularmente donde ocurren relaciones de poder fluidas entre guías y turistas conocedores, o donde turistas equivocados coproducen el servicio priorizando propios significados. Los hallazgos resaltan la importancia de las habilidades interpersonales y otras capacidades de los guías no relacionadas con el contenido, y se ofrecen sugerencias para iniciativas efectivas de capacitación e intercambio de recursos/aprendizaje para los servicios de guías turísticos.

The annual holiday party is a long-standing tradition in many organizations, yet academic research has largely left the holiday party unexamined. The present study sheds light on this significant social event by exploring what factors help differentiate successful events from less successful ones.

First, the authors developed a taxonomy of characteristics of good holiday parties using a critical incident technique in which stories of holiday party experiences were analyzed following a mixed-method approach. Second, the authors quantitatively examined the relationships between these characteristics and three outcomes, including perceived organizational support, positive interpersonal interactions, and experienced fun.

The critical incident analysis revealed 11 key characteristics that distinguish good from bad holiday parties. Primary findings from the quantitative study are that games and activities, music, good food, and notable positive leader behavior are key characteristics of more successful events.

As the data were obtained using a traditional survey methodology, further research would be valuable that adopts an experience sampling methodology to capture employee experiences, perceptions, and feelings about holiday parties in real-time before, during, and after an event has occurred.

From an event planning standpoint, this research provides a framework for designing holiday parties and provides evidence as to which features matter most. From a strategic leadership perspective, this research signals that different features of holiday parties can influence different outcomes.

Beyond merely identifying important characteristics, this research provides a framework for further research on holiday parties and identifies theories that can be used in future research to explore the mechanisms that influence how and under what conditions holiday parties impact employees’ experiences at work.

In this paper, the authors integrate the psychological ownership theory with the concept of commitment to contribute to the discussion on agricultural supply chain management. The purpose of this study is to examine how farmers experience their commitment to the business relationship with the processor and how this is conveyed through the routes of psychological ownership.

The empirical data are based on 14 in-depth face-to-face Finnish farmer interviews. To understand the farmers’ routes to psychological ownership, the critical incidents technique was used.

According to the three routes to psychological ownership – control, profound knowledge and self-investment – the authors argue that farmers mainly consider their routes to be more or less blocked because of the asymmetrical power and information distribution in the business relationship with the processor. Furthermore, based on farmers’ perceptions of psychological ownership, the authors provide a farmer typology that reflects in the farmers’ willingness to commit to the business relationship. The identified types are named as satisfied, captives and leavers.

By integrating the theory of psychological ownership with the concept of commitment, this study provides a more robust understanding of how farmers experience their commitment to the business relationship, thus, contributing to the literature on supply chain management in the agri-food business context. Implementation of these findings can help business partners to proactively improve their business relationships through the perceived level of commitment and to deal with critical incidents influencing the effectiveness of the whole chain.

This study aims to descriptively identify and refine the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in the retail banking employee–customer contact context, and prescriptively use this knowledge to develop a framework for improving true customer service without excess organizational cost, in Lebanon.

The research adopts the classical interpretive/constructivist ontology and the interpretivism/constructivism epistemology, and it rests on a tripod of methodological foundations. The first leg is the theoretical work that sets the extant scientific ground for the empirical work to develop. The second incorporates the main (qualitative) empirical tools, i.e. 40 interviews with customers and HR managers (NVivo-analyzed), plus a critical incident technique study. The third includes the supportive tools of secondary data and an expert panel composed of industry and scholarly specialists.

EI was empirically shown to modulate the levels of customer satisfaction and to hold a critical role in the company–customer interface, albeit one that is currently and unjustly both undervalued and ineffectively controlled. The findings identify the key factors and exhibited behavioral attributes of EI within the customer service process, and they integrate all into a comprehensive framework of both scholarly and executive worth.

This study provides distinct theoretical elucidations and conceptualization that have identified and interrelated the relevant works on the subject; empirically refines the variables involved in the EI context of retail banking customer service; and culminates in the form of the proposed framework that incorporates and interrelates the findings into an empirical-data-based composition of both scholarly and executive orientation and worth.

Negative customer-to-customer interactions (NCCI) occurring in physical service encounters can have a detrimental effect on a focal customer’s experience. This paper aims to explore how the interplay between the physical servicescape and the presence and behavior of other customers can lead to NCCI. Moreover, through an examination of customers’ responsibility attribution, the paper underlines the need for service organizations to manage this interplay.

The authors rely on a mixed approach with two studies grounded in the Stimulus–Organism–Response paradigm. In a preliminary quantitative study, the authors test a model of the effects of NCCI on customers’ attribution and behavioral outcomes using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Next, in a qualitative study, they collect and explore NCCI incidents in eight service industries relying on the critical incident technique (CIT).

When experiencing NCCI, customers attribute at least partial responsibility for their negative experience to the service provider. The findings of the CIT study reveal three interplay mechanisms leading to NCCI: when other customers’ behavior is triggered by the physical servicescape; when other customers’ behavior is incongruent with the behavioral norms set by the physical servicescape; and when the physical servicescape is altered by other customers’ misbehavior.

This paper provides a comprehensive, empirically grounded, understanding of the interplay between the physical and social servicescape, focusing on the presence and behavior of the other customers and its effect on the customer experience.

The purpose of this study is to investigate characteristics of apparel-related critical incidents that motivate both Generation Z and Y consumers to share electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) via specific online channels.

The current research used an exploratory mixed-methods approach.

Qualitative findings of critical incidents revealed that the main situations that led to the spread of eWOM involved new purchases (49%), product quality (21%), pricing and promotions (19%), complaints (9%) and brand content (48%). Participants were motivated to spread information about the critical incidents by a desire to connect with friends and family (83%), help others (37%), influence others (48%) and express brand loyalty (32%). Quantitative results indicated significant relationships between critical incidents, motivations and eWOM channel choice.

This study has theoretical implications for apparel researchers attempting to gain insight into critical incidents that motivate consumers to engage in eWOM on specific channels in a positive or negative manner.

These findings are important for marketers as it appears that brand content does an efficient job at driving engagement on SM; marketers need to increase efforts to engage with consumers via feedback on websites, as this is an opportunity to counteract negative experiences and retain consumers’ loyalty.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current research is the first to extend theories of communication and motivation to connect critical incidents with situational intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for spreading eWOM via online channels for Millennial and Generation Z consumers.