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1 – 10 of over 3000Arch G. Woodside and Linda Jane Coleman
Drama enactments by trainees (DETs) include verbal and contextual exchanges by two or more trainees in customer–server dramas usually in the presence of trainee observers and…
Abstract
Drama enactments by trainees (DETs) include verbal and contextual exchanges by two or more trainees in customer–server dramas usually in the presence of trainee observers and trainers. DETs' objectives include nurturing the conscious, decoding unconscious thinking and action, and informing learning of customer–server exchanges. Training in DETs provides an opportunity to practice which increases knowledge and skills necessary for performing customer–server exchanges accurately and achieving high customer satisfaction. This chapter is a case study report on an in-class drama enactment of a hotel guest and receptionist face-to-face encounter. The enactment includes face-to-face conversations between two actors and within selves.
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Arch G. Woodside, Marylouise Caldwell and Jennifer Rebecca Calhoun
This study defines service breakdowns, service breakdown prevention, and “servicide” as they relate to service-dominant logic. The study reviews relevant relevant literature on…
Abstract
Purpose
This study defines service breakdowns, service breakdown prevention, and “servicide” as they relate to service-dominant logic. The study reviews relevant relevant literature on these three topics. This study categorizes real-life examples into five levels of dramatic turns toward service degradations and breakdowns that range from customer being aware but not mentioning service inadequacy to the service breakdown resulting in death of the customer or service provider. Taking initial steps in developing dramatic turn theory and improving the practice of service breakdown prevention are the major contributions of this study.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is a conceptual contribution that includes a dramatic turn role-playing exercise (at category 4 among five categories of dramatic turns for pedagogical/on-site enacting/practicing and training of service professionals. The study emphasizes and shows how to create and enact role-playing scenarios to increase requisite variety, provide training modules and increase skills/expertise in service enactment contexts.
Findings
Before explicit reviewing of the dramatic-turn performances, some of the participants as actors as well as audience members in role-play dramatic turns were quick to blame the customer behavior as the principal cause for the service breakdown. The study’s exposition stresses prevention of negative dramatic turns follows from experiencing and coaching a wide variety of customer and server interactions – achieving “richness” in enactments.
Research limitations/implications
Research on service breakdown prevention needs to include field experiments on the efficacy of training programs for effective management of dramatic turns.
Practical implications
Training of service workers and service managers in experiencing/participating in dramatic turns is likely to be beneficial in reducing the severe adverse outcomes and unintended consequences of service breakdowns. Prevention, not only service failure recovery, needs to be an explicit focus in hospitality management training and assessment.
Social implications
This study suggests tools and procedures to reduce the instances of the need for service breakdown recoveries.
Originality/value
The study calls attention and contributes a way forward in managing dramatic turns in hospitality service contexts. The study provides a nascent configurational theoretical foundation of dramatic-turn propositions. Given the severity of financial costs and loss of brand/firm reputation following the occurrence of extreme dramatic turns, a research focus on service breakdown prevention is necessary.
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Samuel Aryee, Tae-Yeol Kim, Qin Zhou and Seongmin Ryu
This paper aims to examine how team-level empowering leadership related to service performance through thriving at work and how shared organizational social exchange and customer…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how team-level empowering leadership related to service performance through thriving at work and how shared organizational social exchange and customer orientation moderated the latter relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected the data from 283 flight attendants and their supervisors working at a major Korean airline. Multi-level analyses were used to test the effect of empowering leadership on employee outcomes.
Findings
Both team-level empowering leadership and customer orientation were significantly and indirectly associated with service performance via thriving at work. Additionally, customer orientation significantly moderated the relationship between team-level empowering leadership and thriving at work such that the relationship was stronger when customer orientation was low rather than high. In addition, shared organizational social exchange augmented the influence of team-level empowering leadership on service performance but not on thriving at work.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that team-level empowering leadership is more effective in enhancing thriving at work of employees when their customer orientation is low rather than high. In addition, a shared high-quality organizational social exchange augments the effect of empowering leadership on employees’ service performance.
Originality/value
This paper provides initial evidence of the interaction of team-level empowering leadership and individual¬-level customer orientation on thriving at work and service performance. Additionally, it documents the differential augmenting effect of shared organizational social exchange on the relationship between empowering leadership and these outcomes. Collectively, the findings explain why and when team-level empowering leadership relates to service performance.
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The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of working from home (WFH), which contributed to widespread loneliness at a global level. Drawing on the theory of social exchange…
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of working from home (WFH), which contributed to widespread loneliness at a global level. Drawing on the theory of social exchange, this chapter examines how WFH, masculinity contest culture (MCC) at work, and co-worker support impact workplace loneliness. A theoretical model is developed, which adds to the scarce literature on workplace loneliness and MCC, while practical recommendations are also provided to enable organisational leaders and human resource practitioners to decrease workplace loneliness.
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Xin Zhao, Na Fu and Xiaoning Liang
Team leaders play a vital role in achieving superior team performance. However, their role in implementing the organizational customer orientation strategy is not well understood…
Abstract
Purpose
Team leaders play a vital role in achieving superior team performance. However, their role in implementing the organizational customer orientation strategy is not well understood. Drawing on social exchange theory, this study investigates how team leader customer orientation affects team customer orientation climate and team performance (i.e. customer satisfaction) as well as the moderating role of transformational leadership in such effect.
Design/methodology/approach
This study builds on survey data collected from matched team leaders, employees and customers nested in 81 service teams and employs hierarchical multiple regression analysis to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The findings indicate that team leader customer orientation increases team customer orientation climate, which leads to a higher level of customer satisfaction. Leaders' transformational leadership moderates the link between a leader customer orientation and team customer orientation climate in an unexpected way. When a team leader is transformational, the team customer orientation climate is enhanced, regardless of the level of team leader customer orientation. When a team leader's transformational leadership is low, the higher leader customer orientation is and the higher team customer orientation climate is.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the customer orientation, transformational leadership and service literature by unraveling team leaders' roles in boosting team customer orientation climate and team effectiveness.
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Hung Trong Hoang, Sally Rao Hill, Vinh Nhat Lu and Susan Freeman
Drawing on social exchange theory, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test an integrative model of internal and external factors determining employee perceptions of their…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on social exchange theory, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test an integrative model of internal and external factors determining employee perceptions of their organizational service climate.
Design/methodology/approach
Data are collected from a sample of 549 service employees in local and foreign-owned service firms in the emerging market of Vietnam. Structural equation modeling is used to test the hypothesized relationships.
Findings
Leadership commitment to service quality, internal processes and service standards, work facilitation resources and service-oriented human resource practices are positively associated with service climate. Internal customer service mediates the effects of these variables on service climate, with the exception of work facilitation resources. Furthermore, competitive intensity negatively moderates the impact of the internal drivers on service climate. The results also suggest that, depending on the ownership types (local vs foreign firms), the influences of the internal drivers of service climate might differ.
Originality/value
Despite the recognition of the role of organizational resources in fostering service climate, the integration and processes by which such resources influence service climate have not been fully examined. In particular, little is known about the external factors facilitating or hindering service climate, especially from an emerging market perspective. By examining both internal and external drivers of service climate under different ownership types, this paper enriches the existing knowledge on service climate and provides important implications for service firms operating in emerging markets.
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Priyanko Guchait and Karthik Namasivayam
The paper models psychological processes in consumers' evaluation of an exchange and proposes frustration as a mediating mechanism explaining the relationship between consumers'…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper models psychological processes in consumers' evaluation of an exchange and proposes frustration as a mediating mechanism explaining the relationship between consumers' perceptions of control, fairness, and satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected in an experimental setting using video scenarios. Hypotheses were tested using repeated‐measures MANOVA and ANCOVA.
Findings
The results support hypotheses predicting that frustration mediates the influence of fairness on satisfaction and supporting a control‐fairness‐frustration‐satisfaction linkage.
Research implications/limitations
This paper extends research in the area of consumers' cognitive and affective service evaluation processes and suggests future theoretical and methodological research directions. Although sample is representative of the population, no claims are made to generalize the findings of the study to a broader population.
Practical implications
Service industry managers should analyze their consumer interaction processes and evaluate whether consumers feel they are in control, or alternatively are being treated fairly, to reduce consumer frustration and dissatisfaction.
Originality/value
Considering consumers as actual creators of service product this study emphasizes the consumer's role in a service product focusing research and managerial attention on the cognitive and affective processes consumer adopt while producing and consuming their desired service.
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Ceyda Maden-Eyiusta, Zeynep Yesim Yalabik and Mehmet Ali Burak Nakiboglu
Drawing on the social exchange theory, this study focuses on the impact of perceived organizational support (POS) and perceived supervisor support (PSS) on employees' adaptive…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the social exchange theory, this study focuses on the impact of perceived organizational support (POS) and perceived supervisor support (PSS) on employees' adaptive (selling) behavior in a personal selling context. As part of the support-adaptive behavior relationship, the authors also explore the mediating role of psychological empowerment and the moderating role of customer orientation (CO).
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 200 salespeople from the financial and pharmaceutical sectors in Turkey. Hypotheses were tested with hierarchical multiple regressions and hierarchical moderated regressions.
Findings
Supported salespeople feel more empowered in their jobs and show adaptive (selling) behavior. Our results also show that the impact of support on adaptive selling behavior through empowerment is stronger for salespeople with low CO.
Research limitations/implications
This study has two limitations: the generalizability of its findings and cross-sectional design. Still, it significantly contributes to support, empowerment and adaptive behavior literature.
Practical implications
By creating a supportive work environment and by training their managers to improve their support skills, organizations boost their employees' adaptability. Both of these support practices motivate employees to use their discretion in sales situations. Organizations should also evaluate and manage their employees' level of CO by conducting company surveys and by increasing top management communication.
Originality/value
This study tests the mediating role of psychological empowerment on the relationship between POS, PSS and adaptive behavior in the understudied personal selling context. The authors also test the moderating role of CO in the proposed model.
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Aysin Pasamehmetoglu, Priyanko Guchait, J.B. Tracey, Christopher J.L. Cunningham and Puiwa Lei
The purpose of this paper is to amend and extend the emerging research that has utilized an employee-focused approach to examining the service recovery process. In doing so, the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to amend and extend the emerging research that has utilized an employee-focused approach to examining the service recovery process. In doing so, the authors examine the influences of supervisor and coworker support for error management on two measures of employee service performance: service recovery performance and helping behaviors during service failure and recoveries. Specifically, this study examines the linear and non-linear interaction effects of supervisor and coworker support for error management on the outcome variables.
Design/methodology/approach
To examine the proposed relationships, the authors conducted a field study that utilized survey data from a sample of 243 restaurant employees and their immediate supervisors. Employee ratings of supervisor and coworker support for error management were matched with the data gathered for the two dependent variables (i.e. supervisory ratings of service recovery performance and helping behaviors). Structural equation modeling was used to examine the linear interaction effects on the outcome variables. To examine the non-linear interaction effects on the outcome variables the authors utilized polynomial regression and response surface modeling.
Findings
The results showed that the interaction effects of supervisor and coworker support for error management was significantly positively related to both service recovery performance and helping behaviors. In addition, an alternative analysis of the shape of the interaction effects using polynomial regression and response surface modeling showed that the moderating effects may be better conceptualized as non-linear.
Originality/value
These findings offer new insights about the roles and impact of various forms of support in the service recovery process. First, the current study focuses specifically on supervisor and coworker support for error management and the impact on employees’ service recovery performance and helping behaviors. Second, this research investigates the interaction effects of these two forms of support on service recovery performance and helping behaviors. Third, along with linear interaction effects, the current work examines non-linear interaction effects. These relationships examined in this study have not been tested before. Thus, the findings of this research make a unique contribution to research in service management. The findings of this study provide more prescriptive insights about the means to prevent and respond effectively to service errors.
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Elias Ertz, Laura Becker, Marion Büttgen and Ernest Emeka Izogo
Customer sweethearting is a common illicit behavior of frontline employees in service firms. This paper aims to examine the impact of supportive–disloyal leadership behavior on…
Abstract
Purpose
Customer sweethearting is a common illicit behavior of frontline employees in service firms. This paper aims to examine the impact of supportive–disloyal leadership behavior on customer sweethearting at different levels of leader–member exchange (LMX) quality.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on imitation theory and need-to-belong theory, the paper builds a conceptual model and empirically tests it using data from a survey-based study and a complementary experiment.
Findings
The authors find that employees’ customer sweethearting is affected by their supervisors’ supportive–disloyal behavior (employee sweethearting) through two divergent paths: employees imitate the sweethearting behavior of their supervisors; and employee sweethearting triggers employees’ feelings of belongingness to their organization, which reduces their customer sweethearting behavior.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that service firms can mitigate customer sweethearting by raising awareness that supervisors act as negative role models to subordinates and fostering high-quality LMX relationships, which give employees a sense of belonging to the supervisor and the organization.
Originality/value
By taking supervisors’ supportive–disloyal leadership behavior as an ambivalent driver of customer sweethearting into account, this paper provides further insight into the occurrence of customer sweethearting, particularly its underlying contrasting psychological mechanisms.
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