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Customers' co-design behavior is an important source of knowledge for product innovation. Firms can regulate the focus of information interaction with customers to set goals and motivate their co-design behavior. Drawing on regulatory fit theory and construal level theory, the authors build a research model to study whether the fit between the regulatory focus of firms' task invitations (promotion focus vs prevention focus) and their feedback focus (self-focused vs other-focused) can enhance co-design behavior by improving customers' experiences (perceived meaning, active discovery and perceived empowerment).

The authors conducted two online between-subjects experiments to validate the proposed research model.

The two online experiments reveal that customers' experiences are enhanced when the feedback focus is congruent with the regulatory focus of the firm's task invitations. Specifically, self-focused feedback has a stronger positive effect on customers' experiences in the prevention focus context. Other-focused feedback has a stronger positive effect on customers' experiences in the promotion focus context. Moreover, customers' experience significantly and positively affects co-design behavior (i.e. co-design effort and knowledge contribution).

This work provides theoretical and practical implications for firms to improve the effectiveness of information interaction with their customers and eventually ensure the sustainability of co-design.

The ability of a business to outperform its rivals is known as its competitive edge, and it presents special difficulties in the context of the “digital revolution,” or the fourth industrial revolution. To obtain a competitive edge in the startup operations 4.0 era, this study aims to examine the organizational, technological and competence-related challenges presented by Industry 4.0. It does this by concentrating on the tools, competencies, methods, approaches, tools and strategies that are crucial. Using the Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM) technique, the goal is to find, analyze and classify enablers for startup operations 4.0.

A closed-ended questionnaire and planned interviews were used in the data collection process. In startup operations 4.0, the cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification method is used to rank and categorize competitive advantage factors, whereas the TISM technique is used to analyze how components interact.

The study highlights the critical significance of the “Internet of Things (IoT),” “information technologies,” “technological platforms,” “employee empowerment,” “augmented reality (AR)” and “operational technologies” in its identification of 12 enablers for startup operations 4.0.

The main focus of the study is on the variables that affect startup operations 4.0’s competitive advantage.

Academics and important stakeholders can better understand the factors influencing competitive advantage in startup operations 4.0 with the help of this research.

Large businesses have been profoundly impacted by Industry 4.0 principles; however, startup operations 4.0’s competitive advantage has not received as much attention. This paper offers a fresh take on the concept of competitive advantage in startup operations 4.0 research.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of customer relationship management (CRM) components on competitive advantage through customer loyalty in the banking sector of Bangladesh.

A structured questionnaire was used for the data collection process. In all, 326 respondents were participated in the survey and selected conveniently from the commercial banks of Bangladesh. Data were analyzed by using Smart-PLS software.

The outcomes of this study indicate that customer orientation and technology capability have a positive impact on competitive advantage, while customer knowledge does not. Besides, customer loyalty significantly mediates the relationship between customer orientation and technology capability with competitive advantage, while this mediation effect appears insignificant between customer knowledge and competitive advantage.

This study's findings can help Bangladeshi bank managers communicate with new customers about their promotional activities while keeping old customers informed about new CRM initiatives.

This study adds to the existing pool of knowledge on CRM components, customer loyalty and competitive advantage literature. Particularly, the mediating role of customer loyalty between the CRM components (customer orientation and technology capability) and competitive advantage is the unique contribution of this research.

Contrary to want-based services, customer participation has got lesser attention in high-credence services like health care. Customer participation for patients with chronic illnesses could be life-threatening and goes beyond the service organization’s physical environment. Realizing the importance of transformative service research in health-care services, this study aims to propose and validate the conceptualization of customer participation for patients with chronic illnesses.

The study uses sequential exploratory research design with mixed method research. The first phase is a qualitative exploration of the nature and meaning of customer participation by synthesizing theory and insights from semi-structured interviews (N = 75) with doctors, patients and paramedical staff. Next, survey data (N = 690) of patients with chronic illnesses is used to validate the proposed conceptualization. Finally, nomological validity was also tested on an additional survey data set (N = 362) using SEM and FsQCA.

The findings reveal that health-care customer participation is a three-dimensional behavioral construct in which a customer can participate by sharing information, involving in decision-making and ensuring compliance. The study also demonstrates that customer participation is a critical driver of satisfaction with life and perceived control on illness.

The research provides policy guidelines for owners and operators of health-care organizations in developing frameworks for collecting participation data, which can be used in strategies for seeking customer participation.

The research conceptualizes and validates “customer participation” as a multidimensional higher-order construct for patients with chronic illnesses, rarely focused in services marketing and management research on health care.

This paper aims to examine why retail firms seldom achieve full integration of online and offline channels as prescribed in omni-channel literature. It examines the intermediate process of channel integration from an internal, operational perspective.

This study is composed of two parts. In the first part, the authors interviewed informants from nine firms that were engaged in channel integration. In the second part, the authors conducted case studies with three firms from the cosmetics and skincare industry against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic to find evidence to support or negate the propositions made in the first part.

The first part identified six operational challenges to channel integration. The authors categorized these challenges into two groups: inter-channel communication and inter-channel competition. Inter-channel competition carries more weight at the latter stage of integration. The authors also identified two antecedents that affect the seriousness of these challenges: heterogeneity among channels in business operation and external competitive pressure. In the second part, the authors found that both inter-channel communication and inter-channel competition were improved because of the external competitive pressure exerted by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the heterogeneity of offline channels against online channels in business operation is a double-edged sword.

The study identifies the changing effects of the challenges of channel integration and their antecedents in the midst of integration. The positive influence of a specific dimension of channel heterogeneity against other channels increases and then decreases along channel integration. The identification of the changing effects lays the foundation for a finer stage model of channel integration.

This study aims to uncover the underlying mechanism between the time length of We-media videos and customer satisfaction (CS)/participation (CP) based on experiential marketing theory.

Two datasets were collected from Bilibili; 308 data were used with bootstrapping for multiple linear regressions (MLR) to test the hypotheses, and 2,670 data were used for structural equation modelling (SEM) to verify robustness.

Videos’ time length acts as both a price and provision element of experiential marketing. As a price element, its linear term affects CS negatively but CP positively. As a provision element, its quadratic term affects CS positively but CP negatively.

Marketing management personnel and video creators at Bilibili could optimise videos’ time length as suggested. We-media video platforms should encourage high-quality videos with sufficient time lengths to improve CS. Video creators could balance CS and CP, as suggested.

This research proposed platform, provision, price and propagation as experiential marketing elements concerning experiences in online virtual encounters. It found CS was affected positively by provision but negatively by price, whereas the opposite is true for CP. Time length affects CS/CP as both a price and provision element, which may explain the neglect of significant relationships between the time length and marketing performances of videos.

Building on Stimulus Organism Response theory, the current study examines the influence of Integrated store service quality (ISSQ) on the omnichannel customer experience dimensions (Cognitive, Affective and Relational), subsequently leading to their psychological ownership of the store, which eventually explains their Augmenting, Co-developing, Influencing and Mobilizing behaviors. The moderating role of omnichannel shopper perceived relationship investment in a few proposed relationships was tested.

The research is a descriptive, quantitative and cross-sectional investigation. A purposive sampling technique was used. It was conducted using data collected from 554 Indian omnichannel shoppers using a validated self-administered questionnaire. The proposed conceptual model was tested using PLS-SEM.

The results indicate that ISSQ positively impacts all three dimensions of omnichannel customer experience (cognitive, affective and relational). All three dimensions directly affect psychological ownership, eventually impacting their (Augmenting, Co-developing, Influencing and Mobilizing) engagement behaviors. The moderating effect of the omnichannel shopper, perceived relationship investment, revealed that it had a significant positive impact on the relationship between dimensions of omnichannel customer experience and psychological ownership of shoppers towards the store, which eventually fosters the customer–retailer value co-creation like engagement behaviors.

The study is conducted in the Indian population, where omnichannel retailing is still nascent.

This study addresses the need to investigate other dimensions (apart from cognitive and affective) of the omnichannel customer experience that might eventually influence various service firms' customer engagement behaviors. This study is the first to show that integrated store service quality might stimulate (Augmenting, Co-developing, Influencing and Mobilizing) engagement behaviors through customer experience dimensions and the customer's sense of belongingness to the store. The moderating role of omnichannel shoppers' perceived relationship investment in a few proposed relationships was tested.

This research aimed to find out both direct and mediating relationships between the fear of COVID-19 (FC) and the usage of digital financial services (UDFS) via mediator financial anxiety (FA). It also attempted to ascertain the moderated effect of education of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners (ESO), i.e. business degree holders (BDH) vs nonbusiness degree holders (NBDH), in the relationship between FC and the UDFS.

This research employed a simple random sampling technique. In total, 387 complete responses were collected from Pakistani SMEs. The complete analysis was performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 23, AMOS 24, Process Marco 4.1, and Interaction 1.7.

According to the findings, FC leads to UDFS and FA mediates this relationship. Additionally, the findings show that the ESO between FC and UDFS was moderated. However, conditional analysis shows that BDH-SME owners strengthened the moderated relationship between FC and UDFS compared to NBDH-SME owners, who did not show any relationship.

Policymakers might use the study's findings to promote business education, which has been recognized as essential for making sound financial decisions. Finally, because the study is cross-sectional, the authors are unable to draw definitive generalizations.

The key novelty of this research work lies in the inclusion of FA as a mediator and the education of SME owners as a moderator in understanding the relationship between FC and the UDFS. This study illuminated the positive aspects of the COVID-19 epidemic based on the theory of emotional finance, risk avoidance theory and theories of emotion.

Taking a co-creation perspective and integrating knowledge-based and resource-based perspectives, the authors examine the role of customer participation in organizational performance and project success. The authors also investigate the mediating role of knowledge integration and the moderating role of requirement risk for these relationships in uncertain contexts.

The authors undertook two studies. The first study was carried out in 2018 in which the authors drew on survey data from 150 information technology (IT) sector employees and examined the mediating role of knowledge integration in the relationship of customer participation with organizational performance and project success. In the second study undertaken in 2020, the authors drew on data from 92 IT and telecom sector employees and examined the moderating role of requirement risk in the relationship between customer participation and knowledge integration. Study 2 was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic when employees were largely working from home and were more sensitive to risks and uncertainty about the scope and system requirements. Both studies were survey-based, and analysis was carried out using structural equation modeling.

The authors’ two-study examination indicated that knowledge integration positively mediates the relationship of customer participation with organizational performance and project success during the co-creation process. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that when requirement risks are high, customer participation relationship with knowledge integration is weaker.

The authors show that integrating customer knowledge is critical to project success and organizational performance. By identifying risk uncertainties and environmental contingencies, the authors highlight the constraints of customer participation for knowledge integration, organizational performance and project success. The authors provide some key study findings based on survey data obtained from project teams during two periods (normal and pandemic).

Despite the increasing relevance of seamless shopping experience in an omnichannel context, research on how seamless shopping experience affects customers’ word of mouth on social media (sWOM) remains scant. Based on the attribution theory, this study aims to investigate the effects of seamless shopping experience types on customers’ sWOM intentions from the perspective of smart-shopping feelings and validated the moderation role of shopping orientation.

Using a data set of 301 omnichannel customers, three scenario-based experiments were conducted to address the research questions.

An efficient and interconnected experience is more likely to positively affect sWOM intentions than an inefficient but interconnected experience. Furthermore, smart-shopping feelings were found to have a significant mediating effect. For experiential-oriented shoppers, the positive relationship between an efficient and interconnected experience, smart-shopping feelings and sWOM intentions was significantly strengthened.

This research contributes to the sWOM and omnichannel service experience literature by investigating the influences of seamless shopping experience types on customers’ sWOM intentions. This research also provides recommendations for designing and delivering a superior, seamless shopping experience for omnichannel shoppers.