Search results

This study aims to explore how manufacturing firms master customer lock-in through value creation by servitization innovation strategies from the perspective of asset specificity.

A multiple case study with triangulation fashion is adopted to identify servitization innovation strategies. Several manufacturing firms were investigated, which are distributed in different positions of the value chain. Content analysis and abductive approaches are adopted to analyze the data. Moreover, an in-depth interview and participatory observation were conducted to refine the analysis results.

This study identified four different focusing points of servitization operations. Based on these, the paper further induces an innovative servitization strategy matrix of customer lock-in, concerning communion, intellectual, existential and insubstantial strategies. Furthermore, a conceptual model of customer lock-in by servitization innovation from the perspective of asset specificity is elaborated. It is suggested that companies can use tangible or intangible resources by sharing or storing operations to create servitization value.

This study theoretically proposes a conceptual model to extend servitization innovation as an intangible asset and adopt the new perspective of asset specificity to illustrate the value creation in servitization to generate customer lock-in.

This article demonstrates that the type of service setting and the first interaction with an employee influences the customers' intention to stay or leave during an unsatisfactory service encounter, and that these effects are mediated by social lock-in, which describes the perception of a customer that exiting a service encounter early violates social norms.

The hypotheses are tested with two scenario-based experiments using a collective (theater) and high-contact service (restaurant) (N = 1143; 1485).

The results suggest that social lock-in and the intention to stay are higher in a closed as opposed to an open setting and that the type of setting is, in fact, more important for the decision to stay than sunk costs. Moreover, customers are more likely to stay after an interaction with an employee.

This article contributes to the research aimed at explaining customers' decisions to stay or leave during an unsatisfactory service encounter. In doing so, the study highlights the constraining power of social norms in service encounters, which contributes to the research on the relationship between the social context and customers' behavior.

This study suggests that service providers can manage servicescape cues and employee behavior to influence customers' social lock-in perceptions and their decision to stay on or to leave early.

This is the first study to provide quantitative evidence for social lock-in and its determinants in service encounters.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the reasons why customers often cannot or do not exit a negative service encounter (lock-in) and to discuss how this affects their well-being and coping responses. This contributes to the research on how negative service encounters emerge and evolve and how such encounters impact customer well-being and subsequent responses.

An inductive, exploratory approach was used. Interviews with 20 service customers yielded over 90 detailed lock-in experiences across 25 different services. A multi-step, iterative coding process was used with a mixture of coding techniques that stem from a grounded theory approach.

Four categories of factors that caused customers to endure a negative event were identified (physical lock-in, dependency on the service, social lock-in and psychological lock-in). Customers either experienced inner turmoil (if they perceived having the option to stay or leave) or felt captive; both impacted their well-being and coping strategies in different ways. Three characteristics of negative events that caused lock-in to persist over time were identified.

This is a qualitative study that aims to identify factors behind customer lock-in, reduced well-being and coping strategies across different types of service encounters. Future research may build on these themes to investigate lock-in during specific service encounters in greater depth.

This research provides insights regarding how service providers can anticipate lock-in situations. In addition, the findings point to several ways in which frontline employees can assist customers with the coping process, during lock-in.

Customer lock-in during a service encounter is a common, yet unexplored phenomenon. This research contributes to a better understanding of why customers endure negative events and how such perceptions are reflected in their experiences and behaviors.

Previous research argues that customer switching costs play an important role in the firm’s ability to retain customers and achieve competitive advantage. Research also indicates that in the increasingly networked environment, switching costs are changing in important ways. Despite switching costs’ recognized role in contributing to competitive advantage and its increasingly strategic characteristics in the expanding networked environment, we find a lack of coherence and completeness in the conceptual tools and models developed to understand its role and help effectively to manage the phenomenon. In this paper we attempt to address these needs by expanding and refining the conceptualization of customer switching costs and developing a more useful and comprehensive framework for managers.

In this paper, the authors build a prescriptive framework for managers to help assess potential shifts in consumer behavior during economic recession. The framework offers a guide to help evaluate the extent of customer attrition risks, and to devise customer‐centric strategies to stabilize businesses in light of recessionary demand shocks.

The framework is built based on insights gained from surveying approximately 500 small, medium‐sized, and large businesses during the 2001‐2002 and 2007‐present recession. The executives surveyed worked in a wide array of industries, at organizations that varied in size from one person to thousands of employees.

The framework suggests that the interaction between two consumer behavior dynamics – lock‐in and utility specificity – determines the extent of customer retention and attrition to businesses experiencing recession. As such, all organizations need to assess the likelihood that their customers will alter their purchases in response to recessionary pressures. The authors provide measures to help managers anticipate shifts in buying behavior and formulate appropriate responses for customer retention and acquisition.

Research on effective management strategies for coping with recessions remains one of the most important but nevertheless overlooked areas in strategic management. In most instances, prescriptions fall under two broad categories – i.e. seek out inefficiencies and reduce costs. The authors contend that for companies to successfully navigate recessionary environments they need to reach beyond efficiency measures to also adopt strategies minimizing customer loss during the recession and luring back buyers post‐recession. The authors offer insights to help managers evaluate customer acquisition and retention recession.

This paper aims to study whether international niche market leaders (INMLs) gained their leading position as early mover or diligent follower, and assess whether they leveraged hard or soft forms of technological, supply pre-emption and customer lock-in advantage mechanisms.

Empirical material stems from qualitative and quantitative data on a sample of 20 niche companies from the Basque Country (Spain) that operate in business to business markets.

The sample predominantly followed an early entrant strategy and applied soft measures to reach niche market leadership.

Findings imply that early entering fosters conquering leadership in niche markets, that pioneer advantage is easier to sustain in niches than in mainstream markets, and that soft measures are more effective in niche markets than in larger markets. A limitation to our findings is that they follow from explorative research on a sample of firms from a reduced geographic setting.

Hidden champions and INMLs can be important sources of technological progress and economic value for the localities that host them. Therefore, despite their traditional low profile and the fact that they are not always the largest firms around, policymakers may want to pay more attention to this type of companies.

Tot he best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to research entry timing and its outcome for market leadership with regard to niche players or hidden champions-type of firms. It introduces an original taxonomy to operationalize and distinguish between hard and soft measures to leverage advantage mechanisms related to market entry timing.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relationship between strategy and customer lifetime value (CLV). A new model was proposed for defining customers’ values based on the RFM model and segmenting bank customers using the K-means algorithm. In addition, the authors combined a new category with the delta model in order to analyze the behavior of each cluster.

This case study was based on an applied method following its objectives and a descriptive-analytic method in terms of data collection. In this research, the AHP, data mining and K-means clustering methods, as well as the discriminant analysis were applied for computing the weights of the indices, examining the relationship between the identified variables, clustering the records and ensuring the clustering accuracy based on the RFM model, respectively.

The paper confirmed the relationship between the strategies and CLV. For a cluster whose strategy was the best product, customers had a minimal CLV. For a cluster whose strategy was based on total customer solutions, customers had a median CLV. For a cluster whose strategy was a lock-in system, customers had a maximal CLV. The results suggested that the delta model with these three strategies could act as the CLV developers in two stages: conversion of transient customers to attached customers and conversion of attached customers to locked-in customers.

One of the limitations of this study was the lack of access to all the bank accounts and assessment of only the strategy type, while highlighting the exact association between every component of the strategies (e.g. structure, environment, etc.) and CLV as a dependent variable deemed to be of a great necessity. Hence, it is recommended that several studies on the relationships presented in this paper be performed to provide further insights into and guidelines on this issue in the future.

This study emphasized the relevance of strategy and CLV. Managers should differently treat customers in distinct CLV and loyalty levels. In other words, managers must segment their customers based on CLV and apply appropriate strategies for each segment.

This research tried to fulfill an identified need to study how strategy can be effect CLV through the application of the delta model with three strategic options.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents and perceived value associated with e‐business implementation in service firms. E‐business has enabled the development of e‐services and thus introduced a new vehicle for customer and supplier transactions.

Data were collected from top managers in 231 Belgian business‐to‐business service firms crossing a broad spectrum of industries. The statistical techniques employed included a confirmatory factor analysis, and hierarchical regression analyses.

The findings of the study suggest that technical infrastructure and external drivers influence e‐business implementation. Additionally, e‐business was found to create value for firms through efficiency, novelty, lock‐in, and complementarities.

The results imply that a firm's behavior, while driven in part by external factors (e.g. shareholders, competitors, customers, etc.), is largely contingent upon a firm's internal infrastructure and environment. It should be noted that only the firm side of the dyadic relationships was surveyed and examined.

Managers should assess a firm's technological infrastructure before launching an e‐business venture. Also, since firms believe that implementing e‐business has positive outcomes that extend beyond firm performance, it can be logically posited that these value drivers will positively influence a firm's overall performance.

The first empirical examination of the work of Javalgi et al. and Amit and Zott is integrated and provided to present a robust conceptual framework that incorporates the antecedents and value creation associated with e‐business implementation.

This study seeks to investigate the effect of mobile number portability (MNP) on mobile subscribers in Korea by focusing on subscribers' perception and behavior related to MNP.

The study collected data on subscribers who had changed mobile carriers between the beginning of MNP (July 2003) and December 2005. The data were analyzed by statistical analyses such as ANOVA and logistic regression.

Statistical analyses in this study reveal that subscribers perceive the switching barrier still as high, discouraging subscribers from switching carriers. While MNP lowered switching costs considerably, a significant level of switching costs still remains despite MNP. Carriers develop new subscriber lock‐in strategies that make them stay with current carriers. In addition, there are hidden costs other than MNP that should burden subscribers with number portaling.

The findings imply that the MNP has directly affected the industries to a greater extent than subscribers, which suggests implications for both regulators and industries: how to effectively enforce MNP to achieve the intended goals and how to achieve competitive advantage with MNP.

This research is particularly interested in investigating the effect of the introduction of MNP on subscribers' behaviors and perceptions, and therefore their motivations for changing or remaining with mobile carriers (operators) with the introduction of MNP. Although there have been many studies looking at the effect of number portability on competition at the industry level, little attention has been shown on the individual level such as subscribers' behavior or perception.