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While extant research has predominantly focused on outcomes of customer satisfaction that benefit the focal firm such as customer engagement behaviors (CEBs), little is done to understand human capital-related outcomes that directly benefit customers and thus benefit the firm indirectly. Drawing on the theory of reasoned action, broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions and human capital theory, this study aims to understand how and why a satisfied customer benefits the firm directly (CEBs) and indirectly (human capital-related outcomes).

Following a sequential mixed-methods approach, two studies are conducted in an extended service encounter context (higher education) where customers also constitute key human capital of the service firm. First, a qualitative study is conducted, which is then followed by a quantitative study. Survey data collected from students working as interns in organizations and their immediate managers resulted in 209 “intern–manager” dyads.

The findings demonstrate that customer satisfaction on its own does not substantially account for either human capital-related outcomes or CEBs (except word of mouth [WOM]). Both emotional and cognitive mechanisms play key and unique mediating roles in translating satisfaction into outcomes that benefit a service firm directly and indirectly by benefiting its customers.

While much research demonstrates benefits of customer satisfaction for the focal firm, this research advances our understanding of the novel consequences of customer satisfaction by shedding light on human capital-related outcomes that directly benefit customers. It also aids in explicating prior inconsistent findings on the relationship between customer satisfaction and CEBs by uncovering the underlying mediating mechanisms.

This investigation provides a deeper understanding of the significance of customer satisfaction by demonstrating how and why satisfied customers increase firm value beyond purchase, for instance, by being direct (through positive WOM) and indirect (through enhanced human capital performance) promoters, consultants (through participation) or investors (through monetary giving). A key implication of this research is that simply enhancing customer satisfaction on its own may not suffice as the findings suggest that satisfaction translates into beneficial outcomes only when satisfaction is channeled toward enhancing customer perceptions of competence and their positive emotions.

This study contributes to the literature by providing a deeper understanding of how and why customer satisfaction influences outcomes that not only benefit the firm but also its customers in extended service encounter context.

Creating superior customer satisfaction has been considered one of the keys to the firm's success and hence, the antecedents of customer satisfaction have been examined numerous times. However, the link between customer satisfaction and peer‐to‐peer quality, which is deemed a critical component of customer experience quality, has not been spotlighted despite its importance. The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a theoretical model of the relationship among outcome quality, interaction quality, peer‐to‐peer quality, and customer satisfaction as well as these variables’ impacts on customer loyalty.

To test the model, the authors conducted a survey and collected self‐administered data for data analysis. The proposed relationships were then tested using structural equation modeling.

The findings indicate that outcome quality, interaction quality, and peer‐to‐peer quality perceptions significantly influence customer satisfaction, which, in turn, greatly influences customer loyalty. This study shows that outcome quality, interaction quality, and peer‐to‐peer quality should be considered pivotal elements in creating customer satisfaction and that customer satisfaction should be treated as a strategic variable to enhance customer loyalty.

The present study examines the role of familiarity as a moderating variable, finding that outcome quality has a significant influence on customer satisfaction only when patients are familiar with services provided by a hospital. That is, the influence of outcome quality on customer satisfaction becomes greater as customers become more familiar with hospital services, which are characterized as credence services. The finding is noteworthy in that it expands our understanding of the relationship between outcome quality and customer satisfaction.

To examine precisely how service process and service outcome are related to service quality and customer satisfaction evaluations, and to look for consistent patterns in the relationships between these four concepts.

A theoretical framework is proposed to suggest links between the four concepts. The study is conducted in the real estate industry, and the focus is on home sellers' evaluations of the real estate agent's service. In‐depth interviews and a short survey are used to collect the data. A combination of content analysis and statistical tests is used to look for patterns in the data.

As proposed, process factors are closely linked with service quality, and outcome factors are closely linked with customer satisfaction. Also, as proposed, service quality evaluations precede customer satisfaction for normal service evaluations, but the opposite causal order is found for extreme service evaluations.

The study is conducted in the USA and is based on a relatively small sample, but sufficient for qualitative (and simple statistical) analysis. The differential links proposed and found between the four concepts advance researchers' understanding of the basis for service evaluations.

Managers can focus more on either service process or service outcome based on their specific objectives and/or resource constraints in different situations.

It is the first study to propose and empirically support the idea that service process is closely linked with service quality evaluations, whereas service outcome is closely linked with customer satisfaction evaluations.

The study here responds to the view that the crucial problem in strategic management (research) is firm heterogeneity – why firms adopt different strategies and structures, why heterogeneity persists, and why competitors perform differently. The present study applies complexity theory tenets and a “neo-configurational perspective” of Misangyi et al. (2016) in proposing complex antecedent conditions affecting complex outcome conditions. Rather than examining variable directional relationships using null hypotheses statistical tests, the study examines case-based conditions using somewhat precise outcome tests (SPOT). The complex outcome conditions include firms with high financial performances in declining markets and firms with low financial performances in growing markets – the study focuses on seemingly paradoxical outcomes. The study here examines firm strategies and outcomes for separate samples of cross-sectional data of manufacturing firms with headquarters in one of two nations: Finland (n = 820) and Hungary (n = 300). The study includes examining the predictive validities of the models. The study contributes conceptual advances of complex firm orientation configurations and complex firm performance capabilities configurations as mediating conditions between firmographics, firm resources, and the two final complex outcome conditions (high performance in declining markets and low performance in growing markets). The study contributes by showing how fuzzy-logic computing with words (Zadeh, 1966) advances strategic management research toward achieving requisite variety to overcome the theory-analytic mismatch pervasive currently in the discipline (Fiss, 2007, 2011) – thus, this study is a useful step toward solving the crucial problem of how to explain firm heterogeneity.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether internet experience, process quality, outcome quality, customer satisfaction, and post‐use expectations affect the consistent use of health information online by Chinese internet users and how these factors are related to one another.

Data were collected from 219 Chinese university students who are currently using, or have used, the health information services available on the internet. Tertiary students were selected because they are active internet users who frequently use the internet to search for information.

Internet experience affects process quality, but it has no direct relation to outcome quality or customer satisfaction. Process quality determines customer satisfaction toward health information available on the internet and influences the outcome quality; however, the outcome quality is not related to customer satisfaction. The decision to reuse health information found on the internet is influenced by both customer satisfaction and post‐use expectations. The customers' post‐use expectations are primarily influenced by customer satisfaction.

For a successful internet business, internet marketers should recognise that service quality includes both process quality and outcome quality and plan new campaigns that take this factor into consideration. Tracking post‐use expectations can help predict, with reasonable accuracy, the relationship between customer satisfaction and retention of health information found on the internet.

This study provides a better understanding about the users of health information found on the internet in China by taking into account the above‐mentioned factors: internet experience, post‐use expectation, process quality, and outcome quality.

Prior work has examined antecedents and behavioral outcomes of satisfaction in an offline setting but few studies explore whether the findings hold for increasingly important online settings. This paper extends the prior work to explore the antecedents of e‐satisfaction and the relations between e‐satisfaction and two new behaviorial outcomes related to an online setting; customers' stated purchasing behavior (i.e. conversion) and actual browsing behavior (i.e. stickiness). Using a sample of 145 predominantly multi‐channel retail firms, the paper highlights two main results. First, existing models that examine the antecedents and consequences of satisfaction in the offline setting, also apply to an online setting. Second, Web site characteristics had a significant impact on all three types of behavioral outcomes, while Web site customer service was a significant driver of only retention/referral outcomes. Further, Web site customer service may be a necessary but not sufficient condition to achieving favourable outcomes in online settings.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the validity of the service-profit chain (SPC) in a restaurant company context to comprehensively explicate the relationship between organizational practices, employee attitudes with customer and financial outcomes.

The method used both questionnaire and company proprietary data to measure the predicted SPC outcomes through structural equation modeling. The research data were obtained from employees, customers and management at five restaurants in one casual theme restaurant chain in Australia.

The findings indicate that revenue may be a more appropriate outcome than profit in the SPC, that context and individual unit circumstances matter and that there may be a time lag between organizational actions, employee behavior, customer satisfaction and financial outcomes.

Because of the nature of field research, there are limitations. As restaurants were added during the study, data per unit were impacted. Moreover, budgetary constraints limited the number of customer surveys. Nonetheless, the data set includes management, customer, employee and proprietary financial measures which are rarely available in the research literature. These data allow a thorough study of the SPC that provides both important findings and a model for future investigations into the SPC.

As the SPC is a widely cited model used to explain the linkages between managerial and organizational actions and financial outcomes as they work through employee interactions with customers, the findings suggest that the chain may have a more direct impact on revenue than profit. Moreover, the data strongly suggest that context matters as the unique context of the restaurants had important influences on financial outcomes. The findings also indicate that a time lag exists between managerial and organizational actions and financial outcomes, suggesting that it can take time for such actions to ripple through the SPC.

Structural equation modeling and standardized measures allowed the authors to overcome prior limitations in SPC research. Moreover, SPC researchers seldom have access to the proprietary data that enabled a test of the entire SPC. Consequently, this study contributes new insights into this classic model’s value in predicting and explaining financial outcomes resulting from the actions of an organization’s leadership influencing employee behavior toward customers in the restaurant industry.

Agile methods have considerably transformed project management. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of agile (as compared to plan-driven) methods on customer satisfaction in the context of knowledge-intensive business services.

This study uses a survey examining the experiences of 361 customers with different outsourced software projects in Switzerland and a regression-based model to test the hypotheses.

The findings show that agile approaches can lead to higher customer satisfaction than plan-driven approaches, but the impact size is not as substantial as expected. The effect does not depend on the number of specification changes.

Managers must be aware that merely switching from a plan driven to an agile approach will not lead to substantial improvement in customer satisfaction. Satisfaction with the process is a more important driver of overall customer satisfaction than satisfaction with the service outcome. Thus, providers of knowledge-intensive services should train their employees in recognizing the importance of the cooperation process.

So far, the positive impact of agile methods is often only based on anecdotal evidence as well as on surveys examining the supplier perspective. This study provides support for the positive impact of agile methods on customer satisfaction, an important response variable from a marketing perspective, which has not been examined before in the context considered here.

Do customers recognize the effort and abilities of employees in service encounters? If so, to what extent do their perceptions influence customer satisfaction? The paper seeks to answer these questions.

Two empirical studies, including a critical incident study and a video‐based experiment. Theoretically, this paper builds on motivation theory, naïve psychology, and attribution theory.

Customers spontaneously and explicitly judge service encounters on the basis of service employees' effort and abilities, perceived through certain behavioral cues. The specific, direct impact of perceived effort and abilities on customer satisfaction varies for different service types.

Taking different dependent variables into account (e.g. customer emotions, customer loyalty and brand perceptions) might offer a valuable contribution to the fields of service or brand research.

Companies must examine customers' perceptions of their employees' encounter behavior in depth to evaluate and effectively and efficiently manage perceived effort and abilities as the main determinants of customer satisfaction. They should acknowledge behavioral training represents a significant satisfaction management approach.

The paper offers interdisciplinary theoretical foundation, brings in innovative research methods and combines content and methodology to a new scientific framework for the field of service research as well as practical application for companies.

The purpose of this study is to deepen the understanding of consumers value collaboration with a service provider, specifically, how consumer self-determination affects value co-creation outcomes.

Self-determination theory (SDT) need-based motivational factors were operationalized in co-creation as commitment to resources (autonomy), feedback (competence) and collectives (relatedness). A between–within factorial experimental design (3 × 2 × 4) was conducted using online scenarios depicting value co-creation in a destination resort setting. Respondents were randomly and equally assigned to strong and weak SDT factor conditions. Next, they were exposed to scenarios depicting four types of value co-creation: co-innovation, co-creation of marketing, co-creation of experience and co-recovery, followed by an assessment of their co-created value (CCV), well-being, satisfaction and service advantage perceptions.

Results revealed that overall strong SDT conditions produce better outcomes. Consumers’ relatedness showed the strongest difference between strong and weak SDT conditions on the CCV dimensions. Further analysis revealed that autonomy and relatedness are crucial for collaboration. CCV meaningfulness is central for customers to improve their well-being, satisfaction and competitive advantage perceptions through co-creation.

The study contributes to a line of research on successful voluntary value co-creation processes between consumers and a company. The integration of service-dominant logic (SDL), axiology of value (AOV) and SDT, uniquely operationalized as commitment to resources as autonomy, feedback as competence and co-creation collective as relatedness offers a better understanding of how customers appraise the dimensions of CCV and outcomes of well-being, satisfaction and competitive advantage.