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1 – 10 of 274In industrial buyer–supplier relationships, being an attractive customer has been found to result in superior supplier performance. However, there is a limited understanding of…
Abstract
Purpose
In industrial buyer–supplier relationships, being an attractive customer has been found to result in superior supplier performance. However, there is a limited understanding of how these benefits transfer to the public domain. This study aims to explore the influence of customer attractiveness on supplier resource mobilization efforts toward the public sector.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach was used, focusing on in-depth interviews with 23 informants from 3 critical and complex supplier markets. The data were processed using inductive coding and thematic analysis.
Findings
The findings indicate that customer attractiveness in the public sector influences suppliers’ mobilization efforts on several dimensions. In addition to stimulating competition in the tender phase, customer attractiveness can yield important benefits to quality, supply stability and innovation during the business relationship. It appears imperative for the public sector to improve its standings with suppliers to both mitigate the apparent risk of sub-par treatment and to unlock the preferential supplier treatment associated with being an attractive customer.
Social implications
Receiving increased mobilization from suppliers will result in better use of public money and help improve resilience and innovation in public procurement.
Originality/value
This study extends the research on customer attractiveness in the public sector by being the first to explore the range and nature of its influence on supplier mobilization efforts.
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Yasin Sahhar, Raymond Loohuis and Jörg Henseler
Customer experience has become a vital premise in service theory and practice. Despite researchers' and managers' growing interest, the customer experience remains a complex and…
Abstract
Purpose
Customer experience has become a vital premise in service theory and practice. Despite researchers' and managers' growing interest, the customer experience remains a complex and multidimensional concept that is challenging for service providers to understand. This study aims to graph the experience in its multidimensionality by categorizing and proposing matching practices for service marketing managers to channel and foster customer experiences in customer journeys.
Design/methodology/approach
To support the predominantly conceptual nature of the study, an abductive approach underpinned by the authors' vast experience in academia and practice, real-life autohermeneutic phenomenological experience tales and theory on customer experience and its management by providers is deployed to craft a model that addresses and highlights the multidimensionality of experience.
Findings
This study introduces the “GraphEx” (Graph Experience) hip-pocket model, which expresses customer experience in a simple yet multidimensional fashion and offers managerial practices to foster the customer's experience. The model contains three dimensions (valence, type of experience and visceral intensity) and five managerial practices (urgent patchwork, restoring, activating and stimulating desire, bolstering and safeguarding appreciation).
Originality/value
This study contributes to the service literature by creating granularity in the multidimensionality of customer experience. This study advances customer experience management in practice by providing service managers with novel possibilities for understanding and managing customer experiences intelligently. This can help service providers streamline and innovate customer experience strategies during customer journeys and foster customer loyalty.
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Maja Golf-Papez and Barbara Culiberg
This paper aims to examine the types of user misbehaviours in the sharing economy (SE) context. SE offers a fruitful study setting due to the scope of potential misbehaviour and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the types of user misbehaviours in the sharing economy (SE) context. SE offers a fruitful study setting due to the scope of potential misbehaviour and the expanded role of consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
The study drew on online archival data from the AirbnbHell.com website, where people share their stories about their Airbnb-related negative experiences. The authors reviewed 405 hosts’, guests’ and neighbours’ stories and coded the identified forms of misbehaviours into categories. The typology thus developed was validated in the context of the Uber Rides service.
Findings
User misbehaviours in the SE context can be distinguished based on the domain in which the user role is violated and the nature of violated norms. These two conceptual distinctions delineate a four-fold typology of user misbehaviours: illegal, unprofessional, unbefitting and uncivil behaviours.
Research limitations/implications
The trustworthiness of the stories could not be assessed.
Practical implications
The presented typology can be used as a mapping tool that facilitates detection of the full scope of misbehaviours and as a managerial tool that provides ideas for effective management of misbehaviours that correspond to each category.
Originality/value
The paper presents the first empirically derived comprehensive typology of user misbehaviours in SE settings. This typology enables classification of a broad set of misbehaviours, including previously overlooked unprofessional behaviours carried out by peer-service providers. The study also puts forward a revised definition of consumer misbehaviours that encompasses the impact of misbehaviours on parties not directly involved in the SE-mediated exchange.
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Dora Agapito and Marianna Sigala
This paper aims to provide a critical reflection on the management of experiences in hospitality and tourism (H&T). The paper investigates the evolution of experience research…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a critical reflection on the management of experiences in hospitality and tourism (H&T). The paper investigates the evolution of experience research, while discussing the emerging challenges and opportunities for management.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts a critical and reflective approach for providing future directions of experience research. Three major fields are identified to discuss advances, challenges and opportunities in experience research: conceptualization and dimensions of experiences; relational network for experience management; and theoretical and methodological approaches.
Findings
The paper proposes a mindset shift to guide experience research, but also to redirect and research thinking and managerial practices about the role of experiences in the economy and society. This proposed humanized perspective to experience research and management is deemed important given the contemporary socio-economic, environmental and technological challenges of the environment.
Research limitations/implications
This paper identifies a set of theoretical and managerial implications to help scholars and professionals alike to implement the humanized perspective to experience research. Implications relate to conceptualization, relational network and theoretical and methodological approaches in experience research.
Originality/value
This study critically assesses research challenges and opportunities around customer experience management (CEM) in H&T contexts. This reflective and critical look at customer experiences not only informs future research for advancing knowledge and practice but also proposes a mindset shift about the role and nature of CEM in the society and economy.
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Giovanni Garola, Chiara Siragusa, Arianna Seghezzi and Riccardo Mangiaracina
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) led most companies to redefine their sales channels, pushing toward e-Commerce. This increase in the online sales of products resulted in…
Abstract
Purpose
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) led most companies to redefine their sales channels, pushing toward e-Commerce. This increase in the online sales of products resulted in significant pressure on the logistics sector. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how express couriers responded to the pandemic period and allowed for business continuity.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study involving five express couriers was conducted. Collected information was coded, then a framework is proposed to discuss the results with the support of the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities view concepts.
Findings
The study highlights how couriers leveraged most of their resources to respond to the pandemic threat. Four recurrent continuity enablers to foster the reconfiguration of resources were identified. Specifically, the study points out the key role of employees, digital technologies, visibility and knowledge as enablers that played a crucial role toward continuity. In addition, valuable lessons learned by practitioners to foster resilience in future disruption are highlighted.
Originality/value
Concerning academia, the present research aims to be among the first ones to provide empirical and practical insights on the impact of COVID-19 among express couriers. Considering practitioners, it identifies lessons learned that could be applied to the sector in future disruption.
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José Antonio Pedraza-Rodríguez, Martha Yadira García-Briones and César Mora-Márquez
This article aims to explore the concept of chain value of the public port system in Ecuador from the perspective of importing/exporting companies, analyzing how perceived value…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to explore the concept of chain value of the public port system in Ecuador from the perspective of importing/exporting companies, analyzing how perceived value in the use of port services affects customer satisfaction and the intermediate links of the influence of trust and commitment on customer loyalty.
Design/methodology/approach
Relying on a survey of 634 Ecuadorian companies with experience in international trade as port users and a theoretical framework well-established in the literature on consumer behavior, the empirical study found evidence of a positive and significant relationship with the knowledge of chain effects.
Findings
The findings confirm the chain effect and reveal ways to maintain an ongoing satisfactory, trust and committed relationship with users, thereby ultimately gaining and maintaining their loyalty. The conclusions suggest how this postulate can help to close the gap referred to the effective management of port services, and point out that port managers should be concerned with a continuous in-depth understanding of the perceived value and its chain effects.
Originality/value
The authors add evidence of the use of the postulate of the chain of effects on these dimensions, whose applicability is very well established, tested and consensual for the doctrine in industrial marketing. In contrast, it is scarcely present in the port relationship with its users.
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The objective of this study was to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the existing literature on organizational deviance to assess how far this concept has progressed since its…
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of this study was to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the existing literature on organizational deviance to assess how far this concept has progressed since its introduction in the domain of organizational behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs bibliometric methodologies (citation analysis, co-citation analysis and co-occurrence of author keywords) using VOSviewer. The Scopus database was used, as it is the largest database of scholarly literature.
Findings
The findings indicate the character and direction of organizational research over the past two decades. Organizational deviance due to psychological contract breach, organizational deviance in the context of organizational cynicism and organizational deviance in the context of psychological capital are the three major themes in the literature on organizational deviance. In addition, the study highlights the most significant authors, journals, institutions and nations in the field of value co-creation research as well as potential future research areas in this area.
Research limitations/implications
The use of a single database and the inability to contextualize the citation structure of papers revealed by the review are limitations of this study.
Originality/value
This study examines the structure of the literature on organizational deviance and charts the field's evolution over time.
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Nabila As’ad, Lia Patrício, Kaisa Koskela-Huotari and Bo Edvardsson
The service environment is becoming increasingly turbulent, leading to calls for a systemic understanding of it as a set of dynamic service ecosystems. This paper advances this…
Abstract
Purpose
The service environment is becoming increasingly turbulent, leading to calls for a systemic understanding of it as a set of dynamic service ecosystems. This paper advances this understanding by developing a typology of service ecosystem dynamics that explains the varying interplay between change and stability within the service environment through distinct behavioral patterns exhibited by service ecosystems over time.
Design/methodology/approach
This study builds upon a systematic literature review of service ecosystems literature and uses system dynamics as a method theory to abductively analyze extant literature and develop a typology of service ecosystem dynamics.
Findings
The paper identifies three types of service ecosystem dynamics—behavioral patterns of service ecosystems—and explains how they unfold through self-adjustment processes and changes within different systemic leverage points. The typology of service ecosystem dynamics consists of (1) reproduction (i.e. stable behavioral pattern), (2) reconfiguration (i.e. unstable behavioral pattern) and (3) transition (i.e. disrupting, shifting behavioral pattern).
Practical implications
The typology enables practitioners to gain a deeper understanding of their service environment by discerning the behavioral patterns exhibited by the constituent service ecosystems. This, in turn, supports them in devising more effective strategies for navigating through it.
Originality/value
The paper provides a precise definition of service ecosystem dynamics and shows how the identified three types of dynamics can be used as a lens to empirically examine change and stability in the service environment. It also offers a set of research directions for tackling service research challenges.
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In servitization research, there has been a call to move further toward the development of business models based on a service approach. This article aims to answer this call by…
Abstract
Purpose
In servitization research, there has been a call to move further toward the development of business models based on a service approach. This article aims to answer this call by adopting service logic (SL) and developing strategies and organizational resources and processes to create a service-centric business model called servification, defined as the process of identifying and developing strategies and organizational resources and processes to create a business model based on SL.
Design/methodology/approach
This article is conceptual and extends servitization in the direction of service-centric business model innovation by drawing on and extending SL.
Findings
The article defines service as a higher-order concept according to SL and develops the concept of a helping strategy as the foundation for a service-based business model. Further, it develops a typology of organizational resources and processes that must be developed for the emergence of such a business model.
Research limitations/implications
Since this article is the first to conceptually develop servification, more both theoretical and empirical research is naturally required. The development of servification takes servitization in the direction of service-based business model innovation and also contributes to the research on SL.
Practical implications
Servification enables the development of service-centric strategies and organizational resources and processes and service-based business models.
Originality/value
This article is the first to adopt SL in studies of business model innovation.
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Jitpisut Bubphapant and Amélia Brandão
Given the importance of the growing segmentation of ageing consumers and their increasing interaction with the Internet, digital marketing scholars are becoming more interested in…
Abstract
Purpose
Given the importance of the growing segmentation of ageing consumers and their increasing interaction with the Internet, digital marketing scholars are becoming more interested in this market. Prior research needs to pay more attention to this market in many contexts of digital marketing. This study aims to provide insights into ageing consumers’ content usage, content typology choices, and online brand advocacy (OBA).
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were applied, and 16 consumers from Southern Europe aged 55+ were included. The interviews were transcribed and examined following the principles of content analysis.
Findings
According to the research, older consumers display their usage and concerns regarding online content. They have different decision-making processes depending on whether they are purchasing products or services. Likewise, their choices of content typology vary based on the utilitarian or hedonic product category.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by providing insights into this growing segmentation and proposing an OBA framework for older consumers related to content marketing. Finally, the study suggests that older consumers are passive online and active offline brand advocates.
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