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Loneliness and isolation are on the rise, globally threatening the well-being across age groups; global social distancing measures during the COVID-19 crisis have intensified this so-called “loneliness virus”. The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrative framework and research agenda on the role of companion robots in mitigating feelings of loneliness.

A netnographic analysis of 595 online visual and textual descriptions offer empirical insights about the role of the companion robot Vector during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The contributions of this study are twofold. First, it postulates that companion robots have the potential of mitigating feelings of loneliness (i.e. indicator of well-being). Second, this study contributes to transformative service by developing an integrative framework introducing the roles (personal assistant, relational peer and intimate buddy) that companion robots can fulfill to mitigate feelings of loneliness through building different types of supportive relationships.

The proposed research agenda encourages future service scholars to investigate 1) the role of robots in addressing loneliness, 2) design features that drive adoption of robots, 3) social support for different groups, 4) the operationalization and the measurement of loneliness and 5) an impact analysis of companion robots.

Service providers and policy makers can leverage the insights about how companion robots can help reduce a sense of loneliness.

The integrative framework on loneliness reduction, based on 595 unprompted online contributions issued during the COVID-19 pandemic, offers initial evidence for the impact of companion robots in reducing people's feelings of loneliness.

The technological revolution in the service sector is radically changing the ways in which and with whom consumers co-create value. This conceptual paper considers social robots in elderly care services and outlines ways in which their human-like affect and cognition influence users’ social perceptions and anticipations of robots’ value co-creation or co-destruction potential. A future research agenda offers relevant, conceptually robust directions for stimulating the advancement of knowledge and understanding in this nascent field.

Drawing from service, robotics and social cognition research, this paper develops a conceptual understanding of the value co-creation/destruction potential of social robots in services.

Three theoretical propositions construct an iterative framework of users’ evaluations of social robots in services. First, social robots offer users value propositions leveraging affective and cognitive resources. Second, users’ personal values become salient through interactions with social robots’ affective and cognitive resources. Third, users evaluate social robots’ value co-creation/destruction potential according to social cognition dimensions.

Social robots in services are an emerging topic in service research and hold promising implications for organizations and users. This relevant, conceptually robust framework advances scholarly understanding of their opportunities and pitfalls for realizing value. This study also identifies guidelines for service managers for designing and introducing social robots into complex service environments.

Recent service studies suggest focusing on the service triad consisting of technology-customer-frontline employee (FLE). This study empirically investigates the role of service robots in this service triad, with the aim to understand the augmentation or substitution role of service robots in driving utilitarian and hedonic value and ultimately customer repatronage.

In study 1, field data are collected from customers (n = 108) who interacted with a service robot and FLE in a fast casual dining restaurant. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test hypotheses about the impact of service robots' anthropomorphism, social presence, value perceptions and augmentation opportunities in the service triad. In study 2, empirical data from a scenario-based experimental design (n = 361) complement the field study by further scrutinizing the interplay between the service robot and FLEs within the service triad.

The study provides three important contributions. First, the authors provide empirical evidence for the interplay between different actors in the “customer-FLE-technology” service triad resulting in customer repatronage. Second, the empirical findings advance the service management literature by unraveling the relationship between anthropomorphism and social presence and their effect on perceived value in the service triad. And third, the study identifies utilitarian value of service robots as a driver of customer repatronage in fast casual dining restaurants.

The results help service managers, service robot engineers and designers, and policy makers to better understand the implications of anthropomorphism, and how the utilitarian value of service robots can offer the potential for augmentation or substitution roles in the service triad.

Building on existing conceptual and laboratory studies on service robots, this is one of the first field studies on the service triad consisting of service robots – customers – frontline employees. The empirical study on service triads provides evidence for the potential of FLEs to augment service robots that exhibit lower levels of functional performance to achieve customer repatronage. FLEs can do this by demonstrating a high willingness to help and having excellent interactions with customers. This finding advocates the joint service delivery by FLE – service robot teams in situations where service robot technology is not fully optimized.

This paper aims to explore the current and future roles of augmented reality (AR) as an enabler of omnichannel experiences across the customer journey. To advance the conceptual understanding and managerial exploitation of AR, the paper aims to synthesise current research, illustrating how a variety of current applications merge online and offline experiences, and provides a future research agenda to help advance the state of the art in AR.

Drawing on situated cognition theorising as a guiding framework, the paper reviews previously published research and currently deployed applications to provide a roadmap for future research efforts on AR-enabled omnichannel experiences across the customer journey.

AR offers myriad opportunities to provide customers with a seamless omnichannel journey, smoothing current obstacles, through a unique combination of embedded, embodied and extended customer experiences. These three principles constitute the overarching value drivers of AR and offer coherent, theory-driven organising principles for managers and researchers alike.

Current research has yet to provide a relevant, conceptually robust understanding of AR-enabled customer experiences. In light of the rapid development and widespread deployment of the technology, this paper provides an urgently needed framework for guiding the development of AR in an omnichannel context.

The aim of the paper is to bring together the state-of-the-art research and theory from the communication and service research fields to examine the implications of new technologies for the future of service communication.

The authors apply the media affordances perspective to develop an overarching framework that facilitates theoretical conceptualization and research question formulation on the constantly evolving technology-enabled communication formats.

Central to the forward-looking framework of service communication facilitated by new technologies, this paper identifies various affordances at the service frontline where service customers and providers interact with the technologies. Customers are empowered to expand their roles blurring the role distinction between service providers and customers. Depending on what kind of relationships service providers form with the emerging technologies, they may develop new service communication strategies and new interaction possibilities with customers. As a result, the technologies' affordances would facilitate value creation outcomes that can manifest in the external (whether it is in the physical or digital space) and/or internal (one's own mind) spaces. Applying the affordances framework, the authors map out four key areas of future research regarding new technologies in service communication: (1) social media technologies; (2) multisensory reality-enhancing technologies; (3) AI-enabled voice assistants; and (4) AI-driven service robots.

This paper proposes an original theoretical framework to stimulate and guide future research and theory development regarding the implications of new technologies in the constantly evolving and complex service communication landscape.

The purpose of this paper is to achieve a collective understanding of the capabilities required for digital procurement transformation (DPT).

The authors contextualize theory about dynamic capabilities (DCs) to integrate the fragmented body of literature on procurement digitalization by means of a systematic literature review (SLR). By extracting and clustering capabilities, as well as proven performance outcomes from existing literature in the field, the authors develop a conceptual model of the DCs required for DPT.

The authors first introduce and define DPT and the corresponding motivations that trigger firms to invest in advanced digital technologies. Second, by adopting the DC lens, the authors provide an overview of nine microfoundations required for DPT and highlight the strategic options procurement leaders can use when strategizing about adopting combinations of digital technologies. Third, the authors present a future research agenda on DCs for DPT.

The developed conceptual model must be verified and enhanced through further empirical research.

The conceptual model can be used by procurement leaders as a starting point and framework when strategizing about digitally transforming the procurement organization.

The study is the first to synthesize previous research findings on procurement digitalization through an SLR in order to develop a fine-grained conceptual model that supports practitioners and researchers alike in better understanding the capabilities required for and potential performance outcomes of DPT.

This paper aims to develop and apply a service design method that allows for stronger recognition and integration of human activities into the front-end stages of the service design process.

Following a discussion of different service design perspectives and activity theory, the paper develops a method called activity-set mapping (ActS). ActS is applied to an exploratory service design project to demonstrate its use.

Three broad perspectives on service design are suggested: (1) the dyadic interaction, (2) the systemic interaction and (3) the customer activity perspectives. The ActS method draws on the latter perspective and focuses on the study of human activity sets. The application of ActS shows that the method can help identify and visualize sets of activities.

The ActS method opens new avenues for service design by zooming in on the micro level and capturing the set of activities linked to a desired goal achievement. However, the method is limited to activities reported by research participants and may exclude unconscious activities. Further research is needed to validate and refine the method.

The ActS method will help service designers explore activities in which humans engage to achieve a desired goal/end state.

The concept of “human activity set” is new to service research and opens analytical opportunities for service design. The ActS method contributes a visualization tool for identifying activity sets and uncovering the benefits, sacrifices and frequency of activities.

Crystallization is the process widely used for components separation and solids purification. The systems for crystallization process evaluation applied so far, involve numerous non-invasive tomographic measurement techniques which suffers from some reported problems. The purpose of this paper is to show the abilities of three-dimensional Electrical Capacitance Tomography (3D ECT) in the context of non-invasive and non-intrusive visualization of crystallization processes. Multiple aspects and problems of ECT imaging, as well as the computer model design to work with the high relative permittivity liquids, have been pointed out.

To design the most efficient (from a mechanical and electrical point of view) 3D ECT sensor structure, the high-precise impedance meter was applied. The three types of sensor were designed, built, and tested. To meet the new concept requirements, the dedicated ECT device has been constructed.

It has been shown that the ECT technique can be applied to the diagnosis of crystallization. The crystals distribution can be identified using this technique. The achieved measurement resolution allows detecting the localization of crystals. The usage of stabilized electrodes improves the sensitivity of the sensor and provides the images better suitable for further analysis.

The dedicated 3D ECT sensor construction has been proposed to increase its sensitivity in the border area, where the crystals grow. Regarding this feature, some new algorithms for the potential field distribution and the sensitivity matrix calculation have been developed. The adaptation of the iterative 3D image reconstruction process has also been described.