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This is an exploratory study with the purpose of empirically testing and advancing knowledge on the relationship between top management team (TMT) leadership styles and a service recovery culture. A further test explores a contingency perspective, examining if gender diversity on the TMT shapes this relationship.

We examine the perceived TMT transformational leadership style, as well as the moderating effect of TMT gender diversity. Relying on both survey and archival data, our hypotheses are tested with a sample of 234 public firms based in the United States. Moderated hierarchical regression analysis is used as the statistical approach.

Results suggest that perceived TMT transformational leadership is positively associated with a service recovery culture. When accounting for TMT gender diversity, the relationship between perceived TMT transformational leadership and a service recovery culture is positively moderated.

The study represents a sample of for-profit public firms operating in the United States and should not be taken as a general population sample. The findings could vary relative to other countries, private companies and non-profit organizations.

This is the first known study to explore the relationship between TMT leadership styles, TMT gender diversity and a service recovery culture. The study extends findings with the respect to the impact of TMT leadership and gender diversity on organizational development, as well as offers new insights into the antecedents of a service recovery culture.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an evaluation of the findings first put forward in the article Tracking Service Failures and Employee Recovery Efforts with the benefit of hindsight, and to offer directions for further research and developments in the research area.

Research directions which emanated from the publication of the article have been examined in light of current service(s) marketing theory and practice. As a result, promising current and future strands of research have been identified.

The original study yielded the initial steps into what has become a systematic step-by-step process that outlines the development and implementation of a service recovery program that now includes failure identification; failure attribution; recovery strategy selection; recovery implementation; and tracking, monitoring and evaluating effectiveness. Subsequent research has linked organistic and mechanistic components of a recovery program to important customer and financial outcomes and the development of a service recovery audit.

The original study served as a starting point for the development of a set of implications for services marketing practitioners. Specifically, as a result of the original research, a programmatic approach to service recovery was developed that includes the systematic process of failure identification; failure attribution; recovery strategy selection; (4) recovery implementation; and tracking, monitoring and evaluating effectiveness.

The original article was highly rated, and generated discussion and important further research. It has value as a part of the history of service(s) marketing research. The retrospective analysis by the author(s) gives a unique insight into processes and thinking associated with understanding key aspects that contribute to the historical development of service(s) marketing, and provides substantial food for thought for future research directions.

Historically, firms have dedicated an abundance of resources in the pursuit of customer satisfaction and its corresponding favorable consequences. However, research indicates that customer satisfaction may not necessarily result in the outcomes pursued. This paper aims to focus on the concept of customer delight and explore antecedents and consequences of interest to the service firm. More specifically, the proposed model explores the linkages of employee effort, employee expertise and the firm’s tangibles to customer surprise and joy which in turn lead to customer delight and per cent of budget spent.

Data were collected from a grocery store. The hypothesized relationships were tested using structural equation modeling.

Results from this study yield new insights into the dual pathways leading to customer delight through joy and surprise. That is, joy and tangibles lead to both joy and surprise, whereas expertise leads to joy alone. Both joy and surprise are completely mediated through delight to per cent of budget spent. Interestingly, higher frequency customers experience a stronger relationship from joy to delight.

The findings have implications for the ongoing debate on the viability of customer delight and extending the theoretical understanding of why customer delight represents such a powerful force in the service environment.

By providing specific variables that impact both joy and surprise, management can develop tactics to develop delight initiatives.

This is the first study proposing multiple paths to customer delight. Further, this is the first study to link needs based and disconfirmation into a single model.

States that current pricing strategies used in the service industries are often too simplistic and ineffective in the face of complex environmental conditions. Introduces the Pricing Differentiation Premium Model, which includes in the firm′s pricing strategy its ability to differentiate itself from competitors. Discusses possible strategies for influencing differentiation premiums which can improve the pricing discretion of the service provider.

This study was undertaken to investigate service failures relating to problems with the management of the servicescape. Of the 1,370 failure critical incidents collected, 123 were identified as servicescape failures. The three primary types of servicescape failures most likely to occur, listed in order of frequency, include cleanliness issues, mechanical problems, and facility design issues. The study also identifies eight servicescape subfailure type categories and discusses failure ratings, recovery strategies, recovering ratings and customer retention rates.

An equity theory‐based contingency framework is presented to further our understanding of customer evaluations of the service failure/recovery process. Six contingencies are presented that are proposed to influence the relative importance of interactional and distributive justice on consumer‐based service recovery evaluations. The six contingencies include: depth of the relationship, proximity of the relationship, duration of the encounter, degree of customization, switching costs, and the criticality of consumption. Relevant research propositions are developed and discussed.

The aim of this paper is to compare the use of critical incident technique (CIT) for gathering student feedback in higher education (HE) with the more traditional and commonly used questionnaire survey method.

The investigation involved a critical evaluation of the standard self‐completion, multi‐question “tick‐box” quantitative survey questionnaire traditionally employed to collect student feedback in HE, against the more qualitative critical incident technique that was tested within the HE context. This evaluation was supported by a review of the extant literature to determine the advantages and disadvantages of both feedback methods and a comparison of the data gathered from university students using both survey instruments. Conclusions were then drawn regarding the value of both methods. The criteria used for the comparison were the design and administration of the survey instruments, analysis and quality of the data collected, and finally, the potential usefulness of the data to HE managers.

The main issue regarding suitability of approach is resource utilisation. The CIT questionnaire is much quicker and easier to design than the traditional questionnaire, asking only a small number of questions. However, completion, input and analysis of the CIT questionnaire take longer than the standard tick‐box questionnaire. The richness of the data more than compensates for these drawbacks. In principle, the qualitative critical incident technique should be used to complement the existing methods of gathering student feedback in order to find out what is significant to students. However, in practice, it is more likely that managers within HE will continue to use the more traditional survey questionnaire, because of the limited resources available to them.

Not only is CIT a method that can be used by researchers in the education sector nationally and internationally, to gather rich and useful data about the student experience but it may also be useful for gathering information from other stakeholders.

The paper is the first to use CIT to gather feedback from students on their university experience. It proposes that, in order to obtain valid and reliable data on which to base service provision decisions, university management should consider using this qualitative technique in combination with more traditional quantitative methods of gathering student feedback.

The authors propose focusing on e‐commerce service failure and recovery through the presentation of failure and recovery strategies employed by e‐commerce service firms.

The authors employ the critical incident technique using 377 customer responses to present ten e‐tail failures and 11 e‐tail recovery strategies used by e‐commerce service firms. The authors also present data on post‐recovery satisfaction levels and propensity to switch behavior.

Findings indicate that: e‐tail customers experience different types of service failure relative to traditional retail settings; e‐tail firms employ a different series of recovery strategies relative to traditional retail settings; and post‐recovery switching by e‐tail customers can be high even with satisfying experiences.

This paper strengthens the existing failure and recovery literature by presenting data on the largest growing sector of the service industry. These findings will have value to traditional firms looking to expand to e‐commerce channels in addition to e‐commerce firms currently experiencing customer dissatisfaction.

Considers the impact of multi‐faceted measures of job satisfaction on customer‐oriented behaviours demonstrated by service providers. Reveals how overall job satisfaction, together with specific satisfaction related to supervision, colleagues, promotion and work are positively related to customer‐orientation, while satisfaction with pay is not of significance in this case. Discusses recommendations for management and suggestions for further research.

This study aims to explore the relationships among institutional pressures, commitment of resources and returns management. Returns management is regarded as a part of supply chain management. However, the research in returns management has received much less attention. To bridge the gap, this study concerns key concepts from two important schools of thought, i.e. institutional theory and the resource-based view, to build up the research model.

Retailers and maintenance providers in the 3C industry (computers, communication and consumer electronics) in Taiwan were surveyed, and the statistical methods of hierarchical and moderated regression were used to examine the relationships among institutional pressures, commitment of resources and returns management.

Institutional pressures, comprising non-market and market pressures, affect the implementation of returns management (product return practices and product recovery practices). Commitments of resources positively and significantly moderate the relationship between the pressures imposed by non-market and market actors and product return practices and product recovery practices.

This study investigates only the factors that drive returns management. Future research can examine the relationship between the antecedents and consequences of returns management. Furthermore, returns management may become increasingly critical for firms to develop and perform corporate social responsibility (CSR). Therefore, future research can investigate the relationship between CSR practices and returns management.

This research suggests that managers under institutional pressures should continually pay attention to the effects of external factors on returns management. Additionally, the results reveal that a commitment of resources can reinforce the relationship between the pressures imposed by non-market and market actors and the implementation of returns management. Under significant institutional pressures and resource constraints, managers may increase the effectiveness of returns management while attending to the concerns of non-market and market actors.

This study presents a model that considers three major explicative variables: institutional pressures, resources commitment and returns management. It is the first investigation to integrate three streams of literature on institutional theory, the resource-based view and returns management.