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The purpose of this paper is to review research and is to gather conceptual perspectives on the role and nature of e‐service, and the e‐service experience. Recent advances in technology have created a surge in technology‐based self‐service or e‐service, and there is an increasing recognition of its role in differentiation and customer interfaces.

An exploration of the inherent characteristics of technology facilitation of service, including notions of information service and self service, leads to definitions of e‐service and the e‐service experience. The following section explores two differentiators to the service experience: e‐service encounters, elements and episodes; and e‐service's role in the total multi‐channel experience. Finally the growing body of work on e‐service quality is reviewed in pursuit of an understanding of how work on dimensions of e‐service quality informs understanding of the nature of the e‐service experience.

In order to understand e‐service experiences it is necessary to go beyond studies of e‐service quality dimensions and to also take into account the inherent characteristics of e‐service delivery and the factors that differentiate one service experience from another.

The paper reviews the factors that impact on the nature of the e‐service experience, taking a wider perspective than that adopted by many researcher on e‐service when they focus on the identification of the dimensions of e‐service quality. In order to manage the e‐service experience it is important to develop a clear articulation of the nature, boundaries, components and elements of specific e‐service experiences, and to further investigate the interaction between these factors and service quality dimensions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal associations among service innovation/improvement, organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB), and the user-perceived value of e-services. The context of service delivery is particularly based on human interaction in e-service encounters.

In total, 403 respondents from 53 different service departments were selected in this study. To fit the structure between respondents and departments, this study uses hierarchical linear modelling to examine the research model.

The results indicate that service innovation/improvement and the OCB of department staff both positively affect the user-perceived value of e-services. However, the OCB of department staff does not have a moderating effect on the association between service innovation/improvement and the user-perceived value of e-services.

Prior studies suggest that the OCB of service employees strongly reinforces customer perceptions of service quality and satisfaction. However, this causal association was proven in the context of face-to-face human interactions. This study is a pioneer study in examining the associations between OCB and human interaction with e-services.

This research seeks to extend the work of Dabholkar et al. into the e‐retail domain to assess alternate theoretical frameworks of e‐service quality. Particular focus is placed on e‐service quality and whether elements of e‐service quality should be viewed by dimensions, as antecedents to a global evaluation of e‐service quality, or as a formative configuration to predict behavioral intentions. The mediating role of customer satisfaction is also to be explored in these frameworks.

This paper is premised on an empirical study using cross‐sectional data from actual consumers. Data from a survey of 518 online consumers were used to test the research models through the use of a structured equation modeling (SEM) tool.

The results show support for all three theoretical models, and slightly stronger support for the formative model. Customer satisfaction was also found to play a mediating role on behavioral intentions within these e‐service quality models.

The research is limited to a single e‐retail product category of sport and leisure. The generalizibility of these findings is therefore limited. Further work in other sectors and over longer periods would establish the reliability of the findings. The paper also highlights some limitations in the e‐service quality literature, particularly the emphasis on the use of reflective indicators over formative approaches in the modeling of e‐service quality.

Multiple configurations of e‐service quality exist in the literature, as well as variations on how it is actually measured. The authors provide specific recommendations to improve future research (and practice) involving e‐service quality conceptualization and measurement.

The paper examines three alternate configurations of e‐service quality's antecedents, consequences and mediators. The authors provide a platform for further research to improve the conceptualization and measurement of e‐service quality and its effects.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of self‐service banking technology and investigates customers' perceptions of internet banking self‐service within the Irish financial services sector. This qualitative study of the Irish retail banking sector explored consumers' e‐banking interactions and experiences in addition to assessing the dimensions critical to e‐banking service quality.

A purposive sampling technique was employed to recruit 20 consumers representing the desired range of demographic characteristics (e.g. sex, age, profession), previous internet experience levels and product‐related knowledge.

Despite commonalities between traditional service quality and e‐banking service quality dimensions, due to the remote form of the online encounter, many traditional service quality attributes were found to be redundant and instead e‐dimensions such as web usability, trust, access and information quality service recovery and flexibility emerged as important to e‐banking service provision. Based on an extant review of the literature ten e‐service dimensions were proposed and evaluated empirically in the context of e‐banking service quality. Overall, process quality emerged as key within the online context, with nine out of the ten proposed e‐banking dimensions relating to the service process.

The paper contributes to previous research by adding to existing knowledge regarding what constitutes e‐banking service and the determinants critical to e‐banking service quality. The paper makes key recommendations towards enhancing current online financial services quality and delivery.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a multi‐dimensional taxonomy for information kiosk‐based self service technologies (SSTs). This taxonomy has an important contribution to make to the integration of research and development, in relation to information kiosks. There are aspects that may also be extended to e‐service, online service and self‐service.

The conceptual context for this work is established by a review of previous literature. This focuses on taxonomies and classification schemes relating to information kiosks, traditional services (p‐services) and e‐services. A comprehensive database of information kiosk technologies and their applications is constructed. Longitudinal observation of the development of information kiosk technologies is the basis for this and has been extended by web research.

An iterative analysis of the kiosk database defines the nature of service delivery from kiosks, and supports the identification and verification of the dimensions and sub‐dimensions of the taxonomy. It is informed by earlier classification schemes and taxonomies in the information kiosk, e‐service and p‐service literature.

This taxonomy has four main dimensions: Location, User, Task and Technology. Sub‐dimensions are developed for each of these main dimensions. It can be used to classify all information kiosks.

The relationship between citizens and government has been gradually changing from government centered to citizen centered. These changes can be understood from the public value perspective, which is a promising way to foster the use of electronic services (e-services) by citizens. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how key drivers for public value creation can enhance adopting electronic public services by citizens. The use of e-services as a basis for applying smart technologies is also discussed.

A qualitative study based on both a systematic literature review and a case study of an e-service provided by a Brazilian state government.

The study identifies that creating public value happens only after adopting e-services and that public value can be perceived directly by those who use the service or indirectly by the observation of people who have adopted it. A two-dimensional framework showing the direct and indirect factors that drive public value creation is proposed based on the data collection and literature review.

The proposed conceptual framework remains untested and the data collection in the Brazilian context might be a limitation. Other studies could gather data based on the collective uses of e-services.

The framework can be used in other studies concerning public value creation. Public managers might consider its drivers when planning e-services as a way to link them to social, political and collective issues in addition to smart technologies.

Although service researchers have long suggested that customer mistreatment adversely impacts service employees' outcomes, statistical integration of current empirical findings has been lacking. This meta-analysis aims to review and statistically synthesize the state of research on the relationship between customer mistreatment and service employees' affective, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.

The authors included 221 effect sizes of 135 independent samples from 119 primary studies (N = 47,964). The authors used a meta-analytic approach to quantitatively review the relationship between customer mistreatment and service employees' affective, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Meta-analysis structural equation modeling was used to explore the mediation mechanism of service employees' affective outcomes on the relationships between customer mistreatment and employees' attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Meta-regression was applied to explore the impact of contextual-level moderators (i.e. service provider type and service delivery mode) on these relationships. Furthermore, we compared the effects of customer mistreatment with the effects of other organizational-related factors on some commonly measured employee outcomes.

The results show that customer mistreatment has a significant negative impact on service employees' affective outcomes (i.e. negative emotions), attitudinal outcomes (i.e. job satisfaction, organizational commitment, work engagement and turnover intention) and behavioral outcomes (i.e. job performance, surface acting and emotional labor). Additionally, service employees' negative emotions mediate the association between customer mistreatment and employees' job satisfaction, turnover intention, surface acting and emotional labor. Furthermore, the relationships between customer mistreatment and service employees' negative emotions and job performance are influenced by a contextual-level moderator (i.e. service delivery mode).

The authors contribute to the literature by providing robust meta-analytic estimates of the effects of customer mistreatment on a variety of service employees' affective, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, as well as the different magnitudes of the effect sizes between customer mistreatment and other job-related and personality-related factors by quantifying the true variability of the effect sizes. The authors draw on current theories underpinning customer mistreatment to test a theoretical model of the mediation mechanism of service employees' affective outcomes (i.e. service employees' negative emotions) on the relationships between customer mistreatment and employees' attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. The authors explore the effects of two contextual-level factors (i.e. service provider types and service delivery mode) related to the service delivery context that may account for the variability of effect sizes across empirical studies.

The objective of this paper is to develop a conceptual model to examine the relationships among e‐service quality, consumer satisfaction, attitudes towards the web site and behavioural intentions in the context of content‐driven web sites.

Data from an online survey of 518 consumers were collected with the partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling technique used to empirically test the model.

Findings suggest that positive evaluations of e‐service quality influences positive levels of consumer satisfaction, consumer attitudes towards the web site and behavioural intentions within the specific service context of content‐driven professional sports web sites.

The study specifically focuses on content‐centric web sites within a single service domain being professional sport. Future research can apply the framework to other service sectors on the internet, as well as to other cultural settings.

The study suggests that practitioners can use the model developed in this study to assist in allocating resources to the essential, or under‐performing, e‐service quality attributes needed to drive positive consumer satisfaction, attitudes and behavioural intentions.

The paper proposes and empirically supports the idea that e‐service quality influences consumer attitudes as well as consumer satisfaction and behavioural intentions in the context of content‐driven (professional sports) web sites. Moreover, the results of this study provide managers with a useful framework to manage content driven e‐services, as well as for researchers interested in the issue of managing e‐service quality.

Advancements in information and communication technologies have created unprecedented opportunities to services providers in both developing and developed countries. The service sector represents one of the fastest growing areas of exports in the global trade. The Internet and e‐commerce make it possible to sell a variety of services, ranging from airline tickets to financial services, from anywhere in the world, around the clock. International delivery of services through electronic means is creating value in the supply chain by the reduction of many of the barriers to entry. This paper focuses on the determinants influencing the diffusion and export of e‐services across borders. The paper also presents strategic challenges, followed by implications for service providers.

The objective of this study is to develop and test a specific conceptualization and modeling specification of web site service quality and the influence web site service quality has on e‐service provider loyalty and word‐of‐mouth.

Data from an online survey of consumers across two studies were obtained.

The results support the conceptualization and operationalization of web site service quality and its effects on word of mouth and loyalty.

Implications for the measurement of consumer perceptions of web site service quality are highlighted for researchers, and directions for future research are discussed.

E‐service providers should carefully consider customer experiences on their web sites, and their management efforts to ensure they design and deliver the appropriate levels of service quality derived through the specific components of web site service quality.

The findings are of value to e‐service practitioners managing web site service quality and offer empirical support to its formative conceptualization. The focus here on formative modeling will stimulate discussion among e‐service researchers and practitioners, which could result in richer e‐service quality measures leading to improved marketing decision making and web site quality management.