Search results

There is considerable research examining the consequences and contingency factors of customer participation in the service encounter. In comparison, there is disproportionately less research examining the antecedents of customer participation. This paper aims to propose and test an appraisal-emotive framework of the effects of front-line employees’ in-role and extra-role behaviours on customer participation.

A survey on 583 customers of retail banks in China has been conducted to test the framework. Structural equation modelling and dominance analysis have been used for hypotheses testing.

Employees’ extra-role behaviour (i.e. organisational citizenship behaviour or OCB) has a stronger effect than their in-role behaviour (i.e. role-prescribed behaviour) in inducing customer participation. These effects are mediated by customer emotions. Specifically, the effect of employees’ in-role behaviour on customer participation was mediated by customers’ positive and negative emotions, whereas the effect of employees’ OCB was mediated by customers’ positive emotions but not by their negative emotions.

The findings reveal that strategic management of employee behaviours can influence customer participation. While organisations often provide training to enhance employees’ in-role behaviour to deliver service performance, they should also recognise and encourage employees’ OCB as a means of increasing customer participation. In particular, employees who display positive emotions tend to evoke positive emotions in customers, which increase customer participation in the service encounter.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few studies in marketing to examine the differential effects of employees’ in-role and extra-role behaviours on customer participation. Importantly, the findings show that employees’ OCB is not only more effective than employees’ in-role behaviour in influencing customer participation but also these two behaviours have varying effects on customer emotions. These findings are new and contribute to the literatures on customer participation, value co-creation and human resource management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pros and cons of service standardization (vs customization) from the consumer’s perspective, the key factors influencing consumers’ preference for standardized (vs customized) services and the outcomes of service standardization (vs customization).

The authors conducted a qualitative study and two behavioral experiments to test the hypotheses.

The authors find that the advantages of service customization include greater perceived control and higher consumer satisfaction. The drawbacks of service customization include greater perceived risk. These findings also suggest that consumers’ preference for standardized (vs customized) service depends on their consumption goal. Specifically, consumers with a hedonic goal tend to prefer customized services, while those with a utilitarian goal tend to prefer standardized services. These effects are moderated by their need for uniqueness.

The qualitative and experimental studies in this research reveal the antecedents (utilitarian vs hedonic goal) on consumer preference for service standardization versus customization, as well as the consequences in terms of perceived risk, consumer satisfaction and perceived control. The experimental studies were conducted with Chinese and American consumers, respectively, which lend credence to the robustness of the findings.

Results of the present research provide new insights into service standardization versus customization and have significant practical implications. In particular, service organizations should consider designing the appropriate service mode based on consumers’ characteristics, particularly their consumption goals and their need for uniqueness. If the customers focus on efficiency and functionality, the organization should try to provide standardized services. In contrast, for customers who are seeking fun and a novel experience, the service firm should try to tailor to their hedonic needs.

While previous research identifies “heterogeneity” as a key characteristic of services in general, the present findings qualify this received wisdom. In particular, the authors show that consumers’ preference for service standardization versus customization is a function of their consumption goal and need for uniqueness. Thus, the present findings refine the current understanding of service heterogeneity, which makes a significant contribution to the services marketing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of service separation on perceived value and intention to enroll in the higher education context, as mediated by perceived performance risk and moderated by an individual’s regulatory focus.

Four experimental studies were conducted, a pilot study and three main studies. Participants evaluated higher education courses offered in either the unseparated (on-campus) or separated (online) mode.

Results show that: service separation influences perceived value; this effect is mediated by performance risk; and moderated by regulatory focus. Specifically, participants perceive higher education courses offered in the separated mode to have greater performance risk, which lowers their perceived value. This effect is enhanced for prevention-focused participants and mitigated for promotion-focused participants. Finally, service separation is found to influence intention to enroll in a course via performance risk and perceived value.

The findings suggest that higher education providers need to better understand students’ regulatory focus. In particular, online education providers should target potential students who are promotion-focused and implement strategies to reduce performance risk, which would give students greater assurance that the online course will be delivered as promised.

The present research is the first to examine the effects of service separation in the context of higher education, which has received relatively little attention in the services marketing literature. In particular, the findings shed new insights on the mechanisms underlying consumer perceptions of separated vs unseparated service offerings, which contribute to research on services marketing and higher education.

Frontline employees (FLEs) play a pivotal role in service delivery. Beyond their expected in-role behaviors, FLEs often have to perform extra-role behaviors such as providing additional help to customers. The purpose of this study is to investigate how customers’ power distance belief (PDB) influences their perceptions of FLEs’ warmth and competence when FLEs perform extra-role helping behaviors.

Four experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. The first three experiments used a one factor two-level (PDB: low vs high) between-participants design. The fourth one used a 2 (PDB: low vs high) × 2 (firm reputation: low vs high) between-participants design.

The results indicate that, compared to high-PDB customers, low-PDB customers perceive greater warmth in FLEs’ extra-role helping behaviors but no significant difference in FLEs’ perceived competence. Importantly, these effects are mediated by customer gratitude. Moreover, these effects are moderated by firm reputation such that customers’ perceptions of FLEs’ warmth and competence are both enhanced when the firm has a favorable reputation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is the first to identify the differential effects of PDB on customer perceptions of FLEs’ warmth and competence in the context of FLEs’ extra-role helping behaviors and to reveal the mediating role of gratitude. These findings contribute to the literatures on FLEs’ extra-role behaviors and social perceptions of both warmth and competence.

This research aims to contribute to the transformative service research (TSR) literature by examining how customer participation in the service process influences their service experience and eudaimonic well-being, as moderated by customer empowerment and social support.

In the contexts of wedding (n = 623) and tourism services (n = 520), two surveys were conducted to test the hypotheses using mediation and moderation analyses.

Customer participation had a positive effect on their well-being, as mediated by service experience. These effects were moderated by customer empowerment and social support. Specifically, customer empowerment negatively moderated the relationship between customer participation and their service experience for both services. In addition, the moderating effect of social support on the relationship between customer participation and service experience was positive for the wedding service but negative for the tourism service.

The findings imply that firms should encourage customer participation to enhance their service experience and well-being. In addition, the firm could judiciously empower customers by adapting to the level of customer participation. Furthermore, depending on the complexity of the service required to produce the expected service outcomes, the firm may encourage the customers to engage their social network for support.

This research uses the service ecosystem perspective to examine the roles of the customer, the firm and the customer's social network in shaping their service experience and well-being for two common and important mental stimulus services, enriching the authors’ understanding on the role mental stimulus services play in enhancing consumers' eudaimonic well-being.

Explores the concept of viewing retail customers as partial employees. When retailers provide services to customers, they tend to rely solely on store employees, missing out on a hidden asset, their customers. When shopping, customers perform two roles: in‐role; and extra‐role. The former term refers to the work that a customer has to do when shopping, such as driving to the store. Extra‐role behaviour refers to voluntary behaviour on the part of the customer, e.g. cooperating with employees of the organisation and sharing their positive experiences with other customers. Customers are viewed as “partial employees” due to their participation in supplying labour and knowledge to the service creation process. A conceptual framework to study the phenomenon of using customers as partial employees is proposed and literature from marketing, economics, psychology and organisational behaviour is drawn upon. Research propositions and a future research agenda are advanced.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of volume and valence of online movie ratings on consumers’ risk perceptions and purchase intentions, as well as the moderating impact of cultural values, in four emerging Asian markets.

Using a survey questionnaire, data was collected from 204 respondents for Study 1 and 376 respondents for Study 2 in four emerging markets (China, India, Chinese Macau, and the Philippines). The analysis was conducted using analysis of variance.

Results indicate that moviegoers express higher risk perceptions and lower purchase intentions when the volume of online ratings is smaller and when the valence (average rating) is lower. These effects are enhanced for more conservative consumers, but are not influenced by consumers’ self-transcendence. Indian consumers were found to be more conservative than the other Asian consumers in the study.

Taken together, the findings make significant contributions to the literature on services marketing, online ratings, cultural values, risk perceptions, and emerging markets. In contrast to correlational studies, the experimental design controls for potential confounding factors and provides evidence of causality between online ratings and consumer responses. In addition, by using cultural values, the authors avoid the problems associated with using national culture scores to characterize individuals or sub-groups within countries.

The study suggests that despite the geographical proximity of these emerging markets, key discernible differences exist due to the moderating impact of cultural values on consumer responses. When targeting consumers in relatively conservative markets (e.g. India), a large volume of positive online ratings may lower consumers’ risk perceptions and increase their purchase intentions.

This study is one of the pioneering studies examining the impacts of volume and valence of online movie ratings on consumers’ risk perceptions and purchase intentions in emerging Asian markets.

In contrast to many studies that were conducted in a Western context, this study seeks to extend the understanding and empirical findings on power, dependence, and interfirm influence strategies by examining these issues within a channel of distribution in Singapore. Research hypotheses are developed, centering on the relationship between a manufacturer’s power and its use of coercive and noncoercive influence strategies as well as the reciprocal use of coercive and noncoercive influence strategies in the channel dyad. Data from a field study of personal computer dealers are used in testing the research hypotheses. In contrast to most previous studies, a multiple‐item measure of influence strategies is used. Among the findings is that a manufacturer in this channel setting tends to use both coercive and noncoercive influence strategies in influencing its dealers.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate measurement scales for consumer delight and outrage.

The paper used both qualitative, survey, and experiment methodology.

First, develop and validate the scale of customer delight, second, conceptualize the construct of customer outrage, as well as develop and validate its scale; third, explore the differential behavioral results of delight vs satisfaction, and outrage vs dissatisfaction; and fourth, further our understanding of the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum.

While researchers increasingly recognize that delight and outrage are distinct from satisfaction and dissatisfaction, it is important to have scales that differentiate between these constructs. To this end, this paper develops and validates scales to measure consumer delight and outrage, respectively. These scales will be useful to other researchers interested in measuring consumer delight and outrage in various research contexts.

The book publishing industry, compared with other more “glamorous” industries such as automobiles or computers, has received relatively scant attention from academic researchers. Little has been written on the subject, despite the fact that it is an US$18 billion industry (in USA). The general perception is that publishing is a staid and old‐fashioned industry, with few changes since the invention of the movable type by Gutenberg in the fifteenth century. This view no longer holds true. In the past 15 years, many exciting challenges and changes have taken place that have altered the very foundations of the industry. The first major wave of change took place in the early 1980s, with the advent of the personal computing. Following that, shifts in consumer demand, and merger and acquisition activities have also affected the industry. The onset of the information superhighway promises even greater changes, but has also given rise to confusion and uncertainty as to the industry’s future.