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This study seeks to provide a conceptual framework for the classification and selection of Healthcare 4.0 (H4.0) digital technologies affecting healthcare processes.

By examining the literature review, a set of processes of health services based on two axes of interaction and service customization and the axis of labor intensity of the service process matrix was divided into four categories: service factory, mass service, service shop and professional services. Then, using a combination of grey decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and grey weighted aggregates sum product assessment (WASPAS) methods, a framework was presented to compute the impact of each of the H4.0 digital technologies on sub-criteria of the two main axes. Finally, based on the degree of the impact of each technology on the main axes, the technology affecting the four processes was segmented.

Findings show that the customer participation in the service process (C₁), ways to provide customer service (C₆) as well as the speed of service delivery (L₄) are the most important in the classification of digital technologies affecting healthcare processes.

Various other indicators from the behavioral, cultural, political, social and economic fields can be examined and used as a basis for evaluating H4.0 digital technologies.

The proposed framework can help managers select H4.0 digital technologies to prioritize, review and analyze appropriate technologies to improve and support different processes, prioritize appropriate technologies and review and analyze.

So far, no study has examined the link between digital technologies and various service processes. Therefore, this reinforces the originality and value of the present study.

The purpose of this paper is to translate the eight wastes of Lean for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), identify some examples of each waste and to propose appropriate Lean solutions to those wastes.

To identify wastes within HEIs a combination of observation and cause-and-effect analysis utilising brainstorming were employed using a convenience sample of HE academic staff.

Once all eight wastes were successfully translated for HEIs a range of examples were identified in both academic and support services, including excessive movement of people, over production of materials, excessive inventory and waste of human resources. Appropriate Lean solutions to the identified wastes include the use of 5S, point-of-use-storage, process mapping/value stream mapping and level scheduling.

The cited examples come from a limited number of observations in only a few HEIs. More valid and reliable data would come from a more extensive sample of HEIs.

In order to improve bottom-line performance in times of constrained resources HEIs can reduce waste and hence costs of poor quality by using Lean thinking and accessing, what Joseph Juran (1962) called, “The gold in the mine”. This can be done without reducing the level of services.

Particularly in a recession, HEIs need to show that they are using government funding (public money) in the most efficient and effective way possible. Lean thinking can help achieve both these objectives.

Previous papers on Lean thinking applied to HEIs have concentrated on individual processes such as curriculum design or student assessment. This paper takes a holistic view demonstrating how Lean thinking theories can be practically applied across both academic and administrative areas of HEI operations.

The general principles of TOC can be applied to improve the performance of service organizations. A classified model is proposed for such applications based on Schmenner’s classification of service organizations. The flow of “material”, inventory and throughput is identified at various service organizations of the four quadrants of the service matrix. The definition of these terms might be dependent on the service. Since system constraint is at the heart of TOC, the recognition of the nature of organization constraint is the first step towards continuous improvement.

This chapter reviews the literature on servitization to understand whether and how mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been dealt with and what the portrayed consequences are of servitization through M&As. Servitization refers to how manufacturing firms extend and remodel their offerings to focus on value in use rather than product transfer. The rationale of the chapter follows from how business model innovation or business modeling has been predicted as the next M&A wave, while the focus on servitization has been pronounced in research and practice as a means for manufacturing firms to refocus operations during the past decade. The chapter concludes that while the servitization literature is vibrant, the mode of reaching service competence and renewing business is not well explored in the literature. In line with the predicted next M&A wave, servitization through M&As would thereby create an interesting path for future research.

In today's supply chain management practices, a successful strategy depends increasingly on the performance of third party logistics (3PLs) providers as they play a key integrative role linking the different supply chain elements more effectively. Information and communications technology (ICT) has become an important element of 3PL competitive capability as it enables higher levels of supply chain integration. Recent industry developments have widened the technological gap between large and small 3PLs. This is critical particularly for those markets populated by a large number of small 3PLs such as the Italian logistics industry. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of ICT adoption in small logistics service providers. The focus of the study is the Italian 3PL market.

The methodology adopted in this paper is based on the action research framework and it is a combination of theoretical analysis and empirical findings (focus groups and surveys). Firstly, a literature review on ICT dissemination in the international and Italian 3PL industry has been carried out. Then, a field survey has been developed preceded by two focus groups. The empirical investigation examined a sample of 153 small Italian 3PLs on the base of a definition and taxonomy proposed by the authors.

The results provide a useful technological profile of the surveyed companies, as well as an analysis of the role of ICT in customising services and of the factors influencing ICT adoption.

To give a more robust scientific justification of the survey results, it would be useful to carry out an additional large‐scale analysis including other countries with a high presence of small logistics service companies. Furthermore, a complementary case‐study analysis would be of help in defining the role of specific factors in different types of 3PL. Further investigations in this field are needed to better understand innovation paths, and how ICT can improve the competitive capabilities of 3PLs and of the wider supply chain.

Managers of small 3PLs can use the findings to set‐up guidelines for improving a company's technology innovation. Technology vendors can use the findings to better market their service/product into the small logistics service provider segment.

Despite the fact that much has been written about the dissemination of ICT, there is still a shortage of research in the field of small 3PLs with little empirical investigation into the usage of ICT by small 3PLs. This paper provides a contribution to filling this void and suggests some possible research directions.

The purpose of this paper is to develop measurement scales for customer contact in a technology-generated context.

The authors adapted the scales of Froehle and Roth (2004), by following a systematic scale adaptation and development process. The adapted scales were tested for psychometric properties and refined by building measurement models using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The authors found it necessary to revise Froehle and Roth’s (2004) original items in most of the scales. After testing, the “attitude towards the episode” scale was dropped and remaining nine scales were retained.

The scales will be useful to future researchers on online shopping to advance their research. The scales can be tested and validated with data from multiple empirical contexts and adapted to those contexts as necessary. Future studies must examine path relationships between belief, attitude, and intention constructs.

The adapted scales can be useful to practitioners in the domain of online shopping to measure the beliefs, attitudes, and intentions of their customers. Potential beneficiaries include service providers, service designers, industry associations as well as regulators in the government.

The overarching contribution of this paper lies in developing scales pertaining to the online shopping context of technology-generated customer contact. The paper has simultaneously addressed two relatively less attended areas of research on service operations – the role of technology in customer contact and measurement of customer contact.

Boutique hotels reflect a nascent phenomenon in the literature and in the accommodation sector. As a result, they are void of governmental classification and regulation. Concurrently, they lack any form of operational definition. The purpose of this paper is to address these limitations by identifying the core attributes found to define boutique hotels.

To fulfil the purpose of this paper, the authors conducted a systematic literature review on Web of Science. This resulted in an analysis of 33 peer-review articles published from 1994 to 2022.

The findings of this review revealed that boutique hotels are defined by eight core attributes; these are (1) multiple ownership structures, (2) situatedness in a historic premises, (3) strategic locations, (4) thematized internal décor, (5) experience design, (6) high levels of personalization, (7) novelty in service provisions and (8) niche marketing strategies.

For policymakers, this paper may be used as a reference point to establish designated classification systems for boutique hotels. For practitioners, this paper may be used as a source of inspiration and benchmark to establish boutique hotels which align to the criteria highlighted in this paper. For scholars, this paper proposes an operational description of boutique hotels and novel areas for future research.

This paper represents one of the initial efforts undertaken by researchers to unify the literature on boutique hotels.

The aim of this article is to examine the interaction effect of customization mode and regulatory focus on the “tailoring” outcomes of customized services in both the number of options retained and consumer evaluations.

Two experiments investigate the interaction between customization mode and consumer regulatory focus, together with mediating and moderating factors.

An interaction effect of customization mode and regulatory focus exists: it significantly influences the number of options retained, and prevention‐focused consumers retain more options in the final customized offering than promotion‐focused consumers in subtractive customization, whereas this effect is reduced in additive customization; it significantly affects how consumers evaluate the customization service with regard to task enjoyment and attitudes toward products; and it is fully mediated by task enjoyment and positively moderated by product familiarity.

This article provides an important contribution to service customization design and regulatory focus theory by shedding light on the interaction between customization mode and consumer regulatory focus and revealing how this interaction affects the decision outcomes of customization services.

Adopting a socio-spatial approach, this study develops a consumer-centric conception of service experience customization. In contrast to existing service customization research, which has focused on company-centric approaches, the purpose of this paper is to examine the practices through which consumers use, abuse, subvert, transform, or complement organizational resources to construct their consumption experiences.

The empirical context for this study is a Meetup group: a consumer network organized around members’ shared interests and activities in theme parks. The research utilized participant observation of members’ face-to-face activities during two years and over 80 events, interviews with key informants, and content analysis of online interactions.

The findings outline how consumers interact across physical and virtual spaces utilizing technologies and material objects. The data are used to propose a new consumer-centric conceptualization of experience customization, distinguishing between three modes: collaborative co-production, cooperative co-creation, and subversive co-creation.

It is argued that the three modes of customization provide a way to understand how consumers mobilize and (re)deploy organizational resources to create experiences that may complement existing service propositions, but may also transform them in ways that challenge the service provider’s original goals and expectations. Furthermore, this study identifies the factors that shape which modes of customization are possible and how they are enacted. Specifically, the discussion examines how experiential complexity, governability, the compatibility of consumer and organizational practices, and the collective mobilization of resources may determine the scope and form of customization.

Although practitioners and scholars alike embrace service customization as a possibly powerful management instrument, its impact on customer relationships as well as contingencies for its effective application are not well understood. Drawing from relationship marketing and exchange theory, this paper aims to develop a model of customer relationship outcomes of service customization and the efficacy of service customization.

Two large‐scale, representative, cross‐sectional studies in different service industries based on the European Customer Satisfaction Index framework are conducted, and PLS path modeling is applied to test the model.

Customization increases perceived service quality, customer satisfaction, customer trust, and ultimately customer loyalty toward a service provider. Customization has both direct and mediated effects on customer loyalty and interacts with the effects of customer satisfaction and customer trust on loyalty.

Service customization is a viable instrument for relationship marketing. Its efficacy depends on customer satisfaction and customer trust. While this study solely focuses on the impact of service customization, future research could assess the relative importance of service customization in the presence of other relationship marketing instruments.

Service providers can use service customization as an effective instrument for achieving not only higher customer satisfaction, but also higher customer loyalty. Service customization is most effective for companies that have deficits in satisfying their customers, while at the same time their customer relationships are characterized by a high level of trust. These results help managers to decide upon resource allocation to enhance customer satisfaction, trust and loyalty.

This paper investigates the simultaneous effects of service customization on customer loyalty and other relationships variables and offers new insights relatively to the nature and size of customization effects. It fills an important gap in the knowledge of customization outcomes, and clarifies under which circumstances service customization is most effective. The paper is of great value for service providers that face the decision whether to customize their offering or not.