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The US retail industry seems headed toward a zero‐sum game, a place where growth comes from taking customers away from competitors. This paper aims to present three steps to reduce the risk of defection of customers.

Despite the widespread prevalence of loyalty programs in the retail industry, customer defection risk within the industry remains high. Research shows that 85 percent of the “loyal” customers are willing to shop elsewhere if properly enticed. In response, some retailers have adjusted their loyalty programs to align them better with what they believe matters most to their target customers.

The paper reveals that there are three key steps to achieving an effective loyalty program.

In the summer of 2007, Accenture conducted ten independent but related surveys to assess behavioral loyalty of US retail customers in specific retail product categories (that is, retail segment markets). The ten surveys were conducted online simultaneously and were administered by a third‐party research vendor.

The paper offers this checklist for managers: align loyalty strategy with what matters most to target customers; recognize that price only buys volume but service earns continued loyalty; and use your loyalty strategy as both a defensive and an offensive weapon.

All loyalty programs are not equally effective. Retailers that ensure that their loyalty strategy is truly customer‐centric and use this strategy to both retain and acquire loyal customers will be the winners in retail's zero‐sum growth game.

The purpose of this paper is to explore innovations in customer experience at the intersection of the digital, physical and social realms. It explicitly considers experiences involving new technology-enabled services, such as digital twins and automated social presence (i.e. virtual assistants and service robots).

Future customer experiences are conceptualized within a three-dimensional space – low to high digital density, low to high physical complexity and low to high social presence – yielding eight octants.

The conceptual framework identifies eight “dualities,” or specific challenges connected with integrating digital, physical and social realms that challenge organizations to create superior customer experiences in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets. The eight dualities are opposing strategic options that organizations must reconcile when co-creating customer experiences under different conditions.

A review of theory demonstrates that little research has been conducted at the intersection of the digital, physical and social realms. Most studies focus on one realm, with occasional reference to another. This paper suggests an agenda for future research and gives examples of fruitful ways to study connections among the three realms rather than in a single realm.

This paper provides guidance for managers in designing and managing customer experiences that the authors believe will need to be addressed by the year 2050.

This paper discusses important societal issues, such as individual and societal needs for privacy, security and transparency. It sets out potential avenues for service innovation in these areas.

The conceptual framework integrates knowledge about customer experiences in digital, physical and social realms in a new way, with insights for future service research, managers and public policy makers.

Approaches based on social marketing have led to the proposal of systemic interventions to achieve individual behaviour that takes into account the benefits for society as a whole. The use of plastics is having significant negative effects on the environment and so numerous policies such as the use of biodegradable packaging, have been implemented to ensure sustainable production and consumption patterns (Sustainable Development Goal 12). This paper aims to analyse the background factors that explain consumer intention to use bioplastics with the aim of guiding company and government social marketing campaigns designed to encourage such behaviour.

To gather data, a survey was carried out using a sample of 3,612 people obtained via an online panel made up of participants over 18 years of age. The model and its hypotheses were tested by structural equations with the PLS technique using six independent variables obtained from the literature review.

The results of the variables “attitude towards bioplastics”, “subjective norms” and “activity to reduce plastic use” show a significant influence on intention to use bioplastics. This paper will also discuss the implications for governments and environmental managers to be taken into account when developing social marketing campaigns.

Given the importance of perceived social pressure in terms of behaviour regarding the use of recyclable bioplastics, social marketing campaigns may be developed to encourage environmentally-responsible behaviour amongst different social agents such as consumers, businesses, governmental organisations and suppliers.

This study demonstrates the factors that explain intentions to use bioplastics, which until now had been subject to very little research.

This paper aims to argue that, traditionally, service recovery attempts have paid little attention to customer preferences. Despite attempts to recover the customer, firms generally do not know if the recovery solution is what the customer expects. Hence, the paper seeks to examine whether customer recovery preferences influence customers' evaluation of the recovery attempt in terms of recovery satisfaction and repurchase intentions.

First, a two‐stage qualitative study was conducted. Then the research model was tested empirically on a sample of 431 consumers using a multivariate analysis.

The findings support the argument that customers have distinct recovery preferences. Moreover, customers are satisfied with the service recovery solution only when it matches the most demanding recovery preference. Customers' recovery preferences have a significant impact on their satisfaction with recovery and their repurchase intentions.

First, the model developed is tested on a cross‐sectional sample. Second, the measure of recovery satisfaction and repurchase intentions used here was relatively simple. Third, the study relies on repurchase intentions instead of actual behavioural data.

This research indicates that customers have a preference for how service recovery should be undertaken. Given these distinct recovery preferences, different recovery solutions should be applied to address each preference appropriately.

It is widely accepted in the service recovery literature that customers' perceptions of a service recovery attempt are often different to those of the service provider. However, this research suggests that customer recovery preferences need to be carefully considered given their effect on customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions.

This paper proposes investigating a model of service recovery performance in a public health‐care setting.

Frontline hospital staff (administrative and nursing staff) representing a range of out‐patient departments/clinics in a New Zealand inner‐city public hospital completed a self‐administered questionnaire on organizational variables affecting their service recovery efforts, job satisfaction and intention to resign. Data obtained from the hospital were analyzed using the SEM‐based partial least squares (PLS) methodology.

The results show significant relationships between perceived managerial attitudes, work environment perceptions, service recovery performance and outcomes variables.

Limitations of the study are noted including the generalizability of the findings within a public health‐care environment. Suggestions for future research include an examination of other variables potentially important in service recovery efforts. A patient perspective would also be valuable.

The research advances understanding of frontline service recovery performance in a health‐care setting and the findings indicate that health‐care managers can take actions on a number of fronts to assist progress toward the achievement of frontline service recovery excellence.

Very little attention has been given to understanding the antecedents and outcomes of service recovery performance in the health‐care literature. By expanding earlier research in private sector industries, the study investigates a model of service recovery performance in a public health‐care setting.

Published in its first edition in 1978, the Encyclopedia of Bioethics already deserves landmark status for several reasons including uniqueness of concept, overall quality and broad appeal. Previous articles in this column have traced the historical development of longstanding reference classics. Because the Encyclopedia is a relatively young tool, the substance of this review will depart somewhat from other essays in the series by focusing more on the content, organization and scope of the work rather than its evolution.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

The January 1987 issue of Access, a quarterly update from R.R. Bowker Company, contains a brief article entitled “Ulrich's: A Prime Source in Any Format.” This short piece tells us that 1987 marked the silver anniversary of the founding of Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory and that we have good reason to celebrate. The reason is that Ulrich's, and its sister publications, Irregular Serials and Annuals and Bowker's Serials Database Update, are now available on CD‐ROM and known as Ulrich's Plus. The article states that “this electronic disc format offers high speed access, multiple search points and ease of use.” The article also informs us that data for Ulrich's are continuously revised and updated by no less than thirteen editors who have multilingual skills and whose combined efforts provide indepth profiles of seventy thousand serials and thirty‐five thousand irregulars published worldwide, that there are updates for more than sixty‐five thousand entries, and that there is a “descriptive analysis of the content and point of view of each publication.” And, finally, that all periodicals are subject indexed.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a transformative service logic-based framework designed to help researchers and practitioners better understand resource integration in liminal periods.

Using netnography, we show how consumers across four countries integrate resources, adopting different value creation practices following natural disasters.

The authors’ novel framework extends current conceptualizations of social and economic exchange. Following a natural disaster, a state of ‘liminality’ occurs when the market economy is temporarily displaced by the moral economy, transitioning to a new transformative service logic.

Important implications for theory and practice are discussed.

This research proposes an organizing framework comparing the market economy logic and moral economy logic with the new transformative service logic.