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Email communication is indispensable for US state agencies to respond to citizen requests and engage with constituents, contributing to building trust in local governments. While prior studies examine the responsiveness of elected officials, the quality of virtual interactions between government organizations and citizens is often overlooked. This study aims to investigate how US government agencies capitalize on the potential of online interactions with constituents to manage generic queries and introduce the response engagement index (REI) consisting of response time, reactive transparency and message interactivity to evaluate levels of communicative engagement.

The authors conducted a field experiment encompassing emailing a request to 547 state agencies based in the five largest states and one small state. A total of 377 organizational responses were manually analyzed to reveal the usages of six communicative engagement strategies.

The results show the potential of online communication is underutilized as the average score of response engagement remains low. Human responses are less engaging than auto-reply messages and require a one-day waiting period, if not longer. Response types and gender of government communicators significantly differ in response time and engagement strategies. The findings identify divergent patterns of response engagement and provide practical implications for facilitating citizen engagement.

This research fills a critical gap by investigating the quality of online interactions between US government agencies and citizens. The authors develop a theory-grounded tool of response engagement to identify three features: response speed, reactive transparency and interactivity. The findings can improve the quality of email communication in state agencies, enhancing governance quality. The REI proposed here addresses what Pfau (2008) deemed problematic for communication scholarship: research is sparse on “functional issues” that examine the communication process. Pfau argued for research that provides knowledge of interest across disciplines so as to “cross-fertilize” ideas between political communication and public relations; this study sought to bridge that gap with a theoretical and practical tool for building public trust in governments.

To support the evaluation of transparent and responsive governments, reliable and valid measurements are needed. The proposed REI provides practitioners with a theory-grounded tool to identify areas of engagement quality in government responses. The findings can be used to improve the quality of email communication in state agencies, enhancing governance quality.

Citizens seek reciprocal dialogue through prompt, open and interactive communication. US state agencies should leverage the engagement features for increasing citizen trust – response time, reactive transparency and interactivity – when responding to public inquiries. Ultimately, trust in government agencies' interests in serving stakeholders cannot be strengthened without prompt and engaging responses to meet the public's needs.

This field experiment was one of the first to focus on US state agencies' responses to information requests. It introduces a new REI to assess communicative engagement in a government/citizen exchange.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the formation of knowledge management (KM) decisions, including intention for knowledge contribution and knowledge exploration. The authors build on the goal-directed model and a trust-based lens to develop a belief-trust-decision framework. The authors theorize belief as individual factors (one’s virtual skill) and environmental factors (cooperative norms, familiarity), and trust as emotional trust and cognitive trust. Individual factors represent one’s virtual skill to control knowledge exchange, while environmental factors reflect the level of support/control for this exchange by the context.

This study uses a survey method to collect data and partial least squares to analyze them.

The authors found that KM decision is affected by two types of trust, directly or indirectly. They are, in turn, influenced by individual factors and environmental factors.

Generalizability of the findings to virtual communities with different collaboration protocol deserves further investigation. This study contributes to the research on KM and social behavior by providing a comprehensive explanation on KM decision through one’s goal achievement in knowledge exchange behavior, in terms of trust development. Besides, the authors theorize one’s belief on knowledge exchange as skill-control and context-control to represent the drivers for trust.

The results provide suggestion for managers regarding how skill-control and context-control should be managed to improve trust development, which serves as goal achievement for KM decisions.

The authors extend prior work by yielding a new insight into how and why one’s beliefs on skill-control and context-control for knowledge exchange are transferred into KM decision through one’s goal achievement, characterized as trust development at both emotional and cognitive levels.

Keeping both employees and customers highly engaged has become a critical issue for service firms, especially for high-contact and highly customized services. Therefore, it is essential to engage employees and customers during service interactions for better service outcomes. However, past research on employee and customer engagement has primarily focused on brands and organizations. Little research has concentrated on service interactions as the objects of engagement. To fill this research gap, this study aims to clarify and define service engagement behaviors (SEBs), identify various employee and customer SEBs and develop a model to investigate the relationships between these behaviors.

A theoretical framework was developed based on social contagion theory and service-dominant (S-D) logic to explore the effects of employee SEBs on customer SEBs through customer perceptions of relational energy and interaction cohesion. Dyadic survey data collected from 293 customer-employee pairs in various high-contact and highly customized service industries were examined through structural equation modeling.

Results show that employee SEBs (service role involvement, customer orientation behavior and customer empowerment behavior) positively influence relational energy and interaction cohesion, which in turn affect customer SEBs (service exploration behavior and service coordination behavior).

This study represents pioneering research to conceptualize SEBs. Different from the extant literature on engagement, SEBs capture the proactive and collaborative engagement behaviors of employees and customers in service interactions. Various employee and customer SEBs were identified and an empirical model was proposed and tested to investigate the effect of employee SEBs on customer SEBs through relational energy and interaction cohesion.

Leveraging the power of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is strategically important to corporations. Although various studies have explored the positive effects of CSR, few have been devoted to the investigation of CSR related to service employees from the internal marketing perspective. Therefore, this study fills this research gap by developing a conceptual model based on social influence theory to explain how internal CSR initiatives affect service employees' attitudes and behaviors.

This study develops and empirically tests a theoretical model examining the impact of internal CSR initiatives (i.e. internal dissemination of and management support for CSR) on service employees' attitudes toward an organization (i.e. employee–company identification and value congruence), which ultimately enhance their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) toward customers, other employees and the organization. Survey data from 271 frontline employees of service firms actively involved in CSR-related activities were examined with structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that perceived internal dissemination of and management support for CSR affect service employees' citizenship behaviors toward customers, other employees and the organization through the mediation of employee–company identification and value congruence.

Internal CSR initiatives are highly related to service employees' various OCBs that are beneficial to improving the service performance of firms. Therefore, it is imperative for companies to devote attention to internal marketing dissemination while promoting CSR. In addition, as managers' attitudes and behaviors trickle down to employees, service supervisors' support of CSR activities plays a significant role in forming employee perceptions of a firm's CSR dedication.

This study represents one of the first to view internal CSR initiatives as an effective internal marketing lever. Moreover, the relationship between internal CSR initiatives and service employees' OCBs – OCB toward customers, other employees and the organization – is proposed and tested with an empirical model, providing significant contributions.

This paper aims to examine the common denominators of measurement properties of a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) dominant logic for business sustainability through time and across business contexts.

The method was based on a quantitative approach and a questionnaire survey in corporate Taiwan with a response rate of 68.5%.

This article uncovers and fortifies common denominators through time between oriental and occidental business contexts.

The framework of TBL dominant logic for business sustainability establishes a toolbox for practitioners to examine economic, social and environmental elements as the marketing strategy in connection with business sustainability.

This enables to validate the framework of TBL dominant logic for business sustainability in previous research. Multiple dimensions are validated through time and across business contexts.

This study contributes to existing theory and previous research by fortifying the framework of TBL-dominant logic for business sustainability. The twenty-dimensional framework demonstrates universal measurement properties through time and across oriental and occidental business contexts.

Ambidextrous frontline service employees (FSEs), capable of delivering quality services and carrying out sales responsibilities too, are crucial to service firms. This study seeks to extend ambidexterity research by examining how a manager's goal orientation could influence FSEs' ambidextrous conversion. The authors draw on achievement goal theory and conceptualize a link between a manager's achievement goal orientation and employees' service–sales ambidexterity (SSA). The authors then apply conservation of resources theory to complement this high-level conceptualization, hypothesize mediating roles of important resources that can facilitate employees' SSA, and the authors test them empirically.

This study adopts a questionnaire survey design. The empirical test relies on multilevel path analyses of dyadic data from 341 FSEs and 39 managers of a major logistics service company in Taiwan.

Managers with a prominent learning goal orientation can facilitate and foster FSEs' SSA through developmental inducements and change-related self-efficacy, two important resources for their ambidextrous conversion. Managers with a strong performance-avoid goal orientation instead might hinder employees' SSA conversion, due to a negative impact on developmental inducements. Furthermore, SSA enhances FSEs' service delivery value and sales performance.

By analyzing and empirically testing the influence pathways of essential resources perceived by FSEs, which channel the effects of a manager's goal orientation to employees' SSA conversion, this study offers insights about how managers can support and foster FSEs' service–sales ambidextrous conversion.

This study aims to examine how e‐service initiatives affect a firm's market valuation. To provide further insight, paper also assesses the impact of technology acquisition mode, the firm's organizational position, industry characteristics, and service introduction strategy on firm value.

Using an event study methodology, we examined the market value of e‐service initiatives through their impact on stock returns‐investors' expectations of firm performance. Based on strategy and marketing theories, we also developed a conceptual framework to examine factors that influence firm performance and value.

Findings include positive abnormal returns accompanying e‐service announcements. Regression results also show market size and firm size have negative effects on valuation while firm experience has positive effects on firm value. Whereas pioneers and late entrants have an advantage over early entrants, firms acquiring needed technology through collaborative R&D or using diversification expansion strategies experience increased returns. Results are consistent across diverse industry types.

Based on concepts derived from extant marketing strategy and technology management research, this research provides a new perspective for examining the performance implications of e‐services introduction by developing an integrated framework that identifies a comprehensive set of factors that shape the market valuation of e‐service initiatives. Future research can further evaluate the performance effects of e‐service initiatives on other dimensions of corporate performance as well as track the performance before and after announcements to give further insight into effective corporate strategies and long‐term investigation.

When firms initiate e‐services, technology acquisition mode, organizational position, industry characteristics, and service introduction strategies affect financial performance, and therefore, should be accounted for by managers. Recognizing value drivers and their varying effects on performance can provide managers with insights into developing e‐services.

This study presents a framework integrating various performance‐influencing forces at work when a firm initiates e‐services. This framework helps practitioners and researchers in clarifying the importance of e‐service initiatives and the fit of such services with performance‐affecting factors.

Sustainable waste management (SWM) leads to human safety by eliminating dangerous substances, increasing cost efficiency and reducing environmental impacts. Integrating social, economic and environmental factors is the standard for successfully implementing SWM. However, prior studies have not incorporated the triple bottom line with technological performance and occupational safety in establishing SWM. To drive sustainability in waste management, this study aims to provide a set of SWM attributes and identify a causality model based on the interrelationships among the attributes.

This study used the Delphi method to list the relevant attributes and the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) involving 18 experts from the medical and health-care industry to present the interrelationships indicating the group of cause–effect attributes of SWM.

The study selected 5 aspects and 20 criteria as the relevant attributes of SWM. The cause group consists of environmental impacts and occupational safety, with positive values of 27.031 and 24.499, respectively. The effect group includes technological performance, economic performance and social performance. In particular, the challenges and practices of technological performance are linked to environmental impacts and occupational safety.

The top four criteria for industrial improvement are green practices, government policy and rules, the awareness of workers and waste separation and collection. These results present deeper insights into theoretical and managerial implications.

This study contributes to addressing the challenges and practices of SWM in technological performance leading to environmental impacts and occupational safety. Studies on the technological performance aspect in the causality relationships between environmental impacts and occupational safety are lacking. This study describes SWM using qualitative information and quantitative data.

Rapport between service employees and customers has been suggested to be an important determinant of customer relationship management, yet existing marketing literature still lacks a sufficient understanding of how service employees’ nonverbal communication affects customer-employee rapport development in service encounters. The purpose of this paper is to fill this research gap by proposing and testing a model that explores how service employees’ nonverbal communication (employee affective delivery and behavioral mimicry) influences customer positive emotions and customer-employee rapport. The mediating role of customer positive emotions and the moderating role of store atmosphere in the process of customer-employee rapport development were also assessed.

Using an observational methodology in conjunction with a customer survey, multi-source survey data collected from 303 customer-employee pairs in the apparel retailing industry was examined through structural equation modeling and regression analysis.

Results showed that employee nonverbal communication positively influenced customer positive emotions and customer-employee rapport. The partial mediating role of customer positive emotions and the moderating role of store atmosphere in the process of rapport development were also confirmed.

Service firms should train and motivate employees to use nonverbal communication to develop and strengthen customer-employee rapport. The importance of customer positive emotions in the service process should be addressed in the customer-employee rapport development process. Moreover, service managers should also allocate firm resources to create a well-designed store atmosphere for target customers.

This research represents one of the earliest studies to explore and empirically test the influence of employee nonverbal communication on customer-employee rapport development in service encounters. The partial mediating role of customer positive emotions and the moderating role of store atmosphere on the relationship between employee nonverbal communication and customer-employee rapport were also proposed and confirmed.

The solitary consumption market has grown in the hospitality industry. However, research on the behavior of solitary consumers and differences between solitary consumers of different nationalities is rare. The relationships between solo dining motivations and customer satisfaction were investigated for consumers in Taiwan and the United States.

A survey was conducted among Taiwanese and American consumers; 628 valid questionnaires were retrieved. Structural equation modeling was performed to test the hypotheses.

Significant differences were observed between Taiwanese and American consumer motivations. Higher solo dining motivation was positively associated with customer satisfaction; in particular, “escape and relaxation” and “enjoyment” were both positively associated with customer satisfaction. American consumers had a stronger relationship between motivation for social interaction and customer satisfaction.

Only solo diners in Taiwan and the United States were investigated. The results might not be generalizable to solo diners in other regions.

The study's findings on the associations between solo dining motivations and consumption experience contribute to food consumption research. Furthermore, the results enable an understanding of differences in the motivations and behaviors of solitary consumers in different countries.