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This study aims to validate an integrative model that investigates the structural relationships among consumer social resources (including social capital and social exchange), co-creation behaviors (as outcome of social resources) and satisfaction and positive word-of-mouth (as joint outcomes of social resources and co-creation practice).

A cross-sectional design was used to gather data from education services in HCM City, Vietnam. The whole of 334 consumer surveys were used to validate a research model using SEM/AMOS.

The paper, on the basis of service-dominant logic and from customer perspective, asserts the importance of consumer co-creation in service logic. The finding reinforces that social capital and social exchange, as interconnected operant resources, influence consumer co-creation that further affects consumer satisfaction and positive word-of-mouth. In addition, no gender gap of co-creation practice is found in education services of the study. Moreover, this study, with the support of structuration theory, posits that value is co-created and socially contextual through resource integration and service exchange.

This paper is among the first, with empirically validating the social capital-co-creation link, to reveal that social capital, as a second-order construct, is an important determinant of co-creation practice. Next, this is also one of the first studies from a consumer view, with social exchange leading social capital as empirically demonstrated, that evidently investigates both the mechanism of value co-creation and the interconnection of social resources in service systems. Last but not least, this study may be also one of the first steps toward investigating the socially contextual nature of co-creation which may assert the last updated axiom of service-dominant logic.

The purpose of this paper is to extend understandings of the demand-side view of strategy and how organizations co-create value with stakeholders. Through an iterative process of theory development, data collection, data analysis and writing, the authors propose a value co-creation perspective that more fully takes into account stakeholder complexity.

The empirical data derives from a wider exploratory study on value creation and competitive advantage in Christian churches in Canada. Here the authors explore one case study from that wider study and analyze interviews with church members and leaders.

The authors discuss two mutually constitutive processes of value co-creation, building a culture of community and enacting relational and shared leadership.

The authors propose a stakeholder-complex understanding of value creation where stakeholders can enact multiple roles, often simultaneously, in co-creation and where products/services are consumed for their symbolic, rather than material value. Further, co-creation may involve ongoing interactions and value creation can occur in non-monetary transactions.

The authors offer, through an empirical exploration of a religious organization, an illustrative account of how value co-creation might be tied to stakeholder complexity. This study stretches the boundaries of mainstream strategy research by challenging two fundamental assumptions: that stakeholder roles must be distinct and that “value” must be clearly defined and explicitly linked to exchange value.

Understanding the outcomes of co-creation (CC) in healthcare is increasingly gaining multidisciplinary scientific interest. Although more and more service management scholars have pointed out the benefits of cross-fertilization between the various research fields, the literature on this topic is still scattered and poorly integrated. This study aims to summarize and integrate multiple strands of extant knowledge CC by identifying the outcomes of health CC and the determinants of these outcomes and their relationships.

A structured literature review was conducted per PRISMA guidelines. A total of 4,189 records were retrieved from the six databases; 1,983 articles were screened, with 161 included in the qualitative thematic analysis.

This study advances a comprehensive framework for healthcare CC based on a thorough analysis of the outcomes and their determinants, that is, antecedents, management activities and institutional context. Extant research rarely evaluates outcomes from a multidimensional and systemic perspective. Less attention has been paid to the relationship among the CC process elements.

This study offers an agenda to guide future studies on healthcare CC. Highlighting some areas of integration among different disciplines further advances service literature.

The framework offers an operational guide to better shape managerial endeavors to facilitate CC, provide direction and assess multiple outcomes.

This is the first extensive attempt to synthesize and integrate multidisciplinary knowledge on CC outcomes in healthcare settings by adopting a systematic perspective on the overall process.

Mobile payment (MP), near field communication-based particularly, has become one of the future payment tools. This study aims to indicate the difference between consumer users and non-users by examining the effect of MP users’ perceived value on their satisfaction and on MP non-users behavioural intention. Once those MP users’ have achieved satisfaction, the study then investig ates how consumers bring about the need recognition and are more desirable to buy more products.

This study develops a research model, which examines the effect of consumer perceived value, including utilitarian value, technicality and perceived risk, on MP users’ satisfaction and MP non-users behavioural intention. In methodology, it adopts structural equation modelling to verify the proposed research model for empirical studies. The data set consists of 161 MP users and 277 non-users of consumers.

The findings show that consumers, both MP users and non-users included, are encouraged to improve utilitarian value if they are favourable to adopt MP services. Relatively, female users emphasize more on perceived risk, whilst male users emphasize more on technicality. Moreover, MP non-users and female users still have much concern about perceived risk such that they are inclined to avoid adopting MP services.

Past research has examined the adoption of MP services from the perspective of consumers with a focus on the perceived value, satisfaction and behavioural intention. However, only limited research examined the post-purchase evaluation of MP users. The study fills this gap by clarifying the difference between consumer users and non-users in the effect of MP users’ perceived value on their satisfaction and on their non-users behavioural intention.

Service innovation in networks (SIIN) is of utmost importance particularly to business-to-business firms for their profitability, growth and long-term competitive advantage. This paper aims to investigate several critical aspects of extant SIIN research: its current state, theoretical standpoints, determinants, and outcomes. Based on the findings, implications for business-to-business service innovation research are drawn.

This is a systematic literature review. Extant publications were located from large electronic databases, analyzed, and the findings have been compiled to answer the predefined questions.

The paper illustrates the overall state of extant SIIN research and presents its major topics. It reveals the six key theoretical perspectives that have been applied in SIIN studies. Determinants that affect SIIN, as well as its potential positive and negative outcomes, are shown. In addition, gaps in the existing knowledge-base have been identified and have led to the laying out of paths for future research.

The review does not cover publications that were unavailable in the electronic databases employed, or were not written in English. However, the succinct presentation of accessible knowledge provides multidimensional theoretical understandings as well as empirical insights into SIIN research.

Managers may benefit from this study by understanding the determinants that they may influence, and the potential changes that may accompany the positive and negative outcomes of SIIN.

The analytical review provides a concise synopsis of existing knowledge on service innovation in networks, and discusses its implications for business-to-business research and firms, which will be of interest to both academics and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of customer participation in the service delivery process by designing and testing an empirical model with the customers’ point of view in mind.

Data are collected from 176 customers in the context of professional financial insurance services. The proposed model is analyzed with partial least squares (PLS) path modeling in SmartPLS 2.0 software.

The results of the study show that customer participation produces positive effects on customer satisfaction and affective commitment through the customer relational value. Affective commitment is a strong predictor of repurchase intention, but no relationship between customer satisfaction and repurchase intention was found.

This study suggests that customer participation can be a win-win situation for customers and the service firm. Customers who create relational value with their service providers effectively enjoy their services more and are more likely to build and maintain long-term relationships with their service firm.

The findings highlight the roles of the customer and indicate the heuristic value of viewing customer satisfaction and affective commitment as consequences of customer participation. By identifying the effects of customer participation in the service interaction, organizations can determine optimum roles for customers in the service delivery process that will yield a more efficient use of organization resources and improve operational performance.

Customer participation in the creation of offerings has become a key focus in marketing literature. This paper synthesizes extant research on the topic to enhance understanding of the conceptualization and value outcomes of customer participation in the creation of offerings.

The study is based on an extensive, systematic literature review covering 163 articles on customer participation published over the last four decades. Selected publications were analyzed according to the topics studied, study context, research approach, and findings.

The review demonstrates how the conceptualization of customer participation has evolved in terms of the nature and range of customer contributions, their temporal scope, and the outcomes considered. It also synthesizes the hypothesized and empirically scrutinized value outcomes of customer participation for both sellers and customers.

The review reveals important gaps in the existing knowledge on customer participation, and identifies relevant areas for future research. The literature review may have missed some relevant papers that use different terminologies.

Managers should consider the strategic significance of customer participation in their businesses, promote the potential benefits to their customers, and institute necessary changes in their organization to facilitate participation.

This paper provides a structured overview of the empirical and conceptual research addressing customer participation and brings forth evidences regarding its value outcomes, thereby contributing to extant knowledge on value creation.

This paper aims to draw on the trust-commitment theory and the framework of service-dominant marketing logic to investigate the potential effect of trust at both brand and service personnel level on consumers’ value co-creation behaviour.

The study adopts a consumer perspective to investigate and interpret consumers’ value co-creation behaviour. The measurement scales were developed based on literature review and findings from focus group study. Survey interviews were undertaken in the USA and Hong Kong so as to test the potential moderator effect of country.

Effort-in-use and service co-design behaviour are two aspects of value cocreation behaviour. The findings provide theoretical expansion of the theory on value cocreation in two ways and suggest to discriminate the effect of consumer trust on and role in value cocreation behaviour at brand and service employee levels. Besides, the relationships among “trust in employee”, “trust in brand”, effort in use behaviour, service co-design behaviour, and customers’ perceived value actually could be moderated by country factor.

The study only focuses on the behavioural dimension of value cocreation behaviour but provides a number of suggestions on how to expand the domain of the measurement scale for value co-creation behaviour, cultural influences and customer perceived value and identifies several potential moderators such as reputation of the service brand and type of service for future research.

The findings provide important insights to service marketers on how to adopt appropriate service strategy, service operation, marketing communications and service training to facilitate consumers’ value co-creation behaviour.

The present study represents the first attempt to investigate the potential impact of consumer trust at different levels on customers’ value cocreation behaviour. It explains the connections between trust as an antecedent to value cocreation under different country contexts, thereby adding new knowledge in both domains.

The last few years have witnessed massive artificial intelligence (AI) and gaming adoption that has navigated the emerging markets. Moreover, according to the WOG summit (world government summit report, by Nielsen) 2020 reports, AI with gaming mechanisms are expected to enrich marketing services in the coming future in the emerging markets. Countries such as India, China and South Korea contribute significantly to this area, and recent forecasting allows the need to increase in emerging markets. Similarly, these countries have a maximum number of youth gamers and AI-driven technology adopters. The adoption of AI-driven technologies and amplification of gamification in marketing services are new phenomena. Moreover, gaming and AI dynamics are relatively new in emerging countries and need greater attention. Thus, this book chapter proposes a dyad model that would explain users' and companies' perspectives to understand the role of AI and gamification for the emerging markets. The chapter will explain how AI-driven gamification helps the users of emerging markets. The chapter will also illustrate how companies in emerging markets use AI for gamification. Therefore, the dyad model would also comprehend the gap, opportunities and challenges in this area and the subsequent strategies to help all the stakeholders.

Although humanoid robots are increasingly adopted in many business settings, the dynamic effects of anthropomorphism and the functional perceptions of service robots on consumers’ responses remain unclear. This paper aims to examine the impacts of robot anthropomorphism on consumers’ trust, receptivity and the downstream effect on satisfaction. Furthermore, it examines the mediating effects of perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) in the relationship between anthropomorphism and consumer responses.

After conducting two separate pilot studies to help design the research materials, this research involves three sequential studies. In studies 1A and 1B, the authors used two distinct humanoid robots (i.e. Connie and Pepper) to test the direct effects of anthropomorphism on trust and receptivity and the mediated effects via PEOU and PU. Study 2 conducted a 2 (robot appearance: machine-like vs. human-like) × 2 (task complexity: low vs. high) between-subjects experimental design to further explore the boundary effects of task complexity on trust and customer satisfaction.

This research theorizes and empirically examines the mediating effects of PEOU and PU in the relationship between anthropomorphism and consumers’ responses (i.e. trust and receptivity) to service robots. Results also demonstrate a moderating role of task complexity, whereby only when the task was complex did anthropomorphism affect consumer responses and customer satisfaction. The parallel mediations of PEOU and PU were also confirmed. However, when task complexity was low, the authors observed no differences between human- and machine-like robots.

First, this research used a scenario-based method by exposing participants to different pictures or videos of service robots and measuring individuals’ responses. Consumers may respond differently upon interacting with robots in actual service contexts. Second, future research could investigate the effects of other aspects of anthropomorphism, such as robots’ voice characteristics (gender, high/low pitch), verbal communication styles and emotional expression. Finally, future research could explore other service contexts to test the generalizability of the findings.

Findings of this study also provide useful insight for companies interested in adopting service robots. First, the authors unearthed several positive outcomes of using human-like versus machine-like robots in service settings. Despite concerns about the perceived creepiness and discomfort associated with human-like robots, managers should not worry about these service agents’ potential negative effects. Second, it shows that human-like robots’ competitive advantage over machine-like robots stands out when task complexity is high. Managers should therefore carefully consider relevant service characteristics and task requirements when deciding whether to adopt robots.

This study provides original and valuable contributions to the growing literature on service robots by addressing scholarly incongruencies regarding the impact of anthropomorphism and disentangling its positive influence on consumers’ perceptions and acceptance of service robots. This study also contributes to research on technology acceptance and service robot receptivity by empirically demonstrating the mediating role of PEOU and PU. Furthermore, this research enriches the body of knowledge on task-technology fit by providing evidence that task complexity is a crucial factor to consider in service robot design.