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In the context of sequential multistage utilitarian service processes, the purpose of this study is to develop and validate propositions to study the impact of service quality (SQ) perceptions developed in intermediate stages, along with the impact of service gestalt characteristics, such as peak and end experiences, on quality perception at each stage and on overall service quality (OSQ) perception. The cascade phenomenon (interdependency between process stages) is considered in the evaluation of OSQ perception of customer, who experiences service through a series of planned, distinct and partitioned sequential stages.

In this paper, a conceptual framework is used to evolve the propositions. Subsequently, propositions are tested in three different utilitarian service contexts wherein customer survey was conducted for feedback on attributes at each stage, summary perception evaluations of each stage and OSQ evaluation of multistage process. Peak experiences, considered for OSQ evaluation, were defined by a suitable statistical technique. Ordinal logistic regression with nested models is the technique used for analyzing the data.

This work reveals significant cascade effect of summary evaluation of intermediate stages on the subsequent stage. Peak customer experience (negative or positive) is observed to be marginally significant on intermediate stage and OSQ evaluation. In addition, OSQ is observed to be influenced by summary perception evaluations of intermediate stages, which leads to better model adequacy. Finally, among all the stages, end stage performance is observed to have a significant impact on the overall multistage SQ.

The findings suggest that in view of the cascade effect of intermediate stages, managers need to allocate resources to ensure that all stages are performing at an adequate level instead of only focusing on improving peaks and end effects of customer experiences. The proposed approach is easy to implement and suitable for evaluating SQ and OSQ in varied multistage sequential utilitarian service environment.

An integrated approach for evaluation of SQ in sequential multistage utilitarian service processes is proposed from the perspective of cascade effect of intermediate stages and peak and end effects on OSQ perception.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if the level of payment required for consumption changed the relationship between a consumer’s overall evaluation of a hedonic consumption experience and the evaluation of first, middle, last piece and peak consumption experiences.

Diners at an all-you-can-eat restaurant were either charged $4 or $8 for an Italian lunch buffet. Their taste, satisfaction and enjoyment evaluation of each piece of pizza they had was taken along with other measures of behavior and self-perceptions. Using regression analysis, we examine the relationship between these single event evaluations and their overall evaluations of the experience.

For the diners who paid $4 for their buffet, overall taste, satisfaction and enjoyment evaluation depend on the taste of the last piece of the pizza and the peak taste consistent with prior findings. For those paying $8 for the buffet, the first piece of pizza is more important in predicting the overall taste, satisfaction and enjoyment ratings.

Consumers do not evaluate their meal experience based on every moment of their experience. Rather, just a few moments appear to impact overall evaluation. Firms that sell access to a series of experiences, such as an all-you-can-eat buffet, should focus on leading customers to the best experience first particularly when prices may be considered moderate to high.

In this paper, we seek to unravel the relationship between price paid and the peak-end heuristic by examining the importance of peak and end experiences under two different pricing regimes. Our study also indicates that the peak-end rule may depend on specific contextual factors.

Through a portfolio choice model, the study empirically examines the influence of the heuristic simplification through peak-end rule (PER) and the associated neglect of the duration of the experience. The portfolio strategy adopted involves optimizing portfolios to capture the impact of heuristic-driven investors' experience of good and bad states. The study attempts to validate PER in an empirical context and is expected to generate trading rules, which would exploit pricing errors emerging out of the use of heuristics by investors.

The empirical approach adopted in the study primarily examines returns to portfolios sorted according to various hedonic evaluation rules. Behavioral portfolios are constructed using hedonic experiences as conditioning variables.

The results imply that there is continued investor demand for such assets in the short run. An equal weight portfolio based on a three-month hedonic evaluation earns an average monthly return of 2.77% over the next 12 months.

The authors’ study may perhaps be the first attempt to use the peak-end heuristic in portfolio construction.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of leaders’ wilderness experiences on intentions to transform leadership behaviors toward authentic leadership.

Content analysis was used on trail reports made by participants of a wilderness-based leadership program. Participants (n=97) were leaders working in business and institutional settings, both males and females. Participants were asked to write personal reports within two weeks after the training program about their wilderness experiences, and related behavioral intentions.

The analyses revealed four categories of leaders’ peak experiences: heightened sense of self, awareness of one’s core values, deep connected attention, and being in full presence. These peak experiences triggered intentions to change future leadership behaviors: to be more aware of self, to live by the inner compass, to improve careful listening, and to become more transparent. These intentions closely resonate with the core components of authentic leadership.

The authors’ sample is characterized by developmental readiness: people who are already willing to change. However, developmental ready leaders are the subset of leaders that is particularly relevant studying change toward authentic leadership. Another limitation is intentions are assessed, and hence knowledge about actual changes in leadership style requires additional research.

The attributes of the transformation program that foster change as revealed here – being in another world, facing unfamiliar challenges, peer-to-peer learning – can be flexibly adopted and implemented in a wide range of leadership transformation programs.

By demonstrating that being immersed in nature can act as a significant life event that has the potential to foster authentic leadership, this study provides an original contribution to the literature on strategies for intra-personal leadership development.

This chapter proposes a synergy and integration between OD’s long tradition of “survey guided development” and the rapidly emerging new directions offered by Appreciative Inquiry. Both Appreciative Inquiry and the survey-guided development approaches have a common shared commitment to the Lewinian call to Action Research. The chapter traces the movement from Action Research to “survey guided development,” and then to the emergence of Appreciative inquiry. Several illustrations of Appreciative Inquiry combined with Survey Guided Organization Development are presented for U.S. and international applications. Findings illustrated in the chapter present the possibility of a third new and powerful perspective on the driving forces and dynamics of change. In addition, the international illustrations raise the question of and strengthen the argument for a common universal human experience.

Investigates higher stages of human development in some of the world’s most accomplished performers. Indicates that far more frequent experiences of a silent, expanded, restfully alert and non‐attached state of heightened awareness characterize those individuals who display outstanding skill and accomplishment in their action. Interprets these findings in the light of the Vedic Psychology of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, which describes higher states of consciousness in which peak performances are all‐time phenomena rather than extraordinary happenings. There is widespread agreement that only very few individuals reach the highest stages of human development; as a consequence, there is a considerable latent human potential in organizations and society.

Reflecting, reliving and reforming experiences enhance longer-term effects of travel and tourism, and have been highlighted as an important aspect in determining loyalty, re-visitation and post-consumption satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to develop new methodological approaches to investigate emotion, memory creation and the resulting psychosocial effects.

The paper proposes a unique combination of physiological measures and photoelicitation-based discussions within a longitudinal design. A physiological measuring instrument (electrodermal activity [EDA] tracking technology through Empatica E4 wristbands) is utilised to capture the “unadulterated” emotional response both during the experience and in reliving or remembering it. This is combined with post-experience narrative discussion groups using photos and other artefacts to give further understanding of the process of collective memory creation.

EDA tracking can enhance qualitative research methodologies in three ways: through use as an “artefact” to prompt reflection on feelings, through identifying peaks of emotional response and through highlighting changes in emotional response over time. Empirical evidence from studies into participatory arts events and the potential well-being effects upon women over the age of 70 is presented to illustrate the method.

The artificial environment created using experimental approaches to measure emotions and memory (common in many fields of psychology) has serious limitations. This paper proposes new and more “natural” methods for use in tourism, hospitality and events research, which have the potential to better capture participants’ feelings, behaviours and the meanings they place upon them.

This paper aims to provide a longitudinal study of a five-day tourist stay in a mountain resort, where flow and immersion are analysed to understand how consumers experience and construct their holiday stay. The need to process to a longitudinal study is motivated by the lack of research looking at what actually happens during the experience. More precisely, the long encounter of a holiday is often disregarded, and the tourist experience is studied afterwards through single and comprehensive satisfaction surveys. How consumers evolve across a holiday stay and construct their experience is an understanding that needs further investigations. Among the variety of concepts developed to study the experience, flow and immersion are particularly interesting foundations, as they bring a detailed analysis of the processes at the very heart of the experience. This study aims to identify how both these concepts develop within a holiday context and what strategic knowledge might be gained from their analysis. A qualitative study conducted on a sample of ten individuals interviewed every day of their stay provides curves showing the occurrences of flow episodes. More importantly, the study looks at the evolution of flow and immersion across each day of a holiday stay: it identifies the conditions of their emergence, their recurrence and how they influence each other. Managerial implications call for a more strategic analysis of the specific components that conduct to the emergence of flow and immersion.

The paper conducts a longitudinal study of a tourist stay over five days. Ten participants were interviewed while on holiday and upon their return with a semi-structured interview guide aiming to investigate the peaks of their day, the elements associated to those events and the meaning associated to them. Immersion was also investigated. Forty-eight interviews were conducted in the resort. Data were transcribed and content analysed to identify the main components of both flow and immersion concepts specifically in the case of a tourist holiday.

The findings identified that both flow and immersion co-exist and feed each other during the holiday. Episodes of flow could be identified, although they did not necessarily match all the characteristics previously identified by Csikszentmihalyi. The events associated to flow were to be found in sport activities (skiing and snow shoeing), but social cohesion and landscape beauty equally provided strong flow episodes. Immersion is a more longitudinal state that reinforces itself throughout the stay, and with flow occurrences. Immersion is strongly related to the feeling of detachment and “getting away from it all”.

The mountain resort setting is unique, but the results show some commonalities with previous research. If the ski experience is specific, it does share commonalities with other sport activities that could be provided in other holiday settings. However, transferability to more mundane holiday settings requires further testing. The data collection process is particularly heavy: interviewing the same customer every day is necessarily time-consuming. The sample is composed of senior students and would need to be validated on a wider sample of tourists.

The results identify some of the components that contribute to the emergence of both flow and immersion. The elements identified, whether they are associated to the skiing activity, to the social network or the natural resources of the resort, can all be encouraged and monitored by the resort. The results give pointers to the different elements that tourism actors can act upon to boost their consumers experience.

Skiing is a sport practice that is mostly represented in middle to higher social classes. The cost of skiing equipment and ski passes, but also the need to acquire competences for this activity are all limitations factors to a wider spread of skiing practice in the general population. By showing the impact of a ski stay, notably by its incredible capacity to create a feeling of detachment and restoration from every day life, the results point to the general well-being impact that mountain holiday stays can create. It is also an information that interests local authorities who are witnessing a maturity of the ski market and are looking for new communication arguments to boost the attraction of ski holidays. The role of previous experience as a booster to immersion also demonstrates the usefulness of childhood skiing practice. This can be encouraged and subsidised by regional authorities, especially through schools.

The originality of the paper is tied in with its data collection. The researchers opted for a longitudinal study of real-time experience by not only interviewing participants in situ but also every day of their experience. Those data provide a longitudinal analysis of the experience, with richer results than what traditional satisfaction surveys usually measure. The study is also original through the concepts used: flow has been used extensively by researchers but rarely to study a whole holiday experience. Moreover, the concept of immersion is a newer concept that has not yet been used to investigate the tourist experience. The results of the study show that this concept is different from flow and is particularly pertinent to study the holiday experience.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of research on customer experience management (CEM). The objectives are as follows. The paper first introduces the concepts involved in CEM by identifying definitions and dimensions of the customer experience. Second, the paper describes the evolution of CEM research from a theoretical perspective in generic businesses and then in the hospitality and tourism (H&T) sector. Third, the paper investigates the methodological approaches used in CEM research and addresses the challenges in measuring the customer experience. Fourth, this study addresses cultural issues in CEM research. The identification of gaps in CEM research in the general business and H&T sectors leads the authors to consider directions for future research. Managerial implications are also provided.

The paper takes the form of a review of the extant literature in the general businesses and the H&T industry.

Despite the emergence of CEM as a vital research area, a large portion of its studies remain conceptual, which indicates that further empirical investigations are necessary. Importantly, the uniquely experiential nature of H&T products/services calls for systematic, theory-driven research. The paper identifies future research topics, which include total customer experience, transcendent experience, transformational experience, authentic experience and the co-creation of experience. This study delineates potential methods and measurement scales that can be used in CEM research and some challenges in the development of future measurement scales of customer experience. Recognizing a lack of CEM research from a cultural perspective, this paper calls for future studies that consider cultural factors in the identification of the underlying reasons for various perceptions of experiences.

Companies need to take a holistically integrated approach to creating a memorable experience in which multidimensional value can be delivered through multiple, sequential stages of experience. The co-creation of experience can lead to a sustainable experience that can be life transforming or perspective transforming.

Acknowledging the importance of excellent CEM in the contemporary H&T industry, this paper provides a compilation of literature on CEM and offers a foundation for advancing future CEM research in the H&T industry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore domestic experiential travel by Chinese millennials, a group of consumers who will increasingly influence the global travel and tourism industry.

A qualitative research method was adopted to explore motivations and memorable experiences of Chinese millennials who successfully mountain biked the Qinghai–Tibet Highway in China.

For Chinese millennial mountain bikers in Tibet, experiential travel motivations and experiences are important. During the trip, they challenged their mental and physical abilities, enjoyed nature, bonded with friends and perceived a warm welcome by Tibetan families. This study adds to existing knowledge on experiential travel, as it was found that transformation was perceived as important outcome of the trip. Participants perceived personal change in attitude and behaviour, which will help them face everyday life challenges.

Further research could focus on gaining insight into other types of Chinese adventure tourists, on comparing wishes and demands of Chinese with other mountain bikers and on developments in transformative travel.

Adventure tourism organisations could adjust their tourism product range to cater more for Chinese millennials who aim to improve their physical and mental skills.

In-depth research into motivations and experiences of Chinese millennials is scarce. The influence of Chinese millennials on the tourism market is already large and will continue to increase.