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Contrary to the view that the subsistence economy is some minor residue persisting in only a few peripheral enclaves of modern economies, the purpose of this paper is to begin to chart the importance and prevalence of subsistence work across the contemporary economic landscape and the reasons underpinning engagement in this form of non‐commodified labour.

To do so, the extent of, and reasons for, subsistence production amongst those living in contemporary Moscow is evaluated using face‐to‐face interviews with 313 households in affluent, mixed and deprived districts.

It was found that subsistence work is a ubiquitous phenomenon which is relied on heavily by Muscovite households. Until now, those participating in such subsistence work have been portrayed either as rational economic actors, dupes, seekers of self‐identity, or simply doing so out of necessity or choice. Rather than depict one as correct and the others as invalid, this survey inductively generates a theoretically‐integrative approach which differentiates between “willing” (rational economic actors, choice, identity seeking) and “reluctant” (economic and market necessity, dupes) participants in subsistence production.

The paper examines only one city. Further research is now required into the extent of, and reasons for, subsistence production in the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as beyond.

This is one of the first papers to identify and explain the ubiquitous persistence of subsistence work in contemporary economies.

Tourism accommodation is an affair for the real estate business. As a concept, tourism accommodation can only be defined and understood in terms of demand. When a tourist requires overnight accommodation, this product constitutes tourism accommodation. Looked at in this way a home for the aged, even when located in a tourism region, does not constitute tourism real estate. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has classified different types of accommodation. This classification shows clearly what a great variety there is in types of tourism accommodation. The WTO list makes a particular distinction between collective types of accommodation and private accommodation. In the first category we find commercially operated hotels and para‐hotels. The second category concerns second homes which are either exclusively used by the owners or are at times made available to family and friends, at no charge.

Certain assumptions are implicit in producing a paper under the above title. Doing so would seem to indicate that alternative careers for library‐information workers are necessary, possible, desired and desirable. The topic is also self‐inflating or self‐reinforcing. It suggests the existence of a continuing basic problem, instead of a matter of short‐term expediency.

Purpose: The development of service automation continues to underpin the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors providing benefits for both customers and service companies. The purpose of this chapter is to showcase the practice of self-service technology (SST) usage in the contemporary tourism and hospitality sectors and present a conceptual framework of customer SST adoption.

Design/Methodology/Approach: This chapter offers an examination of theory, research and practice in relation to SST usage in tourism, highlighting the benefits and drawbacks arising for both customers and service providers. Since the benefits are achieved only if SSTs gain effective adoption with customers, this chapter focuses on concepts underpinning the study of customer SST adoption. Drawing on SST adoption factors and SST customer roles, a conceptual framework of SST adoption is discussed.

Findings/Practical Implications: This chapter examines the principles and practice underpinning the usage of self-service technologies in the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors, with specific reference to customer SST roles in co-creation. The customer SST roles provide a more detailed and nuanced picture of the customer perspective on SST usage. These nuanced roles are captured in a conceptual framework which seeks to further refine the understanding of customer SST adoption.

Research Implications & Originality/Value: The framework provides a useful foundation for further research with a focus on customer empowerment in SSTs. The future development of service automation will require a balance between the delivery of a personalised and smarter customer experience and technology applications that are unobtrusive and which do not pose any ethical or privacy concerns.

The advent of technology has played a crucial role in changing the landscape of the hospitality sector. One such technology is the adoption and installation of kiosks in hotels. While some of the hotels have adopted and installed kiosks for self-services, the other hotels are still not very comfortable with the idea of self-service. This paper aims to explore the possibilities, challenges and issues that hoteliers face while dealing with self-service kiosks, it further investigates the customer’s perspective and its benefits to the end-user.

This study has assimilated data from hotel managers and executives that have deployed kiosks. This study involved the collection of primary data through structured interviews. Eight different hotels from the UK and India have been compared and analyzed to formulate subcategories to answer the research questions. A total of 200 customers from both the countries were approached to get the primary data; the customers were from the same hotel where the hotel executives and managers were interviewed.

The customers accepted Kiosks as easy to use, fast to run, fun to operate, but, lacking human interaction and counter language issues were simultaneously discussed. Kiosks have been emerging as self-service technologies in hotels and play a key role in reducing bottlenecks in hotel operations. The technology anxiety and counter service argument is merely a transition phase that will fade away gradually. However, the financial feasibility and the level of adoption depend upon the level of operations and the demographic characteristics of customers.

The dependence of data from the person interviewed and their biases for answers, along with the trust and credibility of the data available online remain the biggest challenge. Increasing the sample size and more participation from different hotels would have made the study even more useful.

The research seeks to eliminate the gap in research by studying both the hotels' and the customers' perspective toward kiosks deployment in hotels. The results of the study would highlight the potential challenges being faced by hotel operations and opportunities they perceive in kiosks installation, therefore the results are very useful for hotels, hoteliers, academicians and students pursuing a career in the hospitality sector.

Cloud computing is one of the technologies that improves performance and reduces costs in companies through flexible and easy access to computational resources. Supply chain management is one of the widespread and unlimited computing resources. Applying cloud computing to the green supply chain will eliminate constraints and speed up the implementation of various chain processes. Therefore, this paper aims to present a model and framework for assessing the impact of cloud computing on green supply chain management, which improves the performance of the resulting system in comparison with previous systems.

In this study, a self-made questionnaire containing 38 questions was used to collect data. The questions were compiled based on the variables identified in previous studies. Besides, the answers to the questions were based on the five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, no opinion, agree and strongly agree). By reviewing the subject literature, the factors that affect the green supply chain management have been identified, which include cost of services, user-friendly software, energy consumption, subscription and collaboration capabilities and self-service ability.

The findings confirmed the fitness of the proposed model and showed the impact of cloud computing on green supply chain management. In addition, results showed that considered variables (service cost, user-friendly applications, energy consumption, sharing and collaboration and self-service) significantly affect the success management of green supply chain.

The results of this research show that, to help effective management of the complexity of the supply chain, many companies have adopted an advanced IT strategy to increase the flow of information and, in turn, to increase their competitive advantage.

The development of a cloud computing-based green supply chain management system can lead to improved system performance compared to traditional systems, which can revolutionize a wide range of industries and businesses by clarification of businesses and making the processes smart. It can also reduce costs and improve performance of micro- and macro-business firms. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide a model for investigating the impact of cloud-based IT systems on green supply chain management.

Future service interactions are anticipated to use humanoid robots in a society that is shifting to a digitalized era. Currently, it is evident that many businesses are replacing service interactions with self-service technologies (SSTs). This movement creates substantial societal changes that researchers have not paid sufficient attention to comprehend. In this setting, the purpose of this study is to examine the social drivers that influence customer mobility toward co-creating value via SSTs. The study also seeks to discover variations in customers' willingness and capacity to adopt SSTs.

To fulfill the research aims, a qualitative technique was adopted, with semistructured interviews conducted with 25 SST users from varied demographic backgrounds. To recruit individuals for the study, a nonprobabilistic purposeful sampling technique was adopted, with the goal of employing information-rich instances. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis.

The study identified eight social drivers that are important in the customer transition toward co-creating value with SSTs. According to the study, SSTs are characterized as a social trend in which adoption is accepted (social norm) and modifies social connections in a new direction. Using SSTs has evolved into a socializing tool that gives people social acknowledgment. Some people see SSTs as social pressure, putting them at a disadvantage if they do not adopt. People, on the other hand, acquire sufficient social support and independence to use SSTs. Customers were categorized into four groups depending on their willingness and ability to embrace SSTs: trendsetters, dreamers, old-fashioned and stragglers.

In practice, service providers can use this knowledge to successfully promote their SSTs and create enhanced client experiences through technological interfaces.

The study adds new knowledge by identifying social determinants in customer shifts toward SSTs, a phenomenon that has not been studied previously, and it adds to marketing theory by proposing a typology to group customers based on their ability and willingness to embrace SSTs.

To enhance customer experiences, firms are increasingly adding human-like features to their self-service technology (SST) machines. To that end, the purpose of the present study is to examine customer interactions with an anthropomorphic machine in a service failure context. Specifically, the authors investigate the joint effects of machine voice, an individual’s sense of power and the presence of other customers in influencing customers’ switching intentions following an SST failure.

In this study, the authors used a quasi-experimental design in which they manipulated voice type (anthropomorphic vs robotic) and the presence of other customers (present vs absent) in video-based scenarios while measuring customers’ sense of power. The scenarios reflected a service failure experience with a self-service kiosk at an airport. The authors tested the hypotheses using PROCESS analyses with the Johnson–Neyman technique.

Consumer reactions to SST failures vary depending on the degree of anthropomorphism associated with an SST machine, an individual’s sense of power and the presence of other customers.

Field inquiry and an investigation in other SST contexts or of other anthropomorphic features are needed to generalize the findings.

Service providers targeting powerful consumers should consider the social presence of others when incorporating anthropomorphic features into their SST facilities.

This study is the first to examine consumer responses to service failures in an anthropomorphic SST context.

Since the early 1970s considerable interest has been focussed, by a variety of bodies in many countries, on the problems faced by small shop operators. The result has been an increased awareness of these problems by policy makers and planners at both the national and local level but there have been few attempts to solve the problems. The problems are neither new nor unique to Britain. In America, for instance, research in the 1930s defined particular problems and subsequent studies attempted to determine the future of the small shop in the American retail system. In contrast, the early British workers were concerned to describe the trading characteristics of small unit retailing and it was not until the publication of the Bolton Committee findings in 1971 that attention was focussed specifically on the operational problems of the small retail unit. As a consequence, British retail planning, in contrast to many other European countries, possesses few formal policies of direct relevance to the small shop.

In the mobile internet era, the path and mechanism of hospital patient-perceived quality have been changed radically. The purpose of this study is to develop a scale that adequately captures the characteristics of hospital service quality from the patient’s perspective under the background of the mobile internet.

Based on previous related research and interviews with focus groups, this paper conceptualized, constructed, refined and tested a multiple-item scale that examined key dimensions of hospital process service quality in the mobile context. To validate this scale, data were collected through two formal surveys in Chinese hospitals and were used to test the reliability and validity of the instrument.

The final measurement scale contains three dimensions, that is, environment conditions, attitude and behavior and technical convenience. With the help of this quality scale, hospital managers could have a better understanding of patients’ expectations under the new condition and pinpoint appropriate initiatives to fill the service gap.

This study focuses on service quality measurement issues related to the application of mobile internet technology in traditional clinical settings, such as hospitals. This paper develops an original and specific service quality scale that catches the online and offline characteristics of the hospital process in the mobile setting and considers both human-technology interaction and human-human interaction.