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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the complexity of the service offering (service complexity) affects the uncertainty during service operations in engineering services. Specifically, the authors compare the existence of organisational, relational, environmental and technological uncertainty in maintenance services and performance-based services.

The authors present insights from four cases – two each for maintenance services and performance-based services. The in-depth data were based on 56 semi-structured interviews, multiple site visits, meeting notes, service contracts and other secondary data.

The case findings indicate that organisational and relational uncertainty were not linked to service complexity, while observations of environmental and technological uncertainty were higher and more varied for performance-based services. Based on these findings, the authors formulate four propositions regarding the relationship between service complexity and uncertainty in service operations.

This research contributes to the OM literature by suggesting that external sources of uncertainty increase with increasing service complexity, while internal sources of uncertainty remain unchanged.

This paper aims to explore the determinants of perceived internal service complexity in internal service encounters. In this context, the nature of internal service complexity is considered, to identify its promoting and limiting factors, as well as its non-linear effects on internal service quality.

To acquire information on factors influencing internal service complexity, a broad literature review was conducted. Furthermore, to validate and verify these results, structural equation modeling’ was used in the context of a quantitative study with 705 internal customers.

The results revealed four promoting and seven limiting complexity determinants at organizational, interdepartmental and internal supplier-related levels. Moreover, the findings showed that an optimal, moderate level of internal service complexity maximizes internal service quality.

As the findings are restricted to this study, further research should be conducted with regard to different types of companies and internal customers. Furthermore, future research should take variability over time into account. Executing a longitudinal approach to internal service complexity might therefore be appropriate.

Managers should note that exclusively reducing internal service complexity is insufficient; rather, a hybrid strategy of lowering and controlling is indispensable for an optimization. Based on the identified complexity determinants, a three-step guidance to optimize internal service is proposed.

Despite examining the construct complexity, previous research has neither analyzed internal service complexity nor studied its determinants. This paper provides an empirical model that analyzes inhibiting and promoting factors of internal service complexity as well as its non-linear effects on internal service quality.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of economic complexity on services export diversification. This study has been built on two arguments. The first one draws from Eichengreen and Gupta (2013b) and states that countries that export complex products would have a high penetration in the international goods market and establish a network that could be exploited to expand their range of services export items. Second, by inducing higher inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI), greater economic complexity could contribute to fostering services export diversification.

The empirical analysis uses a panel data set of 109 countries (both developed and developing countries) over the period of 1985–2014, and in particular, non-overlapping sub-periods of five-year average data. Building on the two-step system Generalized Method of Moments, the empirical analysis has provided support for the above-mentioned two theoretical hypotheses.

The findings indicate that greater economic complexity has been associated with a higher level of services export diversification, and the magnitude of this positive effect is higher for high-income countries than for developing countries. Furthermore, the share of FDI inflows (in percentage of gross domestic product) matters for the effect of economic complexity on services export diversification. Specially, economic complexity exerts a higher positive effect on services export diversification, as the share of net FDI inflows in gross domestic product increases.

From a policy perspective, the analysis complements previous works on the effects of economic complexity (e.g. on economic growth, income inequality, poverty, etc.), by showing that economic complexity also matters for fostering the diversification of countries' services export items. Enhancing economic complexity should be at the heart of policymakers' agenda, both at the national and international levels, given its strong positive effect on macroeconomic aggregates, including on services export diversification, the latter being also an important engine for economic growth (Anand et al., 2012; Gnangnon, 2021a; Mishra et al., 2011; Stojkoski et al., 2016).

This study opens an avenue for future research on whether services export diversification influences economic complexity. One avenue for future research could also be to explore the effect of comparative advantage on goods and services (using the Balassa's revealed comparative advantage index) on services export diversification. Future works could also examine how economic complexity affects different categories of services sectors, including traditional services and modern services.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to address this topic in the literature.

Drawing on the theoretical lens of the job demands-resources model, this study builds upon and tests a conceptual model that links customer prioritization, product complexity, business ties, job stress and customer service performance. Conceptualizing customer prioritization and product complexity as job demands and business ties as personal job resources, this research explicates the mediating process by which customer prioritization and product complexity affect customer service performance through job stress and its boundary conditions. The purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical framework in which business ties moderates the mediated relations of customer prioritization and product complexity to customer service performance.

Structural equation modeling and a moderated mediation analysis were used on a unique multi-level, multi-respondent data set of 248 participants from 124 small and medium-sized enterprises in Turkey.

This study finds that both customer prioritization and product complexity increase job stress. In addition, this paper finds that business ties have a bitter-sweet nature as a personal resource and reverse the relation of customer prioritization to job stress while strengthening the negative direct relation of product complexity to job stress. Finally, this study finds that the indirect relation of customer prioritization to customer service performance through job stress is contingent on business ties. Specifically, this paper finds that high levels of business ties negate the indirect relation of customer prioritization to customer service performance while low levels of business ties exacerbate the negative effects of customer prioritization to customer service performance, channeled through job stress.

The findings demonstrate the critical role that personal networks play in reducing job stress and enhancing customer service performance for small and medium-sized enterprises that adopt customer-centric strategies such as customer prioritization. Nevertheless, the results suggest that the managers need to cognizant of the undesirable consequences of business ties may have on job stress when boundary-spanners handle a wide range of products/services that are technically complex. Accordingly, this study recommends small and medium-size enterprise managers and owners should be cautious in resource allocation to establish informal, personal ties with suppliers, competitors, customers and other market collaborators.

This paper offers a deeper perspective of the relations of customer prioritization and product complexity to job stress and customer service performance. This study also specifies business ties as a personal coping resource, which decreases the undesirable consequences when used in small and medium enterprises that adopt customer-centric strategies.

The literature shows a paradox in the understanding of the relationship between structural complexity (defined as the diversity of services offered by an organization) and customer satisfaction. Structural complexity tends to be a popular strategy designed to satisfy different customer needs. However, a negative relationship between structural complexity and customer satisfaction has also been argued. Based on the research on the public versus private distinction, this paper proposes that type of ownership is associated with the paradox mentioned, moderating the relationship between structural complexity and customer satisfaction. The authors tested this hypothesis using a sample of 60 managers and 897 customers of service organizations. The results indicated that as structural complexity increases, public organizations are less able to maintain customer satisfaction than private organizations. Ownership appeared to be an important contingency factor in understanding the paradoxical relationship between service structural complexity and customer satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight how systems thinking contributes to decision making in uncertain contexts that are characteristic of service systems. Based on the assumption that service systems face complex conditions, the paper posits that systems thinking may support the understanding of key issues in service management.

This paper proposes an interpretation of complexity in the context of service systems, which highlights the perspective change that occurs when a systems approach is adopted. The offered conceptual perspective is then brought to an operational level, in spite of the complexity of the decisions driving a viable system, by modelling a service system as a network of agents, resources, processes and decisions through the use of fuzzy logic. The paper reviews service management research streams, and takes a deeper look at the concepts of service systems and complex service systems. The paper then proceeds to discuss how systems thinking contributes to service management by proposing a systems interpretation of complexity.

Service management theories and models may be enhanced by integrating prevailing approaches, based on a quantitative and mechanistic view of service systems dynamics, with systems thinking‐based meta‐models that can be used in better understanding service exchanges. The findings of the paper also show how the integration of an engineering approach can be insightful to the understanding of service systems; adopting a Viable Systems Approach (VSA) as a meta‐model can be useful in fully comprehending market behaviour in uncertain conditions.

The originality of this paper lies in exploring the contribution of systems thinking, in particular of the Viable Systems Approach (VSA), to service management and decision making.

To build a more comprehensive understanding of factors affecting the success of service contracting, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the influences of service complexity, contract structure and contracting process on the buyer-perceived supplier performance in business-to-business (B2B) services.

A research model is developed based on transaction cost economics and the research on service contracting. The model is tested by the survey data collected. Professional focus groups on LinkedIn are used to generate the list of potential respondents. The sample consists of 177 purchasing professionals from 25 countries.

The results indicate that three major contract dimensions and follow-up management practices positively influence buyer-perceived supplier performance. Furthermore, service complexity amplifies the effects of incentives designed in the contract and the buyer’s follow-up contract management on perceived supplier performance.

The sample consists of respondents from 25 countries and provides good geographic coverage. However, the results should be generalized with caution because not all countries were represented equally.

The study suggests a framework and guidelines for purchasing managers to improve the design and management of service contracts to secure good performance from their supplier.

This paper contributes to understanding the performance-enhancing aspects of designing and monitoring service contracts in B2B contexts. It also adds to the knowledge of the role of service complexity in successful B2B service purchasing.

Overcrowding continues to afflict emergency departments (EDs), and its attendant consequences are becoming increasingly severe. The burden of the COVID-19 pandemic is further escalating the situation worldwide. One of the most critical questions is how to adequately quantify what constitutes overcrowding and determine implications for operations management in improving service efficiency. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned.

The authors propose the time and class complexity measures for ED service systems, taking into account important patient-level and system characteristics. Using an extensive data set from a Canadian ED, the authors investigate the performance of complexity-based measures in predicting service delays.

The authors find that the complexity measure is potentially more important than some well-known crowding metrics. In particular, EDs can improve service efficiency by managing the level of complexity within a desirable interval. Furthermore, complexity exposes how the interplay between demand-side behavioral changes and supply-side responses affects operational performance. Moreover, the results suggest that arrival patterns—the number of patients of each class arriving per time and times between events (arrivals and service completions)—increase the risk of service delays more than the demand volume.

This paper is the first to provide an extensive investigation into the application of the complexity-based measure for ED crowding. The study demonstrates potential values to be gained in ED service systems if complexity measure is incorporated into their operations management decisions.

Manufacturers face various challenges and risks during their digital servitization (DS), due to the complexity caused by introducing breakthrough technologies, increasingly complex product-service solutions and new stakeholders in the business network. The process necessitates the implementation of various changes that usually happen over a long period of time. Using complexity management as a theoretical lens, this paper delves into manufacturers’ DS journeys and explores how manufacturers manage the associated complexities.

This paper investigates the DS journey of two manufacturers in a longitudinal case study from 2014 to 2021.

Three main complexity management actions during the DS journey were identified: shaping the digital service system, shaping the organization and shaping the network. Tied to different types of complexities, these actions demonstrate how manufacturers navigate their journey. The findings also reveal different complexity management approaches used at the different stages of this journey.

This paper offers a comprehensive framework for understanding complexity management in the DS journey, including the types of complexities, complexity management actions and complexity management approaches and their rationale. This paper shows that different requirements are created during emerge, consolidate and evolve stages of the DS journey. Manufacturers need a dynamic approach that considers changes in complexities and actions over time.

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.