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The “services triangle” is a dynamic model in which three interlinked entities (customer, employee and firm) combine to create three dyads [employee-firm (EF), customer-firm (CF) and customer-employee (CE)] that work together to deliver services. This study aims to determine whether significant differences exist vis-à-vis the impact of EF, CF and CE dyads on the service experience.

Empirical evidence from data garnered from 398 surveys was used to test a conceptual model. To test the hypotheses, like-signed first-order dyads were constructed and combined to create second-order dyads, and analysis of variance and post-hoc tests (least significant differences) were used to investigate whether differences among the second-order dyads exist.

The analysis reveals the differential impact of the three services triangle dyads on the service experience. Specifically, customers’ perception of EF fit appears to have the greatest impact on customers’ evaluation of the service experience, followed by CF and CE fit.

The main implication is that this paper extends conceptual research by providing empirical evidence that the EF dyad is the foundation of the services triangle. The limitations are based primarily on methodology, where the use of a survey to collect data rules out the potential generalizations of true cause and effect while also potentially being subject to common method bias.

Managers should realize that fit within some dyads is more instrumental in determining the service experience than fit within others. A number of managerial implications are proposed and discussed.

Prior research has neither empirically examined the services triangle nor whether significant differences exists among the impact of its dyads on the service experience. Insights from various literatures, the application of the balance theory and the construction of first- and second-order dyads enables an investigation of the various relational patterns contained in the services triangle.

Relational uncertainty determines how relationships develop because it enables the building of trust and commitment. However, relational uncertainty has not been explored in an inter-organisational setting. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how organisations experience relational uncertainty in service dyads and how they resolve it through suitable organisational responses to increase the level of service quality.

The author applies the overall logic of organisational information-processing theory and presents empirical insights from two industrial case studies collected via semi-structured interviews and secondary data.

The findings suggest that relational uncertainty is caused by the partner’s unresolved organisational uncertainty, i.e. their lacking capabilities to deliver or receive (parts of) the service. Furthermore, the author found that resolving the relational uncertainty increased the functional quality while resolving the partner’s organisational uncertainty increased the technical quality of the delivered service.

The author makes two contributions: first,the author introduces relational uncertainty to the OM literature as the inability to predict and explain the actions of a partnering organisation due to a lack of knowledge about their abilities and intentions; and second, the author presents suitable organisational responses to relational uncertainty and their effect on service quality.

This study considers transitive service triads, which consist of three dyads formed by three actors: supplier, logistics service provider and customer, who remain directly linked by one or more of the upstream and downstream flows of products, information and finances. This paper aims to explore the link between information governance, decentralized information technologies and supply chain self-organization, and their resulting impact on network performance in the transitive service triads.

Drawing upon the tenets of the theory of complex adaptive systems and supply chain practice view, this paper involves an empirical investigation that uses survey data gathered from transitive service triads in the European countries. The study uses partial least squares structural equation modeling to estimate the formative-reflective hierarchical component model and test the research hypotheses.

Information governance defines how supply chain information flows are controlled, accessed and used by a focal organization and its business partners. As empirically evidenced in this study, it can be depicted as a latent construct consisting of three distinct dimensions of information custody, information ownership and right to data access. Likewise, the study also indicates that supply chain self-organization, as a second-order construct, consists of three interactive self-organization actions undertaken by specific firms participating in the triadic arrangement. Supply chain self-organization is thus produced by firms that are reciprocally interrelated and interacting, having effects on one another. Furthermore, the study also highlights that information governance creates an environment for applying decentralized information technologies, which then positively affects supply chain self-organization. Finally, the research also empirically operationalizes the construct of network performance within the transitive service triads.

Although the results provide several major contributions to theory and implications for practitioners, the study still demonstrates some methodological constraints. Specifically, although the study uses a relatively large research sample of 350 transitive service triads, it still focuses only on a selected group of industries and is limited to investigating solely a particular type of service triads.

Given the increasing interest in investigating triads, this study examines how information governance and decentralized information technologies support supply chain self-organization to yield network performance in transitive service triads.

This paper aims to understand whether the perceptions of the patient’s in the health-care service experience differs in the Ayurveda, and to examine the impact of three critical communication dyads on the patient service experiences in Ayurveda health-care sector.

The study consists of 436 participants, recruited directly from the inpatients of Ayurveda establishments/hospitals/clinics in Northern Kerala, India. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire. An independent sample t-test was used to find out the differences in the perceptions of Ayurveda health-care consumers towards their health-care service experience. Multiple regression analysis is used to explain the dyadic relationship of patient–firm (PFR), patient–employee (PER) and employee–firm relation (EFR) on the health-care service experience (SE) in the Ayurveda sector.

The study highlights that the perception of patients on Ayurveda health-care service experience varies according to their socio-economic statuses such as age, gender, annual income and the number of inpatient days. Among the service communication dyads, PFR is the most effective dyadic phase that contributes significantly more towards an improved Ayurveda health-care SE, followed by the PER and EFR.

The findings of the study will be more applicable to the Ayurveda health-care sector, where the doctors and the management have more role in the servicescape.

Health managers have to consider three stakeholders (customers, employees and firm) and the relationship between them. It is valued the PFR more, followed by the PER and EFR.

Proper implementation of the suggestions given by the study can improve overall service communications of the different service providers of Ayurveda with good interpersonal manner to achieve better relationships among the three mentioned parties.

The empirical evidence from the study is relevant and timely to the health-care service providers of the country to aid them in providing a better health-care service experience. The study adds value given the increasing trend of lifestyle diseases and subsequent demand in health-care services, especially in the Ayurveda sector.

Focal service providers increasingly involve customers in the decision-making about outsourcing parts of the service delivery process to third parties. The present study investigates how customers' outsourcing decisions affect the formation of the waiting experience with the focal service provider, by which the objective waiting time, environmental quality and interactional quality act as focal drivers.

To test our hypotheses in the context of cancer care, we gathered process data and experience data by means of a patient observation template (n = 640) and a patient survey (n = 487). The combined data (n = 377) were analyzed using Bayesian models.

This study shows that opting for a service triad (i.e. outsourcing non-core services to a third party) deduces customers' attention away from the objective waiting time with the focal service provider but not from the environmental and interactional quality offered by the focal service provider. When the type of service triad coordination is considered, we observe similar effects for a focal service provider-coordinated service triad while in a customer-coordinated service triad the interactional quality is the sole experience driver of waiting experiences that remains significant.

By investigating the implications of customer participation in the decision-making about outsourcing parts of the service delivery process to third parties, this research contributes to the service design, service triad and service operations literature. Specifically, this study shows that customer outsourcing decisions impact waiting experience formation with the focal service provider.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the customer’s perception of customer-firm, customer-employee, and employee-firm fit and to assess how these fits impact the service experience.

The paper looks at the impact of fit on the service experience and focusses on three specific types of dyadic fit: customer-employee; customer-firm; and employee-firm. A conceptual model is presented, accompanied by a detailed development of the hypotheses. A sample of 447 consumers is used to empirically test the proposed model.

The analysis reveals the importance of fit and suggest a triadic relationship perspective is essential when designing for the service experience. Specifically, employee-firm fit is key to enhancing fit within the other dyads and providing a superior service experience.

The main implication is that this paper expands the investigation of fit by examining the interplay of multiple fits while also exploring how they affect the customer experience. The limitations are based primarily on methodology where the use of a survey to collect data rules out potential generalizations of true cause and effect while also potentially being subject to a common method effect.

Managers should consider adopting a triadic relationship perspective when designing for the service experience. A number of managerial implications are proposed and discussed.

Prior research has not explored the impact of fit among the customer-employee, customer-firm, and employee-firm dyads in one model on an important outcome such as the service experience. In addition, to show that customer-employee, customer-firm, and employee-firm dyadic fits are predictors of the service experience is novel.

Burnout, which is caused by chronic stress, is common in the service professions and has a negative effect, both on the service provider's job performance and customer satisfaction. Empowerment is a potential buffer against the stress involved in service roles, but its advantages may depend on the service provider's desire to be empowered. The study examines several interactive effects of empowerment and seeking power on service provider burnout. In addition, the study examined the relationship between service providers' burnout and customers' reports of their satisfaction with the service.

Questionnaires were administered to 198 participants, comprising 99 service provider‐customer dyads coming from public service organizations, that is government offices, welfare services, health services, and education, and private services, that is banks and communication companies. The dyads selected for the study were engaged in a “service relationship,” that is, the customer has repeated contact with a particular provider.

Service providers with a high power motivation experience more burnout as a result of stressful relationships with customers than service providers with a low power motivation. This effect, however, is reversed when service providers are empowered. Furthermore, the negative relationship of burnout with customer satisfaction was found to be stronger with a high level of empowerment than with a low level of empowerment.

Practices of human resources such as selection and training should take into consideration the effect of service providers' predispositions on their willingness and ability to function under a high level of empowerment.

The study shows the negative relationship of service providers' burnout with customer satisfaction and contributes to the understanding of the factors that should be considered in regard to the empowerment of service providers, in order to minimize burnout and its negative effect on customer satisfaction.

Servitized manufacturers can leverage close relationships with external providers of product-related services to mobilize value creation and improve the responsiveness of their offerings to customer needs. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the economic link between the relational embeddedness of external service providers, as arising from the key dimension of dependence, and firm performance.

The study evaluates financial statement data pertaining to 190 dyadic relationships of servitized manufacturers with service providers operating in downstream channels and accounting for more than 10 per cent of their revenue.

The results indicate that service providers’ dependence has an inverted U-shaped relationship with manufacturers’ return-on-assets (ROA), via non-linear effects on return-on-sales and asset turnover. The results therefore suggest that the observed U-shaped relationship for ROA is driven by diminishing returns of dependence in terms of both differentiation ability and operational efficiency.

Future research could examine other dimensions of embeddedness, as well as contingency factors that may influence the embeddedness–performance relationship.

The study conclusions suggest that managers of servitized firms should foster the embeddedness of external service providers, but they should also be careful to maintain an adequate level of dependence to maximize benefits and minimize liabilities.

The study adds to the limited research delving into inter-firm relationships between servitized manufacturers and external service providers. It empirically demonstrates the economic effects of service providers’ dependence-based embeddedness, challenging the general assumption about a monotonic positive effect of relational embeddedness.

The study examined three models that suggested direct, mediated, and moderated relationships among personality and situational variables relating to the service provider and customer satisfaction. Questionnaires were administered to 151 service provider‐customer dyads. The results support the model describing a mediation by job‐related control of the relationship between organizational variables relating to the service provider, on the one hand, and customer satisfaction, on the other. The service provider’s trait control was found to contribute to the prediction of job‐related control over and above the contribution of the organizational variables. Trait control moderates the relationship between empowering leadership and job‐related control, such that the relationship is significant only when trait control is low.

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.