Search results

This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the prolonged consumption journey and how they are sustained by service providers’ use of habit-boosting strategies. Existing research is critically evaluated, and a research agenda is provided to inspire and guide future research.

This paper develops a conceptual framework that integrates habit and transformative consumer intervention theories with customer journey literature to explain the role of habit in sustaining prolonged consumption journeys. Habit-boosting strategies are introduced as mechanisms for service providers to facilitate their customers’ prolonged consumption journeys.

This paper argues that habit strength is a limited operant resource that often lacks resource integration efficiency and hinders customers’ abilities to sustain prolonged consumption journeys. Four distinct habit-boosting strategies are identified that provide the potential for service providers to facilitate their customers’ prolonged consumption journeys.

This study presents a typology of habit-boosting strategies and a research agenda that discusses a range of practically relevant and theoretically insightful contributions.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between strategy intent (product-service innovation intention) and outcome (product-service innovation outcome), and the role that external sources of innovation play in influencing this relationship.

Using data obtained from the community innovation survey, we apply a logit regression to a sample of 1,419 Portuguese firms. By examining the moderating effect of open innovation breadth, we assess how the relationship between differentiation intent and outcome is contingent upon the involvement of external stakeholders.

Our findings reveal that the relationship between differentiation intent and outcome is contingent upon the moderating effect of open innovation breadth. Our analysis suggests that the negative influence of different sources of innovation can be addressed by adopting a paradox lens.

This research provides valuable insights for managers. By simultaneously pursuing a differentiation strategy and engaging in collaboration with external sources, firms may compromise their ability to effectively differentiate their offer. Managers should consider the potential tensions arising from internal and external stakeholder relationships to optimize their innovation strategies.

This study contributes to the existing literature by shedding light on the role of external innovation sources in influencing the relationship between differentiation intent and outcome and the importance that information systems may have in this relationship. By exploring the moderating effect of open innovation breadth, we provide a nuanced understanding of how firms can navigate organizational tensions and leverage innovation for competitive advantage.

Engaging with customers and addressing unmet value have become increasingly challenging within multi-stakeholder environments of service innovation. Therefore, this paper aims to address this challenge by studying how strategic design abilities address unmet value in service engagement strategies.

The authors conducted a qualitative inductive study at a multinational corporation and interviewed marketing and design professionals on their innovation practices in service engagement strategies.

From the inductive analysis, this study identified three strategic design abilities that effectively contribute to addressing unmet value throughout the co-evolving process of service engagement: envisioning value, modelling value and engaging value. Based on this, this study proposes the emerging co-evolving loop framework of service engagement strategies.

The limitation of this emerging theory is a lack of broad generalizability with mutual exclusivity or collective exhaustiveness across industries. A theoretical implication of the framework is the integration of strategic design and services marketing towards co-created engagement strategies.

The service engagement loop framework can be of great value to service innovation processes, for which an integrated, cross-functional approach is often missing.

The findings further suggest that next to a methodological skillset, strategic design abilities consist of a distinct mindset.

This paper introduces strategic design abilities to address unmet value and proposes a novel co-evolving loop framework of service engagement strategies.

Building on contingency theory, this paper aims to investigate the extent to which the “4Ps international adaptation strategy” and internationalization intensity shape the servitization–profitability relationship.

The authors use primary (survey) and secondary (archival) data to perform multiple regression analysis.

The results indicate a positive relationship between servitization and profitability, and international intensity strengthens this association. The effects, however, are not consistent across the 4Ps – the price international adaptation strategy strengthens the positive relationship between servitization and profitability, while product and place international adaptation strategies weaken that relationship.

The findings have implications for the role of international intensity and the 4Ps in the marketing servitization context.

The study provides guidance for small firms in realizing higher performance by leveraging the 4Ps in the servitization context. Counter to expectations, placement and product lead to lower performance with increasing servitization, whereas price strengthens this relationship. The study adds to the international industrial management and marketing literature, providing evidence that contingency factors such as international marketing mix adaptation/standardization strategies moderate the servitization–profitability relationship.

Amidst unpredictable and turbulent periods, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, service organization’s responses are required to be innovative, adaptable and resilient. The purpose of this study is to explore the utilization of both reconfiguration and transformational strategies as instruments for cultivating resilience and advancing sustainability in service organizations.

The study examines a proposed resilience model using fuzzy logic. The research also used a semantic differential scale to capture nuanced and intricate attitudes. Finally, to augment the validity of the resilience model, a measurement scale was formulated using business mathematics and expert opinions.

Although investing in resilience training can help organizations gain control and maintain their operations in times of crisis, it may not directly help service organizations understand the external turmoil, seek available resources or create adaptive remedies. Conversely, high levels of reconfiguration and transformation management vigour empower a service organization’s revolutionary, malleable vision, organizational structure and decision-making processes, welcoming talented and innovative employees to enhance capabilities during crises.

The resilience model bestows a comprehensive understanding of the pertinence of building resilience for service organizations identifying the antecedents that influence the adoption of these strategies and introduces a range of theoretical perspectives that empowers service organizations to conceptualize and plan for building resilience. The research guides service organizations to become more resilient to external shocks and adapt to changing circumstances by diversifying their offerings, optimizing their resources and adopting flexible work arrangements. The study elaborates on the enhancement of resilience, increasing innovation, improving efficiency and enhancing customer satisfaction for service organizations to remain competitive and contribute to positive social and economic outcomes through the adoption of both reconfiguration and transformational strategies.

The study also guides the service organizations to become more resilient to external shocks and adapt to changing circumstances by diversifying their offerings, optimizing their resources and adopting flexible work arrangements. Rapid innovation and business model innovation are essential components, enabling service organizations to foster a culture of innovation and remain competitive. In addition, the adoption can lead to improved financial performance, job creation and economic growth, contributing to positive social and economic impacts.

The resilience model bestows a comprehensive understanding of the pertinence of building resilience for service organizations. It identifies the antecedents that influence the adoption of these strategies and introduces a range of theoretical perspectives that empowers service organizations to conceptualize and plan for building resilience. The research also provides a foundation for further investigation into the effectiveness of these strategies and their impact on organizational performance and sustainability. By better preparing service organizations for disruptions and uncertainties, this research triggers ameliorated organizational performance and sustainability.

Within the realm of the service industry, the present investigation has undertaken the development, quantification and scrutiny of both resilience and tenacity. In addition, it has delved into the intricate dynamics surrounding the influencing factors and antecedents that bear upon resilience, elucidating their consequential impact on the operational performance and outlook of service-oriented organizations. The findings derived from this research furnish valuable insights germane to enhancing operational efficacy and surmounting impediments within the sector.

This paper aims to study the joint decision making of advance selling and service cancelation for service provides with limited capacity when consumers are overconfident.

For the case in which consumers encounter uncertainties about product valuation and consumption states in the advance period and are overconfident about the probability of a good state, we study how the service provider chooses the optimal sales strategy among the non-advance selling strategy, the advance selling and disallowing cancelation strategy, and the advance selling and allowing cancelation strategy. We also discuss how overconfidence influences the service provider’s decision making.

The results show that when service capacity is sufficient, the service provider should adopt advance selling and disallow cancelation; when service capacity is insufficient, the service provider should still implement advance selling but allow cancelation; and when service capacity is extremely insufficient, the service provider should offer spot sales. Moreover, overconfidence weakens the necessity to allow cancelation under sufficient service capacity and enhances it under insufficient service capacity but is always advantageous to advance selling.

The obtained results provide managerial insights for service providers to make advance selling decisions.

This paper is among the first to explore the effect of consumers’ overconfidence on the joint decision of advance selling and service cancelation under capacity constraints.

The elderly service industry is emerging in China. The Chinese government introduced a series of policies to guide elderly service enterprises to improve their service quality. This study explores novel differentiated subsidy strategies that not only promote the improvement of service quality in elderly service enterprises but also alleviate the financial burden on the government.

Evolutionary game and Hotelling models are employed to investigate this issue. First, a Hotelling model that considers consumer word-of-mouth preferences is established. Subsequently, an evolutionary game model between local governments and enterprises is constructed, and the evolutionary stable strategies of both parties are analyzed. Finally, simulation experiments are conducted.

The findings indicate that local government decisions have a significant influence on the behavior of elderly service enterprises. Increasing the proportion of local governments opting for subsidy strategies helps incentivize elderly service enterprises to improve their service quality. Furthermore, providing differentiated subsidies based on the preferences of the customer base of elderly service enterprises can encourage service quality improvement while reducing government expenditure. The findings offer valuable insights into the design of government subsidy policies.

Compared with previous research, this study examines the role of consumer preferences in a differentiated subsidy policy. This enriches the authors’ understanding of the field by incorporating neglected aspects of consumer preferences in the context of the emerging elderly service industry.

Emerging markets face the developmental circumstances of a weak foundation in both manufacturing and services. Although servitization is viewed as an opportunity to realise industry transformation and upgrading, ways for emerging market firms to implement a high-level servitization strategy is still understudied. This study examines combinations of causal conditions for emerging market firms to implement a high level of servitization.

Anchored in the strategy tripod model, this study examines the configurations for implementing a high-level servitization strategy by using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and data from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research Database (CSMAR).

The findings identify three kinds of configurations for achieving a high-level servitization strategy: market-cultivational servitization, competition-driven servitization and government-related servitization. Furthermore, the mechanisms for implementing a high-level servitization strategy differ within the regional marketization level and state-owned equity. Specifically, the improvement of the regional marketization level helps manufacturing firms realise a high level of servitization by strengthening service capacity, and state-owned equity helps firms gain distinctive legitimacy to integrate suppliers and providers into the servitization context.

The proposed multilevel perspective frameworks enable manufacturing firms in emerging markets to achieve a high level of servitization strategy.

This paper explores the impact of institutional environment, industry conditions and firm-level microfoundations on servitization, therefore providing a reference framework for emerging market firms interested in implementing high-level servitization strategies.

This paper investigates how the channel leadership strategies develop a post-coronavirus disease (COVID-19) resilient agri-supply chain, which reduces supplier and retailer's price loss and enhances the logistics service quality level considering logistics outsourcing of agri-product especially for the rapidly changing market condition.

Based on the classical leadership theory, two channel leadership strategies, i.e. LPL and SL, are considered. The proposed framework first derives the equilibrium price and service quality level decision among the supplier, the logistics provider and the retailer. Then it compares both leadership strategies in terms of the equilibrium prices and service quality theoretically. This article also presents a case study of Arabian dates pricing and supply chain to test the theoretically derived propositions.

Selection of suitable leadership strategy is a critical factor for profit maximization of the supply chain drivers and proper optimization of equilibrium price and service quality. Here, the product's quality and the market's socio-economic condition play an important role in selecting a suitable leadership strategy. A random transformation of the physical market to an e-commerce portal creates a wide variation of the market's socio-economic parameters, affecting the equilibrium pricing and the logistics provider's service quality.

This study proposes a post-COVID-19 resilient agri-supply chain framework considering price and quality-dependent stochastic market demand, incorporating a wide range of socio-economic factors in the model to counteract the effect of rapid behavior change of agri-market due to COVID-19 norms. This research examines the effect of different channel leadership strategies to facilitate suitable decisions on prices and service quality and retrieve the profit of the supplier, retailer and logistics provider. The future models can incorporate competitiveness in logistics outsourcing, fourth-party logistics (4PL) and contract farming in the agri-supply chain. Each of the extensions can open avenues in different directions.

As the post-COVID-19 market and the customer behavior is randomly changing, and the traditional market is rapidly converting into supermarkets and e-commerce portals, this paper examines the model with a wide variety of e-commerce portals with multi-variation of product. It is conclusive that the product's quality and the market's socio-economic behavior significantly impact the equilibrium decision. The drivers of the supply chain must take them into account before choosing a particular channel leadership strategy.

This study considers a multi-product and multi-market (e-commerce) model by integrating a wide variety of products and the market's socio-economic parameters. The model is tested in a price and quality-dependent stochastic market condition, contributing to the literature by reconciling two different channel leadership strategies into the global logistics of fresh agri-product.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the pricing decisions and earning potential of the software supplier and the smart device manufacturer in different software promotion strategies.

Based on game theory, the authors formulate two promotion models, that is, the supplier implements software promotion activities individually (SP model) or outsources the promotion activity to the manufacturer under profit-sharing contract (MP model) when taking different channel power structures into consideration. Besides, in order to test the robustness of the conclusions, the authors also extend the basic model to the following situations: (1) the customers have different price elasticity toward service fee and product price; (2) the revenue sharing contract is employed by the supply chain members; and (3) the manufacturer's product promotion practice is taken into consideration.

The optimal service fee (product price) of the supplier (manufacturer) under SP model is always lower (higher) than that under MP model. Surprisingly, if the supplier is the channel leader and the profit sharing ratio exceeds certain threshold, the manufacturer's profit decreases in profit sharing ratio, which remains robust in three extension models. Moreover, the supply chain's profit in supplier-led game is always lower than that in Nash game irrespective of the promotion strategy in profit sharing context. When revenue sharing contract is adopted, the result holds only when the revenue sharing ratio is relatively low.

The authors originally explore two promotion strategies of the software supplier when taking the channel power structures into considerations, which has not been explored in the literature to the best of the authors' knowledge.