What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

The purpose of this paper is to explore innovations in customer experience at the intersection of the digital, physical and social realms It explicitly considers experiences involving new technology-enabled services, such as digital twins and automated social presence (ie virtual assistants and service robots),Future customer experiences are conceptualized within a three-dimensional space – low to high digital density, low to high physical complexity and low to high social presence – yielding eight octants,The conceptual framework identifies eight “dualities,” or specific challenges connected with integrating digital, physical and social realms that challenge organizations to create superior customer experiences in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets The eight dualities are opposing strategic options that organizations must reconcile when co-creating customer experiences under different conditions,A review of theory demonstrates that little research has been conducted at the intersection of the digital, physical and social realms Most studies focus on one realm, with occasional reference to another This paper suggests an agenda for future research and gives examples of fruitful ways to study connections among the three realms rather than in a single realm,This paper provides guidance for managers in designing and managing customer experiences that the authors believe will need to be addressed by the year 2050,This paper discusses important societal issues, such as individual and societal needs for privacy, security and transparency It sets out potential avenues for service innovation in these areas,The conceptual framework integrates knowledge about customer experiences in digital, physical and social realms in a new way, with insights for future service research, managers and public policy makers

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Customer experience challenges: bringing together digital, physical and social realms

In response to initial voices that put the customer experience (management) (CX(M)) movement into question, this article aims to introduce a formal nomenclature to push the CX(M) field toward a mor...

/pdf/moving-the-customer-experience-field-forward-introducing-the-2oneub6ik3.pdf

Moving the customer experience field forward : introducing the Touchpoints, Context, Qualities (TCQ) nomenclature

Service design and innovation are receiving greater attention from the service research community because they play crucial roles in creating new forms of value cocreation with customers, organizat...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1094670517746780

Upframing Service Design and Innovation for Research Impact

Research studies on brand transgression (BT), service failure and recovery (SFR), and product-harm crisis (PHC) appear to have a common focus, yet the three streams developed surprisingly independently and with limited reference to one another. This situation is unfortunate because all three fields study a similar phenomenon by using complementary conceptualizations, theories, and methods; we argue that this development in silos represents an unnecessary obstacle to the development of a common discipline. In response, this review synthesizes the growing BT, SFR, and PHC literatures by systematically reviewing 236 articles across 21 years using an integrative conceptual framework. In doing so, we showcase how the mature field of SFR in concert with the younger but prolific BT and PHC fields can enrich one another while jointly advancing a broad and unified discipline of negative events in marketing. Through this process, we provide and explicate seven overarching insights across three major themes (theory, dynamic aspects, and method) to encourage researchers to contribute to the interface between these three important fields. The review concludes with academic contributions and practical implications.

A systematic review of brand transgression, service failure recovery and product-harm crisis: integration and guiding insights

Service encounters, experiences and the customer journey: Defining the field and a call to expand our lens

Exporting research is an established facet of the field of international marketing. That stated, the radical increase in recent export activity necessitates a sustained research effort devoted to the topic. In this article, the authors provide a qualitative review of the core theoretical exporting areas and evaluate the exporting domain quantitatively over six decades (1958–2016). For the quantitative analysis, they use multidimensional scaling and apply established bibliometric principles to offer an understanding of the field and to provide suggestions for future exporting research. For the evaluations, the authors used data from 830 articles with 52,191 citations from 35 journals. Using cocitation analysis as the basis to evaluate the data, they propose a series of intellectual structure implications on exporting that relate to internationalization process stages, dynamic capabilities, knowledge scarcity, social networks, export marketing strategy, absorptive capacity and learning, and nonlinea...

/pdf/an-assessment-of-the-exporting-literature-using-theory-and-5bpdr4fvq7.pdf

An Assessment of the Exporting Literature: Using Theory and Data to Identify Future Research Directions

The purpose of this paper is to promote a broadened view of service research and to demonstrate a path for integrating interdisciplinary perspectives with services marketing.,Two major streams of service literature are reviewed, highlighting key conceptual developments in each. Through synthesis of prior literature, a research framework and agenda are developed.,The findings indicate that major service research areas have been extensively explored, yet service literature is fragmented on key concepts. This can make it challenging to collaborate across disciplines. This work develops a framework for integrating concepts across disciplines to foster more impactful work.,This work presents a unique framework for integrating interdisciplinary perspectives with services marketing. Moreover, a research agenda for the specific purpose of promoting collaboration across disciplines is presented.

Travis Walkowiak

Papers

Service encounters, experiences and the customer journey: Defining the field and a call to expand our lens

An Assessment of the Exporting Literature: Using Theory and Data to Identify Future Research Directions

Service research: progress toward interdisciplinary collaboration