Showing papers in "Journal of Service Research in 2022"

How Smart Should a Service Robot Be?

Abstract: Service robots are taking over the frontline. They can possess three types of artificial intelligence (AI): mechanical, thinking, and feeling AI. Although these intelligences determine how service robots can help customers, not much is known about how customers respond to robots of different intelligence. This paper addresses this gap, builds on the appraisal theory of emotions, and employs three online experiments and one field study to demonstrate that customers have different emotional responses to the three types of AI. Particularly, the influence of AI on positive emotions becomes stronger as the AI type becomes more sophisticated. That is, feeling AI relates more strongly to positive emotions than mechanical AI. Also, feeling AI and thinking AI increase spending and loyalty intention through customers’ positive emotions. We also identify important contingency effects of service tiers: mechanical AI is more suitable for low-cost firms, whereas feeling AI mainly benefits full-service providers. Remarkably, none of the three intelligences are directly related to negative emotions; perceived robot autonomy is an important mediator in these relationships. The findings yield concrete managerial guidance as to how smart a service robot should be by pinpointing the right type of AI given the market segment of the service provider.

Corporate Digital Responsibility in Service Firms and Their Ecosystems

Abstract: Digitization, artificial intelligence, and service robots carry serious ethical, privacy, and fairness risks. Using the lens of corporate digital responsibility (CDR), we examine these risks and their mitigation in service firms and make five contributions. First, we show that CDR is critical in service contexts because of the vast streams of customer data involved and digital service technology’s omnipresence, opacity, and complexity. Second, we synthesize the ethics, privacy, and fairness literature using the CDR data and technology life-cycle perspective to understand better the nature of these risks in a service context. Third, to provide insights on the origins of these risks, we examine the digital service ecosystem and the related flows of money, service, data, insights, and technologies. Fourth, we deduct that the underlying causes of CDR issues are trade-offs between good CDR practices and organizational objectives (e.g., profit opportunities versus CDR risks) and introduce the CDR calculus to capture this. We also conclude that regulation will need to step in when a firm’s CDR calculus becomes so negative that good CDR is unlikely. Finally, we advance a set of strategies, tools, and practices service firms can use to manage these trade-offs and build a strong CDR culture. Graphical Abstract

Customer Emotions in Service Robot Encounters: A Hybrid Machine-Human Intelligence Approach

Abstract: Understanding consumer emotions arising from robot-customers encounters and shared through online reviews is critical for forecasting consumers’ intention to adopt service robots. Qualitative analysis has the advantage of generating rich insights from data, but it requires intensive manual work. Scholars have emphasized the benefits of using algorithms for recognizing and differentiating among emotions. This study critically addresses the advantages and disadvantages of qualitative analysis and machine learning methods by adopting a hybrid machine-human intelligence approach. We extracted a sample of 9707 customers reviews from two major social media platforms (Ctrip and TripAdvisor), encompassing 412 hotels in 8 countries. The results show that the customer experience with service robots is overwhelmingly positive, revealing that interacting with robots triggers emotions of joy, love, surprise, interest, and excitement. Discontent is mainly expressed when customers cannot use service robots due to malfunctioning. Service robots trigger more emotions when they move. The findings further reveal the potential moderation effect of culture on customer emotional reactions to service robots. The study highlights that the hybrid approach can take advantage of the scalability and efficiency of machine learning algorithms while overcoming its shortcomings, such as poor interpretative capacity and limited emotion categories.

I, Robot, You, Consumer: Measuring Artificial Intelligence Types and their Effect on Consumers Emotions in Service

Abstract: This research draws upon the increasing usage of AI in service. It aims at understanding the extent to which AI systems have multiple intelligence types like humans and if these types arouse different emotions in consumers. To this end, the research uses a two-study approach: Study 1 builds and evaluates a scale for measuring different AI intelligence types. Study 2 evaluates consumers’ emotional responses to the different AI intelligences. The findings provide a measurement scale for evaluating different types of artificial intelligence against human ones, thus showing that artificial intelligences are configurable, describable, and measurable (Study 1), and influence positive and negative consumers’ emotions (Study 2). The findings also demonstrate that consumers display different emotions, in terms of happiness, excitement, enthusiasm, pride, inspiration, sadness, fear, anger, shame, and anxiety, and also emotional attachment, satisfaction, and usage intention when interacting with the different types of AI intelligences. Our scale builds upon human intelligence against AI intelligence characteristics while providing a guidance for future development of AI-based systems more similar to human intelligences. Graphical Abstract

Thinking Skills Don’t Protect Service Workers from Replacement by Artificial Intelligence

Abstract: Despite the documented benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the service industry, the service employees’ fear of being replaced by AI continues to be a major concern as we transition to the Feeling Economy. This paper builds upon the Feeling Economy framework and the social comparison theory to examine how different service-related tasks (thinking vs feeling) distinctively impact the service employees’ feelings and behavior. Five studies reveal that the presence of AI increases negative outcomes for employees engaging in thinking (vs. feeling) tasks due to its adverse effects on their perceived ability (i.e., relative performance). Findings further indicate that these detrimental effects only happen when service employees compare their abilities with those of AI. This research provides important theoretical and managerial implications, helping to mitigate AI’s negative outcomes on employees’ fear of replacement and reduced job performance.

Artificial Emotions and Love and Sex Doll Service Workers

Abstract: Realistic looking humanoid love and sex dolls have been available on a somewhat secretive basis for at least three decades. But today the industry has gone mainstream with North American, European, and Asian producers using mass customization and competing on the bases of features, realism, price, and depth of product lines. As a result, realistic life size artificial companions are becoming more affordable to purchase and more feasible to patronize on a service basis. Sexual relations may be without equal when it comes to emotional intimacy. Yet, the increasingly vocal and interactive robotic versions of these dolls, feel nothing. They may nevertheless induce emotions in users that potentially surpass the pleasure of human-human sexual experiences. The most technologically advanced love and sex robots are forecast to sense human emotions and gear their performances of empathy, conversation, and sexual activity accordingly. I offer a model of how this might be done to provide a better service experience. I compare the nature of resulting “artificial emotions” by robots to natural emotions by humans. I explore the ethical issues entailed in offering love and sex robot services with artificial emotions and offer a conclusion and recommendations for service management and for further research.

It is Really Not a Game: An Integrative Review of Gamification for Service Research

Abstract: Gamification has attracted considerable practitioner attention and has become a viable tactic for influencing behavior, boosting innovation, and improving marketing outcomes across industries. Simultaneously, studies on the use of gamification techniques have emerged in diverse fields, including computer science, education, and healthcare. Despite the broad popularity of gamification in other fields, it has received only limited attention in the service literature. Moreover, the findings of extant studies on gamification in the service field are inconclusive and suggest an incomplete understanding of the employment of gamification in service contexts. Thus, this study aims to integrate the growing but scattered cross-disciplinary literature on gamification and to emphasize its relevance to service research. Specifically, we first conceptualize gamification for service and differentiate it from related concepts. Then, using a systematic literature review, we identify 34 empirical articles that reflect this gamification conceptualization and can be connected to relevant service research themes (e.g., customer participation, experience, and loyalty). Employing activity theory, we derive four higher-order functions of gamification: production, consumption, exchange, and distribution. Finally, we develop a research agenda to generate a better understanding of the central aspects within each of the identified gamification functions and stimulate future academic efforts on gamification in services.

Service Robots in Long-Term Care: A Consumer-Centric View

Abstract: Service robots with advanced intelligence capabilities can potentially transform servicescapes. However, limited attention has been given to how consumers experiencing vulnerabilities, particularly those with disabilities, envisage the characteristics of robots’ prospective integration into emotionally intense servicescapes, such as long-term care (LTC). We take an interdisciplinary approach conducting three exploratory studies with consumers with disabilities involving Community Philosophy, LEGO ® Serious Play ® , and Design Thinking methods. Addressing a lack of consumer-centric research, we offer a three-fold contribution by 1) developing a conceptualization of consumer-conceived value of robots in LTC, which are envisaged as a supporting resource offering consumers opportunities to realize value; 2) empirically evidencing pathogenic vulnerabilities as a potential value-destruction factor to underscore the importance of integrating service robots research with a service inclusion paradigm; and 3) providing a theoretical extension and clarification of prior characterizations of robots’ empathetic and emotion-related AI capabilities. Consumers with disabilities conceive robots able to stimulate and regulate emotions by mimicking cognitive and behavioral empathy, but unable to express affective and moral empathy, which is central to care experience. While providing support for care practices, for the foreseeable future, service robots will not, in themselves, actualize the experience of “being cared for.”

Conceptualizing Services and Service Innovation: A Practice Theory Study of the Swedish Music Market

Abstract: In today’s complex and interconnected marketplace, the study of services and service innovation among multiple actors is an underdeveloped, but a theoretically and managerially relevant research area for enabling value cocreation. Building on general practice theory, the scarce prior service research that has drawn on practice theory, and an empirical study of the Swedish music market, this paper outlines a framework that conceptualizes services and service innovation among multiple actors by focusing on value cocreation practices (VCPs). The framework contributes to service research by conceptualizing services as bundles of VCPs, providing a theoretical foundation for the research that studies services as activities. It also contributes to service research by conceptualizing service innovation as the creation of VCPs. The paper shows how actors’ concrete activities, in combination with the valancing of VCPs existing in the market, induce service innovation. A future agenda for research on services and service innovation is also proposed. In addition to these theoretical contributions, the paper offers practical insights into how managers, with the help of the framework, may broaden their focus to include the shared VCPs of the markets to secure a competitive advantage.

Customer Experience: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Application in Omnichannel Environments

Abstract: Managing customer experiences has become a key strategic priority for service research and management. Yet researchers and managers lack a customer experience (CX) measure that applies to the different experience partners, touchpoints, and journey stages in the omnichannel environments of today’s service industries. Without such a common measure, empirical research on CX remains fragmented, and service companies continue to struggle to improve customer interactions in customer journeys. To address this shortcoming, this article proposes an omnichannel-capable measurement of CX that applies to different customer interactions in the omnichannel environment. With seven studies, the authors develop and validate a six-dimensional, 18-item CX scale. The proposed CX scale overcomes the fragmentation of existing scales in service research and provides a valid measure that can be used consistently for various customer interactions in omnichannel environments. This article details how the proposed CX scale can monitor and compare CX for different interactions in customer journeys (i.e., pain-point analysis), as well as improve CX features and their marketing outcomes (i.e., CX profiling). By overcoming the existing fragmentation in available scales and providing a common omnichannel CX measure, this CX scale establishes an empirical foundation for developing CX knowledge and advancing related service research.

Artificial Intelligence as a Service, Economic Growth, and Well-Being

Abstract: The share of artificial intelligence (AI) jobs in total job postings has increased from 0.20% to nearly 1% between 2010 and 2019, but there is significant heterogeneity across cities in the United States (US). Using new data on AI job postings across 343 US cities, combined with data on subjective well-being and economic activity, we uncover the central role that service-based cities play to translate the benefits of AI job growth to subjective well-being. We find that cities with higher growth in AI job postings witnessed higher economic growth. The relationship between AI job growth and economic growth is driven by cities that had a higher concentration of modern (or professional) services. AI job growth also leads to an increase in the state of well-being. The transmission channel of AI job growth to increased subjective well-being is explained by the positive relationship between AI jobs and economic growth. These results are consistent with models of structural transformation where technological change leads to improvements in well-being through improvements in economic activity. Our results suggest that AI-driven economic growth, while still in the early days, could also raise overall well-being and social welfare, especially when the pre-existing industrial structure had a higher concentration of modern (or professional) services.

Modular Service Design of Information Technology-Enabled Services

Abstract: The literature has proposed ways to modularize information-technology-enabled services (ITeS) with limited success. We argue that applying design principles (DPs) can address this gap and revitalize the service modularization literature. With a qualitative research study, we develop exemplar DPs and a set of prioritized DPs for ITeS. We contribute to the literature by demonstrating how complex service systems, specifically ITeS, can be modularly designed. Our DPs show how different ITeS design elements or service attribute combinations impact the outcome-driven design of service experience. Based on the findings, we present a modular service design framework and a service design method that adopts DPs to create effective modular ITeS designs. We also offer ways to conceptualize and apply service modularization to improve the adoption of the modular service design by service designers and managers. Graphical Abstract

Toward Multisensory Customer Experiences: A Cross-Disciplinary Bibliometric Review and Future Research Directions

Abstract: An in-depth understanding of multisensory customer experiences could inform and transform service experiences across the touchpoints of customer journeys. Sensory research in service and marketing disciplines mostly refers to individual senses in isolation. However, relevant insights could be gleaned from other disciplines to explore the multisensory nature of customer experiences. Noting the fragmented state of research surrounding such topics, the current article presents a systematic, objective overview of the content and theoretical foundations underlying the notion of multisensory customer experiences. Seeking a holistic understanding and research agenda for service research, the authors adopt both text mining and co-citation analyses overlaying findings from the cross-disciplinary foundation to uncover relevant theoretical, conceptual, and methodological developments. The resulting research agenda encourages scholars to employ diverse theories and methods to investigate multisensory stimuli, their integration, and perception, as well as the link between multisensory customer experiences and emotions. These insights then can inform the design of multisensory omnichannel service experiences.

Do You Mind if I Ask You a Personal Question? How AI Service Agents Alter Consumer Self-Disclosure

Abstract: The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has grown rapidly in the service industry and AI’s emotional capabilities have become an important feature for interacting with customers. The current research examines personal disclosures that occur during consumer interactions with AI and humans in service settings. We found that consumers’ lay beliefs about AI (i.e., a perceived lack of social judgment capability) lead to enhanced disclosure of sensitive personal information to AI (vs. humans). We identify boundaries for this effect such that consumers prefer disclosure to humans over AI in (i) contexts where social support (rather than social judgment) is expected and (ii) contexts where sensitive information will be curated by the agent for social dissemination. In addition, we reveal underlying psychological processes such that the motivation to avoid negative social judgment favors disclosing to AI whereas seeking emotional support favors disclosing to humans. Moreover, we reveal that adding humanlike factors to AI can increase consumer fear of social judgment (reducing disclosure in contexts of social risk) while simultaneously increasing perceived AI capacity for empathy (increasing disclosure in contexts of social support). Taken together, these findings provide theoretical and practical insights into tradeoffs between utilizing AI versus human agents in service contexts.

Social Media Communication and Company Value: The Moderating Role of Industry Competitiveness

Abstract: Existing research demonstrates that industry competitiveness influences the effectiveness of marketing actions. However, limited scholarly attention has been paid to how service companies should communicate on social media under different levels of industry competitiveness. The current research seeks to address this gap in the literature by analyzing social media communication, brand impression, and financial data from two large samples of service companies and by employing state-of-the-art methods of machine learning. Study 1 demonstrates that industry competitiveness positively (negatively) moderates the impact of persuasive tone (volume) of social media communications on company value. We argue that these effects stem from investors’ expectations about the impact of these communication styles in facilitating differentiation and improving brand impressions in a congested competitive environment. Consistent with this mechanism, Study 2 reveals that as an industry becomes more cluttered, persuasive tone (volume) becomes more (less) effective in impacting consumers’ brand impressions. The findings provide important insights for service companies that operate under different levels of industry competitiveness.

AI Service and Emotion

Abstract: AI in service can be for routine mechanical tasks, analytical thinking tasks, or empathetic feeling tasks. We provide a conceptual framework for the customer, firm, and interactional use of AI for empathetic tasks at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. Emotions resulting from AI service interactions can include basic emotions (e.g., joy, sadness, and fear), self-conscious emotions (e.g., pride, guilt, embarrassment), and moral emotions (e.g., contempt, righteous anger, social disgust). These emotions are mostly likely to occur during frontline interactions in which both firms and customers use AI, a phenomenon called “AI as customer.” The analysis level of AI service and emotion can be at the macro-level in which AI is transforming the service economy into a feeling economy, at the meso-level in which firms can use “thoughtful AI” to make the employees’ and customers’ lives a little bit better by brightening their days, and at the micro-level in which customers can experience basic, self-conscious, and moral emotions from interactions with service AI.

To go or to let it go: A regulatory focus perspective on Bundle Consumption

Abstract: Despite the widespread reliance on service bundles across industries (examples include theater season-tickets, vacation packages, and annual sports passes), the impact of consumer-specific factors on the post-purchase consumptions of such bundles has received limited academic attention. Drawing on regulatory focus theory, we show that a consumer’s regulatory orientation influences the consumption of service bundles, and that the impacts are mediated by construal level. Using six studies (including a field study and a quasi-field experiment using Twitter data) we illustrate that prevention-focused individuals demonstrate concrete construal and are better able to resolve the ambiguity in allocating costs and benefits to individual bundle components, leading to higher consumption. By examining the role of a consumer’s regulatory orientation, our work advances the theoretical understanding of consumer behavior in response to the bundling of services. We make an important methodological contribution by demonstrating how text-mining can be innovatively utilized to analyze consumer posts on Twitter to infer regulatory focus and understand service bundle consumption. Our studies provide practical guidance to managers seeking to infer (using publicly available Twitter data and consumer-provided inputs during purchase) and prime (using advertisements and nudges) regulatory focus to understand/influence service consumption.

How Online Incivility Affects Consumer Engagement Behavior on Brands’ Social Media

Abstract: Research on consumer engagement in social media is flourishing. However, online incivility is rampant and its effect on consumer engagement is unknown. The current work posits long-term consumer engagement with a brand is decreased when consumer-to-consumer uncivil interactions take place on brands’ social media channels. Using behavioral data from Facebook, the first study documents that a consumer’s incivility to another consumer increases the victim’s engagement in the short term but decreases their engagement over the long term. Further, a brand’s response mitigates these effects. Two follow-up studies using scenario-based experiments provide evidence that consumer injustice perceptions mediate a confrontation coping strategy, while ostracism perceptions mediate an avoidance coping strategy. The experiments also evidence that a brand response mitigates some of the effects of incivility. However, an uncivil interaction from a brand advocate can ostracize a victim despite a brand response. Together, our work furthers consumer engagement and consumer incivility theory while also suggesting that practitioners should manage incivility on brands’ social media pages. Graphical Abstract

Healing the Digital Divide With Digital Inclusion: Enabling Human Capabilities

Abstract: The “digital divide” refers to societal-level inequalities of digital access, capabilities, and outcomes. To explore how the digital divide affects customers experiencing vulnerability, service interactions in essential service settings (health care, education, and social services) were empirically investigated and practices service system members might adopt to address vulnerability were identified. This research upframes the pillars of service inclusion framework to define human capabilities that result from service inclusion practices. Three research topics were addressed: how the digital divide affects vulnerability (RQ1), how the digital divide can be addressed through service inclusion practices (RQ2), and how service inclusion practices enable human capabilities for digital inclusion (RQ3). The findings illuminate: (1) how service employees can engage in service inclusion practices to address the digital divide (by letting go of rules and perspectives, sharing control, providing services beyond job scope, and facilitating social connections), and (2) how these service inclusion practices build human capabilities for digital inclusion (by building basic skills and capabilities for meaningful outcomes through role modeling, coaching, customer-to-customer mentoring, and expanding networks). Contributions include conceptual models of service inclusion practices and fostering digital inclusion that specify a new meso level service organization pathway for healing the digital divide.

Constructive Resistance in the Frontlines: How Frontline Employees’ Resistance to Customer Incivility Affects Customer Observers

Abstract: Frontline employees (FLEs) often face customer incivility—rude or demeaning remarks, verbal aggression, or hostile gestures. Although incivility from customers is rising at an alarming rate, most organizations refuse to act decisively to protect their FLEs and stop customer incivility. This research asserts that an organizational policy of ignoring and accepting incivility from customers is neither a wise business strategy nor has positive outcomes. In contrast, customer incivility should be handled promptly and decisively. Specifically, the authors present FLE Constructive Resistance (FLE CR) as a strategy to confront customer incivility. The authors conduct interviews with FLEs, develop a Constructive Resistance (CR) scale to fit the context of FLE–customer encounters, and test a conceptual model to examine the impact of CR by FLEs. The results suggest that customers who observe incivility perpetrated by fellow customers respond positively to FLE CR, including greater future purchase intention, greater positive word-of-mouth intention, and reduced future misbehavior intention. These effects are mediated by the observer’s perceived fairness of the FLE’s CR. Finally, the indirect effects of FLE’s CR on observer outcomes are more likely to manifest in customers with higher moral identity as well as newer customers.

Driving Retail Cross-Selling

Abstract: Cross-selling is one of the most important sales strategies retail organizations adopted to drive business revenue and increase customer lifetime value. While considerable efforts have been devoted to developing data-based cross-selling models, little is known about how and when store managers can drive frontline service employees (FSEs) to cross-sell. Drawing on work meaningfulness literature, we propose that a high-quality resource exchange relationship with the store manager (i.e., leader–member exchange, LMX) endows FSEs’ work with meaningfulness of serving others, which in turn promotes their engagement in cross-selling. We further contend that when store managers possess high person-organization fit, the impact of their LMX relationships on FSEs’ work meaningfulness of serving others and subsequent cross-selling would be stronger. A three-wave survey data from 166 FSEs and their store managers in a retail chain in China (i.e., Study 1) and an experiment among 120 U.S.-based working employees (i.e., Study 2) support our predictions. The present research offers important theoretical and practical implications for retailing management area. Graphical Abstract

Customer–Salesperson Price Negotiations During Exceptional Demand Contractions

Abstract: Extant literature has studied how customer–salesperson price negotiations evolve in “normal” circumstances. However, recent economic recessions illustrate the need to advance theory on the question of how price negotiations evolve in “abnormal” times when customer demand significantly contracts beyond expected variation. In response to this gap in the literature, this study uses a multi-method design to investigate price negotiations during exceptional demand contractions. Our results from a theories-in-use study reveal that during such circumstances, salespeople’s perceived dependency on customers increases while customers’ perceived dependency on salespeople decreases. The inherent “power shift” should benefit customers in subsequent price negotiations. However, customers are less likely to capitalize on their power if they have a close relationship with a salesperson, implying that salespeople do not have to concede on price negotiations. This effect is likely due to increased sympathy during periods of exceptional demand contractions. The authors further validate key propositions from this qualitative study in a field study and a scenario-based experiment. Altogether, this study suggests that managers should not be too hasty in approving and encouraging salespeople to offer unnecessary price discounts during exceptional demand contractions as buyers may become more sympathetic and lenient during price negotiations. Graphical Abstract

Glocalization in Service Cultures: Tensions in Customers’ Service Expectations and Experiences

Abstract: In the global world, service cultures interact. The co-shaping interaction of local and global service cultures is a form of glocalization. In China, interaction between traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicine (WM) has produced glocalized versions of both services. Through analysis of customers’ experience of healthcare service in southwestern China, this paper addresses two research questions: What distinctive cultural resources do informants associate with WM and TCM? And how do tensions emerge in the contrast between customers’ expected and experienced cultural resources in glocalized healthcare service? The resource integration construct provides theoretical language to analyze customers’ service experiences in glocalized service cultures. One theoretical contribution resulting from this analysis is showing that culturally specific resources embedded in service systems emerge phenomenologically through resource integration in customers’ experiences. A second theoretical contribution resulting from this analysis is demonstrating how the mix of culturally specific resources from two glocalized services causes tensions and effects how experience is interpreted and valued. The article’s managerial contribution is a four-step culture-comparative resource framework. The framework can help managers identify tensions in customer expectations and experiences in glocalized service and identify needed changes to facilitate customers’ positive service experiences.

Conscious Empathic AI in Service

Abstract: Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have achieved human-scale speed and accuracy for classification tasks. Current systems do not need to be conscious to recognize patterns and classify them. However, for AI to advance to the next level, it needs to develop capabilities such as metathinking, creativity, and empathy. We contend that such a paradigm shift is possible through a fundamental change in the state of artificial intelligence toward consciousness, similar to what took place for humans through the process of natural selection and evolution. To that end, we propose that consciousness in AI is an emergent phenomenon that primordially appears when two machines cocreate their own language through which they can recall and communicate their internal state of time-varying symbol manipulation. Because, in our view, consciousness arises from the communication of inner states, it leads to empathy. We then provide a link between the empathic quality of machines and better service outcomes associated with empathic human agents that can also lead to accountability in AI services. Graphical Abstract

Can (A)I Give You a Ride? Development and Validation of the CRUISE Framework for Autonomous Vehicle Services

Abstract: Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly enabling firms to develop services that utilize autonomous vehicles (AVs). Yet, there are significant psychological barriers to adoption, and insights from extant literature are insufficient to understand customer emotions regarding AV services. To allow for a holistic exploration of customer perspectives, we synthesize multidisciplinary literature to develop the Customer Responses to Unmanned Intelligent-transport Services based on Emotions (CRUISE) framework, which lays the foundation for improved strategizing, targeting, and positioning of AV services. We subsequently provide empirical support for several propositions underpinning the CRUISE framework using representative multinational panel data (N = 27,565) and an implicit association test (N = 300). We discover four distinct customer segments based on their preferred degree of service autonomy and service risk. The segments also differ in terms of the valence and intensity of emotional responses to fully autonomous vehicle services. Additionally, exposure to positive information about AV services negatively correlates with the likelihood of membership in the two most resistant segments. Our contribution to service research is chiefly twofold; we provide: 1) a formal treatise of AV services, emphasizing their uniqueness and breadth of application, and 2) empirically validated managerial directions for effective strategizing based on the CRUISE framework.

Putting Data Privacy Regulation into Action: The Differential Capabilities of Service Frontline Interfaces

Abstract: Service frontline encounters between customers and service providers have been subject to fundamental changes in recent years. As two major change agents, technology infusion and data privacy regulations are inextricably linked and constitute a critical ethical and societal issue. Specifically, service frontlines—as represented by human or technological agents, or some hybrid form—rely on customer data for service provision, which subjects them to privacy regulations governing the collection, submission, access, and use of any customer data thus captured. However, scant research outlines the significant implications of evolving data privacy regulations for service frontline encounters. To advance knowledge in this domain, this research distills six key dimensions of global data privacy regulations (fairness, data limits, transparency, control, consent, and recourse). Employing an intelligences theoretical lens, the authors theorize how these dimensions might become differentially manifest across three service frontline interface types (human-based, technology-based, and hybrid). Carefully intersecting the need for varying intelligences across data privacy regulatory dimensions with the abilities of service frontline interfaces to harness each intelligence type, this study offers a novel conceptual framework that advances research and practice. Theoretical, managerial, and policy implications unfold from the proposed framework, which also can inform a future research agenda.

Periodic Versus Aggregate Donations: Leveraging Donation Frequencies to Cultivate the Regular Donor Portfolio

Abstract: Charitable organizations play a key role in society but face the recurrent challenge of obtaining sufficient resources to accomplish their missions. The regular donor portfolio becomes a critical element in providing stable and long-lasting funding, and its effective management has emerged as a key research area. This study investigates the impact of the donation frequency by regular donors on their donation amount over time. Drawing from temporal reframing literature, we provide an understanding of these effects as well as the moderating role of the motivations to donate (self- vs other-oriented). The study also investigates the extent to which frequency choices are influenced by the motivations to donate and by the donation options presented during registration. Using a sample of regular donors from 2013 to 2019 and applying dynamic panel data techniques, the findings reveal that higher frequencies lead to higher donations, though this effect is strengthened by self-oriented motivations and weakened by other-oriented motivations. Our study shows that motivations to donate and donation options jointly explain donation frequencies. This study provides useful guidance for charities on how to increase regular donors’ perceived value and their contributions to help these organizations provide essential services to the most vulnerable groups in society. Graphical Abstract

Using Information-Seeking Argument Mining to Improve Service

Abstract: If service providers can identify reasons users are in favor of or against a service, they have insightful information that can help them understand user behavior and what they need to do to change such behavior. This article argues that the novel text-mining technique referred to as information-seeking argument mining (IS-AM) can identify these reasons. The empirical study applies IS-AM to news articles and reviews about electric scooter-sharing systems (i.e., a service enabling the short-term rentals of electric motorized scooters). Its results point to IS-AM as a promising technique to improve service; the data enable the authors to identify 40 reasons to use or not use electric scooter-sharing systems, as well as their importance to users. Furthermore, the results show that news articles are better data sources than reviews because they are longer and contain more arguments and, thus, reasons.

Pathways to Service System Smartness for Firms

Abstract: As smart technology develops at an ever-increasing pace, firms are investing heavily in boosting the smartness of their service systems. To support these endeavors, practitioners and researchers call for guidance on how to account for customers’ complex needs and wants when making smartness decisions. This research adopts the firm’s perspective on investigating how and why decisions on smartness are undertaken. It examines how firms configure the smartness of service systems and communicate the intended value to customers through value propositions. Critically, it further unravels why firms make these decisions on the basis of their reasoning about aligning resources to create value for customers—that is, the firm’s value creation logic. Our analysis of multiple case studies across several industry sectors reveals a number of pathways to service system smartness. These are labeled cautious, tailored, premium, and balanced pathways, and each entails specific combinations of smartness configurations and customer value propositions, underpinned by particular logics. A more nuanced analysis shows that firms may pursue multiple pathways simultaneously when targeting different customer segments and indicates how firms’ characteristics may shape their pathways to smartness. The resulting framework can operate as a guiding tool for managers and consultants when making important smartness decisions.

Ambient Temperature in Online Service Environments

Abstract: Ambient Temperature in Online Service environments (ATOS) is a sensory cue not directly accessible in current online servicescape technology, but inferred from secondary cues, particularly visual ones. This study integrates research on cross-modal inferences with a situated cognitions framework and the stereotype content model to show that ATOS enhances judgment of service provider warmth, in turn influencing important service outcomes. A pilot study explores the linkages between consumer online and offline experiences, providing evidence for online service environments’ capacity (especially ATOS) to shape customer judgment and behavior. Study 1 examines a tropical island holiday resort to show that online representations of the environment evoke situated cognitions and preferences consistent with high ambient temperature. Study 2 uses virtual tours of cafés to demonstrate that ATOS, through judgment of service provider warmth, positively influences purchase intention and other managerially important service outcomes. Study 3 employs 12 service contexts to replicate ATOS effects, mediated through warmth, and to show that effects are stronger in contexts where service provision is directed more at objects (vs. people). Given that ambient temperature is ubiquitous in all types of service settings and easily adjusted by practitioners, managerial implications outline how service marketers can more effectively employ ATOS.