The Effect of Internet Expertise on Offline Expectations

ABSTRACT

Because the Internet enhances consumer control over online marketing transactions, more expert web users are hypothesized to generalize this web expertise to their expectations of offline service encounters. This hypothesis is supported for consumers with moderate web expertise as compared to those with little web expertise. However, web users with high levels of expertise have lower expectations of offline encounters than those with moderate expertise. The lower expectations of the most expert web users are likely to be due to a lower level of involvement with offline service encounter, a greater awareness and use of online information by the most expert, and possibly a greater propensity to distinguish between online and offline encounters.     

An exploratory study of determinants for restaurant servers’ actual tip earnings: Individual characteristics and work conditions

This exploratory study investigates two different types of determinants for servers’ actual tip earnings (individual characteristics versus work conditions) using readily available organizational data. Unlike previous studies that measured servers’ tips by asking subjects (servers or customers) to report tip amounts, we measure the actual tip earnings of each server extracted from the point of sale system. The results show that work conditions (daily work hours, weekend work hours, and immediate supervisors’ characteristics) have stronger relationships with servers’ tip earnings than servers’ individual characteristics (gender, tenure, and job satisfaction). This study represents an initial attempt to use objective data to measure servers’ tip earnings and explore its potential relationship with work conditions compared to its relationships with individual characteristics which have been frequently examined in previous studies.     

Restaurant tipping and service quality A tenuous relationship

The connection between service quality and tip sizes is tenuous at best, as shown by an analysis of 14 studies (involving 2,645 dining parties at 21 different restaurants) that examined the relationship between service and tips. The meta-analysis of the studies sought to statistically combine 24 correlations between tipping and service. While the studies taken together found that, indeed, tips increased with the perceived quality of service, the relationship was weak enough to raise doubts about the use of tips to motivate servers, measure server performance, or identify dissatisfied customers.     

Allied Breweries and the Development of the Area Manager in British Brewing, 1950-1984

Brewing in the United Kingdom in the years following 1950 sawa shift from a production to a retailing orientation. As partof this shift, the role of the area manager started to movefrom production and sales discipline to retail development.This article explores the job of the area manager during theperiod, seeking to demonstrate the weakness in recent accountsthat suggest that area managers serve only as an "informationrelay" between senior managers and unit managers. Although theevidence is limited, because of problems with the survival ofrecords, it suggests a more complex picture, which has implicationsfor area managers in retail and service industries more generally.     

Task‐Relationship‐Self: A Framework for Understanding Service Encounter Behaviors

Research conducted over past decades has investigated selected service encounter behaviors from either a customer or service provider perspective. However, a comprehensive, dual‐perspective framework is lacking. Such a framework is needed to organize knowledge of these behaviors, and thereby provide structure, clarity, and parsimony to the field. This paper describes a three‐tier framework of service encounter behavior that was developed by applying grounded theory principles to interviews with customers, service employees, and other stakeholders. These informants described many ways in which they behave when executing service exchanges, dealing with service difficulties, and managing themselves in the process. Using an iterative inductive approach, a conceptual framework was developed in which specific (Tier 1) behaviors were placed within broader (Tier 2) categories, and these lower classification levels were, in turn, interpreted within a conceptual space defined by the (Tier 3) dimensions of task, relationship, and self. This framework was then elaborated and refined by reference to the psychology and marketing literature, a set of 157 audio‐recorded service interactions, and an expert panel study. The paper includes comparisons between the framework and those previously proposed, propositions regarding service encounter processes and outcomes, and implications for future research and practice.     

Tipping in New Zealand's restaurants

Tipping has not been common practice in New Zealand, and was formerly actively discouraged. The influence of international travelers, particularly from the United States, seems to have contributed to the custom's becoming more prevalent. At the time of this study, tipping in New Zealand remained a voluntary extra payment given for genuinely superior service. Few table servers counted on tips and sincerely appreciated receiving them. An increase in tipping is not without consequences, however. The service relationships involving managers, servers, and customers are altered by the expectation of tips. In addition, dividing tip pools sometimes causes friction among workers.     

The joint effect of flirting and emotional labor on customer service-related outcomes

The current studies examined why hospitality employees flirt with customers, and the interaction between flirting and authentic or faked emotional displays. In Study 1, 245 restaurant servers reported their flirting motivations, emotional labor strategy, and perceived rapport. Flirting motivations had a positive effect on rapport when servers engaged in either surface acting or deep acting but not when servers engaged less in emotional labor strategies. In Study 2, 130 servers reported their flirting displays, emotional labor strategies and tip sizes. Flirting displays only increased tips when deep acting was involved. The theoretical and practical implications of flirting are discussed.     

The influence of customer-to-customer interactions and role typology on customer reaction

The service encounter is an important topic in service management. Although researchers have argued that customer-to-customer interactions may affect customers' evaluation of the service experience in service encounter contexts, the impact of customer-to-customer interaction on customer reaction has not been sufficiently studied. Consequently, the objective of this research is to investigate the relationship between customer-to-customer interactions, role typology and customer reaction. This research adopted questionnaires to investigate tourists traveling to foreign areas and concluded that the perception of customer-to-customer interaction incidents could be extracted into six factors. ‘Protocol and sociability incidents’ have a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction; ‘malcontent incidents’ have a negative impact; ‘crude incidents’ and ‘malcontent incidents’ have significant negative impact on customer loyalty; and finally, the customer's role typology moderates the relationship between ‘protocol and sociability incidents’ and customer satisfaction.     

Language and power in India's “new services”

Language is at the heart of service interactions and a crucial element influencing the relationship between service provider and customer. As a specific form of symbolic capital, language can also be used to exclude and dominate. Our research looks at the role of language in shaping the power dynamic between service providers and customers in the Indian context. This study builds from extensive fieldwork conducted in the area of “new services”, following Indian gym trainers and coffee shop baristas as they interact with elite English-speaking clients. The findings detail how English operates as an invisible boundary in service settings, by excluding Indians who do not speak it with fluency. However, when used to develop expert knowledge, language also becomes an opportunity for lower middle class Indians to resist and invert the domination of the elite.     

相知服务与相遇服务之差异性

美国亚利桑那大学教授古德克和商业作家威尔史在2000年合著的《勇敢的新服务策略》一书中,提出了相知服务与相遇服务的概念,在服务内容、顾客获取服务的方式、服务速度、服务便捷性、服务成本、服务人员与顾客情感交流方式、顾客反馈问题方式、服务效率度量难易程度、管理服务供求关系难易程度、顾客忠诚度、服务提供者报酬方式、员工满意度、经理职责、企业盈利水平方面存在差异,区分这些差异,有助于指导不同类别的服务企业制定有针对性的营销和管理对策。     

Metaphorical communication,self-presentation,and consumer inference in service encounters

In service encounters, the meaning inferred by a customer is a result of verbal and visual communication. This research focuses on how visual metaphorical communication in a service encounter can evoke the concept of power. We show that when representation of the service provider is at the bottom (versus top) of an image, the consumer's perception of their own power is increased (Study 1). Study 2 demonstrates that power perceptions interact with self-presentational motives to influence intentions to use the service. Further, perceptions of power mediate the effect of visual representation on usage intentions. This occurs only when consumption is public and self-presentational concerns are high. In Study 3, we demonstrate that when the concept of power has little applicability, visual representation of perceived power does not affect intentions to use the service provider. Further, only individuals with a high need for status access the conceptual link between power and visual representation (Study 4). Together, the results further our understanding of the use of visual metaphorical communication in a service encounter.     

Does tipping help to attract and retain better service workers?

A survey of several hundred restaurant servers in the United States found that servers’ attitudes toward working for tips and average tip sizes were weakly related (at best) to their service-orientation, intended job-tenure, and occupational-tenure. These findings suggest that tipping does not substantially help to attract and retain more service-oriented workers. Restaurateurs can eliminate tipping at their restaurants without fear that doing so will reduce the quality of their wait-staff.     

Leveraging perceived HPWS to improve service encounter quality in high-contact service industries

This study utilizes social exchange theory to explicate how perceived high-performance work systems (perceived HPWS) improve service encounter quality through overall justice and psychological contract fulfillment processes. We amassed survey responses from focal employees and their respective customers in three waves. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the impact of perceived HPWS on service encounter quality via overall justice and psychological contract fulfillment. Results from structural equation modeling affirmed a positive and direct association between perceived HPWS and service encounter quality. Additionally, the positive relationship between perceived HPWS and service encounter quality was uniquely and serially mediated by overall justice and psychological contract fulfillment. The current study makes a novel contribution by revealing how high-contact service organizations can leverage frontline employees' (rather than managers') perception of HPWS to optimize service encounter quality.     

Sales employees’ polychronicity and sales-service ambidexterity: Mediation of work engagement and moderation of store manager support

Sales employees are encountered with increasing job demands and volatile changes in the retail environment. In particular, the adoption of smart technologies in the retail sector has pressurized sales employees to be versatile and agile in the new marketplace. In this sense, performing multiple tasks within a limited time frame has become an important quality required for sales employees. Grounded in the job demands-resources model, we proposed that sales employees’ individualized resource (i.e., polychronicity) would be positively related to their sales-service ambidexterity though work engagement. We further posited that an organizational resource (i.e., store manager support) synergistically interacted with polychronicity to predict work engagement and subsequent sales–service ambidexterity. To test propositions, we collected multilevel data from 292 sales employees in 43 home-furnishing stores in India. Results demonstrated that the positive association among work engagement, polychronicity, and sales–service ambidexterity was more pronounced when store manager support was high than when it was low. These findings offer implications to overcome challenges faced by retail stores by indicating factors predicting sales–service ambidexterity in retail.     

Value Co-Creation in Health Care: A Phenomenological Examination of the Doctor-Patient Encounter

Considering the increasing conceptualization of value co-creation, this study seeks to empirically understand the value co-creation process through a phenomenological approach to further understand the doctor-patient encounter process leading to value outcomes in a public healthcare context. Three key thematic areas of the co-creation process were identified: the encounter process, consumption experience, and value outcomes. The findings reveal the importance of trust, role clarity, and actor experiences in clinical encounters. Both actors placed emphasis on the emotional, cognitive, social, and behavioral responses in encounters that consequently affect their value outcomes that include receiving treatment, getting well, improved well-being, improved compliance, reduced visits to health facilities, and enhanced service engagement between the actors. This study contributes to these dyadic interactions to gain comprehensive knowledge of how these encounter processes and experiences are perceived by the actors to influence the effectiveness of public and professional services.     

Service worker appearance and the retail service encounter: the influence of gender and age

This study explores how the age and gender of service workers influence customers' perceptions of the retail service encounter in a health and beauty retailer. An analysis of qualitative interviews with 40 customers and 20 service workers suggests that customers seek reassurance in the service encounter by ‘matching’ and ‘mirroring’ the age and gender of customer-facing staff with their expectations of who should deliver appropriate service during the retail service encounter. These non-verbal cues, as a way of assessing the credibility of the service provider, are particularly important when customers are involved in high-involvement purchase occasions.     

In pursuit of service encounter quality: Will service-oriented high-performance work systems benefit high-contact service industries?

Integrating social exchange and psychological contract theories, this study examines how perceived service-oriented high-performance work systems (service-oriented HPWS) augment high-contact service organizations to improve their service encounter quality. In addition, it also tests the impact of psychological contract fulfillment, innovative work behavior, and prosocial service behavior as parallel and serial mediating variables in the relationship between service-oriented HPWS and service encounter quality. Using survey data collected in three-time lags from 394 full-time frontline employees and their customers across high-contact service contexts, direct and indirect effects of service-oriented HPWS on service encounter quality were tested employing structural equation modeling. The results revealed that service-oriented HPWS is positively associated with service encounter quality via psychological contract fulfillment, innovative work behavior, and prosocial service behavior. The study contributes to the extant literature by integrating social exchange and psychological contract theories in explicating the impact of service-oriented HPWS on service encounter quality.     

Leveraging employee emotional intelligence in casino profitability

Drawing on the link between service quality and casino profitability, this paper describes the roles of frontline employees in delivering casino service quality and analyses how management can nurture employee emotional intelligence's (EEI) contribution to casino revenue growth. This study is conceptual in nature. The analysis builds from identifying the emotional contents embracing service encounter involving casino frontline employees and customers. The identification area approaches from emotional work performed by employees, referred to as emotional labor, the emotional service delivered by casinos, customer attributed emotions and emotional contagion. The study comprehensively analyses how EEI can manage and regulate emotionally charged service encounters which subsequently affect customers’ perception of employee behaviours and service performance over service encounters. These encounter performance forms customers’ perception of casino service quality which leads to customer loyalty and ultimately casino profitability. This theory-focused study presents an additional venue with great potential for casinos to enhance business performance and financial growth, as well as providing new insights into the role of EEI in organizations for researchers in the relevant field.     

Positive gender congruency effects on shopper responses: Field evidence from a gender egalitarian culture

This field study examined how customer-employee interactions are affected by the congruency between an employee's gender and the perceived gender image of the consumption context in one of the most gender equal cultures in the world (Scandinavia). Mystery shoppers had a service encounter with an employee across a set of physical commercial settings that were classified according to their gender image. The mystery shoppers noted the gender of the employee, provided employee evaluations, and indicated word-of-mouth (WOM) ratings. Shoppers who had a gender congruent service encounter (e.g., a female employee in a “feminine” consumption context) reported more favorable employee evaluations and WOM ratings than shoppers who had a gender incongruent service encounter (e.g., a female employee in a “masculine” consumption context), with the impact of gender congruency on WOM ratings mediated by employee evaluations, particularly with respect to competence inferences. These findings highlight the ethical dilemma of a positive gender congruency effect, as it can generate superior consumer responses but also risks resulting in gender occupational segregation.     

An Exploratory Approach to Evaluating Performance Measures: The Managers' Perspective

It is commonly agreed that firm performance is a multi-faceted construct. Lacking a single accepted method for performance, managers are often judged by a mechanism they do not know or understand. This paper utilises a bottom-up approach to investigate manager perceptions of the important dimensions of performance in the hotel industry, and their evaluations of achievements in these dimensions. The paper offers a qualitative technique that characterises the managers' profile in a two-dimensional space of performance. One dimension is a composite of production-oriented indicators of performance, and the other is a composite of service-oriented indicators of performance. The findings indicate that most managers lack a focus and do not differentiate between production and service indicators of performance. The qualitative technique can be utilised for gauging manager perceptions of performance and for evaluation and feedback for manager performance.