Does emotional labor moderate customer participation and buying?

Two studies examined whether employees’ emotional labor as perceived by customers, moderates the relationship between customers’ participation and money spent. In Study I, 30 in-depth interviews were conducted with customers to examine participation during shopping as well as customers’ awareness of their service employees’ behaviors. The interviews revealed two types of customer participation: emotional engagement and physical effort. Based on Study I, Study II investigated 114 customers, and the moderating role of perceived employees’ emotional labor on the relationships between customer participation and spending money. Even when customers were highly involved in the purchasing process, they spent less money when they observed employee inauthenticity as manifested in Surface Acting. However, Deep Acting positively moderated the relationship between customer participation and spending money. These findings help shed light on the circumstances in which customer participation is strengthened (leading to greater spending) or weakened.     

Clarifying the Relationship between Involvement Variables and Advertising Effectiveness among Young People

Previous research has indicated the need for an in-depth investigation of the role of involvement variables in advertising information processing among young people, in view of the unsuitability of existing adult persuasion models for a young population, the inadequate consideration of involvement variables among young people and the unique characteristics of this population. This study examined the effects of advertising involvement and product involvement on advertising effectiveness among young people, using a quantitative study of 252 4–15-year olds. Results show that advertising involvement and product involvement had a positive direct effect on ad effectiveness. In addition, all endogenous variables—subjective product knowledge, peer and parent influence and age—had an indirect effect on ad effectiveness, via advertising involvement and product involvement. Interestingly, subjective product knowledge and peer influence had no direct effect on ad effectiveness, but rather only an indirect effect. This study presents a more accurate depiction of the complexity of the process and shows that advertising involvement and product involvement contribute to a better understanding of the process among young people.     

Healthier for whom? Technological service improvement in the healthcare industry

This study tackles the dilemma of a technology-based service improvement wherein an organization performs a technology change to improve its service process, while its customers do not necessarily perceive the new service as an improvement. The empirical research follows a healthcare provider that changed its primary care provider appointment scheduling using a new call centre technology. The methodology involves three processes reflecting the entire change: personal interviews, focus groups, and surveys. To facilitate adoption of a technology-based service, it is recommended that there be a focus on customers’ experience with similar service industries’ image, and organizational policies on contracting service representatives.     

Disparate satisfaction scores? Consider your customer’s country-of-origin: a case study

Although post-transaction surveys (i.e. trailer calls) allow service organizations to better understand their customers, these surveys inherently assume that all customers have the same service expectations of the organization’s service quality. This research reveals that telecommunications customers from different countries of origin have different service expectations; thus, post-transaction surveys based on this assumption can be flawed. We conduct in-depth interviews with recent immigrants in Israel, as well as local customers, to evaluate their expectations of their remote (i.e. telephone) service recovery encounters. Interviews included customers from each of the three primary regions from which they originated: Israel (home), former Soviet Union, and Ethiopia. The data show that the organization’s customers have vastly different expectations of how the firm should handle a called-in service failure, which influenced their post-transaction survey scores. Organizations must realize that their customers have varying service expectations due to cultural influences, which in turn affect their post-transaction survey scores.     

Unemployment compensation under partial program coverage

More than half of the unemployed in the U.S. are not covered by unemployment insurance. For them the provision of employment-dependent UI creates an additional benefit from work: future UI eligibility. This paper explores the overall and distributional effects of providing unemployment compensation under partial coverage. I extend a standard search model to accommodate eligible and non-eligible workers, where eligibility status is determined by previous separation history. While the effect of unemployment benefits on unemployment duration and post unemployment wages is theoretically ambiguous, a calibration of the model to the U.S. economy shows that unemployment benefits raise the unemployment rate. In addition I show that wage gaps and unemployment duration differentials between the eligible and non-eligible exist and are larger when layoffs are high.