When it pays to have a friend on the inside: contingent effects of buyer advocacy on B2B suppliers

As organizational buying systems grow more complex and sophisticated, suppliers increasingly rely on buyer advocacy: an individual buyer’s efforts to influence his/her colleagues such that the supplier’s standing is improved. Drawing from cognitive response theory, the authors hypothesize an inverted U-shaped relationship between a buyer’s advocacy for a supplier and the customer’s purchases from that supplier. They theorize that this effect is moderated by the advocate’s industry experience and customer–supplier relationship characteristics. An analysis of multisource data from a B2B service provider (Study 1) supports the predicted inverted U-shaped relationship, while a unique dataset from a large industrial supplier (Study 2) provides broad support for the hypothesized moderators. Finally, a randomized experiment (Study 3) replicates key findings and corroborates the theorized cognitive response mechanisms. Findings contribute to the limited literature on buyer advocacy within the organizational buying domain and offer practical implications for suppliers and buyers.

     

The effects of filled waiting time and service provider control over the delay on evaluations of service

This article reports on an experiment that investigated the effects of a delay, perceived control over a delay, and the extent to which time was filled during the delay on various performance evaluations in a service encounter. It was determined that delays lower customers’ overall evaluations of service and of the tangible and reliability attributes of the service in particular. When delayed, performance evaluations were affected by whether the service provider was perceived to have control over the delay and whether the customer’s waiting time was filled. Overall performance evaluations and performance evaluations of tangibility, reliability, and responsiveness were highest when perceived service provider control was low and the waiting customer’s time was filled. These evaluations were lowest when perceived service provider control was high and waiting time was not filled. She received her Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia.     

Effects of dominance transitions on advice adherence in professional service conversations

For many professional services, advice adherence is a necessary condition for achieving service success for both customers and service providers. Despite their pivotal roles in value co-creation, typical conversational interactions often lead to low adherence. We propose that enabling a “dominance transition,” from provider dominance in the pre-advice stage to customer dominance in the post-advice stage, enhances advice adherence because it increases customers’ perceived common ground. Furthermore, providers’ consultation focus, customers’ prior knowledge, and customers’ perceived adherence effort moderate this process. Using mixed methods, including both empirical modeling and controlled and field experiments, we validate the proposed model in various contexts (healthcare, financial services, and fitness and wellness counseling). The findings establish several theoretical contributions and offer managerial implications for improving advice adherence by managing dominance transitions in conversational interactions more effectively through training service providers or even programming AI chatbots.

     

Customer positivity and participation in services: an empirical test in a health care context

Many service interactions require customers to actively participate, yet customers often do not participate at levels that optimize their outcomes, particularly in health care. To gain insight into how customers shape a service experience with highly uncertain outcomes, we construct a model on the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. The model is used to empirically assess how situation-specific emotions and customer participation during a health care service experience affect perceptions of the service provider. The model is tested using data from 190 medical clinic customers. Consistent with theory, results reveal that as customers’ relative affect levels become more positive, levels of participation increase as well. In turn, higher levels of positivity and participation improve customer perceptions of the quality of the service provider and satisfaction with the co-produced service experience. Implications of this research focus managers on designing services to help clients manage their emotions in ways that facilitate positivity and participation and thus improve service perceptions.     

Developing a deeper understanding of post-purchase perceived risk and behavioral intentions in a service setting

Researchers and service providers have realized that a disproportionate share of a firm’s sales and profits come from a relatively small number of loyal customers that repeatedly purchase the firm’s services. In many service settings, such as health care, repeated interactions between the service provider and the client are necessary for service delivery. While service quality is certainly important, it is also important that customers’ perceptions of perceived risk are taken into account and that customers perceive a degree of control over the services provided. We develop a conceptual model of linkages between the physical environment of the service, perceived control over the service and service quality and, demonstrate through two empirical studies, how these factors affect perceived risk and post-purchase behavioral intentions. Both studies were conducted in health care settings. In the first study, we collected data using a mail survey of 192 patients after their treatment from a regional hospital. In the second study, survey data were collected from 101 patients of a specialized clinic providing alternative therapies within a major hospital. Our results provide confirmation that the favorable physical environment of the service setting enhances perceived control and perceptions of service quality. Moreover, perceived control and perceived quality of the service provider reduces post-purchase perceived risk. Finally, post-purchase perceived risk reduces behavioral intentions, while perceived quality of the service provider enhances behavioral intentions. Authors contributed equally to the research.     

网络交易平台服务商行为的垄断性分析——以淘宝商城为视角

淘宝商城作为一个网络交易平台的服务商,发布“新规”,大幅提高年费和保证金,该事件又引发对中国互联网产业在某些相关市场上的寡头垄断和滥用支配地位问题,本文以淘宝商城为例,系统地从反垄断法中的经营者、市场支配地位的界定及其相关市场的认定,与是否滥用市场支配地位等方面,来论证网络交易平台服务商行为能否构成垄断。     

Angry customers don't come back,they get back: The experience and behavioral implications of anger and dissatisfaction in services

This article investigates the specific experience of anger and dissatisfaction and their effects on customers' behavioral responses to failed service encounters across industries. Study 1 demonstrates that anger and dissatisfaction are qualitatively different emotions with respect to their idiosyncratic experiential content. Study 2 builds on these findings and shows how anger and service encounter dissatisfaction differentially affect customer behavior. It provides empirical support for the contention that anger mediates the relationship between service encounter dissatisfaction and customers' behavioral responses. The findings of Study 2 diverge from previous findings in marketing on the interrelationships between customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction, related consumption emotions, and customers' behavioral responses to service failure. The implications of these findings for services marketing theory and practice are delineated. Roger Bougie (J.R.G.Bougie@uvt.nl) is an assistant professor of marketing at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. His research interests are emotions and their impact on consumer behavior, and consumer decision making. Rik Pieters is a professor of marketing at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. His research interests are emotions in consumer behavior, visual attention and memory, and social networks. His work has appeared in, among others, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Economic Literature, theJournal of Marketing Research, andMarketing Science. Marcel Zeelenberg is a professor of social psychology at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. His research interest is in anticipated emotions and acutal emotional experiences and their impact on behavioral decision making. His work has appeared in, among others, theJournal of Consumer Research, theJournal of Personality and Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.     

常常想起鸟巢的那个巨大舞台

我不得不感慨鸟巢那个巨大舞台上群舞中的任何一个演员。尤其当电视特写里几十张脸孔,居然都含着会心的笑,居然都呈现刚毅的脸,居然都一律地展现着自己的美和力量时,我想说,这才是真正的人生!     

Critical service logic: making sense of value creation and co-creation

Because extant literature on the service logic of marketing is dominated by a metaphorical view of value co-creation, the roles of both service providers and customers remain analytically unspecified, without a theoretically sound foundation for value creation or co-creation. This article analyzes value creation and co-creation in service by analytically defining the roles of the customer and the firm, as well as the scope, locus, and nature of value and value creation. Value creation refers to customers’ creation of value-in-use; co-creation is a function of interaction. Both the firm’s and the customer’s actions can be categorized by spheres (provider, joint, customer), and their interactions are either direct or indirect, leading to different forms of value creation and co-creation. This conceptualization of value creation spheres extends knowledge about how value-in-use emerges and how value creation can be managed; it also emphasizes the pivotal role of direct interactions for value co-creation opportunities.     

网络服务提供商版权间接侵权问题探讨

与传统版权侵权的分类一致，网络服务提供商版枳侵叔也可分为直接侵权与间接侵权两类。从《关于审理涉及计算机网络著作权益纠纷案件适用法律若干问题的解释》、《信息网络传播叔保护条例》到《中华人民共和国侵权责任法》，有关网络服务提供商版权间接侵权的法律规定逐步完善。不同类型的网络服务提供者，包括技术服务提供者、内容服务提供者、兼有技术与内容的综合服务提供者，其承担侵权责任的请求权基础亦应有所不同。网络服务提供商版权间接侵权又可分为帮助侵权和引诱侵权，其与网络服务提供商版权直接侵权、替代责任共同构成全部的网络服务提供商版权侵权行为的责任认定形式，三者又分别适用于不同的网络服务提供商版权侵权行为情形，司法实践中应当区分类型加以注意。     

试论独立董事责任保险中保险人的责任范围

独立董事责任保险是指以独立董事对公司股东、债权人或者其他第三人的民事赔偿责任为保险标的的一种专家责任保险。在分析独立董事责任保险法律内涵的基础上,提出独立董事责任保险中保险人的责任范围,详述了独立董事责任保险的一般责任和除外责任,建议应当借鉴国外有关经验,并注意保险范围的本土化。     

Customer knowledge creation capability and performance in sales teams

Drawing on substitutes for leadership theory, this study examines the relationship between a sales team manager’s empowering leadership and his or her sales team’s customer knowledge creation capability. The authors develop and test a model that positions task interdependence, outcome interdependence, and their interactions as substitutes for empowering leadership. Further, the authors explore two perspectives of team-level performance—customer relationship performance and financial performance—as consequences of a sales team’s customer knowledge creation capability. Using matched data collected from sales team managers and sales team members, the authors find general support for their hypotheses. The study finds that a sales manager’s empowering leadership has a positive effect on a sales team’s customer knowledge creation capability. However, the results also suggest that the positive effect of empowering leadership on a sales team’s customer knowledge creation capability is mitigated when either outcome interdependence or both task and outcome interdependence are high. Further, as outcome interdependence and the interaction between task and outcome interdependence increases, a sales team’s customer knowledge creation capability also increases, which suggests that outcome interdependence and the combination of task and outcome interdependence replaces the role of empowering leadership. The study also finds that the greater a sales team’s customer knowledge creation capability is, the higher its customer relationship performance and sales team financial performance will be. Implications for customer knowledge creation in sales teams in the presence and absence of empowering leadership are discussed.     

跨文化导向的服务接触研究

文章首先论述了服务营销中的一个重要概念——服务接触的含义和研究的重要性，然后运用霍夫施泰德的文化维度理论重点分析了不同文化背景下服务接触的差异。最后简要阐述了对服务企业国际化的管理启示。     

我国居家养老服务供给主体分析——从老年人对居家养老服务供给主体的期望的视角

在居家养老服务中由谁来供给已成为各地居家养老服务实践面临的核心问题。以老年人的期望为视角,利用实地调研数据分析了老年人所期望的居家养老服务供给主体。基于数据分析,描述了我国老年人对居家养老服务提供主体的接受状况,及影响老年人养老服务主体选择的因素,利用Probit模型分析了城市和农村对居家养老服务提供主体的影响。并分城乡检验了回归结果的稳健性。研究分析发现居住地、收入水平等因素对养老服务主体的影响较为显著。     

Seeing relationships through the lens of psychological contracts: the structure of consumer service relationships

Serving as mental models, psychological contracts guide consumers’ service interactions with their service providers. This study incorporates a psychological contract perspective into the relationship marketing literature, exploring service customers’ beliefs about the terms and conditions of the resource exchange process and the types of relationships they form with service providers. It provides new insights that explain why and how some customers respond favorably to a company’s relationship overtures and investments while others do not. A latent class analysis on a sample of 700 consumers across three different service industries reveals that consumers form four distinct types of psychological contracts: relational, standard, transitional, and captive. To further validate the differences between the contract types, open-ended responses from the respondents were sorted by each class. The distinctive themes that emerged provide a richer understanding of the characteristics of each class beyond those inferred from the quantitative results. Each contract type is also profiled against its underlying level of trust, satisfaction, and commitment to understand the relationship between the contract types and these traditional relationship marketing variables. Marketers can differentiate their relationship marketing strategies and allocate their resource investments more effectively by segmenting consumers according to their psychological contract type.     

零售企业服务补救与顾客满意关系实证研究

零售企业作为典型的服务提供者,在服务过程中出现服务失败和顾客不满是不可避免的,这就要求企业对其失误进行补救,最大限度的降低顾客的不满,这就是服务补救。服务补救适当可以重建顾客满意,留住顾客,赢得“二次成功”。研究结果检验了零售企业的补救措施对于顾客满意的影响,以及顾客满意度形成过程中顾客感知公平的中介作用,并提出了相应的对策。     

Defining and measuring recreational shopper identity

The concept of recreational shopper identity, a dimension of the consumer—s self-concept, is contrasted with simple shopping enjoyment, which has characterized most past research on recreational shopping. Two survey studies investigate recreational shopper identity in a clothing shopping context. In Study 1, the Recreational Shopper Identity (RSI) Scale is validated with a sample of 561 adult consumers, demonstrating that recreational shopping is experienced as a true leisure activity. In Study 2, involving 354 adult consumers, the RSI Scale is used to identify three groups of shoppers who differ in the degree to which they incorporate recreational shopping into their self-concepts. Recreational shopping enthusiasts are found to engage more extensively in a range of retail shopping behaviors, to spend more money shopping (i.e., they are not just browsers), and are more “multi-channel” than other shoppers, reporting higher levels of Internet, catalog, and TV home shopping as well as traditional “brick-and-mortar” shopping.     

Service firms and customer loyalty programs: a regulatory fit perspective of reward preferences in a health club setting

In this paper, we examine the impact of various configurations of regulatory fit on the attitudes, exercise intentions and actual behavior of members of a health club loyalty program. Regulatory fit is conceptualized as both the match between types of program rewards and how they are communicated, as well as the congruence between reward types and regulatory focus as a stable, individual disposition. In two experimental designs, non-point reward programs offering a short-term cash bonus were used. The results of Study 1 suggest that regulatory fit has a positive impact on perceived value, exercise intentions and exercise intensity, but not on visit frequency. Analysis of repeated behavioral measures further reveals that regulatory fit has a stronger impact on exercise intensity over time relative to nonfit. Study 2 also confirms the predictive power of regulatory fit over nonfit when conceptualized as the match between reward type and trait regulatory focus.     

Do loyal customers really pay more for services?

Service firms are encouraged by historic evidence that loyal customers are less price sensitive. Yet, some research has challenged the assertion while others have demonstrated considerable heterogeneity within loyal segments. Aiming to reconcile this debate, we investigate the relationship between customers’ behavioral loyalty and the importance they place on price relative to two managerially relevant service attributes: rewards and convenience. We also assess the moderating role of attitudinal loyalty resulting from superior service experience. Results from a longitudinal survey and transaction data from an airline carrier show that as customers’ behavioral loyalty increases, they place more importance on price and less importance on rewards and convenience, revealing that behavioral loyalty causes a shift in emphasis toward price. As a result, behaviorally loyal customers spend less and revenue decreases. However, by improving attitudinal loyalty, firms achieve the desired outcome of reducing price sensitivity and increasing revenue. Specifically, after experiencing better service, behaviorally loyal customers focus less on price and instead shift their focus toward rewards and convenience, and this results in revenue gains for the firm. Overall, attitudinal loyalty from better service experience acts as a key mitigator of the positive link between behavioral loyalty and price sensitivity.     

大股东控制与现金持有量关系的经验研究——基于融资约束背景

以2006~2010年沪深两市的上市公司为样本,在控制了行业因素、年度因素和相关财务变量的基础上,基于融资约束的视角,对大股东行为与上市公司现金持有量的关系进行了实证检验。研究发现,第一大股东持股比例在"30%"点与现金持有量呈显著的倒U型关系,在融资约束企业这种关系更加显著,而在非融资约束企业则不明显;融资约束企业的第一大股东性质为国有时会增加现金持有量,非融资约束企业则不存在这种关系。