The service industry in China—Problems and prospects

For nearly thirty years China viewed the service sector as a nonproductive remnant of capitalism. But times have changed. Case studies of three selected service industries—supermarkets, hotels, and banks—pinpoint the problems and prospects for firms that want to play a role in revolutionizing the service sector in China.     

Does Corporate Social Responsibility Influence Customer Loyalty in the Taiwan Insurance Sector? The role of Corporate Image and Customer Satisfaction

This study aims to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility on customer loyalty, and examines the role of corporate image and customer satisfaction. The empirical results indicate a positive effect of economic and legal corporate social responsibility on customer loyalty, as well as a partial mediating effect of customer satisfaction between corporate social responsibility and customer loyalty. Moreover, this study identifies the moderating effect of corporate image between corporate social responsibility and customer loyalty. The results of this study are useful to the life insurance sector for enhancing their customer loyalty and service marketing strategy.     

The effect of interior color on customers’ aesthetic perception,emotion, and behavior in the luxury service

This study examined the role of color in a luxury service setting. To understand the effect of color, this study investigated how each dimension of color (hue, saturation, or value) contributed to customers' aesthetic perceptions of a luxury hotel room. We interpreted customers' emotional and behavioral responses to a luxury hotel room painted various colors by applying the S–O–R model. The results showed that muted and bright colors encouraged both classical and expressive aesthetic perceptions within the same hue. Moreover, the results indicated that customers' aesthetic perceptions influenced their approach response through feelings of pleasure and dominance in the luxury hotel context that was moderated by their luxury consumption motivation. This study extends the previous literature by elucidating the process by which color affects customers' aesthetic perceptions, emotional states, and behavioral responses and can inform the composition of a luxury hotel's servicescape, which reflects customers' consumption motivation.     

Consumers as innovators in the electricity sector? Consumer perceptions on smart grid services

This article assesses the possibilities of using consumer innovation in the electricity sector, which is slow‐moving, yet faced with huge challenges and opportunities to become “smart” and “low carbon.” We study the benefits of engaging innovative consumers (“lead users”) in product, service, and business innovation in terms of (a) the capacity of lead user‐consumers to innovate in the highly regulated electricity market, (b) the attractiveness of such lead‐user generated ideas for mainstream consumers, (c) the usefulness of lead‐user engagement for companies in the energy industry, and (d) the usefulness of lead user engagement for the necessary broader societal transition processes. We conclude that consumers can stimulate industry‐wide innovation even in challenging contexts like “smart” and “low‐carbon” solutions and the highly regulated energy industry. Lead user‐consumers can also articulate societal and social responsibility concerns that are relevant for the entire market.     

Personal response systems and learning performance: The mediating role of learners’ engagement

The use of personal response systems (PRSs) to support the learning process is increasing. This study examines the impact of PRSs from individual learners’ and instructors’ perspectives on individual learners’ engagement with PRSs and their learning performance. Data were collected from a sample of 236 undergraduate bachelor of business administration students in the School of Business at a Hong Kong university. The results indicated that the learner interface was important to individual learners’ engagement with PRSs and their learning performance. Instructor attitude and technical competence had significant impacts on learning performance. Engagement with PRSs partially mediated the effect of both perspectives on learning performance. Implications for the theory and practice of individual learners’ learning performance are discussed.     

Is the more always better? A comparative study of internal and external integration practices in new product and new service development

This study investigates the relationship between internal and external integration practices and innovation success of new products and new services. Building on the idea that key success drivers in new product and new service development may have implementing costs besides their obvious benefits, this article examines the possibility that a nonlinear relationship in the shape of an inverted U exists between innovation success and the antecedents examined in this research. The present study also addresses scholars' call for research to investigate differences in the drivers of new product and new service success. The findings suggest that differences exist in the nature of the relationship—that is, linear versus nonlinear—between cross-functional integration, customer integration, and interfirm collaboration and innovation success in a new product versus new service setting.     

Web 2.0, social capital and work performance in service companies: the employees’ view

Web 2.0 networks have provoked a revolution in the last years due to their capacity to modify human relationships, particularly in business contexts. Social capital, as a crucial intangible asset embedded in Web 2.0 networks, can be extremely helpful to build and optimize personal and organizational power or resources. This exploratory study empirically analyzes the use of Web 2.0 networks for work-related purposes under a new perspective: the perception of Spanish service companies’ employees. Results show a reasonable employee use of Web 2.0 applications with work-related purposes, and identify the main benefits from them and relevant differences in their use.     

A network text analysis of published papers in service business, 2007–2017: research trends in the service sector

The service sector has become the most important part of the global economy. Thus, Service Business: An International Journal (SB) was launched in 2007 to deliver innovative studies that can provide resonating insights to researchers and practitioners in services. This study analyzed 311 articles published in SB during the past 10+ years (2007–2017) by conducting network text analysis (NTA). The published papers’ keywords link relations were analyzed to create network maps of research topics, ranging from traditional to emerging ideas of researchers. Influential research topics and their clusters were identified using centrality and community analyses. Research trends were identified for the first 5 years (Volume 1–5) and later years (Volume 6–11) separately through NTA. The results reveal interesting change in research topics over time. Common keywords of studies published in the first 5 years were: Service, Innovation, Customer, Strategy, Tourism, and Quality. The primary frequent keywords of articles published during 2012–2017 were: Customer, Quality, Satisfaction, Innovation, Mobile, and Technology. The results of the study shed valuable insights to the researchers and practitioners in the service sector. Applications of keyword network building and analysis methods provided in this study would be helpful to researchers who are interested in exploring trends of emerging new topics.     

Mediating and moderating processes in the relation between problem customer perceptions and work–family conflict

Deploying the emotion regulation perspective, this study examined the process linking the relationship between problem customer perceptions (PCPs) and work–family conflict (WFC) by focusing on the mediating influence of surface acting (SA) and the moderating role of distress tolerance (DT). Data were obtained from 265 frontline service clerks located in the banking industry throughout 71 different local banks in Taiwan. The results revealed that SA fully mediated the PCP–WFC relationship. Meanwhile, frontline service clerks' DT moderated the SA–WFC relationship, such that the relationship was weaker when service clerks with the higher the DT. The managerial implications of the findings were discussed.     

The Effects of Search-Related and Purchase-Related Mobile App Additions on Retailers’ Shareholder Wealth: The Roles of Firm Size,Product Category,and Customer Segment

Mobile channel additions have been shown to increase consumer-brand relationships, brand satisfaction towards and overall purchasing from a retailer, but what is less apparent is whether shareholders are fully rewarded for retailers’ mobile channel additions. Results from an event study on 115 announcements relating to mobile app additions of publicly traded U.S. retail firms between 2009 and 2016 indicate that the stock market responds generally positively to mobile app additions, but specifically to the two mobile app addition types. Stock market responses to search-related and purchase-related app additions are moderated by firm size, product category, and target customer age. For announcements of search-related apps, the market responds more positively to product retailers than to service retailers, and to small firms than large ones. For announcements of purchase-related apps, the market responds less positively to firms that target younger customers than firms who do not especially target them.     

The self-creation effect: making a product supports its mindful consumption and the consumer’s well-being

Popular cultural movements such as Slow Food and the Maker Movement emphasize product self-creation―personally creating products, then consuming them, as a core value. We present the first research to examine how product self-creation affects the individual’s consumption experience of such products and their well-being. Seven field and lab studies provide evidence that when consumers self-create a product, they appreciate it to a greater degree, are likely to consume it more mindfully, and experience greater domain-specific and general well-being. The individual’s private self-consciousness strengthens the effect. Self-creating products offers consumers with a practical, versatile, and personal interest-driven way to transcend their traditional role, to consume more consciously and sustainably, while concurrently enhancing the enjoyment of their consumption experience.     

The effect of the servicescape on customers’ behavioral intentions in an international airport service environment

This study was conducted to identify the constructs of an international airport servicescape and to assess the relationships among the servicescape of an international airport, emotional states, and behavioral intentions. The constructs of an international airport servicescape are identified as the ambient factor, functional factor, esthetic factor, safety factor, and social factor. The results of this study showed that functional factor, esthetic factor, safety factor, and social factor influence customers?? positive emotions, whereas the ambient factor and social factor affect customers?? negative emotions. Positive emotions, but not negative emotions, were shown to have a significant impact on behavioral intentions. Limitations and suggestions for future studies were addressed.     

Competitiveness vis-à-vis service quality as drivers of customer loyalty mediated by perceptions of regulation and stability in steady and volatile markets

The purpose of this research is to investigate predictors of customer loyalty in order to identify alternatives to customer satisfaction with service quality, which has been traditionally accepted as the primary predictor of customer loyalty, particularly for services. A stratified sample of bank customers was surveyed to collect information on customer perceptions and behaviors in relation to satisfaction with service quality, competitiveness, risk, regulation, stability and loyalty. Partial least squares path modelling (PLSPM) was applied to develop loyalty models for a steady market (Australia) and a volatile market (Greece). This study's empirical findings support theoretical arguments for the inclusion of customer perceptions of competitiveness in loyalty modelling. Perceptions of regulation and stability intervene in the relationship between drivers of loyalty and loyalty itself. For bankers, the study emphasizes the need to move away from customer satisfaction with service quality to explain customer loyalty, towards focusing efforts on achieving relative superiority in competitiveness, namely competitive productivity and products. Profiling customers based on their perceptions of a bank's competitiveness can provide additional explanatory power beyond traditional satisfaction based loyalty models. Services marketing has focused on the service components, and there is no doubt about its crucial role. But given this focus, other factors, such as the actual product component, have been somewhat overlooked in services research. The study makes a unique contribution to understanding and modelling customer loyalty by demonstrating the importance of the inclusion of customer perceptions of other factors as appropriate to market conditions.     

Collaborative economy,a society service? Involvement with ethics and the common good

The company at the service of today's society is reinventing itself to satisfy people's needs in a more efficient and adapted way. Globalization and digitization promote increasing interaction and new forms of economic organization such as collaborative economy. However, can it be understood that this new business model, more than others, has as its raison d'être in the search for the “common good”? A first approach suggests the presence of values related to collaboration between equals aiming at a common good. However, the possible existence of a profit motive and the labor relations framework in which certain activities are carried out have created a debate on their ethical qualification. In this context, considering 278 companies in the collaborative economy sector, the relationship between the concept of “common good” and the collaborative economy is analyzed, while examining whether these new realities have an explicit ethical intention (of search for goods for people). According to the results, it is not possible to assert that these platforms have an ethical concern, but it is observed that they are in line with the common good and implicitly contribute to the service of society.     

Retail in my pocket– replicating and extending the construct of service quality into the mobile commerce context

Nowadays, retailers are interested in how customer preferences regarding service quality are changing due to the adoption of different devices for shopping purposes in both the desktop and mobile contexts. To answer this question, this paper first replicates, in the mobile commerce (m-commerce) context, the results from Blut et al. (2015), who conducted a meta-analytic review of electronic service quality. Replication results question the robustness and generalizability of the conceptualization in the mobile service quality context. Thereby, practitioners and academics are encouraged to adapt a customer-centric approach in organizing marketing practices. The replication extends the conceptualization of electronic service quality by considering a unique dimension named ubiquity of services, defined as the retailer's ability to provide offers based on location and time. To reveal psychological mechanisms explaining the results of the replication study, a follow-up study draws on these contextual factors. In this context, this study uses a quasi-experimental approach by utilizing propensity score matching to account for self-selection effects to examine differences between desktop and mobile device users. As a result, this research contributes to the literature by identifying contextual boundary conditions regarding the shopping trip intentions and risk perceptions of mobile device users and desktop device users. Based on the results, major implications for retailers and further research are given.     

The East India Company's maritime service, 1746–1834: masters of the Eastern Seas

The histories we give to production and consumption affect our present and future business understandings. We question recent works that have ascribed a relatively short history to consumption ethics. Drawing on writers, across a number of academic disciplines, we conclude evidence exists to make the case against understanding consumption ethics as new to the twenty-first century. We argue that acknowledging a long history for consumption ethics challenges contemporary economic stereotypes of consumers as self-interested maximisers. It also modifies our understanding of the relationship between corporate and consumer social responsibility.     

The influence of human crowding and store messiness on consumer purchase intention– the role of contamination and scarcity perceptions

The current research explores how store environmental cues – human crowding and store messiness influence consumer purchase intention across two product type (ingestible and non-ingestible). Importantly, the research also examines the mediating role of contamination perception on these effects. Specifically, for ingested products (e.g., eggs), crowded and messy store environments signal contamination and lead to decrease in purchase intention. However, for non-ingested products (e.g., dishwashing liquid), contamination inferences are observed for store messiness but not for human crowding. Further, role of perceived scarcity is examined which suggests that in ingestible product category perception of scarcity can mitigate the negative effect of contamination on purchase intention.     

The influence of the DinEX service quality dimensions on casual-dining restaurant customers’ satisfaction and behavioral intentions

The following empirical study examines the effects of specific service quality dimensions from the DinEX model on customers’ satisfaction and behavioral intentions. The originality of DinEX over other restaurant service quality instruments is primarily its focus on dimensions such as social connectedness and homophily, which represent social constructs that portray an internal sense of belonging and the tendency for people to affiliate with similar others. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed in an independent casual-dining restaurant located in the southeastern United States and a sample of 209 respondents was obtained. Results show that food healthfulness and food quality have an influence on customers’ satisfaction, which in turn affects their behavioral intentions. The implications for practitioners are discussed in detail.     

One country,two systems? The heavy-tailedness of Chinese A- and H- share markets

Chinese A- and H– share markets operate in different institutional environments (emerging/developing v.s. developed) and thus may have different tail risk properties. This paper focuses on the analysis of heavy-tailedness properties of these two markets using recently developed robust inference methods. The equality of tail indices of returns for A and H dual-listed companies cannot be rejected, and some A- and H– share returns may have infinite second moments. Their heavy-tailedness properties did not change significantly with respect to the 2008 financial crisis and the date when the corresponding company starts to be dual-listed.