Technology infusion in service encounters

Service encounters are critical in all industries, including those that have not been traditionally defined as service industries. The increasing deployment of technology is altering the essence of service encounters formerly anchored in a “low-tech, high-touch” paradigm. This article explores the changing nature of service, with an emphasis on how encounters can be improved through the effective use of technology. The authors examine the ability of technology to effectively (1) customize service offerings, (2) recover from service failure, and (3) spontaneously delight customers. The infusion of technology is examined as an enabler of both employees and customers in efforts to achieve these three goals. Although the infusion of technology can lead to negative outcomes and may not be embraced by all customers, the focus of this article is on the benefits of thoughtfully managed and effectively implemented technology applications. Past research and industry examples are featured and future research directions and managerial implications are highlighted. Mary Jo Bitner is the AT&T Professor of Services Marketing and Management and the research director of the Center for Services Marketing & Management at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on customer evaluations of service, selfservice technologies, and service delivery issues. She has published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Retailing, and theInternational Journal of Service Industry Management. She is coauthor of the textServices Marketing (McGraw-Hill, 2d ed., 2000). Stephen W. Brown holds the Edward M. Carson Chair of Services Marketing and Management, is Professor of Marketing, and director of the Center for Services Marketing & Management at Arizona State University. His research focuses on services marketing strategy, service delivery, customer loyalty, and service recovery. He has published in theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Business Research, and theJournal of Retailing. He is the coeditor of theAdvances in Services Marketing and Management series. Matthew L. Meuter is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Villanova University with a Ph.D. in marketing from Arizona State University. His research interests focus on the impact technology has on the marketing function, the changing nature of technologically based service encounters, customer satisfaction with self-service technologies, and customer adoption of technologically based service delivery innovations. His research has been published in the American Marketing Association's (AMA)Educators' Proceedings and has been presented at several national conferences.     

Exploring the brand value-shareholder value nexus for consumer goods companies

It is generally claimed that brand names are a corporate asset with an economic value that creates wealth for a firm’s shareholders. However, the scholarly literature has neither provided a comprehensive theoretical basis for this claim nor documented an empirical relationship between brand value and shareholder value. This exploratory study describes a rationale for, and documents, the statistical strength and functional form of a brand value-shareholder value relationship for publicly held consumer goods companies in the United States. A theoretical argument supportive of a positive relationship between a firm’s accumulated brand value and market-to-book (M/B) ratio was empirically validated. However, even though firms with higher accumulated brand values have higher M/B ratios, the functional form of the relationship was found to be concave with decreasing returns to scale. Theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are outlined, as well as study limitations and directions for future research. Roger A. Kerin (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is the Harold C. Simmons distinguished professor of marketing at the Edwin L. Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University. His research focuses on marketing strategy and product management issues. He has published more than 50 articles appearing in such journals as theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, Strategic Management Journal, andManagement Science, in addition to authoring four books. He presently serves on numerous editorial review boards and is a former editor of theJournal of Marketing. Raj Sethuraman obtained his Ph.D. from Northwestern University and is an assistant professor at the Edwin L. Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University. His research focuses on competitive marketing strategies, especially price and advertising strategies. He has published in several journals including theJournal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Marketing Letters, theJournal of Business Research, and theJournal of Consumer Psychology.     

Exploring the national and organizational culture mix in service firms

Using representative samples of U.S. and Japanese retail service firms, this study explores whether one particular type of organizational culture is the best with respect to business outcomes (performance and customer satisfaction) or whether the optimum culture depends on the national context in which the firm is embedded. The findings suggest that there is a significant interaction effect of organizational culture with national culture on outcomes. Specifically, the relationships between the importance placed on the cultural values of stability, people orientation, and detail orientation and outcomes are significantly greater for Japanese than for U.S. service retailers. On the other hand, the relationships between the values of aggressiveness, innovation, and outcome orientation and outcomes are greater for U.S. retailers. Further, the findings show that firms whose cultures match those of their home countries exhibit lower levels of outcomes when they operate in other countries with different cultural values. Implications are given for how service retailers might be designed and managed for purposes of improving business outcomes.     

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.     

论旅行社的人本管理

文章分析了旅行社人本管理的必要性，阐述了旅行社人本管理的涵义，认为应该包括旅行社内部管理的以人为本和对外的以人为本，即人性化经营。同时根据旅行社人本管理的特点提出了旅行社人本管理思想的实施途径，力求人本管理在旅行社经营管理实践工作中的具体化，使旅行社的人本管理真正具有可操作性和实践性。     

Student surrogates in consumer research

The issue of using students as subjects in consumer research is discussed. Data are collected at both behavioral and attitudinal levels from both student and general population samples, and the results are compared. Results are discussed in light of the practical advantages inherent in student samples.     

An investigation of team information processing in service teams: Exploring the link between teams and customers

In an effort to satisfy the needs of increasingly knowledgeable and demanding customers, many organizations are implementing teams in customer contact positions. Unfortunately, stifled information flows and poor communication often impede their effectiveness. To help managers build more effective teams, the authors develop and test a model of team information processing that includes both antecedents (information acquisition, team norms, team size, and team longevity) and outcomes (customer satisfaction with service). Data collected from 61 health care teams, as well as from 1,598 patients served by these teams, are used to investigate the hypothesized relationships between variables. Partial support for the model is provided. Based on these findings, implications for researchers and practitioners are offered. Current knowledge is the life blood of knowledge work, and the ability to transfer it is a key differentiating characteristic between effective and ineffective knowledge work teams.-Fisher and Fisher (1998:174) Dawn R. Deeter-Schmelz (deeter-s@ohio.edu) (Ph.D., University of South Florida) is an associate professor of marketing at Ohio University. Her research interests include customer contact teams, business-to-business electronic commerce, sales management, and scale development. She has published in theJournal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, theJournal of Marketing Education, theJournal of Marketing Theory and Practice, and theJournal of Business Logistics, among others. Rosemary P. Ramsey (rosemary.ramsey@wright.edu) (Ph.D., University of Cincinnati) is associate dean in the Raj Sain College of Business at Wright State University. Her research interests include relationship management and measurement. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she held marketing and sales positions for NCR Corporation. She has published in theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, and theJournal of Marketing Education, among others.     

Structure in product line management: The role of formalization in service elimination decisions

Formalization is a core structural characteristic of the firm and an important determinant of decision-making efficiency. This empirical paper explores formalization in financial institutions’ product line pruning decisions. The authors develop a set of hypotheses that are empirically tested in a stratified random sample of UK financial institutions. The results demonstrate that the level of formalization in the elimination decision-making process depends on specific organizational and environmental conditions, including overall company strategy, product line length, market orientation, top management attitude toward line pruning, austerity of the regulatory context, and rate of technological change. The results also show that formalization enhances the procedural rationality of elimination decisions, and leads to customer-sensitive implementation strategies. This paper is the first attempt to link service elimination decision-making with structural characteristics of organizational decision-making. The results yield important managerial implications and point at useful directions for future research.     

The role of rationalization in consumer decision processes: A revisionist approach to consumer behavior

Consumer behavior theory, as it has largely evolved from economics with its rigid adherence to marginal utility theory, suggests that consumers are highly rational and that they basically strive to maximize utility or satisfaction by the careful rationing of resources. In this paper, the typical assumptions in consumer decision process models are reviewed and analyzed, the empirical evidence supporting the models of the rational consumer is challenged, the concept of rationalization is developed and the existential support for the concept is examined, the role and significance of alternative ego state on consumer decision processes are explained and finally, the rudiments of a revisionist approach to consumer behavior are advanced. An earlier draft of this paper entitled “Consumer Decision Processes: The Role and Influence of Rationalization” was presented at the annual meeting of The American Psychological Association Division 23 in 1977. The author was assisted in the preparation and development of this earlier draft by Dr. Chem Narayana. This assistance is herewith acknowledged.     

Reflections on relationship marketing in consumer markets

Conclusion The article by S&P is a landmark in the evolution of relationship marketing concepts. Much of what has been done in the past has addressed narrow aspects of relationship marketing or else has taken for granted the meaning of marketing relationships. S&P set the agenda for future work and give us many provocative ideas for pursuing relationship marketing topics. Their synthesis and integration of ideas from disparate literatures and their proposal for the underlying motivation for entering marketing relationships do much to delineate the direction researchers should take in the future. Before we go too far down any one path, however, we should redouble our efforts to specify exactly what is a marketing relationship. Then we would have the foundation to follow the path so eloquently forged by Jagdish Sheth and Atul Parvatiyar. He was formerly on the faculties of Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California, Berkeley. His Ph.D. is from Northwestern University. He is currently doing research on the theory of action, volitional processes, and emotional behavior in marketing.     

The role of aesthetic taste in consumer behavior

In light of the increasing interest in hedonic aspects of consumer behavior, it is clear that consumer taste plays a critical role in judgment and decision making, particularly for hedonic products and services. At the present time, however, our understanding of consumer aesthetic taste and its specific role for consumer behavior is limited. In this article, we review the literature from a variety of fields such as sociology, psychology, philosophy, and consumer behavior in order to develop a conceptual definition of consumer aesthetic taste. We then explore various issues related to taste and develop a conceptual framework for the relevance of expertise vs. taste in consumer decision-making. Finally, we present an agenda for future research on this important topic.     

Exploring the relationship between marketing and supply chain management: introduction to the special issue

Supply chains and supply chain management are important areas of business practice and scholarship that overlap with the discipline and practice of marketing and marketing management. The co-editors of the Journal’s Special Issue “Exploring the Relationship Between Marketing and Supply Chain Management” provide an introduction to the special issue, overview its contents and extend their appreciation to the authors, reviewers, editor and staff whose contributions and efforts made it possible.     

影响二手车市场消费者购买行为的因子分析

随着汽车大量进入家庭,我国汽车保有量和二手车消费群体数量不断增加,国内二手车市场不断成熟和扩大。本文通过实证研究方法,对汽车消费者的二手车购买行为进行因子分析,归纳出汽车消费者二手车购买行为的影响因子,为经销商改善二手车服务质量提供一定的理论依据。     

我国消费信贷发展中的制约因素及对策

消费信贷可以促进消费 ,拉动经济增长。现阶段 ,我国消费信贷发展还存在一些制约因素 ,如居民货币收入水平较低、消费观念落后、消费政策不配套、社会保障制度不健全等 ,有针对性地提出了发展消费信贷的对策 ,如改革消费体制 ,完善社会保障制度 ,强化法律保障 ,开发热门品种等。     

我国电信行业实施CRM探讨

随着国内电信行业之间竞争的白热化,企业发展战略已由过去的以产品为重心转为现在的"客户需求至上".因而企业要想获得最大程度的利润,就必须对不同类型的客户采取不同的策略.在这种背景下,一种全新的基于信息技术的管理理念──客户关系管理便受到国内各电信运营商的青睐.本文就电信行业中CRM的主要功能、运作模式、面临的问题进行了探讨,并就CRM运行中的不足提出了一些建议.     

The effect of management commitment to service quality on employees’ affective and performance outcomes

A service recovery performance model is proposed and tested with data from frontline bank employees in Turkey. The model is derived from Bagozzi's (1992) reformulation of attitude theory. The empirical results suggest that top management commitment to service quality, as manifested by frontline employees' appraisal of training, empowerment, and rewards, has a significant effect on their perceptions of service recovery performance. The influence of management commitment to service quality on service recovery performance is mediated by frontline employees' affective commitment to their organization and job satisfaction. Implications of the results and further research avenues are discussed. Emin Babakus (ebabakus@ memphis.edu) (Ph.D., University of Alabama, 1985) is a professor of marketing at the University of Memphis. In addition to theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, his research has been published in such journals as theJournal of Marketing Research, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Business Research, and theJournal of Advertising Research. He serves on the editorial review boards of several journals. Ugur Yavas (raxyavas@mail.etsu.edu) (Ph.D., Georgia State University, 1976) is a professor of marketing at East Tennessee State University. Besides theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, he has contributed to such journals as theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Business Research, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, International Marketing Review, theJournal of International Marketing, Management International Review, theJournal of the Market Research Society, theInternational Journal of Service Industry Management, andLong Range Planning. He currently serves as the editor of theJournal of Asia-Pacific Business. Osman M. Karatepe (osman.karatepe@emu.edu.tr) (Ph.D., Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey, 2002) is an assistant professor of marketing at Eastern Mediterranean University (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus). He has contributed to such journals as theJournal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing, The Service Industries Journal, Tourism Analysis, theInternational Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration, andAnatolia: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research. He currently serves as the associate editor of theEMU Journal of Tourism Research. Turgay Avci (turgay.avci@emu.edu.tr) (Ph.D., Cukurova University, Adana, Turkey, 1995) is an assistant professor of management at Eastern Mediterranean University (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus). He has contributed to such journals asThe Service Industries Journal, theJournal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing, Tourism Analysis, theInternational Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration, andAnatolia: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research. He currently serves as the editor-in-chief of theEMU Journal of Tourism Research.     

成本管理现代化是提升金融服务竞争力的基础

金融是现代经济的核心。随着“入世”及全球经济一体化的深入，金融业对内对外开放的步伐越来越快，市场化竞争也越来越激烈。要提高我国金融业的竞争能力的盈利水平，在激烈的国内外市场竞争中赢得应有的市场份额，使我国金融业逐步发展和壮大起来，实现成本管理的现代化是关键、是基础。     

The role of expectations in the determination of consumer satisfaction

The purpose of this paper is to explore the three determinants of consumer satisfaction, i.e. Predictive Expectations, Normative Expectations and Comparative Expectations. This study applied the confirmation of expectations paradigm to each of the types of expectations. The efficacy of the paradigm in the prediction of consumer satisfaction is examined. Comparative analyses of the three types of expectations show that normative expectations and their confirmation are the best predictors of satisfaction. Suggestions for further research on measurement and conceptual development of consumer satisfaction are also offered.     

On the meaning and measurement of religiosity in consumer research

The role of religiousness as a variable in models of consumer behavior is not well-established. Research findings in this area tend to be sparse and conflicting, and measurement issues have yet to be addressed. This article reports on an empirical investigation of religiosity in a causal modeling framework. The results suggest that religiosity is a viable consumer behavior construct in that it (1) did correlate with the life-style variables selected; (2) contributed directly to the model along with sex, age, and income; and (3) was successfully operationalized through multiple measures.