A perceived reliability-based customer satisfaction model in self-service technology

Technical reliability of self-service technologies (SSTs) has been found to be a strong determinant of satisfaction with tech-enabled services. Yet, the interpretation of the factors affecting reliability and its subsequent influences on customer satisfaction (CS) with SSTs is inadequate. The purpose of this investigation has, therefore, been to demarcate a model to fulfill the gap with an empirical examination, and accordingly a model was developed and tested by applying a global structural equation model. The model results of banking SST users specify how the reliability of SSTs is perceived by the users. The findings have reported that the best predictor of perceived reliability (PRe) is perceived security followed by perceived control. Surprisingly, no significant impact of perceived ease of use was found on PRe. The research also attempted to shed light on the influence of PRe on perceived risk, technology trust, and CS in the light of technology-enabled self-service.     

Exploring factors which motivate older consumers’ self-service technologies (SSTs) adoption

Although the proportion of the older population is growing, the majority of research on technology adoption behaviour, such as the adoption of self-service technologies (SSTs), tends to focus on younger consumers. To fill this gap, this study is designed to explore factors which motivate older consumers’ adoption of SSTs by applying Gatignon and Robertson’s diffusion process model. Responses were collected from 104 respondents who were aged 55 or over and who had used self-checkouts in the past. The data were analysed using partial least squares path modelling with SmartPLS 3.0 software. The results indicate that perceptions of SST characteristics, including usefulness, enjoyment, and control, are indirect antecedents of older consumers’ SST adoption through service quality and/or perceived risk. Another key predictor of older consumers’ adoption of SST is prior usage experience with SSTs, which strongly influences usefulness and compatibility. Findings from this study contribute to the literature because little research has explored what drives older consumers to use SSTs.     

The impact of basic human needs on the use of retailing self-service technologies: A study of self-determination theory

Self-service technologies (SSTs) are becoming increasingly popular in retailing contexts. Previous theories of SST adoption have largely ignored the basic human needs, such as competence, autonomy and relatedness, that drive customer motivation and the use of SSTs. We address this theoretical gap and examine self-determination theory (SDT) in the context of the supermarket self-checkout. Based on the argument proposed by SDT, self-determined motivation is hypothesized to mediate the relationships between autonomy, competence, and perceived anonymity, and the intention to use SSTs. Data collected from 361 respondents form a structural equation model and support these hypotheses. The current study is important as it helps understand the role of customers' participation in the self-service. Managerial and theoretical implications are suggested.     

Exploring antecedents of customer citizenship behaviors in services

Social exchange theory explains how a party in social interaction provides the other party with reciprocal rewards. Applying this concept to the customer context, this study empirically investigates determinants of customer citizenship behaviors (CCBs) in services. For the generalizability of the study across various service providers, the data were collected based on Bowen’s (1990) classifications of services. With a total of 665 usable customer responses, structural equation modeling was adapted to test the theoretical research model. This study reveals that customers’ perceived support and justice from the service provider positively influence affective commitment toward the organization, resulting in CCBs. The results show that customers’ perception of organizational support has the partial mediation effect between customers’ perception of organizational justice and their affective commitment. Furthermore, customers’ affective commitment partially mediates the relationship between customers’ perceived organizational justice and CCBs, but fully mediates the effect of customers’ perceived organizational support on CCBs.     

Supermarket self-checkout service quality,customer satisfaction,and loyalty: Empirical evidence from an emerging market

Supermarket shoppers around the world are increasingly encountering and using self-service technologies (SSTs) during their shopping process. The SSTs are mainly offered to reduce retailer costs and enhance customer's experience. Among the many different SSTs available, self-checkout systems (SCS) have become an extremely popular choice of supermarkets around the world. Although some of the main motivations of the supermarkets for offering SCSs are cost cutting, speed, and convenience, supermarkets are also assuming that these services would enhance customer experience, satisfaction, and ultimately loyalty. However, empirical evidence is needed to better understand customer expectations of SCS service quality and how technology based service quality impacts retail patronage. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to examine the service quality of supermarket/grocery store SCSs and its impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty in an emerging market, namely Turkey. Using the SSTQUAL scale (Lin and Hsieh, 2011), data (n=275) for the study is collected from shoppers who had just completed going through the self-checkout counter in a large supermarket chain. The results of this study show that SCS service quality positively influences loyalty through the customer satisfaction path. Managerial and research implications of the findings are discussed.     

Frontline employees׳ attitudes towards self-service technologies: Threats or opportunity for job performance?

Increasing diffusion of self-service technologies (SSTs) on the points of sale impacts on traditional retailing from several perspectives. For instance, SSTs have direct effect on front-line employees. Indeed, they may cause a potential reduction in personal contacts with clients, reduction of workers, modifying the job conditions and so on. To date, the effect of SSTs on the points of sale has been mainly investigated from a consumers׳ perspective, by mainly focusing on consumers׳ acceptance and usage of these systems. The aim of this paper is to make employees׳ point of view clearly emerge, through a qualitative approach focusing on the investigation of employees׳ perception of the consequences of these technologies on job performance. The content analysis based on exploratory in-depth interviews involves 250 frontline employees. Authors examine the success of technology from employee׳s standpoint by evaluating their attitude and considering the impact on their job performance perception. In this way, the analysis allows defining new variables which are not previously investigated, such as the perception of speed for task completion, which emerged as the most important factor for employees׳ self-evaluation. Hence, this study offers support for evaluating job performance considering the specific case of SSTs in the frontline employees as initial insights rather than definitive understandings.     

Technology readiness and the evaluation and adoption of self-service technologies

As companies struggle to persuade their customers to adopt new self-service technologies (SSTs), it has become increasingly important to understand the factors affecting customers’ attitudes towards these SSTs and their adoption behaviour. Technology readiness (TR), i.e. the customer's mental readiness to accept new technologies, has been proposed as such a factor. TR comprises four dimensions: innovativeness, optimism, discomfort and insecurity. This article investigates the effects of TR on customers’ (1) attitudes towards using SST for airline check-in, (2) adoption of self-service check-in, and (3) evaluations of a new self-service check-in on the Internet, in terms of perceived service quality, satisfaction and loyalty. An empirical study was conducted among loyalty program customers of a European airline, having access to Internet check-in. Data were collected with online and traditional mail surveys, resulting in 1258 usable responses. Analysis of the data revealed that only optimism and innovativeness formed unique individual dimensions. Furthermore, TR had surprisingly little impact on customer attitudes towards SST, on adoption behaviour, and on SST evaluations. Optimism explained consumer behaviour towards SSTs best, whereas innovativeness had only a marginal effect on attitudes towards using the Internet or a mobile phone to check-in. The article concludes with a discussion of the validity of the TR construct and suggestions for future research. Managerial implications are provided.     

Information Sensitivity Typology: Mapping the Degree and Type of Risk Consumers Perceive in Personal Data Sharing

Surveys show significant public concern regarding information privacy. To better understand how consumer concerns vary by type of personal data, the authors created a typology of information types based on perceived associated risks. In a national consumer survey, 52 information types were analyzed along four perceived risk categories (physical, psychological, monetary, and social), consumers' overall sensitivity regarding the information, and their willingness to provide it. This resulted in six highly distinctive clusters—Basic Demographics, Personal Preferences, Contact Information, Community Interaction, Financial Information, and Secure Identifiers—organized around similarities in perceived risk profile. Additionally, consumer segmentation analysis shows rank order of cluster risk perceptions to be stable, even when perceived magnitude and overall risk propensities change by segment. This research advances the conversation from an outdated PII/non‐PII framework to a more meaningful, consumer‐based understanding of the perceived risks associated with different types of personal information.     

Studying Abroad: Understanding the Relationships Among Beliefs,Perceived Value,and Behavioral Intentions

Increased globalization highlights the importance of encouraging university students to participate in an international experience. In this study, the authors investigate how behavioral belief, subjective belief, and control belief influence students’ perceived value and intention to study abroad. The authors further examine the moderation effects of generation on the proposed relationships. The results show that behavioral belief, not subjective belief and control belief, is significantly related to perceived value. Second, the relationship between perceived value and intention to study abroad is stronger for the first-generation sample. Third, the subjective belief measure could be divided into the financial support versus nonfinancial support scales. The article concludes with implications of its findings for educators as well as for academic researchers.     

Customer reactions to self-checkout discontinuance

Self-service technologies (SSTs) increasingly permeate retail space. Yet, sometimes retailers decide to revert to human-delivered service mode by discontinuing their incumbent SST. In this study, we examine how self-checkout (SCO) discontinuance affects customers’ perceptions of SCO technology and purchase behavior. We conduct a natural field experiment by surveying two groups of customers pre- and post- SCO discontinuance: treatment group (who experience discontinuance) and control group (who do not experience discontinuance). Leveraging difference-in-differences analyses, we find that SCO discontinuance results in decreases in customers’ satisfaction with technology, intentions to use technology, perceived simplicity of technology, and basket size. Our results inform managers of the potential downsides of discontinuing SST and provide corroborating evidence of the technology’s benefits.     

Organisational context and behavioural problems as determinants of the effectiveness of the strategic marketing planning process

This paper continues the authors’ recent work on organisational behaviour by arguing that the differences between theory and parctice in marketing planning can be better understood by analysing the corporate environment for marketing management. Thus, variables such as organisational structure, the configuration of corporate decision making processes, patterns of managerial behaviour and the impact of corporate culture, can help us to understand how marketing planning processes operate in practice.

The authors contention is that the real problems associated with the strategic marketing planning process should be grounded in the realities perceived by executives. They go on to discuss a number of common pitfalls in the planning process before reporting on an exploratory empirical study of UK firms with over 100 employees. The implication of the results is seen as reselling the management agenda with regard to the process of marketing planning.     

‘Consumers’ Evaluation of Unethical Marketing Behaviors: The Role of Customer Commitment’

While there is a significant amount of research investigating managerial ethical judgments, a limited amount examines consumer judgments of unethical corporate behavior and its impact on the marketplace. This study examines how consumers’ commitment to a company impacts not only their ethical judgment of corporate behavior but also the outcomes of that judgment. The authors test hypotheses with data from 334 consumers and find that consumers’ level of commitment attenuates the level of perceived fairness. More specifically, highly committed consumers may forgive companies for behaviors when perceived harm is low, but become progressively dissatisfied as the level of perceived harm increases. Results of the study point to the importance of considering ethical behavior from a consumer perspective. If corporate actions are perceived as unethical, the company stands to lose favor with their most committed customers. Considering that more time, effort and investment is required to gain a new customer as to retain an old, this study shows that engaging in behavior perceived as unethical by consumers risks alienating the most committed customers.     

Are nutrient-content claims always effective?

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which recently prevalent nutrientcontent claims in food advertising are effective and how the level of effectiveness might differ between food products perceived as healthy and unhealthy. Guided by the match-up hypothesis and its theoretical underpinnings, a set of 2 (nutrient-content vs taste claim) × 2 (healthy vs unhealthy food) experiments investigated the impact of nutrient-content claims compared to the impact of taste claims on two different food product types. The authors found that (a) respondents evaluated food ads with nutrient-content claims as healthier than food ads with taste claims regardless of product type, but (b) the respondents showed better advertising evaluations on nutrient-content claims for foods perceived as healthy foods and on taste claims for foods perceived as unhealthy. Our findings provide implications and suggestions for improving food advertising and marketing strategies, and public health policy.     

The effect of self-checkout quality on customer satisfaction and repatronage in a retail context

Self-service technologies (SSTs) are defined as technological interfaces that enable customers to produce a service without direct employee involvement. Among various SSTs, self-checkouts are being tested by grocery stores across the world. However, while most studies focus on SST adoption, there is limited research on its impact on service quality, customer satisfaction, and retention. Our study investigates consumers’ assessments of self-checkout in a retail outlet, and its influence on post-usage intentions. The study presents a causal model in order to determine (i) whether consumers evaluate service quality for self-checkout based on five different attributes: speed, ease-of-use, control, reliability, and enjoyment; (ii) whether the evaluation of service quality differs according to demographics and usage frequency; and finally (iii) if service quality delivered by self-checkout relates to overall customer satisfaction and retail patronage. We conclude that successful use of self-checkout may "tie" consumers to a provider, representing a feature that differentiates a retailer from competitors.     

The role of national institutions in the effects of consumers’ perceived customer orientation and firm innovativeness

Many multinational corporations force global customer orientation and firm innovativeness. However, little is known about how or why they benefit from perceived customer orientation and firm innovativeness in one country but not in another. The authors fill this gap by referring to information processing and institutional theories. They contribute to research by analyzing the roles of country development and dimensions of national culture in the direct and indirect effects of perceived customer orientation through firm innovativeness on consumer product purchase intention across 53 countries. The results of multilevel structural equation modeling show different explained variances of the institutions and varying moderations for the differently strong effects of perceived customer orientation and firm innovativeness. Institutional theory strongly complements behavioral theorizing. The findings have direct implications for managers interested in understanding how perceived customer orientation and firm innovativeness interact and attract consumers in different country contexts.     

Assessing the Self-service Technology Encounters: Development and Validation of SSTQUAL Scale

Self-service technologies (SSTs) have enhanced the role technology plays in customer interactions with firms, yet instruments that systematically measure the service quality of SSTs from the perspective of customers remain underdeveloped. Based on psychometric scale development approaches, this study conceptualized, constructed, refined, and tested a multiple-item scale that examined key factors influencing SST service quality. Through qualitative and quantitative studies in four separate phases, a 20-item seven-dimension SSTQUAL scale was developed that includes functionality, enjoyment, security, assurance, design, convenience, and customization. The scale demonstrates sound psychometric properties based on findings from various reliability and validity tests as well as vigorous scale replications across industries and consumer traits using several different samples. The utility of the proposed scale is discussed for implications, limitations and future research.     

A meta-analysis of the relationship between perceived organizational support and job outcomes: 20 years of research

Anecdotal comments from practitioners and extant empirical research suggests a tenuous link between perceived organizational support and desired employee outcomes. Accordingly, in this study the authors conduct a meta-analysis examining the effects of perceived organizational support on four employee outcomes: organizational commitment, job satisfaction, performance, and intention to leave. The authors also examine the extent to which these effects are moderated by job type (frontline vs. non-frontline employee). Findings from the study indicate that perceived organizational support has a strong, positive effect on job satisfaction and organizational commitment; a moderate, positive effect on employee performance; and a strong, negative effect on intention to leave. Study findings also indicate that the effects of perceived organizational support are more pronounced for non-frontline employees.     

The impact of pronoun choices on consumer engagement actions: Exploring top global brands' social media communications

To enhance the understanding of consumer engagement with brand content on social media, this study examines how pronoun choices affect different types of consumer engagement (e.g., likes, comments, shares) by simultaneously exploring five different pronoun types (first-person singular, first-person plural, second person, third-person singular, and third-person plural). Furthermore, this study explores how the effects of these linguistic (pronoun) choices vary across two brand classifications: characteristics (hedonic vs. utilitarian) and offerings (goods vs. services). The proposed multivariate Poisson regression model, analyzing 15,788 unique brand posts from Facebook over an 8-month period, reveals differences in engagement due to pronoun usage across brand classifications. These results offer a deeper understanding of how the way brands talk to consumers on social media platforms influences consumers' attitudes (likes), propensity to engage with the brand (comments), and willingness to share branded content with their social networks (shares) across different brand classifications.     

Early and rapidly internationalizing ventures: Similarities and differences between classifications based on the original international new venture and born global literatures

The novel contribution of this article is that it compares classifications of early and rapidly internationalizing firms based on the original literature on International New Ventures (classification method based on speed and scope of internationalization) as well as the original literature on Born Globals (classification method based on speed and extent of internationalization). Evidence from a survey of almost 900 Danish manufacturers demonstrates that the two methods provide similar results with regard to overall patterns of internationalization, but that they classify individual firms quite differently. From a theoretical stance it is therefore recommended to incorporate a richer selection of indicators (aspects of speed, scope as well as extent) in order to secure higher comparability between studies.     

Perceived social undermining keeps entrepreneurs up at night and disengaged the next day: The mediating role of sleep quality and the buffering role of trait resilience

Entrepreneurs work in an uncertain, novel, and high-stakes environment. This environment can lead to disagreements and conflicts over how to develop, grow, and run a business venture, thus triggering destructive social interactions. This research sheds light on the role of destructive interpersonal relationships by examining daily perceived social undermining from work partners and how and when this perceived undermining affects entrepreneurs' work engagement. Building on a resource-based self-regulation perspective, we develop a theoretical model of the self-regulation impairment process whereby an entrepreneur's perceived social undermining disrupts sleep quality at night, which dampens work engagement the next day. We further theorize trait resilience as a self-regulation capacity that buffers this impairment process. We test the model in a study based on daily surveys over 10 workdays from 77 entrepreneurs. The results largely support our hypotheses and further indicate that trait resilience is more crucial for less experienced entrepreneurs. Our study contributes to research on how entrepreneurs' interpersonal relationships—particularly destructive ones—affect entrepreneurial well-being.