Journal of Service Management最新文献

Purpose

Capable service employees are increasingly scarce and costly. Many organizations opt to partially replace, support or augment human employees with AI systems. This study builds a framework to help managers map and understand the challenges of crafting a service climate that fosters synergies between AI and human employees, where customers require value-added, personalized and excellent service.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual article identifies barriers and facilitators of building a service climate for organizations using both human and AI-based employees through an eclectic review of relevant literature.

Findings

A conceptual framework is built, and a future research agenda is brought forth.

Research limitations/implications

By identifying barriers and facilitators for AI–human synergies in service settings, this article clarifies how AI can be made to complement human employees, especially in delivering personalized, value-added services, while also highlighting knowledge gaps.

Practical implications

This study provides a practical framework for integrating AI into the workforce. It offers insights into addressing challenges in creating a service climate that combines human and AI capabilities to maintain service excellence. Identifying key barriers and facilitators, the framework guides managers to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction in a rapidly changing service landscape.

Social implications

This research offers insights on incorporating AI to address labor shortages while maintaining high-quality, personalized service. It provides a pathway to improving service experiences, especially in sectors facing staffing challenges from an aging population.

Originality/value

This research builds on Bowen and Schneider’s (2014) seminal service climate framework to account for a mix of human and AI-based employees.

Purpose

This article proposes a set of three service standards for serving humanity; develops the Agency, Dignity and Diversity (ADD) Service Standards Framework; integrates these standards with human experience; and then applies this framework to refugee service experiences.

Design/methodology/approach

Building on Transformative Service Research (TSR), we propose service standards for humanity and connect these standards to elevating the human experience. Subsequently, the ADD Service Standards Framework for serving humanity is presented and applied to the human experiences of refugees.

Findings

Three service standards for serving humanity are proposed: empowering human agency, respecting human dignity and honoring human diversity. Further, we apply these three standards to offer a set of standard-specific practical actions adapted to the plight of refugees.

Practical implications

The practical implications affect all aspects of humanity’s service systems. Service standards should be universal, responsive to various needs of individuals and groups and adaptable to changing needs.

Originality/value

This paper contributes service standards for guiding service systems of any kind in serving humanity and provides a comprehensive framework for designing and implementing service standards that can elevate the human experience.

Purpose

In light of the increasing prevalence of non-human services, organizations can benefit by emphasizing distinctively human qualities in their services. This paper suggests that cultivating virtues among employees can enhance the value of human-provided services.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual paper incorporates ideas from management and service research examining the notion of virtue as well as human qualities that are associated with virtuousness. The paper builds upon service research, which emphasizes the important role of human elements in service interaction, along with extensive research in positive organizational scholarship, which characterizes virtues as the finest attributes of human nature.

Findings

The paper introduces “service virtuousness,” the voluntary and authentic expression of human virtues like compassion and creativity in service delivery, treating customers as individuals beyond their formal roles. A review of the literature reveals how virtuousness appears in services. The study also identifies when it is most beneficial, explores the challenges in its implementation, and suggests future research directions.

Originality/value

The paper offers a novel concept for service research grounded in core human values. Although service virtuousness does not focus on outcomes, it offers numerous benefits to all parties involved in the service setting. The theoretical framework for studying service virtuousness provides new opportunities to identify the conditions in which virtuousness is most beneficial in a service context.

Purpose

The relationship between frontline employee work engagement and customer service evaluations is a major theme in service research. Recent studies have called for further exploration and validation of this relationship. This paper conceptually replicates the work engagement-customer service evaluations link within the context of technology-mediated voice-to-voice encounters. Moreover, we extend prior work by examining how work engagement influences customer service evaluations depending on the outcome of the service encounter (positive or negative).

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a multilevel, multi-source study involving data from 4,198 customer interactions and 346 employees at a major European telecom operator. The data were analyzed using a linear mixed effects model.

Findings

The study could not replicate the relationship between work engagement and customer service evaluations in technology-mediated voice-to-voice encounters. The findings reveal that customers who interacted with a highly engaged employee but received a negative service outcome evaluated the interaction more negatively than those who interacted with a less engaged employee. Conversely, when the service outcome was positive, work engagement was not significantly related to customer service evaluations.

Originality/value

In voice-to-voice encounters, employee engagement appears to have little impact on customer service evaluations and can even be detrimental when the service outcome is negative. This study is among the first to empirically demonstrate a negative effect of work engagement on customer service evaluations. Future replication studies are needed to validate these findings.

Purpose

This research investigates the systematic reuse of service concept elements within modular service design, aiming to offer actionable insights into effective conceptualization of services and extending methodological underpinnings to enhance the approach of service design.

Design/methodology/approach

Employing a design science research approach, this study investigates the intentional and targeted reuse of service concept elements for modular service design. It develops four general design principles and applies them in a real-world context to demonstrate and evaluate the purposeful integration of service concept elements.

Findings

This research reveals the efficacy of reusing service concept elements for modular service design, highlighting the benefits of this approach in conceptualizing new services. It theorizes generalizable design knowledge by formalizing four design principles that allow to underpin the reuse of service concept elements.

Originality/value

This research contributes to service design literature by providing actionable insights into the systematic reuse of service concept elements, particularly within the framework of modular service design. We develop and test general design principles and, specifically, apply them for analytics-based digital services.

Purpose

The emergence of new generations of artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT or Copilot has brought about a wave of innovation in the service workplace. These robotic agents can serve as companions, helping employees cope with work-related stress. This research introduces the concept of “artificial companionship,” which explains how robotic agents can function as partners in assisting service employees to fulfill their job responsibilities and maintain their mental well-being.

Design/methodology/approach

This research uses a mixed methods approach grounded in social support theory from psychology and management to develop a conceptual framework for the stress-alleviating implications of artificial companionship. A qualitative employee survey is conducted to justify the relevance of the propositions.

Findings

This research delineates the concept of artificial companionship. It highlights four distinct roles that AI can play in companionship – instrumental, informative, caring, and intimate. Building on this foundation, the research presents a series of propositions that elucidate the potential of artificial companionship in mitigating stress among employees.

Practical implications

Firms should consider aligning the types of artificial companionship with the demands inherent in employees’ job responsibilities to better reinforce their resilience and sustainment in overcoming work-related challenges.

Originality/value

This research introduces a new perspective on artificial companionship through the lens of social support theory. It extends the current understanding of human-robot collaboration in service workspaces and derives a set of propositions to guide future investigations.

Purpose

Customer Experience Management (CXM) has already outgrown its infancy and must now position itself for long-term strategic success. However, the best Customer Experience Strategy (CXS) is worth little if not implemented effectively. Therefore, the present study investigated the determinants of the successful implementation of CXS and its results.

Design/methodology/approach

Key success factors were identified based on intensive desk research complemented by an exploratory qualitative study. The relevance of these determinants and the impact of successful CXS implementation were examined in a quantitative study involving 264 Customer Experience (CX) managers from several countries.

Findings

The results demonstrate the significant positive effects of the four determinants of top management support, CX-related organizational involvement, CX measurement ability, and internal use of CX data on CXS implementation success. Additionally, cross-functional working acts as a moderator. Moreover, the findings show the positive effects of successful CXS implementation on organizational customer orientation and customer relationship performance. Finally, our findings lead to essential theoretical and managerial implications.

Originality/value

While previous studies focused on CX or CXM, this study contributes to the research field by empirically testing the central determinants of successful CXS implementation and demonstrating the firm-internal (organizational customer orientation) and firm-external (customer relationship performance) effects of successful CXS implementation.

Purpose

Our purpose is to offer the service research field a framework for cultivating wiser service systems via wise communication–which we define as “interactional activity that reflects and reifies the integrative, practical, and relational nature of organizations.”

Design/methodology/approach

We draw on the Communicative Constitution of Organizations (CCO) theory to integrate insights and findings from three primary research fields – service, communication, and organizational science – to develop a framework for cultivating wiser service systems through wise communication.

Findings

Our framework identifies three major components of wise communication: integrative, practical, and relational. These components require that wise communication be “holistic,” “dynamic,” and “constitutive” (the integrative component); “active,” “contextual,” and “pragmatic” (the practical component); and “compassionate,” “open-minded,” and “humble” (the relational component). We use illustrative examples from healthcare to show how these nine characteristics enable wise communication practices that facilitate wiser service systems.

Practical implications

Our framework provides helpful ways to organize and inspire insights into cultivating wiser systems. This framework identifies the theoretical components of wise communication and specific communicative actions that system members can implement to shape wiser service systems.

Social implications

Wiser service systems are necessary to tackle humanity's complex social, economic, and environmental challenges.

Originality/value

We propose a novel framework for cultivating wiser systems centered on wise communication. This framework contributes new insights into theory and practice. The application of CCO theory to service systems is unique. Our article is also an early example of adding normative context to the CCO literature. While wisdom literature primarily focuses on aspects of individual wisdom, we broaden the wisdom literature to service systems.

Purpose

This paper offers a new vision of responsible service leadership for service organizations nested in economic, societal and environmental contexts across time to foster collective flourishing.

Design/methodology/approach

Following the call for novel perspectives that recognize service as a game among (vs between) people in service ecosystems, we build on service leadership theory to integrate insights from infinite (vs finite) games and biomimicry practices to propose a holistic model for responsible service leadership.

Findings

We extend the 3C (competence, character and care) model of service leadership (Shek et al., 2021) adding context and chronos as essential pillars of responsible service leadership in nested ecosystems. We offer new interpretations and applications of the 3Cs through the lens of context and chronos.

Research limitations/implications

This paper furthers the emerging conversation about unique leadership approaches for service, linking existing service leadership theories with holistic views of service ecosystems and enabling a shift from decontextualized models of leadership to a more inclusive approach.

Practical implications

We propose that responsible service leadership can inspire new approaches to leadership development within organizations and in business education (e.g. competencies, settings) and a reconsideration of organizational structures (e.g. culture, selection and incentive design).

Social implications

The proposed 5C model revisits foundational assumptions of responsibility in service leadership, integrating actors across and within service ecosystems, society at large and the environment in the present and future.

Originality/value

This paper offers a conceptual framework – the 5Cs model of responsible service leadership – aimed at reimagining service leadership.