Trends and directions in service triads research

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sourav Sengupta ◽  
Tarikere T. Niranjan ◽  
Mohan Krishnamoorthy
Keyword(s):  
Service Providers ◽  
Citation Network ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Cross Culture ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Classification Framework ◽  
Citation Network Analysis ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
The Stability

Purpose Service triads refer to tripartite relationships in which client firms serve their customers through third-party service providers. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the nascent but fast-growing literature on service triads to explore the broad themes along which the literature has grown, and to identify the gaps and future research opportunities. Design/methodology/approach Systematic literature review (SLR) approach is adopted to retrieve, select, and synthesise relevant service triads studies. A citation network analysis on the corpus resulting from the SLR identified the core articles of the literature. Findings The SLR uncovered ten themes of research along the articles’ objectives, theories and methodologies. The classification framework of service triads, the roles of customers and providers, the size of the provider, triadic risks, controlling service delivery and service quality, regulated triads, the stability of the triads, and cross-country, cross-culture triads emerged as significant under-researched areas. Originality/value The paper illustrates research trends and provides insights into the neglected and under-researched problems of service triads. This is the first SLR on service triads.

Research in urban logistics: a systematic literature review

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (10) ◽  
pp. 908-931 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Lagorio ◽  
Roberto Pinto ◽  
Ruggero Golini
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Citation Network ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Directions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Citation Network Analysis ◽  
Continuous Progress ◽  
Future Research Directions

Purpose The last decades have witnessed an increased interest in urban logistics originating from both the research and the practitioners’ communities. Sustainable freight transports today are on the political, social and technological agenda of many actors operating in urban contexts. Due to the extent of the covered areas and the continuous progress in many fields, the resulting body of research on urban logistics appears quite fragmented. From an engineering management perspective, the purpose of this paper is to present a systematic literature review (SLR) that aims to consolidate the knowledge on urban logistics, analyse the development of the discipline, and provide future research directions. Design/methodology/approach The paper discusses the main evidence emerging from a SLR on urban logistics. The corpus resulting from the SLR has been used to perform a citation network analysis and a main path analysis that together underpin the identification of the most investigated topics and methodologies in the field. Findings Through the analysis of a corpus of 104 articles, the most important research contributions on urban logistics that represent the structural backbone in the development of the research over time in the field are detected. Based on these findings, this work identifies and discusses three areas of potential interest for future research. Originality/value This paper presents an SLR related to a research area in which the literature is extremely fragmented. The results provide insights about the research path, current trends and future research directions in the field of urban logistics.

From third party to significant other for service encounters: a systematic review on third-party roles and their implications

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liliane Abboud ◽  
Nabila As'ad ◽  
Nicola Bilstein ◽  
Annelies Costers ◽  
Bieke Henkens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Significant Other ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Final Sample ◽  
Systematic Knowledge

PurposeDyadic interactions between customers and service providers rarely occur in isolation. Still, there is a lack of systematic knowledge about the roles that different types of nontechnological third parties – that is, other customers, pets, other employees and other firms – can adopt in relation to customers and service providers during encounters. The present study aims to unravel these roles and highlight their implications for customers, service providers and/or third parties.Design/methodology/approachThis research relies on a systematic review of literature in the Web of Science using a search string pertaining to the research study’s objectives. In total, 2,726 articles were screened by title and abstract using clear inclusion and exclusion criteria, thereby extracting 189 articles for full-text eligibility. The final sample consisted of 139 articles for coding and analysis.FindingsThe analyses reveal that other customers, pets, other employees and other firms can adopt five roles: bystander, connector, endorser, balancer and partner. Each role has different implications for customers, service providers and/or third parties. Additionally, the five roles are associated with distinct constellations of the customer, the service provider and the third party. These roles and constellations are dynamic and not mutually exclusive.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the service encounter literature by providing a thorough understanding of the various third-party roles and their implications for customers, service providers and/or third parties during encounters. As such, this research sheds light on the conditions under which third parties become “significant others” in service encounters and identifies avenues for future research.

Omni-channel retailing in supply chains: a systematic literature review

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Syed Asif Raza ◽  
Srikrishna Madhumohan Govindaluri
Keyword(s):  
Network Analysis ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Citation Network ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Topics ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
Citation Network Analysis ◽  
Key Aspects

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to conduct a structured literature review using advanced bibliometric tools to understand the existing knowledge base, understand the trends in omni-channel (OC) research and identify emerging research topics.Design/methodology/approachMore than 500 articles selected through a keyword combination search from reputed databases of peer-reviewed academic sources from period 2009–19 are analyzed for the purposes of this study. The study first presents an exploratory analysis to determine influential authors, sources and regions, among other key aspects. Second, several network analyses including co-citation and dynamic co-citation network analyses are conducted to identify themes. These allow identifying research clusters and emerging research topics algorithmically. Both centrality and modularity-based clustering are employed. A content analysis of the most influential groups within OC literature for each cluster is included.FindingsThe findings of this paper make unique contributions by using advanced tools from network analysis along with the standard bibliometric analysis tools to explore the current status of OC research, identify existing themes and the guidance for potential areas of future research interest in OC.Practical implicationsThis research provides a comprehensive view of the range of topics of importance that have been discussed in the literature of OC management. These research trends can serve as a quick guide to researchers and practitioners to improve decision making and also develop strategies.Originality/valueThe paper employs advanced tools for the first time to review the literature of OC retailing. The sophisticated tools include co-citation and dynamic co-citation network analysis.

Enhancing customer privacy while searching for products and services on the world wide web

2005 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 378-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuval Elovici ◽  
Chanan Glezer ◽  
Bracha Shapira
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
User Profile ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Internet Service ◽  
Content Type ◽  
User Query ◽  
The World

PurposeTo propose a model of a privacy‐enhanced catalogue search system (PECSS) in an attempt to address privacy threats to consumers, who search for products and services on the world wide web.Design/methodology/approachThe model extends an agent‐based architecture for electronic catalogue mediation by supplementing it with a privacy enhancement mechanism. This mechanism introduces fake queries into the original stream of user queries, in an attempt to reduce the similarity between the actual interests of users (“internal user profile”) and the interests as observed by potential eavesdroppers on the web (“external user profile”). A prototype was constructed to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the model.FindingsThe evaluation of the model indicates that, by generating five fake queries per each original user query, the user's profile is hidden most effectively from any potential eavesdropper. Future research is needed to identify the optimal glossary of fake queries for various clients. The model also should be tested against various attacks perpetrated against the mixed stream of original and fake queries (i.e. statistical clustering).Research limitations/implicationsThe model's feasibility was evaluated through a prototype. It was not empirically tested against various statistical methods used by intruders to reveal the original queries.Practical implicationsA useful architecture for electronic commerce providers, internet service providers (ISP) and individual clients who are concerned with their privacy and wish to minimize their dependencies on third‐party security providers.Originality/valueThe contribution of the PECSS model stems from the fact that, as the internet gradually transforms into a non‐free service, anonymous browsing cannot be employed any more to protect consumers' privacy, and therefore other approaches should be explored. Moreover, unlike other approaches, our model does not rely on the honesty of any third mediators and proxies that are also exposed to the interests of the client. In addition, the proposed model is scalable as it is installed on the user's computer.

An exploration of logistics-related customer service provision on Twitter

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (6/7) ◽  
pp. 659-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jyotirmoyee Bhattacharjya ◽  
Adrian Ellison ◽  
Sonali Tripathi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Customer Service ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
Specific Order ◽  
Independent Observations ◽  
Social Media Platforms

Purpose – The success of e-retailers is intrinsically linked to the effectiveness of their logistics processes which, inevitably, involve third party service providers. As the most tangible representative of the e-retailers it is inevitable that customers expect the e-retailer to resolve delivery queries, including on social media platforms. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of e-retailers’ logistics-related customer service interactions on Twitter with a view towards identifying effective and ineffective social media customer service strategies. Design/methodology/approach – The design and public nature of Twitter encourages organic conversations between e-retailers and customers as well as between customers and other customers. The methodology applied here accounts for this by collecting and analysing interactions within and as part of conversations, not as independent observations. In total, 203,349 tweets were collected from 22 of the most popular e-retailers. A random sample of 5,000 logistics-related conversations (16,998 tweets) is used for the analysis presented here and forms a foundation for future research. Findings – Conversations are initiated by customers on the basis of 24 event triggers which can be categorised as occurring either before or after an order is delivered. These can be general queries or related to a specific order or delivery issue. The paper identifies a number of significant findings such as the extent to which e-retailers and logistics providers redirect customers to other channels to resolve queries, ignoring the implicit preference by customers to use Twitter to resolve their problem. Similarly, the lack of interactions between e-retailers and their logistics providers within the Twitter platform to help resolve customer queries results in ineffective customer service. Practical implications – The study identifies the way in which e-retailers can substantially improve the effectiveness of the customer service they provide on Twitter by ensuring that customer queries can be resolved within the platform and by working with their logistics partners to do the same. This is critical since problems may be directed to the e-retailer or the logistics provider but both companies jointly suffer the consequences of poor customer service. Originality/value – The study examines a hitherto underexplored aspect of retail logistics – the social media-based customer service activities of e-retailers. Methodologically, the study is rooted in the acknowledgement that interactions on Twitter form conversations and analyses should take this into account. This is a distinctly different approach from existing Twitter-related studies which conduct an automated sentiment analysis of tweets. This approach reveals a rich picture of interactions and, importantly, identifies where conversations between e-retailers begin, how they develop and how they conclude.

A model for managing service encounters for neo-luxury consumers

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Canziani ◽  
Kittichai Watchravesringkan ◽  
Jennifer Yurchisin
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Brand Management ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Luxury Brands ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Consumer Markets ◽  
Future Research Directions

Purpose – This paper aims to explore a theoretical relationship among perceptions of consumer social class, the perceived legitimacy of customer requests for service and the delivery of intangible services. It focuses the discussion on service firm encounters with non-traditional consumers seeking to purchase from luxury brands. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the literature for current trends in strategies of luxury brands and characteristics of evolving global and Asian consumer markets for luxury and neo-luxury goods and draws a theoretic model with propositions. Findings – Evidence suggests that service providers can improve efforts to expand services to the newly rich and trading-up neo-luxury consumer markets by focusing on the intangible elements of the service delivery system. Particular emphasis is placed on enhancing employee treatment of neo-luxury customers during service encounters by understanding the influence of employee perceptions of consumer social class and evaluations of the perceived legitimacy of customer requests for service. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the theoretical discussion in luxury brand management by suggesting that employees are influenced by impressions of customer worth and other attributes when determining responses to customers during service encounters. Implications for practitioners and future research directions for academics based on the framework are presented.

Emerging trends in digital transformation: a bibliometric analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raghu Nandan Chawla ◽  
Praveen Goyal
Keyword(s):  
Bibliometric Analysis ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Citation Network ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Intellectual Structure ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Research Areas

PurposeUbiquitous digital technologies are driving organisations to embrace non-traditional digitally transformed business models incessantly. Heterogeneous literature contributions have resulted in a spur in the research related to business transformation driven by digital technologies in recent years; consequently, the research under the digital transformation (DT), even though becoming a hotspot, remains very fragmented. The authors endeavour to holistically present the literature's intellectual structure under DT as a concept, its evolving journey and the emerging research streams in the business and management domains using the techniques of bibliometric analysis.Design/methodology/approachBy performing bibliometric analysis on 234 research articles published over the last 20 years in the DT domain, retrieved from Thompson Reuters Web of Science TM, this study culls out thorough insights from the citation, co-citation and keyword analysis. Further emerging research streams were evaluated using VOSviewer software.FindingsThe study depicts an overall incremental trend of year-on-year publications, authors' performance, publication journals, associated institutions and research driving countries, along with key insights from co-citation network analysis. Furthermore, the study evaluates four research areas – organisational impacts, applied applications and insights, operational processes and social aspects, comprising eighteen research streams that comprehensively cover-up research under the DT domain.Research limitations/implicationsThe study contributes to the literature of DT by amalgamating the status of the present research, but more importantly, by deriving the research areas and research streams, which can be further expanded by researchers as future research streams.Practical implicationsFor the practitioners, the study aims to act as a ready reckoner repository with practice-oriented literature references to facilitate them building knowledge and taking effective strategic decisions to harness the benefits of DT more proficiently.Originality/valueThis study illustrates the bibliometric structure of the DT literature and presents insights from the growth of the literature year-on-year.

Comparison analysis on the bilateral efforts of farmers and the third-party organization under multiple contract modes

Kybernetes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 818-834 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lanying Sun ◽  
Xiaoyan Li
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply System ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Purchase Price ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Agricultural Supply

Purpose The purpose of this paper is under the analysis framework of the system theory, analyzing the optimal contract mode of agricultural supply chain to guarantee the stability of agricultural supply chain and the equilibrium of agricultural product market, to analyze the effect of farmers’ risk attitude on the selection of contract modes and to find the way to encourage farmers’ productive effort and to avoid farmers’ hitchhiking behavior, to guarantee the stability of agricultural supply chain. Design/methodology/approach Under the guidance of the system theory, using the Stackelberg model and the nonlinear programming theory, this paper comparatively analyzes farmers’ effort (productive effort and sales effort), farmers’ income and the stability of agricultural supply system of four types of contract modes between farmers, third-party organizations and market. Findings First, in the agricultural market, market-type contract cannot maximize farmers’ income. The main reason is that farmers do not have enough ability to avoid market risk and to bargain. Second, for farmers of risk seeking, choosing a market-type contract and secondary-income contract can increase their income. Third, under the fixed-purchase price contract, the hitchhiking behavior would happen. Fourth, when farmers’ productive efforts are the same, farmers’ income under the secondary-income contract is higher than under the fixed-purchase price contract. Because under the secondary-income contract, farmers have the opportunity to obtain the secondary distribution of benefits, farmers’ hitchhiking behavior could be avoided. Originality/value Analyzing the contract modes between farmers and the third-party organization in the agricultural market could reduce the influence of price fluctuation, avoid the uncertainty of the relationship between the supply and demand, stimulate the productive effort of farmers and provide theoretical guidance for establishing efficient and stable agricultural supply system.

scholarly journals An evaluation of factors affecting the management of COVID-19 in Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Syed S.M Sadrul Huda ◽  
Afsana Akhtar ◽  
Segufta Dilshad ◽  
Syeeda Raisa Maliha
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Care Management ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Care Service ◽  
Health Care Service ◽  
Health Care Management ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social

PurposeThe study aims to gain insights into the management of COVID-19 in Bangladesh to identify the factors that are relevant to managing the pandemic in a developing country.Design/methodology/approachThe study was carried out by pursuing the archival method. The information was collected from credible newspaper reports over the previous months, as well as articles published on the subject of COVID-19.FindingsThe research revealed important and relevant dimensions of the health sector in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. The major factors were doctors, nurses (health service providers), patients, (customers) and society. This is a pioneering paper, which documents the major lessons learned from the management of COVID-19 in Bangladesh concerning three stakeholders of the health-care system, i.e. providers, patients and society. This paper covers the situation regarding the ongoing pandemic from three perspectives – provider, customers and society, and thus, may help to develop future research regarding the development of health-care management models for addressing the pandemic.Research limitations/implicationsThe major limitations of this paper is its over dependence on secondary sources for collecting the information.Practical implicationsThis paper presents the learnings from the pandemic in health-care management in different categories (e.g. social, doctor/nurse, patients), which can help the managers in understanding different dimensions of the health-care sector from different perspectives. The problems as well as the learnings stated in the paper can help the policy makers implement such strategies to ensure better delivery of the medical health-care service during a pandemic.Social implicationsThis paper clearly reveals the social dimensions of the COVID-19 by assessing the social aspects of COVID-19 management. Both social stigma and support are traced out during evaluating the situation. Thus, the social forces will be able to rethink about their role in addressing the social costs of pandemic.Originality/valueThis is a commentary piece.

Employing proactive interaction for service failure prevention to improve customer service experiences

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 164-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyunju Shin ◽  
Alexander E. Ellinger ◽  
David L. Mothersbaugh ◽  
Kristy E. Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Customer Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Service Failure ◽  
Marketing Research ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Failure Prevention ◽  
Patronage Behavior

Purpose Services marketing research continues to be largely focused on firms’ reactive interactions for recovering from service failure rather than on proactive customer interactions that may prevent service failure from occurring in the first place. Building on previous studies that assess the efficacy of implementing proactive interaction in service provision contexts, the purpose of this paper is to compare the influences of proactive interaction to prevent service failure and reactive interaction to correct service failure on customer emotion and patronage behavior. Since proactive interaction for service failure prevention is a relatively underexplored and resource-intensive approach, the authors also assess the moderating influences of customer and firm-related characteristics. Design/methodology/approach The study hypotheses are tested with survey data from two scenario-based experiments conducted in a retail setting. Findings The findings reveal that customers prefer service providers that take the initiative to get to them before they have to initiate contact for themselves. The findings also identify the moderating influences of relationship quality, situational involvement, and contact person status and motive. Originality/value The research contributes to the development of service provision theory and practice by expanding on previous studies which report that proactive efforts to prepare customers for the adverse effects of service failure are favorably received. The results also shed light on moderating factors that may further inform the exploitation of resource-intensive proactive interaction for service failure prevention. An agenda is proposed to stimulate future research on proactive customer interaction to prevent service failure in service provision contexts.

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