Working Conditions and Health of Leaders in Three Service Sectors

This study investigates the job demands, job resources, and health of leaders in three service sectors. The analyses are based on data of the 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey, a representative sample of the German labour force. The three service sectors trading, finance, and public services varied significantly in how leaders perceive job demands, job resources, psychosomatic health complaints, and musculoskeletal health complaints. Hardly any variation was found, however, in how demands and resources are associated with psychosomatic and musculoskeletal health complaints. These findings imply that service leaders’ perceptions provide sector-specific patterns of demands and resources, which are well reflected in stress theory. The findings further imply that there is no need for sector-specific theories predicting health complaints. The article concludes with a discussion of practical implications for health promotion in the three service sectors and the promotion of leaders’ health.

Value Co-Creation and Co-Destruction in Health Care: Analyzing Citizenship and Dysfunctional Patient Behavior in Nurse-Patient Encounters

Patients interact with various health care service network partners, whereby nurses play an integral role in providing health care services on the patient level. Drawing on social exchange theory and considering citizenship and dysfunctional patient behavior from a value co-creation (and even co-destruction) perspective, the purpose of the present study is to identify drivers that promote citizenship and reduce dysfunctional patient behavior in service interactions with nurses at the same time. Using PLS-SEM and survey data from 404 inpatients, results demonstrate the importance of perceived citizenship behavior of nurses for patient citizenship behavior by showing a significant direct effect (and partially even an indirect effect mediated by patients’ positive emotions) on all identified forms. However, it provides little chances to reduce dysfunctional patient behaviors, as there hardly exists any significant (direct or indirect) effect.

Business Solutions in the B2B World - A Systematic Literature Review

In an increasingly competitive environment, manufacturers are seeking for new ways of sustainable growth. Different resources (i.e., products, services, knowledge) are integrated into innovative business solutions to solve an entire customer problem. Business solution research is a dynamic research domain with a continuously increasing research output. This study provides a systematic literature review on business solution research. It reviews 355 articles from 1964 to 2020. On the one hand, the review’s objective is to develop a consistent definition and to retrace the evolutionary path of business solutions. On the other hand, the review aims to investigate outcomes and challenges of business solutions and uncover existing research gaps. These insights can help researchers to gain a quick and up-to-date snapshot of business solution research. Managers can benefit by understanding conceptual foundations of business solutions and potential risks, challenges, and outcomes.

Do Customers Regulate their Emotions? Development and Validation of a Model of Customer Emotional Labor

Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, this article integrates service literature on value cocreation with the psychological literature on emotional labor. Highlighting the co-production of services by both customers and employees, this research applies emotional labor theory to customers’ emotion regulation and expression. We explore the argument that customers perceive emotional display rules in service establishments and engage in goaldirected emotion regulation (i.e., customer emotional labor; CEL), using qualitative (Study 1) and quantitative (Study 2) methodologies. Descriptive findings from Study 1 provide evidence for the existence of CEL. Study 2 assesses the psychometric soundness of a newly developed customer display rules scale, and quantitatively tests a conceptual framework by examining antecedents and outcomes of customer emotion regulation. Findings of each study, the implications of this work, and avenues for future service management research are addressed.

Titelei/Inhaltsverzeichnis

Abstract_engl.

New Vantage Points on Emotional Labor and Its Service Context: An Introduction to the Emotional Labor and Service Special Issue

This special issue introduces new perspectives on emotional labor in the service context. That is, while service work has been a focus of much of the emotional labor research world, explication of the context in which that service work occurs (including the customers served, the leadership of those who serve, and the larger organizational context) has not received much attention. In addition, the emotional labor of customers has also not been much explored. The papers included in this special issue explore these issues from the viewpoints of both the fields of organizational behavior and services management; they consider emotional labor from both employees’ and customers’ perspectives; and they explore the outcomes of emotional labor in ways that signal the common human experiences of people when in interaction with each other. Together, these papers offer new insights on emotional labor by translating service characteristics and service leadership into attitudes and experiences of service workers and customers, their behaviors and emotions, and ultimately into their health and wellbeing. This introduction provides a series of lenses useful for interpreting the papers in this special issue. We hope that the depth and diversity of new directions for emotional labor research and practice that are suggested by this special issue will inspire many researchers and practitioners navigating this world to provide both understanding of it and further the health and well-being of those involved in it.

The Effects of Technology Affinity, Prior Customer Journey Experience, and Brand Familiarity on the Acceptance of Smart Service Innovations

In our study, a model of smart service innovation (SSI) acceptance is delineated. We assume that the effects of the customer journey experience (CJE) and technology affinity (TA) on adoption intention (IN) are mediated by consumers’ attitudes (AT) towards the adoption of SSIs. Furthermore, contingent on the level of brand familiarity (BF), this study hypothesizes a moderated mediation with regard to the ‘CJE = AT = IN’ relationship. The empirical findings are largely in line with the model hypotheses: First, technology affinity affects adoption intention indirectly via attitude towards SSIs. Second, CJE has a significant direct and indirect effect on adoption intention in the cases of average and high brand familiarity. For low brand familiarity, CJE neither has a significant direct effect nor a significant indirect effect on SSI acceptance. Based on the empirical findings, the present paper discusses implications for service management and service research, study limitations and avenues for future research.

Antecedents of Frontline Employees' Customer Orientation: A Comprehensive Review

This systematic literature review investigates the antecedents of frontline employees’ (FLEs) customer orientation (CO). In the literature various understandings of CO co-exist, which put an emphasis on different influencing factors and use different measurement approaches to study FLEs’ CO. The literature lacks a comprehensive literature review that structures and summarizes the fragmented empirical research on antecedents of FLEs’ CO. This study closes this gap by first, providing an extensive overview of the antecedents of FLEs’ CO, identifying and categorizing the factors that influence FLEs’ CO into four broad areas. Second, the study sheds light on the different understandings of CO and structures the fragmented literature. Based on the literature review, the study identifies avenues for future research in the field. Finally, the literature review gives guidance to managers by structuring starting points to enhance FLEs’ CO.