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This research aims to explore and theorize the role of embodied practices – orchestrated by service providers – in the social production of servicescapes. It is claimed that the social character of the servicescape is shaped not only by narratives and materialities but also through the body. Bodily physical behaviors like physical movements in space, gestures, facial expressions, postures and tactile engagements with the surrounding materiality constitute a body language that conveys information and expresses meanings. In this kinetic capacity, the body becomes a building agent in the social constitution of the servicescape. As the author empirically demonstrates in the context of city tourism with diverse experiential opportunities, it is due to the body’s discriminatory orientation, walking, looking, pointing and acting in selective ways that the city emerges as a servicescape of particular kind.

Market-oriented ethnography was conducted in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where the author observed the guiding practices of tour guides leading international tourists during two-day city excursions.

This research identifies and unpacks three clusters of embodied practices deployed by service providers as they guide customers at the servicescape: spatializing, emplacing and regulating. The role of the body and its association with narratives and materialities is identified in each cluster.

A number of embodied practices are provided for use by contact employees as they guide customers in the servicescape. Specific guidelines are also offered to service providers for the strategic employment of body language, their training is navigational skills and the coordination of body, narratives and materialities.

This study extends current materialistic and communicative approaches on the construction of servicescapes by claiming that the servicescape in not only a physical and narrative construction but something that is also configured through the body; provides three clusters of embodied practices deployed by service providers; theorizes the intertwined nature of narratives, materiality and the body; defines servicescapes as dynamic socio-spatial entities emerging from the constant {narrative-material-body} arrangements orchestrated by service providers; and sheds light on the mediating role of the body in the social production of servicescapes.

This paper explores the profound philosophical and conceptual foundations that underpin comparative international education research, particularly concerning the evolving roles of universities and colleges that transcend mere skills training or human capital development in contemporary times. Universities and colleges have predominantly focused on measuring their success through criteria such as research excellence and their ability to adapt to the ever-evolving demands of the job market. It is imperative to recognize that the diversity of postsecondary institutions is not only providers of human capital with curriculum shaped by labor market needs; rather, they should be recognized as institutions dedicated to human development, community anchors, the promotion of the public good, democratic education, the cultivation of civil society, and global citizenship. Relying on an extensive review of selected literature pertaining to the mission, goals, aims, and roles of the postsecondary sector in three regions (East Asia, Germanic Europe, and North America), this paper considers the question, “How do different approaches and traditions in different social contexts contribute to our understanding of the civic roles of postsecondary education institutions in shaping future global citizens, transcending the confines of national boundaries?” Throughout the paper, the unique contexts and traditions of these regions are meticulously examined alongside thematic discussions, culminating in comprehensive analyses on what factors are considered as the civic roles of institutions and what challenges are there for them to realize their goals.

This study aims to identify the groups of value cocreators in the context of social media in the retail banking industry and resources that predict customer membership among different groups of value cocreators.

This study reviewed the literature and developed measurement instruments for the constructs of interest. Data were collected from 406 customers in an emerging market in 2019 and analyzed using latent profile analysis.

This study identified three profiles of value cocreators on social media based on the actual practices of resource integration that enliven value cocreation. Second, this study explains the differences in the performance of resource integration practices to cocreate by the types of resources that customers integrate into social media. Third, this study fills the need for knowledge of value cocreation in different contexts and industries (e.g. banks).

This study analytically relates a set of resources to the variety and intensity of the value cocreation practices adopted by bank customers in interactive environments. The emphasis on how value cocreation practices in online environments combined with customer resources (e.g., a person-centered approach) allows to identify unique profiles of value cocreators on social media. The findings inform managers of the profiles of cocreators, which customers are more attractive as value cocreators on social media, and which resources managers should help customers develop to increase cocreation on social media.

In 2020, former Major Junior hockey players filed a lawsuit against the Canadian Hockey League (CHL), its three regional affiliates and each of their teams. The statement of claim (Carcillo v. CHL, 2020) alleges rampant institutionalised and systemic abuse shaped by a toxic environment that enables abuse, discrimination and other harmful conduct to continue. In response, the CHL commissioned an independent review panel (Thériault et al., 2020) to investigate the abuse allegations. The panel concluded that the culture in the CHL has allowed abusive practices to become a cultural norm. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an understanding of player perceptions of hazing in the context of an environment that is typically understood as hypermasculine to the point of enabling abuse and the vitiation of consent. Drawing on a content analysis of affidavits from the Carcillo lawsuit as well as semi-structured qualitative interviews we conducted with former CHL players, we discuss the findings that suggest that CHL teams and leagues have often fostered a culture that can facilitate dangerous hazing practices for which consent is not always authentically obtained.

This chapter describes the importance of marketing activities at airports. The link between marketing and airports has been reinforced by new technologies and digital marketing tools. This technological combination has had a high penetration in the user's smartphones and airport activities, particularly in non-aeronautical revenue. Moreover, this chapter introduces a new conceptualisation of airport marketing, a definition more updated and aligned with airports' business needs in the time of a pandemic crisis. The rest of the chapter shows the mobile marketing tool and its interaction with passengers, as well as how this helps airport operators design new products and services, and increase commercial revenue through digital channels.

Drawing on a competency-based approach, this empirical study explores whether art and design students’ entrepreneurship skill sets (technical, managerial and entrepreneurial skills) influence their intention to own a business and whether gender and/or business ownership influence their entrepreneurship skill sets.

A total of 204 respondents were selected using a random sampling technique. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, including independent sample tests and two-way ANOVA.

The independent samples test revealed interesting results regarding art and design students’ entrepreneurship skill sets, distinguishing between those who own businesses and those who do not. The two-way ANOVA analysis indicated that certain factors significantly affect art and design students’ entrepreneurship skill sets while others do not.

The findings suggest that higher education institutions should reconsider their curricular frameworks to better equip art and design graduates with not only artistic skills but also robust entrepreneurial competencies based on targeted training programs that could be developed to enhance the managerial and entrepreneurial skills among art and design students.

This study addresses a gap in the literature by empirically examining the impact of entrepreneurship skill sets on the art and design students’ business ownership and investigating whether business ownership and/or gender influence their entrepreneurship skill sets, offering valuable insights for educational institutions and policymakers.

Dark tourism is one of the tourism types that have developed in line with the expectations of tourists in recent years. One of the special interest tourism types, dark tourism is based on fears such as pain, fear, and sadness. From this point of view, dark tourism destinations include battlefields, execution scenes, areas where death is experienced firsthand, centers with horror themes, and regions where natural and technological disasters occur. The centers where dark tourism takes place are quite different from the centers where other types of tourism take place. Thus, there is also diversity in the tourist type. Among the travel motivations of Dark tourists are reasons such as experiencing the moment of death, feeling fear, respecting the past, and obtaining information. With the advancement of technology, the reach of dark tourism to tourists has also accelerated. Today, dark tourism destinations reach large masses by using various marketing strategies. With this information, the aim of this study is to examine marketing strategies within the scope of dark tourism. Within the scope of this examination, social media will be emphasized. Social media accounts of destinations based on dark tourism will be examined and data will be analyzed through content analysis. Thus, it is aimed to have a rich section within the scope of dark tourism and social media.

While the concept of reciprocity has gained traction in qualitative research, especially as the term relates to challenging power dynamics inherent within the research and evaluation process, a gap remains in understanding how a researcher's or elevator's cultural background shapes the way reciprocity is conceptualized and practiced. We explore how Filipino concepts connected to reciprocity (utang na loob, pakikipagkapwa, and alalay) inform the practice of Filipina American researchers and evaluators in academia. We use Sikolohiyang Pilipino and Critical Kapwa in the conceptual framework to guide our study and employ a collaborative autoethnography (CAE) methodology. We present three findings: (1) reciprocity and utang na loob as a nontransactional debt, (2) reciprocity and pakikipagkapwa as seeing the humanity in others, and (3) reciprocity and alalay as carrying the weight together. We discuss this study's implications – regarding theorizing reciprocity, using collaborative autoethnography as methodology, and reclaiming deeper ways of knowing from a critical perspective – for transforming evaluation and research practice. Specifically, through a collaborative autoethnography, we learned the importance of understanding the nuances of language (i.e., Tagalog and other Filipino languages) as a decolonizing approach to arriving at our analysis of pakikipagkapwa through kuwentuhan. Methodologies that attend to a culturally responsive evaluation and research practice – –such as CAE and kuwentuhan– – amplify the voices of silenced communities. Lastly, deeply understanding the cultural context of evaluators' and researchers' experiences and cultural identities as well as studying oneself through a collaborative autoethnography can create practices of reciprocity that have been buried by settler colonialism.

There is a paucity of published research regarding service employees’ side of gloomy consequences emanating from value co-creation (VCC). The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the activities and interactions of VCC that can result in negative well-being for service employees.

This paper is a theory synthesis paper and, as such, seeks to accomplish conceptual integration of multiple theories and literature streams.

The origins of negative outcomes of VCC are infinite, and for the purpose of this study, the potential triggers of negative outcomes are limited to typical processes and behaviours initiated by VCC of services. For the purposes of this paper, dysfunctional customer behaviour, customer incivility, value co-destruction, boundary-spanning activities, organisational structure and policies and resource integration are investigated as sources of negative well-being for service employees.

The first limitation is the focus on offline transactions. Although the accepted definition of a service ecosystem provides for it to be a “self-adjusting system” a need could emerge for some formal management structure to cope with the increasing complexity of service transactions. A theoretical implication of this paper is that it includes a few lesser researched elements in the context of VCC. A starting point to deal with undesirable VCC interactions is to distinguish between undesirable interaction outcomes that originated inside the firm (own service employees) and those that originated from outside the firm (dysfunctional customers).

A first suggestion on how managers could deal with undesirable VCC interactions is to distinguish between undesirable interaction outcomes that originated inside the firm (e.g. own service employees, firm policies and structure) and those that originated from outside the firm (e.g. customer incivility and dysfunctional customers), as these two types of interaction outcomes require different interventions. Firms will need to bring together, study, analyse and assess all service employee experiences and challenges generated by VCC interactions. The frequency and significance of negative incidents should indicate the amount of effort and time to be spent on types of negative incidents.

A challenge for service ecosystems is how they will adjust to comply with novel and traditional non-business objectives in the light of transformational, upliftment and other calls from society, whilst at the same time improving the well-being of the entire service ecosystem (i.e. providers, users and society). The improvement of well-being versus reducing suffering/losses/risks is not an option. The words of Hammedi et al. (2024, p. 159) “we move towards the conceptualization of service ecosystem health as a harmonious state in which private, public and planetary well-being merge” are exceptionally fitting here.

The negative consequences of VCC impact the well-being of service employees and are costly for a firm. Suggestions to prevent or limit the impact of undesirable or harmful consequences are made. This study is of value for service businesses, service academics and society. A greater awareness of the destructive nature of negative consequences of VCC will hopefully transpire from this study.