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The increase of life expectancy leads to the elderly living with one or more chronic illnesses. Communication between the elderly and the health-care professional is fundamental but can be difficult. For that reason, it is common to find the patient with an accompanying family member in the doctor’s surgery. The purpose of this paper is to analyze one of the possible actions of the companion during the provision of the medical service: the co-creation of value (through its two dimensions: coproduction and value-in-use) and its effects on the satisfaction of both the companion and the elderly patient.

A model has been tested through a system of structural equations using the statistical package EQS 6.2. The sample used is made up of 1,814 informants (907 companions and 907 patients).

The importance of coproduction between the accompanying person and the health-care professional is shown, to obtain greater levels of satisfaction (of the companion and the patient), whereas a negative role is conferred to the dimension value-in-use. This paper shows a positive impact of the satisfaction of the companion on that of the patient.

It is necessary to have health-care professionals who play a proactive role when facilitating the participation in the appointment with the doctor so as not to leave the initiative of participation in the hands of the companions.

Chronic illnesses are an important focal point of medical attention. Good management of the relations between those involved is fundamental for the diagnosis and adherence to treatment.

The current work aims to analyze the role of commitment perceived by the consumer in the maintenance of long‐term relationships. The context of analysis chosen is the tourism sector, more specifically the relationships that retail travel agencies establish with their consumers. The study tests a conceptual model via a system of structural equations using the statistics package EQS 6.1 for Windows. The results corroborate the importance of the consumer’s trust in the travel agency and the consumer’s perception of the firm’s commitment, because this commitment acts as an antecedent of trust and creates the conditions for the firm to achieve a stable portfolio of customers.

Appropriate management of service failures involves a complex organizational response that allows an effective internal and external recovery, learn from mistakes and introduce future service innovations. Empirical evidence on the organizational recovery practices more suitable to achieve these objectives, leading to superior performance, is limited. The present work seeks to extend the existing literature by identifying the potential dimensions that constitute an integrated service recovery system (ISRS), introducing a strategic, proactive and relational approach to service failure and recovery management, and by proposing a causal model linking the ISRS with performance.

The ISRS dimensions and their attributes are derived from an extensive literature review and suggestions from academics and business experts. Structural equations modeling is used to test a model linking the ISRS (conceptualized as a second order construct), with client, employee and business performance indicators, using data from a Spanish sample of 151 Knowledge‐Intensive Business Services (KIBS).

Results confirm that the firms' ability to approach service recovery from a strategic, proactive and relational perspective allows improving performance among clients and employees, that is, the external and internal recovery to occur, which leads to a superior competitive performance.

The ISRS scale can provide managers with a diagnostic tool to analyze their recovery practices and to further improve their competitiveness in the long term.

The need to assess the integrative nature of effective service recovery systems has been claimed theoretically. An empirical study showing the link between comprehensive service recovery practices and performance was lacking.

The purpose of this empirical research is to understand the application of Lean practices (technical and social) and tools in the service sector, whose implementation is less studied, despite its economic relevance. The study aims to extend previous studies that focused on the relationship between Lean and operational and financial performance, and analyzing the impact on sustainability, encompassing economic, social and environmental perspectives.

A pilot survey was conducted with Lean experts in European service companies. The authors have utilized various professional contacts on LinkedIn and a satisfactory response rate was obtained for analysis.

The results of the study showed that there are several motivating factors for the implementation of Lean, the highlights being improving customer satisfaction, efficiency, delivery and cost reduction. The most frequently used Lean tools are related to the identification of improvement opportunities and causes of problems. The pilot survey also made it possible to identify the greater use of technical practices than social practices. The sustainability performance analysis showed that the better performance of service companies is in the economic dimension.

The authors have identified no empirical studies linking Lean and sustainable performance in the service sector. This study bridges this cognitive gap through a pilot study and therefore makes an original contribution to the current literature.

This paper aims to examine how stealing thunder, apology and compensation influence customer loyalty in a service failure context, and how trust mediates these relationships.

The study adopted a scenario-based between-group experimental design involving 300 customers.

The results indicated that stealing thunder, apology and compensation have a joint effect on customer loyalty. Specifically, this study found a significant positive impact of stealing thunder on loyalty; a two-way interaction effect of compensation and stealing thunder on loyalty; and a three-way interaction effect on loyalty. Additionally, trust mediated the relationship between service recovery attributes (stealing thunder, apology and compensation) and customer loyalty.

This study introduces a new service recovery method called Stealing Thunder, which is commonly used in the fields of law and communication and is the first to assess stealing thunder as a proactive/preemptive strategy to handle service failures and its impact on customer loyalty. The study found that when stealing thunder was present, compensation had no influence on customer loyalty. Moreover, when stealing thunder was present, compensation had no impact on loyalty when apology was not present. However, compensation had a significant effect on loyalty when stealing thunder and apology were not present. This study finds the value of including proactive/preemptive strategies (stealing thunder) along with regular service recovery strategies (e.g. apology and compensation) in the service recovery process. Results show that service recoveries that include stealing thunder help service failure recovery significantly by increasing customer’s trust.