Mark S. Rosenbaum, Jillian C. Sweeney and Carolyn Massiah
The purpose of this paper is to help senior center managers and service researchers understand why some patrons experience health benefits, primarily fatigue relief, through…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to help senior center managers and service researchers understand why some patrons experience health benefits, primarily fatigue relief, through senior center day services participation.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct two separate studies at a senior center. The first study represents a grounded theory that offers an original, basic social process regarding mental restoration in senior centers. The second study draws on Attention Restoration Theory (ART) and employs survey methodology.
Findings
Senior center patrons who perceive a center's restorative stimuli experience health benefits such as relief from four types of fatigue, enhanced quality of life, and improved physical and mental well-being.
Research limitations/implications
The paper shows that senior centers may be relatively inexpensive, non-medical services that can help patrons relieve fatigue symptoms, which are often treated with pharmaceutical medication and medical visits. A limitation is the small sample size, which restricts generalizability.
Practical implications
The results show that senior center managers may promote patron health by fostering service designs and programs that allow members to temporarily escape from everyday life and interact in an ever-changing environment that fosters a sense of belonging.
Social implications
Senior center day services help patrons relieve fatigue, and its symptoms, in an affordable, non-medical, and non-pharmaceutical manner.
Originality/value
The paper clarifies the role of senior centers in patrons’ lives by drawing on ART. Senior centers that can offer patrons restorative environments are likely to play a significant role in patrons’ physical, social, and mental well-being.
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Zachary Johnson, Carolyn Massiah and Jeffrey Allan
When consumers help other users of the same brand, both the brand and consumers benefit. To determine when consumer‐to‐consumer helping behaviors occur and to help managers…
Abstract
Purpose
When consumers help other users of the same brand, both the brand and consumers benefit. To determine when consumer‐to‐consumer helping behaviors occur and to help managers encourage this value‐creating activity, this paper aims to investigate relationships between social identification and helping behavior intentions within a consumption community and its subgroups.
Design/methodology/approach
Surveys were given to consumers identified as members of a consumption community during an annual consumption event. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Findings
Consumers' identification with the overall community was positively related to helping behavior intentions toward the overall community, but not subgroup level. Subgroup identification was positively related to helping at the subgroup but negatively related to helping behavior intentions at the community level. When consumers identify with the overall community, they assist other consumers. However, consumers are less likely to help consumers in the overall community when identifying with a subgroup.
Practical implications
When consumers identify with a consumption community and its subgroups, their identification can lead to helping between members. Voluntary helping between consumers provides value to consumers and contributes to the firm's value‐creation process. This study helps managers understand how consumption community development simultaneously encourages and discourages consumer value‐creation through helping behaviors.
Originality/value
This study examines consumer value‐creation through the context of consumer helping intentions within consumption communities on a continuum, as opposed to the dichotomy implied by prior research. This study empirically demonstrates how consumers' membership in subgroups can motivate consumers to help some, but not other consumption community members.
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Mark S. Rosenbaum and Carolyn Massiah
The purpose of this paper is to put forth an expanded servicescape framework that shows that a perceived servicescape comprises physical, social, socially symbolic, and natural…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to put forth an expanded servicescape framework that shows that a perceived servicescape comprises physical, social, socially symbolic, and natural environmental dimensions.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper offers an in‐depth literature review on servicescape topics from a variety of disciplines, both inside and outside marketing, to advance a logical framework built on Bitner's seminal article (1992).
Findings
A servicescape comprises not only objective, measureable, and managerially controllable stimuli but also subjective, immeasurable, and often managerially uncontrollable social, symbolic, and natural stimuli, which all influence customer approach/avoidance decisions and social interaction behaviors. Furthermore, customer responses to social, symbolic, and natural stimuli are often the drivers of profound person‐place attachments.
Research limitations/implications
The framework supports a servicescape paradigm that links marketing, environmental/natural psychology, humanistic geography, and sociology.
Practical implications
Although managers can easily control a service firm's physical stimuli, they need to understand how other critical environmental stimuli influence consumer behavior and which stimuli might overweigh a customer's response to a firm's physical dimensions.
Social implications
The paper shows how a servicescape's naturally restorative dimension can promote relief from mental fatigue and improve customer health and well‐being. Thus, government institutions (e.g. schools, hospitals) can improve people's lives by creating natural servicescapes that have restorative potential.
Originality/value
The framework organizes more than 25 years of servicescape research in a cogent framework that has cross‐disciplinary implications.
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Mark S. Rosenbaum, Carolyn Massiah and Richard Wozniak
This article seeks to illustrate how social commonalities between employees and their customers often result in customers believing that they are entitled to discounts in retail…
Abstract
Purpose
This article seeks to illustrate how social commonalities between employees and their customers often result in customers believing that they are entitled to discounts in retail settings.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs survey methodology to reveal the extent to which various social commonalities between customers and service providers encourage customers to believe that they are entitled to financial discounts.
Findings
The findings show that commonalities may cause customers to adhere to narcissism – that is, many customers may expect discounts even when they know that employees may jeopardize their jobs by providing them.
Research limitations/implications
Customer relationships dramatically change with commonalities, as customers believe that social relationships propel them to “best customer status” and that they are entitled to discounts.
Practical implications
Customers who become increasingly connected with employees expect relational benefits that usually require time to develop. Retailers that encourage their employees to develop social media bonds with their customers must realize that customers desire to be financially rewarded for maintaining these linkages.
Originality/value
This work reveals that customers who maintain social commonalities with employees expect to receive some type of financial benefit from doing so.
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Mukta Srivastava, Sreeram Sivaramakrishnan and Neeraj Pandey
The increased digital interactions in the B2B industry have enhanced the importance of customer engagement as a measure of firm performance. This study aims to map and analyze…
Abstract
Purpose
The increased digital interactions in the B2B industry have enhanced the importance of customer engagement as a measure of firm performance. This study aims to map and analyze temporal and spatial journeys for customer engagement in B2B markets from a bibliometric perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The extant literature on customer engagement research in the B2B context was analyzed using bibliometric analysis. The citation analysis, keyword analysis, cluster analysis, three-field plot and bibliographic coupling were used to map the intellectual structure of customer engagement in B2B markets.
Findings
The research on customer engagement in the B2B context was studied more in western countries. The analysis suggests that customer engagement in B2B markets will take centre stage in the coming times as digital channels make it easier to track critical metrics besides other key factors. Issues like digital transformation, the use of artificial intelligence for virtual engagement, personalization, innovation and salesforce management by leveraging technology would be critical for improved B2B customer engagement.
Practical implications
The study provides a comprehensive reference to scholars working in this domain.
Originality/value
The study makes a pioneering effort to comprehensively analyze the vast corpus of literature on customer engagement in B2B markets for business insights.