This paper aims to propose an approach to examining the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business, which presents a unique opportunity to study a hitherto-unavailable…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to propose an approach to examining the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business, which presents a unique opportunity to study a hitherto-unavailable business scenario.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual framework is suggested to study the ability of a service firm to make adaptations to pandemic conditions based on the nature of its services: namely, the act of production and the type of recipient and the predisposed ability of the customer to accept the service firm’s adaptations to social distancing restrictions. Under this framework, it is demonstrated that service adaptations made due to COVID-19 business restrictions and the customers’ acceptance of them determine whether these changes are likely to become permanent.
Findings
A classification scheme is developed to determine four classes of service firms’ adaptations to their normal course of business made under pandemic conditions and suggestions given on how to project which adaptations may persist beyond the pandemic and why.
Research limitations/implications
A conceptual framework grounded on Lovelock classification to present projections needs to be empirically tested.
Practical implications
Managerial insights based on the study and suggestions for research on what business practices are most likely to be permanently changed in a post-pandemic world for services are offered.
Originality/value
Using two of Lovelock’s dimensions pertaining to the nature of production and delivery of the service, four categories are proposed based on two characteristics: service adaptability and customer acceptance. The Technology Acceptance Model 2 (TAM2) model is extended to predict service adaptations, which are most likely to become permanent in a post-pandemic world.
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Zach R. Whitman, Hlekiwe Kachali, Derek Roger, John Vargo and Erica Seville
The Benchmark Resilience tool (BRT-53) is an organisational-level resilience quantification methodology that assesses behavioural traits and perceptions linked to the…
Abstract
Purpose
The Benchmark Resilience tool (BRT-53) is an organisational-level resilience quantification methodology that assesses behavioural traits and perceptions linked to the organisation's ability to plan for, respond to and recover from emergencies and crises. The purpose of this paper is to show the development and validation of a short version of the BRT-53.
Design/methodology/approach
Items were drawn from the BRT-53 to create two short-form versions of the tool using two different methods for comparative purposes. The first method involves the selection of items based on the 13 theoretical constructs used in the development of the original tool. This shortened index is called the BRT-13A. The second method derived 13 items from the theoretical constructs using statistical correlations of the items within each construct. This shortened index is called the BRT-13B. The scores from each short-form index were computed into overall resilience scores that were then compared with the overall resilience scores generated from the BRT-53.
Findings
The results of these comparisons found that both the BRT-13A and BRT-13B produced valid and reliably similar results to the BRT-53. The BRT-13B proved to be slightly more valid and reliable than the BRT-13A and is recommended over the BRT-53.
Originality/value
The BRT-13B short-form version allows for the quantification of organisational resilience while significantly decreasing the likelihood of survey fatigue and low response rates with very little sacrifice to survey validity or reliability.
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Changes in consumers’ awareness of interest rates (deposits and loans) are important for making financial decisions, particularly in the banking industry. However, little is known…
Abstract
Purpose
Changes in consumers’ awareness of interest rates (deposits and loans) are important for making financial decisions, particularly in the banking industry. However, little is known about the effect of consumer awareness on customer orientation and loyalty. The purpose of this paper is to examine how changes in consumers’ awareness of interest rates in Korea can influence customer loyalty, considering banks’ efforts to improve customer orientation. The authors explicitly rationalize the fact that consumers’ awareness of interest rates can play an important role in moderating the strength of the relationship between customer orientation and loyalty.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected from participants (n=327) who had made banking transactions based on their real income in Seoul. Participants mainly focused on personal loans and debts, and most people had banked with a specific bank (one of the main Korean banks) for longer than three years. The authors tested the effect of interest rates using two methodologies, namely, a field study using SEM and an experimental design.
Findings
The study tested these relationships with survey data and two simulated experiments. The findings indicated that the influence of customer orientation on customer loyalty decreased with the increase in loan interest rate awareness. Moreover, the customer orientation-loyalty link weakened with the increase in awareness of central bank base rates. Conversely, the awareness that loan rates were decreasing strengthened the relationship.
Research limitations/implications
Banks need to know the importance of periodic consultation services with valuable consumers who transact with one or more banks because changes in the consumer awareness of interest rates influence customer loyalty (or switching behavior), particularly when their awareness of loan interest rates increases.
Originality/value
This paper is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first to investigate the consequence of such a change in consumers’ awareness of both deposit and loan interest rates with regard to the relationship between customer orientation and loyalty.
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Stephen L. Vargo, Robert F. Lusch, Melissa Archpru Akaka and Yi He
John O'Shaughnessy and Nicholas Jackson O'Shaughnessy
This paper is a rejoinder to Lusch and Vargo's defense of their service‐dominant logic paper against criticism.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is a rejoinder to Lusch and Vargo's defense of their service‐dominant logic paper against criticism.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper responds to Lusch and Vargo's defense and criticism of the initial article primarily through examining the logic of their case.
Findings
The paper finds that both the charges and the arguments against the criticism have no merit.
Research limitations/implications
The paper offers guidance as to the approach needed to advance the study of service marketing. This rejects the notion that viewing all businesses as service entities is a progressive approach but recommends a disjunctive definition of service, which would throw up service‐categories that needed to be studied in their own right if progress is to be made.
Originality/value
The paper suggests that Lusch and Vargo's S‐D‐dominant logic is unlikely to be practically fruitful while remaining theoretically limited.
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John O'Shaughnessy and Nicholas Jackson O'Shaughnessy
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the “service dominant” perspective advocated by Vargo and Lusch and applauded by so many marketing academics in the USA is neither…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the “service dominant” perspective advocated by Vargo and Lusch and applauded by so many marketing academics in the USA is neither logically sound nor a perspective to displace others in marketing.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a conceptual analysis of the Vargo and Lusch paper that takes account of the implications of the service perspective being adopted as the perspective to replace all others.
Findings
The paper finds that the definition of services, seeking as it does to embrace all types of marketing, is too broad to have much operational meaning, while the focusing on activities rather than functions misdirects marketing altogether. Vargo and Lusch revive the claim that marketing should be viewed as a technology, the aim being to discover the techniques and rules (principles) applying to marketing. However, indifference to theoretical considerations encourages crudeness and the cultivation of ad hoc solutions. The Vargo and Lusch paper suggests that there is a one best way: a single unitary perspective for marketing. Instead there is a need for multiple perspectives in marketing, together with the methodological pluralism that it implies.
Research limitations/implications
The paper does not claim to have teased out all the implications of the service‐dominant approach to marketing and other marketing academics might take into account other considerations such as the feasibility of the approach.
Practical implications
The paper suggests the abandonment of any approach that disdains theory and believes that the development of marketing technology is the way to go.
Originality/value
The paper offers original criticisms of the service‐dominant perspective and its value lies in holding marketing back from taking a backward step.
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Robert F. Lusch and Stephen L. Vargo
The purpose of this paper is to respond to the criticism O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy made of service‐dominant logic in EJM, on behalf of both the paper and the worldwide…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to respond to the criticism O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy made of service‐dominant logic in EJM, on behalf of both the paper and the worldwide community of scholars that have embraced S‐D logic as historically informed, integrative, transcending and rich in its potential to generate theoretical and practical contributions.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a critical, conceptual analysis of the fallacious arguments that O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy developed to argue against the emerging and rapidly developing service‐dominant logic.
Findings
The paper shows that, contrary to the claims of O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy, S‐D logic: is neither regressive nor intended to displace all other marketing perspectives; is not advocating technology at the expense of explanatory theory; and is pre‐theoretic and intended to be soundly grounded in a manner to assist theory construction.
Research limitations/implications
Theory advancement is critical to marketing and S‐D logic puts special emphasis on the development of theory. It begins to do this by proposing ten foundational premises, which some may wish to refer to as axioms. From these axioms, considerable theoretical work and related empirical research can develop.
Practical implications
O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy wish to prevent marketing scholars from adopting, advocating, and supporting service‐dominant logic and, as they suggest, taking a backward step. They view the S‐D logic movement as primarily USA‐dominated (which it is not) and are firmly anti‐S‐D logic. The available evidence from around the world suggests that the S‐D logic movement has profound implications for the advancement of both marketing science and marketing practice.
Originality/value
It is critical that S‐D logic should not be viewed as being represented by a single paper but as a body of work that Lusch and Vargo have developed since their initial publication and also the work of a community of scholars working collaboratively to co‐create S‐D logic.
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Marta Massi, Michel Rod and Daniela Corsaro
This paper aims to deal with the concepts of “institutions” and “institutional logics” in the context of business-to-business (B2B) marketing systems and uses institutional theory…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to deal with the concepts of “institutions” and “institutional logics” in the context of business-to-business (B2B) marketing systems and uses institutional theory as a framework to look at value co-creation.
Design/methodology/approach
By integrating the literature on value co-creation, institutional theory and institutional entrepreneurship, the paper argues that the boundaries of B2B marketing systems are continuously reshaped through legitimation processes occurring through actors’ institutional work, thus making co-created value the only legitimate value.
Findings
The paper proposes a conceptual framework and furthers the conceptual development of value co-creation and augments the literature on service-dominant logic and the notion of co-created value by assuming a legitimacy-based B2B market systems perspective.
Practical implications
This paper presents a number of propositions that serve to illustrate several managerial implications. These arise from organizations co-creating value by conforming to the various institutional logics that maximize their legitimacy.
Originality/value
The paper makes a contribution by developing a critical theoretical framework based on the application of institutional theoretical constructs/concepts (e.g. ceremonial conformity, decoupling, considerations of face, confidence and good faith).
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The purpose of this paper is to consider inter-organisational issues in supply chain relationships (SCRs) with a view to advancing research on co-creation of value in the service…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider inter-organisational issues in supply chain relationships (SCRs) with a view to advancing research on co-creation of value in the service dominant logic (SDL) field.
Design/methodology/approach
The study presents a conceptual analysis of current ideas on purchasing and SCRs with special emphasis on inter-organisational collaboration as viewed from exchange- and production economy perspectives. Important types of service buyers and sellers provide in order to co-create value in SCRs are explored.
Findings
Both exchange- and production economy perspectives offer useful insights for the study of co-creation of value in SCRs. The exchange economy perspective recognises service provision in terms of information sharing, adaptation and commitment, while the production economy perspective recognises service provision in terms of production proficiency, craftsmanship and entrepreneurship.
Research limitations/implications
SDL researchers should recognise the relevance of both exchange- and production economy perspectives in further study of co-creation of value in SCRs. Future research should consider how specific types of service provision are affected by operant resources as well as other important SDL concepts, such as trust, buyer involvement and relational orientation.
Originality/value
This paper considers specific types of service provision in SCRs for the purpose of co-creation of value.