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Psychologically Informed Planned Environments (PIPEs) provide a pathway facility for offenders with complex needs, such as personality disorder; to maintain and develop the progress made on offending behaviour programmes (Ministry of Justice and Department of Health, 2012). The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of prison officers who work on a PIPE in a Lifer prison.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to explore the experiences of five prison officers working on a PIPE in a Lifer prison.

Main themes identified were labelled “Role Conflict”, “Growth”, “Relationships” and “Impact”. A rich and detailed account of the experience of the “voyage of discovery” and the personal challenges, costs and rewards of the PIPE work was achieved.

Limitations include the small number of participants, limited focus of the researchers, both Forensic Psychologists, and the uniqueness of the context, a Lifer prison. Limitations might be addressed by future research that could expand on the current findings. Implications for future research include further exploration of the psychological impact of the work, dynamics within the PIPE and the value of attachment theory in work with personality disordered offenders. Implications for future policy and practice concern training, support and the development of new PIPEs.

The research adds a rich account of what it is like for these prison officers to work on a PIPE in a Lifer prison. The experiences shared reveal the personal challenge, costs and rewards of the work through which ideas to develop the staff, residents and the PIPE model emerged.

Although private health care is regarded as providing a premium quality experience for both patients and staff alike, it is not without its daily challenges for health professionals. This study aims to explore the psychological contract of nurses to develop a greater understanding of how employee–employer interaction impacts motivation levels.

Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with thirteen nurses at a private hospital in South Africa. Five nursing managers were interviewed to provide a management perspective. Thematic analysis was used to identify the salient elements of the psychological contract and to establish connections with motivational features.

The psychological contract of nurses was balanced in nature, contained predominantly relational elements and was characterized by the need for manager support, leadership and autonomy. Motivation was a by-product of fulfilment and was enhanced by a combination of tangible and intangible rewards.

Nursing managers should recognize their role in caring for the wellbeing of their staff and should be trained accordingly. Equipping nurses with the necessary tools to work autonomously, as well as acknowledging their skills, will stimulate confidence and improve motivation.

This study makes an important contribution to the existing literature on the psychological contract of nurses within the health-care system. It provides insight into relationship-based mechanisms that can be used to improve the motivation of nurses and thus impact the overall quality of patient care.

While research on customer engagement and service innovation is rapidly emerging, limited insight exists into the interface of these topic areas. However, given the shared notion of (e.g. customer/firm) interactivity across these concepts, the purpose of this paper is to explore their theoretical interface that remains nebulous to date.

Building on a literature synthesis, the authors develop an S-D logic-informed “hamburger” model of service innovation that depicts the service innovation process, and its ensuing outcomes for particular actor groups, including the firm, its customers, etc. They conclude by proposing frontiers for future research that arise from the model.

The authors explore the theoretical foundations of customer engagement and service innovation, and integrate these in their S-D logic-informed “hamburger” model of service innovation. In the model, they acknowledge the key role of organizational resources in enabling service innovation, which will interact with specific service innovation actors (e.g. customers, employees) to create successful service innovations. The model next proposes service innovation development and implementation, from which focal service innovation actors will seek, and derive, particular types of value (e.g. profit for the actor of the firm), as shown at the top of the model. They conclude by offering a set of future research directions that arise from the model.

The S-D logic-informed “hamburger” model of service innovation can be used to guide future research into service innovation, including studies investigating service innovation’s role in driving customer engagement and value.

The attained insight will be useful to managers seeking to enhance their service innovation-based returns (e.g. by suggesting ways in which service innovation can enhance customer engagement).

The authors propose a novel, S-D logic-informed “hamburger” model of service innovation and its key antecedents (e.g. firm-based resources) and consequences (e.g. customer engagement and value).

While the consumer engagement (CE) concept is gaining traction in the literature, little remains known regarding the ways in which consumers displaying differing cultural traits engage with brands and their differences. The purpose of this paper is to explore CE with brands for consumers exhibiting differing cultural traits, and develop a set of research propositions for these individuals’ cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social CE in brand interactions. These propositions, collectively, reflect consumers’ individual-level cultural CE styles – consumers’ motivationally driven disposition to think, feel, act, and relate to others in a certain manner characteristic of their specific individual cultural traits in brand interactions.

In this conceptual paper, literature is reviewed in the areas of CE and its conceptual relationship with Yoo et al.’s (2011) individual cultural values.

Key differences between individual-level cultural traits and consumers’ ensuing cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social CE with brands are addressed in a set of research propositions based on Yoo et al.’s model of individual cultural values, from which the concept of individual-level cultural CE styles is developed.

This research explores differences across individuals displaying differing cultural traits and their ensuing CE with brands, which remains underexplored to date. It also develops the concept of individual-level cultural CE styles, which reflect consumers’ characteristic cultural trait-based cognitions, emotions, behaviors, and social dynamics in engaging with particular brands.

The outlined managerial implications reveal that unique marketing approaches are expected to be effective for engaging consumers exhibiting different cultural traits with brands, based on their distinctive CE styles (e.g. focusing on personalized interactions/interactions that stress consumers’ similarity to and fit with salient others for individualist/collectivist consumers, respectively).

This paper makes two important theoretical contributions. First, by offering a conceptual analysis of consumers displaying differing cultural traits and their ensuing engagement with brands, it provides an early attempt to explore individual-level cultural CE-based differences. Second, it develops the concept of individual-level cultural CE styles, which is expected to hold important theoretical and managerial implications.

In recent years, customer engagement (CE) with brands, which has been shown to yield enhanced firm sales, competitive advantage and stock returns, has risen to occupy a prominent position in brand management research and practice. Correspondingly, scholars have explored CE’s conceptualization, operationalization and its nomological networks as informed by different theoretical perspectives. However, in spite of important advances, the knowledge structure of the overall corpus of CE research remains tenuous. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the intellectual structure of CE research.

Based on this gap, this study deploys bibliometric and network analysis to map CE’s literature-based landscape. Using bibliometric analysis, important CE-publishing journals, authors and influential CE articles (2005–2020) are uncovered. Using network analysis, prominent CE themes are also unearthed.

The results document key CE-publishing journals and authors and their respective contributions to the literature. Five CE themes are also identified, including CE measurement/methods, online CE, CE’s value co-creating capacity, CE conceptualization and customer/consumer brand engagement. Further, an agenda for future CE research is provided based on the presented network analysis results.

The reported findings generate important implications for brand managers. For example, the identified critical role of online (vs offline) CE offers a range of strategic opportunities, as outlined.

This paper offers a pioneering bibliometric and network analysis of the CE literature, thus mapping the field. From the identified CE themes, important avenues for further CE research are also identified.

Smart technologies and connected objects are rapidly changing the organizational frontline. Yet, our understanding of how these technologies infuse service encounters remains limited. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to update existing classifications of Frontline Service Technology (FST) infusion. Moreover, the authors discuss three promising smart and connected technologies – conversational agents, extended reality (XR) and blockchain technology – and their respective implications for customers, frontline employees and service organizations.

This paper uses a conceptual approach integrating existing work on FST infusion with artificial intelligence, robotics, XR and blockchain literature, while also building on insights gathered through expert interviews and focus group conversations with members of two service research centers.

The authors define FST and propose a set of FST infusion archetypes at the organizational frontline. Additionally, the authors develop future research directions focused on understanding how conversational agents, XR and blockchain technology will impact service.

This paper updates and extends existing classifications of FST, while paving the road for further work on FST infusion.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to study the influence of self-brand image congruity and value congruity on consumer engagement in online brand communities (OBCs); second to test whether gender moderates this effect; and third, it also examines the role of consumer engagement as a driver of brand loyalty.

Using an online questionnaire, 443 responses were collected from consumers who are members of at least one OBC on Facebook. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The results revealed that both self-brand image congruity and value congruity significantly affect consumer engagement. A positive effect of consumer engagement on brand loyalty was also attained. Third, the results revealed that gender did not moderate the examined relationships.

This research integrates and broadens existing explanations of different congruity effects on consumer engagement. This study thus suggests the value of developing their OBCs to exhibit congruence with customers’ self-image and value, which in turn, will contribute to the development of brand loyalty.

This research applies congruity theory to examine the impact of self-brand image- and value congruity on consumer engagement in OBCs. Through the establishment of this novel theoretical link, this study furthers insight into the domain of social media marketing.