Journal of Services Marketing

Nguyen, Adam

2023 Journal of Services Marketing

doi: 10.1108/jsm-07-2020-0314

The potential displeasure (e.g. strain, uncertainty and lack of control) involved in the process of obtaining eudaimonic outcomes (e.g. becoming healthier or more knowledgeable) may turn consumers away from a transformative service or hinder their coproduction. This paper aims to propose a service design that could overcome this conflict.Design/methodology/approachTo allow for concrete discussions of service design, the proposed design is developed in the context of a specific transformative service: the higher educational service.FindingsIt is possible to transform the relationship between hedonic and eudaimonic outcomes from conflicting to complementary goals by replacing passive pleasure that is irrelevant or in conflict with eudaimonic well-being with active pleasure that is complementary to eudaimonic well-being. To facilitate simultaneous attainment of active pleasure and eudaimonic well-being, the transformative service provider needs to structure the elements of the service to create the conditions for the optimal experience to occur.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed design is extendable to other human service contexts.Originality/valueTo the best of the author’s knowledge, this research is the first that shows how a transformative service can be effectively designed to overcome the potential conflict between its eudaimonic versus hedonic outcomes, such that the service will be well received by consumers while remain faithful to its transformative goal.

Polonsky, Michael Jay; Ferdous, Ahmed; Robertson, Nichola; Jones, Sandra; Renzaho, Andre; Telenta, Joanne

2023 Journal of Services Marketing

doi: 10.1108/jsm-02-2021-0054

This study aims to test the efficacy of the awareness of a transformative health service communication intervention targeted to African refugees in Australia, designed to increase their intentions to participate in blood donation and reduce any identified barriers.Design/methodology/approachFollowing the intervention launch, a survey was administered to African refugees. The data were analysed with structural equation modelling.FindingsIntervention awareness increases refugees’ blood donation knowledge and intentions. Although it has no direct effect on refugees’ medical mistrust or perceived discrimination, intervention awareness indirectly reduces medical mistrust. The findings, thus, suggest that the intervention was transformative: it directly and indirectly reduced barriers to refugee participation in blood donation services.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations include a relatively small sample size, single-country context and measures that address blood donation intentions versus behaviours.Social implicationsAddressing health service inequities through intervention awareness, via the mere exposure effect, can facilitate refugees’ health service participation and inclusion.Originality/valueThis study contributes to transformative service research and responds to calls to improve individual and community well-being by testing a transformative intervention targeted towards vulnerable consumers. Not all targeted refugees donated blood, but being encouraged to participate in this health service within the host society can foster their greater inclusion.

Bordian, Mariia; Gil-Saura, Irene; Šerić, Maja

2023 Journal of Services Marketing

doi: 10.1108/jsm-06-2021-0234

The service industry has been facing many challenges connected to sustainable practices and how they affect final consumers. This paper aims to explore the impact of value co-creation (VCC) on customer-based brand equity and satisfaction, the latter being considered in terms of overall and green customer satisfaction. Moreover, considering the influence that a consumer’s age has on their behaviour, this paper analyses the moderating role of generational cohorts (Centennials vs. Millennials) on the direct interactions between the examined variables.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical study was conducted in hotel companies, which place a strong emphasis on customer service and as such provide valuable implications for the industry. The data were collected from 263 hotel guests in Ukraine in 2018 using a structured closed-response face-to-face survey. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesised relationships. Multi-group analysis was conducted to examine the moderating role of the generational cohort.FindingsThe results show that customer perception of VCC positively influences brand equity. The findings also indicate that brand equity mediates the relationship between VCC, overall customer satisfaction and green customer satisfaction. In addition, it is demonstrated that generational cohorts moderate the relationships between VCC and overall customer satisfaction.Practical implicationsThis study suggests that service companies should create more opportunities for VCC activities, not only to increase their customers’ participation in green practices but also to enhance brand equity and satisfaction to gain more competitive advantages.Originality/valueThe contribution of this study lies in considering value co-creation as a novel driver of brand equity, overall customer satisfaction and green customer satisfaction through the lens of sustainability in service-based companies. Examining the moderating role of the generational cohort provides significant insights into the impact of value co-creation through different groups of customers.

Guidice, Rebecca M.; Mesmer-Magnus, Jessica; Barnes, Donald C.; Scribner, Lisa L.

2023 Journal of Services Marketing

doi: 10.1108/jsm-07-2021-0260

This paper aims to study the effects of widespread stress and uncertainty that is characteristic of organizational crises on service employees and to explore the extent to which organizations may proactively use supervisors’ positive humor and discretionary organizational support that goes above and beyond service employee expectations to mitigate the pandemic’s negative impact on work engagement.Design/methodology/approachCross-sequential survey-based data was collected from 172 service employees during the height of the pandemic to assess service employees’ perceptions of both their supervisors’ use of positive humor and their employers’ discretionary organizational support in response to the emotion-laden stress and uncertainty surrounding COVID-19. PROCESS analysis was used to test the hypotheses and to conduct supplementary analyses.FindingsResults suggest employee perceptions of supervisors’ use of positive humor positively impact dimensions of work engagement at Time 1. This engagement then positively impacts extra-role behavior, innovativeness and pride at Time 2. The impact from supervisor humor to the outcomes is fully mediated through work engagement. From a moderation perspective, discretionary organizational support was shown as a substitute for creating work engagement at low levels of supervisor humor suggesting that the two “resource builders” can act as substitutes in creating engagement.Originality/valueThis paper provides unique insights into both the valuable role of positive workplace humor for service workers’ work engagement during times of widespread crisis and the moderating role discretionary organizational support plays when perceptions of humor are relatively low. Moreover, the supplemental examination of the multidimensional work engagement construct as a mediator between humor and the service outcomes of extra-role behavior, innovativeness and organizational pride provides unique insights into how a crisis context may deferentially affect the experience and implications of engagement for other service worker outcomes. Understanding the proactive, ameliorative role in service effectiveness played by supervisor humor and discretionary organizational support during crises is an emerging question for service research.

Riedel, Aimee; Beatson, Amanda; Mulcahy, Rory; Keating, Byron

2023 Journal of Services Marketing

doi: 10.1108/jsm-12-2021-0462

The purpose of this study is to examine the underresearched transformative service research (TSR) and social marketing segment of young adults who use drugs and identify motivators that have been studied in previous literature, using a service ecosystem lens and provide direction for future research into this area. This research provides the evidence-based knowledge for transformative service and social marketing practitioners to design transformative services that target these motivators.Design/methodology/approachThis systematic review, guided by the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis framework, examines and analyses 207 articles published between 2015 and 2020.FindingsThis study identified that young adults are motivated to take drugs to enhance one’s experience, to cope, for social reasons, because of individual characteristics and for other reasons. Research has largely focused on microsystem and mesosystem motivators with data collected mainly using a microsystem approach.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the TSR and social marketing literature by providing a holistic investigation into all motivators relevant to young adult drug use. An ecosystem classification and theoretical framework of the motivators is curated to help guide future TSR and social marketing research and interventions.

Barrios, Andrés; Camacho, Sonia; Estrada-Mejia, Catalina

2023 Journal of Services Marketing

doi: 10.1108/jsm-08-2021-0295

This paper aims to explore the intersection between service and social innovation, using a service-dominant logic (SDL) ecosystem approach to analyze how service innovations cocreate transformative value for individuals and communities.Design/methodology/approachA case study, with different data sources, is used to understand different innovations in a program that provides financial training to women in poverty in Colombia.FindingsIn the program’s service ecosystem, actors worked in tandem to develop dialogical service innovations. These service innovations transformed into social innovations, cocreating transformative value at different levels of the service ecosystem, including beneficiaries, families and communities.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, this study illustrates how, during service value cocreation experiences, a dialogical innovation path occurs with the simultaneous participation of different service entities. Second, it uses transformative value cocreation to integrate service and social innovations conceptually. Third, it reveals how service innovation cocreates transformative value at different levels of the service ecosystem. Fourth, it shows how technology in its material and immaterial forms, working as an operand and operant role, respectively, facilitates service innovations.Practical implicationsThis study illustrates how a wider service focus including all actors involved, in addition to a holistic view of beneficiaries, can prompt service and social innovations.Originality/valueService and social innovations have been seen as parallel fields. This study uses SDL to integrate these types of innovation processes and outcomes by applying the concept of transformative value.

Al-okaily, Nour Salah; Alzboun, Nidal; Alrawadieh, Ziad; Slehat, Muna

2023 Journal of Services Marketing

doi: 10.1108/jsm-08-2021-0282

The effects of travel motivation and emotional experience on both tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty are recognized and have been extensively researched as key factors in tourism success. However, the structural relationships between these factors, considering the mediating effects of eudaimonic well-being (optimal psychological functioning), have been scarcely investigated in the consumer tourist behaviors literature. This study aims to develop an integrated model explaining the impact of travel motivation and emotional experience on tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty, mediated by eudaimonic well-being in the realm of domestic tourism.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative survey was conducted with 321 domestic tourists visiting Aqaba in Jordan; structural equation modeling was used to analyze the empirical data.FindingsThe findings of this study indicate that both travel motivation and emotional experience have a direct effect on eudaimonic well-being and that eudaimonic well-being has a direct effect on both tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty. Additionally, travel motivation and emotional experience have significant indirect impacts on post-consumption behaviors mediated by eudaimonic well-being.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature on consumer behavior in a tourism context by developing a fresh model that improves theoretical knowledge of the relationships between travel motivation, emotional experience and eudaimonic well-being, which underlie tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty formation. This study also advances theoretical understanding of the key roles of eudaimonic well-being in the tourist experience. Managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

Ofori-Okyere, Isaac; Edghiem, Farag; Kumah, Seyram Pearl

2023 Journal of Services Marketing

doi: 10.1108/jsm-10-2021-0399

To explore how inclusive banking services are marketed to financially vulnerable consumers (FVCs) in Ghana from the perspective of managers. This study aims to explore this under-researched area and contribute towards a transformative service research in the country.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted a multiple case study research approach to analyse six banks, including commercial, development, investment and rural and community banks. Specifically, semi-structured interviews and archival documents were used to collect data from the perspectives of bank managers.FindingsThe empirical research based on practical and theoretical models shows that Ghanaian banks design an array of financial products and services (FPS), adopt innovative traditional marketing strategies and apply inclusive technologies to reach out to the FVCs.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors conducted this study on six banks in Ghana; thus, service researchers are cautioned when generalising the findings and conclusions in other contexts beyond the country of focus.Practical implicationsThis study offers practical ideas to guide marketers to better understand how banks market their inclusive banking services to FVCs.Social implicationsThis paper provides implications for addressing financial inclusion amongst the “unbanked”, “underserved” and “unserved” collectively known as the FVCs and how Ghanaian banks design FPS to improve service research and well-being outcomes.Originality/valueThis study provides vital information to policymakers in designing FPS aimed at achieving an inclusive financial system to improve the well-being of FVCs in Ghana.

Le, Nguyen-Hau; Mai, My-Quyen Thi; Pham, Tram-Anh

2023 Journal of Services Marketing

doi: 10.1108/jsm-03-2022-0107

Mindfulness, while being suggested as an important psychological cognitive capability of customers, has received insufficient attention in studies of transformative services characterized by challenging cocreation behaviors. It is unclear about the contributions of mindfulness to customers’ cocreation and transformative outcomes. This study aims to investigate the direct, indirect, mediating and moderating relationships to explain how mindfulness sustains cocreation effort, increases perceived service value and ultimately enhances the diffusion from the service value to customer well-being.Design/methodology/approachA structural model was developed and tested using the CB-SEM method. Data were surveyed from two transformative service industries, yoga training and higher education (N = 283 and 273 cases, respectively).FindingsCustomer mindfulness has a positive relationship with cocreation effort, which in turn positively associates with perceived value. Additionally, mindfulness has a direct relationship with perceived value, which then is the full mediator in the relationships between mindfulness, cocreation effort and life satisfaction. Mindfulness also moderates the transformation from service value (immediate outcome) to life satisfaction (long-term outcome).Practical implicationsTransformative service providers and policymakers should acknowledge and develop strategies to cultivate customers’ mindfulness, which subsequently fosters their value cocreation effort and enhances their well-being.Originality/valueThis research puts forward the concept of mindfulness, a trainable cognitive capability of customers, and shows its importance in transformative service cocreation. This paper provides a full structural mechanism explaining how mindfulness helps cocreate a transformative service and diffuse its immediate value to customer life satisfaction.