Flow revisited: process conceptualization and a novel application to service contexts

Contexts of Consumption and Their Evolution in the Digital Age: Beyond the Service-Dominant Logic

Starting from the observation of a conceptual gap regarding the association between consumption and the contexts in which it occurs, the paper has two objectives. The first is to fill this gap by developing a framework that includes: the identification of consumption contexts based on their building blocks (actors, goods, relationships), the basic classification of their variety, and a knowledge-based reading of consumption contexts capable of explaining their functioning. The second aim is to show that the framework allows the understanding of the digital transformation of consumption contexts. We show that services are produced in two contexts: in the first type, consumers interact directly with goods; in the second, the intermediation of frontline personnel comes into play. Actors and goods present in the consumption contexts are knowledge-holders, and the relationships between them are learning relationships. The shift from traditional consumption contexts to contexts based on artificial intelligence and the internet of things introduces a major change in that learning relationships are no longer the domain of only (human) actors who learn by interacting with each other and using goods. Both types of contexts are in fact powered by smart goods capable of interacting with each other and with humans within a given context and endowed with structural cognitive connections outside that context.

Influence of Flow Experience, Perceived Value and CSR in Craft Beer Consumer Loyalty: A Comparison between Mexico and The Netherlands

Craft beer production enterprises are categorized as micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Mexico and the Netherlands. As MSMEs, they encounter challenges to achieving consolidation; one main challenge is linked to deficient consumer-loyalty development. This work explores and compares the effects of experience of flow, perceived value and CSR in the development of loyalty in two different population samples of craft beer consumers: Mexico and the Netherlands. In total, 452 surveys were collected during experiential events, and the data were analyzed using multivariate partial-least-square (PLS) structural equation modeling. Our model results indicate that attention, concentration and notion of time influence flow experience in the same way in both countries. Experiential factors are stronger for the Mexican population. For the case of the Netherlands, perceived value had a higher effect on loyalty development and a lower impact on experiential factors. The CSR variable was only significant for the Dutch sample.

Engaging customers with employees in service encounters

Purpose

Keeping both employees and customers highly engaged has become a critical issue for service firms, especially for high-contact and highly customized services. Therefore, it is essential to engage employees and customers during service interactions for better service outcomes. However, past research on employee and customer engagement has primarily focused on brands and organizations. Little research has concentrated on service interactions as the objects of engagement. To fill this research gap, this study aims to clarify and define service engagement behaviors (SEBs), identify various employee and customer SEBs and develop a model to investigate the relationships between these behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach

A theoretical framework was developed based on social contagion theory and service-dominant (S-D) logic to explore the effects of employee SEBs on customer SEBs through customer perceptions of relational energy and interaction cohesion. Dyadic survey data collected from 293 customer-employee pairs in various high-contact and highly customized service industries were examined through structural equation modeling.

Findings

Results show that employee SEBs (service role involvement, customer orientation behavior and customer empowerment behavior) positively influence relational energy and interaction cohesion, which in turn affect customer SEBs (service exploration behavior and service coordination behavior).

Originality/value

This study represents pioneering research to conceptualize SEBs. Different from the extant literature on engagement, SEBs capture the proactive and collaborative engagement behaviors of employees and customers in service interactions. Various employee and customer SEBs were identified and an empirical model was proposed and tested to investigate the effect of employee SEBs on customer SEBs through relational energy and interaction cohesion.