Journal of Service Management Research
type: channel
description: The Journal of Service Management Research (SMR) is a forum for academic dialogue among researchers from various business disciplines focusing on services. The journal provides critical accounts of the latest developments in key areas of service research. SMR explicitly pursues an interdisciplinary research agenda.
publisher: Berlin Universities Publishing
language: en
publication name: Journal of Service Management Research
issn: 2942-3392
items: Pricing adoption among service firms: An empirical investigation in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland
items: Dynamic, Algorithmic, and AI-Based Pricing in Service Contexts: A Systematic Literature Review
items: Flat Rate Effects in Public Transport: An Empirical Investigation into Consumer Behavior Toward the “Deutschlandticket”
items: From Free-to-Fee: Motive-Based Communication and Price Fairness for Value-Added Services
items: Visitor Revival Propositions for Cultural Institutions – A Service Science Perspective
items: Emotions in Human-Robot Interactions: The Role of Service Type and Gender Stereotypes
items: When Price Components Shift Together: Effects on Customer Perceptions and Sales in Access-based Services
items: Pricing for Services: Strategic, Organizational, and Technological Perspectives
items: Digital public goods as avenue for digital platform design– Insights from India
items: Working Together to Get the Job Done – The What, When, and How of Human–AI Collaboration in the Frontline
items: First impressions matter: Shaping the servicescape to address anonymity and trust in peer-to-peer sharing economy services
items: Understanding the role of distributed ledger based smart contracts in the supply chain: A literature review
items: Circularity work: reorienting service ecosystems towards circularity
items: Characterizing Value Co-Creation With AI-Enabled Non-Human Agents From The Perspective of Well-Being
items: Determinants of Work Intensity in Three Service Sectors
items: Understanding the role of (dual) entitlement effects on industrial customers’ willingness-to-pay for ancillary services
items: Novel Perspectives on Transformative Service Research
items: Ecosystem-Level Customer Experience with Smart Service: Insights from a Systematic Scoping Literature Review
items: Value Creation in the Information Economy: The Triad of AI, Service, and Human Work
items: From Acquisition to Retention: A Single Case Study Exploring the Adaptation of Customer Value Propositions in a Subscription Business
items: Standardization as a Catalyst for Extending Resources and Capabilities in Service Systems Engineering: Findings from the omlox case
items: Beyond Efficiency and Consistency – Achieving Sustainability through Service-enabled Sufficiency
items: The Emergence of a New European Data Economy: A Systematic Research Agenda for Health Data Spaces
items: Sustainability in Service Research
items: Rethinking service in a circular economy
items: App-Device Fit Matters: Understanding User Perceptions of Apps on Smartwatches and Smartphones
items: Working with ‘The Passionate Few’: the Indirect Benefits of Actor Engagement in Mundane Service Settings
items: Characterising smart service systems – Revealing the smart value
items: Analysing the Introduction of Data-Driven Service Innovation Processes: Stages of Implementation, Success Factors, and Prerequisites
items: The Resources–Processes–Outcomes Approach: A Spark That Could Not Escape a Black Hole

Pricing adoption among service firms: An empirical investigation in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland
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description: This study examines pricing adoption among service firms, addressing a gap in pricing research regarding pricing implementation and its contribution to firm success. Using data from companies in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, we analyze differences between moderately servitized firms (MSFs) and highly servitized firms (HSFs) across key steps of the pricing process—price analysis, price strategy, price implementation, and price controlling—and test hypotheses related to factors influencing pricing adoption. Our results show that, for HSFs, top executive championing and price analysis are more critical than for MSFs, while cross-functional collaboration shows the opposite pattern. Pricing adoption significantly affects firm success for both groups, while innovativeness plays a moderating role only for MSFs. These findings highlight the need for differentiated pricing approaches tailored to the distinct challenges of MSFs versus HSFs.
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creator: Steffen Müller
creator: Markus Beinert
creator: Nina Heim
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2026-04-10
publication date: 2026-04-10
starting page: 154
ending page: 171
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2025-3-4-154

Dynamic, Algorithmic, and AI-Based Pricing in Service Contexts: A Systematic Literature Review
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description: Dynamic pricing has a long tradition in the service sector and has been extensively discussed across a wide range of studies, characterized by considerable methodological and contextual diversity. In recent years, however, technological advancement and digitalization have further transformed its implementation and strategic relevance. Therefore, this systematic literature review synthesizes 104 studies on dynamic, algorithmic, and AI-driven pricing strategies in service contexts. Based on an extensive literature search of databases across different service contexts, the study identifies three overarching implementation challenges: technical infrastructure and data quality, organizational readiness and cultural resistance, and consumer and market challenges. While these pricing strategies yield substantial revenue improvements across sectors, they simultaneously generate significant consumer fairness and trust concerns that threaten long-term competitive advantage. The findings further show that successful implementation requires not merely technical sophistication but a holistic approach balancing algorithmic optimization with transparent communication, consumer trust preservation, and equitable consumer access considerations. By synthesizing the literature, the study shows interdependencies among organizational, technical, and consumer dimensions, providing actionable guidance for practitioners and identifying critical avenues for future research.
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creator: Lucas Heyden
creator: Christian Brock
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2026-04-10
publication date: 2026-04-10
starting page: 172
ending page: 191
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2025-3-4-172

Flat Rate Effects in Public Transport: An Empirical Investigation into Consumer Behavior Toward the “Deutschlandticket”
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description: This study investigates the psychological determinants of purchase intention and purchase behavior of flat rate pricing in public transportation. The motivation for this study is the lack of empirical research on the introduction of flat rate tariffs in public transport. We draw on a sample of 683 German individuals from a two-phase survey. The conceptualization is based on a theory of planned behavior (TPB) approach, which is well established to investigate the underlying causes of purchase decisions. Results especially show significant paths for the insurance and taximeter effects on purchase intention and purchase behavior. This research’s main contribution is the inclusion of flat rate effects in a TPB framework and results demonstrate that flat rate effects can be modeled as predictors of attitude and purchase intention. Results inform decision-making within the transportation sector to emphasize perceived positive effects and mitigate negative effects through effective product management and communication.
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creator: Rick Pingel
creator: Simeon Burgsmüller
creator: David M. Woisetschläger
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2026-04-10
publication date: 2026-04-10
starting page: 136
ending page: 153
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2025-3-4-136

From Free-to-Fee: Motive-Based Communication and Price Fairness for Value-Added Services
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description: This study examines how introducing prices for value-added services (VASs) that were previously offered for free affects customers’ price fairness perceptions. Drawing on experimental data from two studies, we argue that customer reactions to such price introductions can be mitigated through strategic communication. Building on attribution theory and the structural alignment model, we propose motive-based communication as an effective strategy. Specifically, we explore the effectiveness of cost-based, value-based, and competition-based motives as different price-based motives. Our findings reveal that all three price-based motives enhance customers’ perceived price fairness, with cost-based communication proving the most effective. Moreover, we demonstrate that making a VAS nonalignable—that is, less comparable to the previous offering—should be avoided when communicating price introductions based on price-related motives. However, when no price-based motive is available, transforming the VAS into a nonalignable service becomes a reasonable alternative.
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creator: Monika C. Schuhmacher
creator: Sabine Kuester
creator: Laura Grunert
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2026-04-10
publication date: 2026-04-10
starting page: 118
ending page: 135
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2025-3-4-118

Visitor Revival Propositions for Cultural Institutions – A Service Science Perspective
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description: Cultural institutions increasingly face declining visitor numbers and must adapt to shifting visitor behaviors. This development threatens cultural diversity and places institutions in precarious positions. While the causes for this trend can be manifold, understanding visitor preferences is critical for identifying innovative revival propositions. However, existing research mainly focuses on revival strategies in commercial contexts, leaving a gap regarding non-commercial sectors. Indeed, service science is much needed, with its knowledge and methods, to help neighboring disciplines understand visitor preferences and suggest innovative revival propositions. Addressing this gap, we first develop a taxonomy and then analyze quantitative survey data from 5,502 (non-)visitors to identify reasons for visiting, reasons for visitor churn, and promising revival propositions for each visitor segment. Based on these insights, we develop a framework that advances the understanding of visitor revival in non-commercial contexts. The framework enables practitioners to meet evolving visitor expectations and apply innovative revival propositions.
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creator: Philipp Hansmeier
creator: Maike Althaus
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2026-03-16
publication date: 2026-03-16
starting page: 52
ending page: 74
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2025-2-52

Emotions in Human-Robot Interactions: The Role of Service Type and Gender Stereotypes
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description: Despite several studies investigating customer reactions to service robots, the literature lacks knowledge on customers’ discrete emotions towards service robots across different service types. Thus, the purpose of our research is to identify the effects of human-robot interactions in different service types (elderly care and retail service) on customers’ emotions (fear, anger, sadness, shame, enjoyment, and interest). Moreover, we investigate the effects of robot gender on customers’ emotions, as well as its interaction with customer gender and service type. Methodologically, we conducted semi-structured interviews and a scenario-based experiment. The results show stronger emotions of fear and sadness towards service robots in elderly care, whereas the emotion of enjoyment was more intense in retail. Except for sadness, we do not find differences in emotional reactions concerning a robot’s gender. Furthermore, we find neither an interaction effect between robot gender and customer gender nor between robot gender and service type on emotions. Our findings reveal that the service type in which a service robot is applied can be of crucial importance in affecting customers’ emotional reactions. Despite these differences, the intensity of the examined emotions was rather small to moderate, implicating that a mere implementation of service robots does not necessarily evoke a strong emotional (positive or negative) arousal.
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creator: Noel Liebing
creator: Gertrud Schmitu
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 35
ending page: 51
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2025-1-35

When Price Components Shift Together: Effects on Customer Perceptions and Sales in Access-based Services
type: item
description: Providers of access-based services frequently adopt partitioned pricing models to differentiate price components for customers, such as fixed and variable fees. In practice, service providers tend to adjust price components levels simultaneously with the goal of increasing profitability while maintaining favourable customer perceptions. However, literature examining the consequences of simultaneous changes of price components in partitioned pricing models is scant. Against this background, this paper analyses consequences of simultaneous adjustments in price components in the car-sharing sector, and evaluates the impact by utilizing survey and behavioural data. Our results indicate that customer perceptions can be negatively affected, even when customers objectively receive better value for money (e. g., longer rental durations for a lower price), because adjustments can be perceived as complex, untransparent, and less valuable.
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creator: Alexander Grieß
creator: Jan Gremmel
creator: David M. Woisetschläger
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2026-03-16
publication date: 2026-03-16
starting page: 92
ending page: 109
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2025-2-92

Pricing for Services: Strategic, Organizational, and Technological Perspectives
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description: Pricing is the only element of the marketing mix that directly generates revenue, yet it remains comparatively underexplored and unevenly developed in both academic research and managerial practice, particularly in service contexts. This editorial introduces the special issue on Pricing for Services of the Journal of Service Management Research. We argue that the distinctive characteristics of services – intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, and perishability – make pricing inherently more complex than in goods markets, a complexity further reinforced by servitization and the growing prevalence of subscription-based business models. Against this backdrop, we outline four developments that shape the current frontier of service pricing research: (1) shifts in customer behavior and pricing models, (2) the emergence of new monetization approaches, (3) the expanding role of digital technologies in pricing, and (4) the organizational foundations of pricing capabilities. The four papers in this special issue provide theoretical and empirical insights across these domains.
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creator: Markus Husemann-Kopetzky
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2026-04-10
publication date: 2026-04-10
starting page: 112
ending page: 117
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2025-3-4-112

Digital public goods as avenue for digital platform design– Insights from India
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description: Digital public goods (DPGs) offer many opportunities for improving public life. They promote digital services for citizens, enable seamless data leveraging as digital platforms, and facilitate efficiency gains in the public sector. DPGs’ impact is visible particularly in India. There, the implementation of the JAM-trinity meant and enabled financial inclusion for citizens, ensuring that every Indian has a bank account and is able to engage in economic activities and receive subsidies. Outside India, DPGs are largely unknown, and knowledge on platform design and implementation is still in its infancy. To gain insight into the design and implementation of digital platforms, a single case study of a DPG was performed. Using a sociotechnical systems perspective, twelve principles for public digital platform design were identified. This article discusses their relevance for platform providers, operators, and customers. The results show how academics and practitioners can learn from DPG implementations in India for platform value creation. Beyond the descriptive identification of design principles, the study contributes to the academic discourse on platform design and governance by contextualizing these principles within socio-technical dimensions and stakeholder roles. It extends existing literature by demonstrating how DPGs can inform scalable, inclusive, and adaptive platform architectures in the public sector.
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creator: Julian Kurtz
creator: R. Srinivasan
creator: Angela Roth
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2026-03-16
publication date: 2026-03-16
starting page: 75
ending page: 91
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2025-2-75

Working Together to Get the Job Done – The What, When, and How of Human–AI Collaboration in the Frontline
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description: Frontline service employees (FLEs) are key actors in service delivery, often serving as the primary touch point between service companies and customers. With the growing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in service, research has predominantly explored AI's impact on customer experiences while neglecting the employee perspective. This article addresses this gap by exploring the collaboration of FLEs with AI. This is particularly important as the most significant changes resulting from the introduction of AI in service companies are in the job performance of FLEs. While prior research has just mentioned FLE–AI collaboration, it has not systematically categorized or broken down the collaboration practice into its constituent dimensions. However, this detailed understanding is essential for promoting a nuanced understanding of AI's role in augmenting jobs, implementing the collaboration strategically, and adapting it as needed. Building on existing research, this article contributes to the field by proposing a holistic framework of FLE–AI collaboration. The framework organizes the collaboration into three dimensions, identifying common patterns and providing a structured overview of the term, offering insights into task-specific collaboration utility, suitable skill allocations, and the relationship structures between FLEs and AI. By systematically conceptualizing these aspects, this article not only provides a conceptual foundation for understanding FLE–AI collaboration but also delivers actionable insights for service scholars and practitioners to integrate AI effectively into the FLE's job. It supports the targeted deployment of AI in service environments, guiding task allocation, workforce development, and relationship management.
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creator: Irini Tsaga
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2025-09-19
publication date: 2025-09-19
starting page: 155
ending page: 170
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2024-3-4-155

First impressions matter: Shaping the servicescape to address anonymity and trust in peer-to-peer sharing economy services
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description: The increasing number of multi-unit hosts in peer-to-peer platforms such as Airbnb poses a significant challenge to single-unit hosts, who compete in a highly professionalized market where host-guest interactions have become increasingly anonymous. However, anonymity may undermine trust and affect eWOM, crucial elements for the performance of peer-to-peer platforms, as they heavily rely on mutual trust and positive eWOM to succeed. This study investigated the effects of the presence of hosts’ personal decorations and a local welcome gift on eWOM. Perceived anonymity and trust emerge as mediating mechanisms, such that the presence of personal decorations reduced the guest’s perception of anonymity towards the host, which subsequently increased guest’s trust and their intention to spread positive eWOM. The local welcome gift did not show any significant effects. These insights contribute to servicescape research and offer practical implications for single-unit hosts to differentiate their service experience from that of professional hosts.
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creator: Edna Ozuna
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 2
ending page: 18
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2025-1-2

Understanding the role of distributed ledger based smart contracts in the supply chain: A literature review
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description: The use of distributed ledger-based smart contracts in supply chain operations offers promising opportunities for process automation, improved data accessibility, and enhanced transparency. Despite technical progress, there remains a lack of comprehensive understanding regarding their implications. This scoping review consolidates current knowledge to examine how smart contracts affect supply chain structures and operations. The results highlight their potential to reduce intermediaries, foster trust, lower transaction costs, and support the shift towards decentralised and collaborative supply networks. The study contributes by identifying implementation challenges and synthesising both benefits and barriers. It also presents actionable recommendations, including aligning organizational processes, developing standards, and addressing behavioural factors. Finally, a research agenda is proposed to guide future studies and close gaps in empirical and conceptual understanding.
subject: Reviews
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creator: Wieland Müller
creator: Michael Leyer
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2026-02-19
publication date: 2026-02-19
starting page: 19
ending page: 34
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2025-1-19

Circularity work: reorienting service ecosystems towards circularity
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description: The circular economy (CE) offers a promising alternative to traditional linear models but requires systemic reorientation towards circular value cocreation. Within service ecosystems, actors rely on institutional arrangements to integrate resources and cocreate value. To effectively implement a reorientation towards circularity, actors conduct circularity work – efforts undertaken by actors within service ecosystems to enable, cultivate, and legitimize institutions supporting circular value cocreation. Through 18 semi-structured interviews and supplementary data, this study identifies three interconnected types of circularity work: (1) Enabling: focused on implementing and operationalizing circular practices within service ecosystems; (2) Cultivating: aimed at creating the foundation for circular practices by aiding actors to participate; and (3) Legitimizing: aimed at establishing circular practices as appropriate and desirable, embedding them within existing institutional structures. By providing a framework illustrating how actors enact circularity work to foster circularity, we advance the understanding of transitions toward circular value cocreation in service ecosystems. Lastly, we give directions for future research to support circular value cocreation.
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creator: Martin Hanssen
creator: David Sörhammar
creator: Bård Tronvoll
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2025-09-19
publication date: 2025-09-19
starting page: 116
ending page: 134
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2024-3-4-116

Characterizing Value Co-Creation With AI-Enabled Non-Human Agents From The Perspective of Well-Being
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description: Non-human agents are Artificial Intelligence-enabled technologies capable of adaptive actions, which represent novel interaction partners for human actors in service systems. This study analyses perceptions from value co-creation involving non-human agents to explore how their integration impacts well-being and how to shape well-being in such interactions. The exploratory, qualitative research design encompasses a two-pronged data collection approach in a living lab, considering the perspectives of 35 beneficiaries and 42 service providers. Four interaction characteristics impact well-being in value co-creation involving non-human agents: (1) Interaction outcome, (2) trust between interacting entities, (3) interaction space and (4) capabilities of interacting entities. Moreover, we outline resource integrating practices that allow service system entities to shape well-being. Our findings characterize AI-driven value co-creation from a well-being perspective and refine the nascent understanding of reciprocal interactions between humans and non-human agents in value co-creation.
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creator: Matthäus Wilga
creator: Nina Lugmair
creator: Martin Schymanietz
creator: Angela Roth
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2025-09-19
publication date: 2025-09-19
starting page: 135
ending page: 154
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2024-3-4-135

Determinants of Work Intensity in Three Service Sectors
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description: Service industry employees report particularly high work intensity levels. While the consequences of work intensity were intensely studied, a respective understanding of its determinants is lacking. However, knowing these determinants is crucial for managers to design work appropriately. Thus, we investigate determinants of work intensity in the service industry comparing three sectors (trading, finance, and public services) with two waves (2012, 2018) of the BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey, a representative sample of the German work force with N > 20.000. The sectors varied significantly in the levels of work intensity overall and different work intensity facets and their determinants. Nevertheless, the determinants of work intensity were mostly comparably associated across sectors and robust across waves. Especially learning demands, organizational changes, ICT use, and working hours were associated with higher work intensity in all service sectors. Learning demands seem to be a particularly relevant determinant because they were empirically related to all work intensity facets.
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creator: Lena Hünefeld
creator: Marcel Lück
creator: Helene Möller
creator: Florian Kopatz
creator: Joachim Hüffmeier
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2024-12-05
publication date: 2024-12-05
starting page: 29
ending page: 49
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2024-1-29

Understanding the role of (dual) entitlement effects on industrial customers’ willingness-to-pay for ancillary services
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description: Equipment manufacturers increasingly pursue servitization strategies, yet their salesforces frequently find that industrial customers display a low willingness-to-pay (WTP) for ancillary services, in particular when offered in conjunction with high-priced capital goods. Drawing on entitlement theory and a unique dataset gathered in a field survey among more than 440 decision-makers, we establish a negative relationship between vendors’ equipment prices and their industrial customers’ WTP for ancillary services. In a follow-up experimental study, we investigate the explanatory mechanism and find support for entitlement as the underpinning rationale. In a second experimental study, we explore dual-entitlement effects and show that customers’ perceptions of vendors’ profitability directly and indirectly impact their WTP for ancillary services. Our findings contribute to the emerging literature on customer entitlement and the dual-entitlement principle in industrial markets and offer practical implications for price communication and the sales process in capital goods markets.
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creator: Markus Husemann-Kopetzky
creator: Andreas Eggert
creator: Wolfgang Ulaga
creator: Michael Steiner
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2025-03-25
publication date: 2025-03-25
starting page: 94
ending page: 114
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2024-2-94

Novel Perspectives on Transformative Service Research
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description: The field of Transformative Service Research (TSR) has emerged over a decade ago with a range of seminal and call-to-action papers which have subsequently sparked and stimulated scholars’ interest in academic work at the intersection of Transformative Consumer Research and Service Research. This special research paper is a perspective piece that sketches trajectories for Transformative Service Researchers drawing on the combined knowledge and work of established scholars in the field who take a future perspective by highlighting the prospective development of the domain. Introducing the 10-Collaborators (10C) Framework, the article outlines a roadmap by relating to the different actors at the micro, meso, macro, and meta levels of the service ecosystem. These collaborators can be affected by contexts that create perceived vulnerability but are also required to collaborate to ensure the wellbeing of the system itself and its actors. The paper delineates novel TSR approaches for each of the levels and its actors as well as for the conceptual, methodological, practice and policy domains, and outlines novel initiatives. It deducts future research paths and actions points for TSR scholars and practitioners.
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creator: Jörg Finsterwalder
creator: Laurel Anderson
creator: Canan Corus
creator: Mario Giraldo
creator: Sertan Kabadayi
creator: Janet R. McColl-Kennedy
creator: Martin Mende
creator: David G. Mick
creator: Amy Ostrom
creator: Mark S. Rosenbaum
creator: Rebekah Russell-Bennett
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2025-03-25
publication date: 2025-03-25
starting page: 52
ending page: 73
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2024-2-52

Ecosystem-Level Customer Experience with Smart Service: Insights from a Systematic Scoping Literature Review
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description: Smart service is fundamentally transforming customer experience in both commercial and private contexts. While the information systems and service disciplines have explored the properties and implementation of smart service, there is a gap in understanding how smart service relates to customer experience at the ecosystem level. With the increasing prominence of digital platforms and data spaces, this ecosystem perspective will become crucial for the success of smart service. We report findings from a systematic scoping literature review on smart service themes and related customer experience concepts. Our analysis of 26 high-quality papers reveals three key insights: (1) smart service systems play a pivotal role in enabling customer experience, (2) customer experience in smart service scenarios is often co-created through “hybrid” customer journeys, and (3) these scenarios are subject to an ecosystem-level. Additionally, we identify smart service fundamentals, embeddedness levels, and business innovation as core themes that shape ecosystem-level customer experience.
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creator: Phillip Hansmeier
creator: Daniel Beverungen
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2025-03-25
publication date: 2025-03-25
starting page: 74
ending page: 93
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2024-2-74

Value Creation in the Information Economy: The Triad of AI, Service, and Human Work
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description: Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI (GenAI), have revolutionized the value generation in service1 as well as work processes and the work environment. However, the transformative potential of AI in the context of service and work must be guided in a way that ensures its alignment with human-centric values and economic goals. Based on an interactive panel and three workshops of service researchers and practitioners at the annual conference of the German Forum for Service Research (DF)² in September 2023, this paper highlights six fields of action. Spanning corporate strategy, processes, and technology, these six fields of action illustrate how future-oriented service research may harness the opportunities of AI for society and the economy, manage associated risks, and foster societal acceptance. They serve as a framework for discussions and initiatives in service research, raise awareness among companies about necessary changes to remain competitive, and highlight funding needs with high relevance, societal importance, and economic potential.
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creator: Angela Roth
creator: Carina Benz
creator: Matthäus Wilga
creator: Peter Hottum
creator: Barbara Langes
creator: Tom Lewandowski
creator: Rainer Nägele
creator: Christoph Peters
creator: Gerhard Satzger
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2024-12-05
publication date: 2024-12-05
starting page: 2
ending page: 12
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2024-1-2

From Acquisition to Retention: A Single Case Study Exploring the Adaptation of Customer Value Propositions in a Subscription Business
type: item
description: A well-crafted customer value proposition (CVP) is crucial to communicating the value that customers can expect from a product or service experience. Accordingly, researchers have become increasingly interested in how to shape CVPs to sell goods or services, especially in the business-to-business (B2B) context. This is particularly relevant for subscription businesses, where subscribers typically pay a set amount for the continuous use of a service or product and which aim to ensure that customers keep renewing their subscriptions over a long period of time. However, relatively little is known about how to adapt or change a CVP for existing subscribers. Therefore, by conducting an explorative single case study, this article aims to investigate how CVPs are managed in a subscription-based business market. By revealing CVPs’ dynamics in a subscription business, we show how a CVP is embedded in a sales cycle and discuss the consequences of the often staircase-shaped pattern of experienced value in use that emerges during a subscription contract. Based on these insights, our results provide guidance for companies entering the subscription market as well as for existing subscription providers on how to retain their customers.
subject: Articles
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creator: Laura Elgeti
creator: Michael Kleinaltenkamp
creator: Katharina Prohl-Schwenke
creator: Gianluca Pollicino
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2024-12-05
publication date: 2024-12-05
starting page: 13
ending page: 28
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2024-1-13

Standardization as a Catalyst for Extending Resources and Capabilities in Service Systems Engineering: Findings from the omlox case
type: item
description: (Smart) service systems have inspired the emergence of a new research area that builds on smart, connected products and networked business models with smart services and brings together various social-science and technological disciplines. However, the factors that lead to successful service systems engineering initiatives have remained underexplored, despite their increasing significance in industry. In particular, the role of standardization is unclear, even though it seems to be central to making smart products interoperable and to establishing innovative (smart) service systems. In an exploratory case study of the standardization initiative omlox, we set out to identify and investigate empirically the effects that standardization can have on engineering (smart) service systems. Our focus is to determine how standardization can assist a company in accessing external resources and capabilities for recombinant service innovation. The results reveal that compliance with a standard enables companies to tap into compatible solutions, data, and knowledge from external stakeholders and that participation in standardization initiatives can be a platform for identifying potential collaboration partners. We conclude that standardization plays a major role in all phases of service systems engineering, from analysis to design and implementation.
subject: Articles
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creator: Emanuel Marx
creator: Roman Daudrich
creator: Tobias Pauli
creator: Martin Matzner
creator: Daniel Beverungen
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2024-05-07
publication date: 2024-05-07
starting page: 213
ending page: 231
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2023-4-213

Beyond Efficiency and Consistency – Achieving Sustainability through Service-enabled Sufficiency
type: item
description: Sustainability is one of the central topics in service research. The principle of sufficiency is an important driver of sustainability and can inform the development of services. This conceptual paper takes a business actors’ perspective by developing a services for sufficiency framework that integrates different sufficiency categories with relevant categories of resource-intensive goods and goods-related services. It shows how service offerings can promote sufficiency and identifies main clusters of services for sufficiency. This framework offers a starting point for business development and a rapid overview of concrete services for sufficiency.
subject: Articles
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creator: Felix Zechiel
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2024-05-07
publication date: 2024-05-07
starting page: 199
ending page: 212
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2023-4-199

The Emergence of a New European Data Economy: A Systematic Research Agenda for Health Data Spaces
type: item
description: Data space initiatives, including Gaia-X and the European Health Data Space (EHDS) regulation proposal, aim to establish a decentralized infrastructure for data exchange following European values such as citizen-centricity, transparency, and data sovereignty. European regulators did not only set statutory framework conditions but actively combined technical and regulatory aspects to initiate the co-development of a supranational reference architecture. This frames a novel direction towards a European data economy and is therefore supported with public funding of (research) projects in nine domains, starting with healthcare. Health data spaces represent a transformational endeavor that could fundamentally alter the established platform strategies of dominant organizations. We contribute a systematic research agenda that examines how scholars can harness research opportunities afforded by health data spaces. We propose abduction, action design research, design science research, and behavioral science research as promising approaches to study this phenomenon at different levels of analysis.
subject: Articles
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creator: Arthur Kari
creator: Tim Schurig
creator: Martin Gersch
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2024-05-07
publication date: 2024-05-07
starting page: 176
ending page: 198
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2023-4-176

Sustainability in Service Research
type: item
subject: Articles
  topic: section
creator: Marion Büttgen
creator: Jens Hogreve
creator: Felix Zechiel
creator: Silke Bartsch
creator: Tamara Lorz
creator: Jakob Trischler
creator: Jessica Westman Trischler
creator: Jari Kuusisto
creator: Peter Svensson
creator: Timothy Keiningham
creator: Lerzan Aksoy
creator: Barbara Porco
creator: Timothy Hedley
creator: Leigh Anne Statuto
creator: Bryant F. Dortignacq
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2023-12-21
publication date: 2023-12-21
starting page: 147
ending page: 174
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2023-3-147

Rethinking service in a circular economy
type: item
description: The circular economy (CE) narrative promotes closed-loop systems to decouple economic activity from resource depletion. However, despite increasing scholarly interest, CE remains theoretically under-explored, often guided by practical issues and theories-in-use, that are implicitly embedded in the industrial paradigm of linear value chain thinking. There is a growing number of CE scholars calling for a ‘Great Reset’ of traditional economic frameworks, suggesting a departure from capitalism. Instead of a reset, this paper proposes a recalibration of assumptions foundational to traditional economic thought and suggests an alternative economic exchange model for CE—a service-dominant (S-D) logic. S-D logic offers a holistic framework of value cocreation and provides guidance to navigate change in complex service ecosystems. The paper demonstrates that S-D logic is not only compatible with the CE narrative but also reconciles the divergent strands of CE research. It concludes by offering strategic considerations to aid firms and entrepreneurs in navigating CE transitions.
subject: Articles
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creator: Julia A. Fehrer
creator: Stephen L. Vargo
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2023-12-21
publication date: 2023-12-21
starting page: 130
ending page: 146
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2023-3-130

App-Device Fit Matters: Understanding User Perceptions of Apps on Smartwatches and Smartphones
type: item
description: The smartwatch market is rapidly expanding, with a diverse range of apps now available to users. This study examines users’ perceptions and attitudes toward apps on smartwatches and smartphones. Our experiment revealed that users did not generally perceive apps and the information they provide as more credible, timely, or of higher quality on smartwatches than on smartphones. Instead, the study identified app-device fit as the key factor that influences users’ perceptions. For apps that fit particularly well with smartwatches, such as body-related apps for health and sleep tracking, users rated app credibility, timeliness of data, information quality, and their overall attitude towards using the app higher on the specialized device (i.e., smartwatch) than on smartphones. However, no significant differences were found for sports-related domains, such as hiking and surfing. To optimize user experience, app developers should carefully consider the fit between the app and the device.
subject: Articles
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creator: Kathrin Figl
creator: Christiane Lehrer
creator: Jule Helder
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2023-07-12
publication date: 2023-07-12
starting page: 82
ending page: 98
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2023-2-82

Working with ‘The Passionate Few’: the Indirect Benefits of Actor Engagement in Mundane Service Settings
type: item
description: The engagement concept has grown in importance in recent years with firms recognizing and seeking to leverage the latent potential within their customers and finding innovative ways to engage them. However, engagement has, to date, been explored within high contact service settings where benefits are largely dyadic (between firm and customer) or shared (within the customer community). This study contributes to literature on engagement by assessing the potential for engagement in low contact settings, between a firm and minority customer groups to have positive indirect effects on other ‘unengaged’ customers. To do so, we use multi-level modeling within a public transport setting where a firm has invited local community members to ‘adopt’ their local railway stations. We propose that neither a small number of passionate customers, nor low contact, ‘mundane’ service settings, should be an impediment to firms benefiting from engagement.
subject: Articles
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creator: Matthew Alexander
creator: Katharina Kils
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2023-07-12
publication date: 2023-07-12
starting page: 99
ending page: 111
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2023-2-99

Characterising smart service systems – Revealing the smart value
type: item
description: The increasing use of digital technologies is creating new values, which can be unfold in smart service systems (SSS). Although SSS offer multiple values in products and services, research is still struggling to fully capture the specific values of "smart" as result of digital technologies. Therefore, there is no all-encompassing value understanding of SSS. In our work, we derive values of SSS, especially the "smart" values, by a qualitative analysis of cases in an open coding approach. These cases are identified by a systematic literature review. The derived “smart” values are e.g. increasing system transparency and autonomy, increasing knowledge integration, and enabling ecological savings fostering value in context. The specific values of "smart" in SSS give rise to value in context as a representation of those specific values. In addition, the emergence of derived values in SSS is further illustrated with an SSS value continuum, which presents value in product, value in services, and value in context as characterisation of values in SSS. The derived values and the SSS value continuum developed are intended to promote a better understanding of SSS and its value manifestations, and provide a basis for further research into SSS as a theoretical lens for value co-creation.
subject: Reviews
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creator: Julian Kurtz
creator: Christian Zinke-Wehlmann
creator: Nina Lugmair
creator: Martin Schymanietz
creator: Angela Roth
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2023-07-12
publication date: 2023-07-12
starting page: 112
ending page: 128
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2023-2-112

Analysing the Introduction of Data-Driven Service Innovation Processes: Stages of Implementation, Success Factors, and Prerequisites
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description: Data-driven business models are becoming increasingly important and have been applied successfully in the service sector. However, due to the challenges associated with utilizing data-driven technologies to identify service innovations, these have received little attention so far. Researchers and practitioners have primarily focused on understanding data-driven service innovation itself, but less on identifying and developing such innovations. Based on two analytical cases that emerged during expert interviews with service and innovation managers, we identified goals, opportunities, and prerequisites for data analytics to improve service innovation processes. Consequently, we propose three stages to implement data-driven technologies for service innovation processes and describe the prerequisites, key success factors, and expected benefits of this implementation.
subject: Articles
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creator: Berndt Jesenko
creator: Stefan Thalmann
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2023-03-23
publication date: 2023-03-23
starting page: 39
ending page: 51
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2023-1-39

The Resources–Processes–Outcomes Approach: A Spark That Could Not Escape a Black Hole
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description: In May 1993, Werner H. Engelhardt, Michael Kleinaltenkamp, and Martin Reckenfelderbäumer published the paper “Leistungsbündel als Absatzobjekte – Ein Ansatz zur Überwindung der Dichotomie von Sach- und Dienstleistungen” (Products as Bundles of Processes and Outcomes—An Approach to Overcome the Dichotomy between Goods and Services) in Schmalenbachs Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung (ZfbF). This paper laid the foundation for the resources–processes–outcomes (RPO) approach (“Leistungslehre”). To date, the work remains one of the most-cited German-language articles in business research. The current article presents the RPO approach’s basic ideas and essential concepts. Furthermore, this article critically reflects on the approach’s contributions from a current perspective. This discussion includes a comparison with more recently developed ideas about the service-dominant (S-D) logic and the service logic that have addressed related issues like the integration of customer and supplier resources and the connected interactions.
subject: Articles
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creator: Michael Kleinaltenkamp
rights: Copyright (c)
date: 2023-07-12
publication date: 2023-07-12
starting page: 68
ending page: 81
doi: https://doi.org/10.5771/2511-8676-2023-2-68