Trends and directions in service triads research

Transport in supply networks

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to analyse how transport activities are embedded in supply chains and networks.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is empirically grounded in a single case study that describes and analyses a supply chain of a particular product, Geocloth, focussing on how transport activities are organised in the supply network.

Findings

The paper concludes that transport activities are embedded in two related settings – the supply chain setting and the transport network setting – with implications for how adjustments can be made to increase transport performance. Furthermore, the paper shows how transport performance can be analysed as a function of how business relationships are connected vertically (i.e. how transport activities are sequentially connected within supply chains) and horizontally (i.e. how transport activities are connected across supply chains with regard to joint resource use).

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the understanding of how transport is integrated in supply networks by focussing on the connections between business relationships in supply chains and by pointing to how transport activities are embedded both in supply chain settings and in transport network settings.

From third party to significant other for service encounters: a systematic review on third-party roles and their implications

Purpose

Dyadic interactions between customers and service providers rarely occur in isolation. Still, there is a lack of systematic knowledge about the roles that different types of nontechnological third parties – that is, other customers, pets, other employees and other firms – can adopt in relation to customers and service providers during encounters. The present study aims to unravel these roles and highlight their implications for customers, service providers and/or third parties.

Design/methodology/approach

This research relies on a systematic review of literature in the Web of Science using a search string pertaining to the research study’s objectives. In total, 2,726 articles were screened by title and abstract using clear inclusion and exclusion criteria, thereby extracting 189 articles for full-text eligibility. The final sample consisted of 139 articles for coding and analysis.

Findings

The analyses reveal that other customers, pets, other employees and other firms can adopt five roles: bystander, connector, endorser, balancer and partner. Each role has different implications for customers, service providers and/or third parties. Additionally, the five roles are associated with distinct constellations of the customer, the service provider and the third party. These roles and constellations are dynamic and not mutually exclusive.

Originality/value

This research contributes to the service encounter literature by providing a thorough understanding of the various third-party roles and their implications for customers, service providers and/or third parties during encounters. As such, this research sheds light on the conditions under which third parties become “significant others” in service encounters and identifies avenues for future research.

Implications of customer participation in outsourcing non-core services to third parties

Purpose

Focal service providers increasingly involve customers in the decision-making about outsourcing parts of the service delivery process to third parties. The present study investigates how customers' outsourcing decisions affect the formation of the waiting experience with the focal service provider, by which the objective waiting time, environmental quality and interactional quality act as focal drivers.

Design/methodology/approach

To test our hypotheses in the context of cancer care, we gathered process data and experience data by means of a patient observation template (n = 640) and a patient survey (n = 487). The combined data (n = 377) were analyzed using Bayesian models.

Findings

This study shows that opting for a service triad (i.e. outsourcing non-core services to a third party) deduces customers' attention away from the objective waiting time with the focal service provider but not from the environmental and interactional quality offered by the focal service provider. When the type of service triad coordination is considered, we observe similar effects for a focal service provider-coordinated service triad while in a customer-coordinated service triad the interactional quality is the sole experience driver of waiting experiences that remains significant.

Originality/value

By investigating the implications of customer participation in the decision-making about outsourcing parts of the service delivery process to third parties, this research contributes to the service design, service triad and service operations literature. Specifically, this study shows that customer outsourcing decisions impact waiting experience formation with the focal service provider.

The impact of product variety on LSQ in e-marketplaces

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the impact of the e-tailers’ product variety decisions on their logistics service quality (LSQ) in B2C e-marketplaces. Furthermore, it investigates the mediation of transaction intensity and the moderation of the perceived technical quality in this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

The data were collected from one of Turkey’s biggest e-marketplace firms, N11.com. Consumer evaluations and the e-tailers’ product offers were used to operationalize research variables. Structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses.

Findings

Product variety increases the sales of e-tailers but negatively affects their LSQ. This negative effect does not stem from the operational complexity resulting from increased sales; on the contrary, transaction intensity actually suppresses the negative effect of product variety on LSQ. This study additionally reveals that the perceived technical quality weakens the negative impact of product variety on LSQ.

Originality/value

The intense competition in e-marketplaces makes LSQ a key competitive factor, highlighting the importance of revealing its determinants. Although the negative effect of product variety on operational performance has been revealed in manufacturing and physical retailing environments, it has been under-investigated in online retailing. Drawing on a knowledge-based view, this study reveals how product variety decreases LSQ in the online context despite its unique features (i.e. temporal and spatial separation). Moreover, by demonstrating that the delivered product’s instrumental performance affects the perceived LSQ, it reveals that technical quality and functional quality are not disjoint components in online purchases.