Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to put forth an expanded servicescape framework that shows that a perceived servicescape comprises physical, social, socially symbolic, and natural environmental dimensions. Design/methodology/approach -This conceptual paper offers an in-depth literature review on servicescape topics from a variety of disciplines, both inside and outside marketing, to advance a logical framework built on Bitner's seminal article (1992). Findings -A servicescape comprises not only objective, measureable, and managerially controllable stimuli but also subjective, immeasurable, and often managerially uncontrollable social, symbolic, and natural stimuli, which all influence customer approach/avoidance decisions and social interaction behaviors. Furthermore, customer responses to social, symbolic, and natural stimuli are often the drivers of profound person-place attachments.Research limitations/implications -The framework supports a servicescape paradigm that links marketing, environmental/natural psychology, humanistic geography, and sociology. Practical implications -Although managers can easily control a service firm's physical stimuli, they need to understand how other critical environmental stimuli influence consumer behavior and which stimuli might overweigh a customer's response to a firm's physical dimensions. Social implications -The paper shows how a servicescape's naturally restorative dimension can promote relief from mental fatigue and improve customer health and well-being. Thus, government institutions (e.g. schools, hospitals) can improve people's lives by creating natural servicescapes that have restorative potential. Originality/value -The framework organizes more than 25 years of servicescape research in a cogent framework that has cross-disciplinary implications.
Service establishments would relish the opportunity to have their customers display customer voluntary performance (CVP) behaviors, which refer to helpful, discretionary customer behaviors that support an organization's service performance and quality. This article draws on resource exchange theory to offer an explanation as to why some customers display CVP in the form of customer citizenship and customer care behaviors. The data reveal that customers who receive social-emotional support and, to a lesser extent, instrumental support from other customers in a service establishment reciprocate by exhibiting CVP toward the establishment and to customers in the establishment. This article demonstrates that socially supportive service environments are beneficial for customers' health and for organizational profitability."When men are thus knit together, by a love of society, not a spirit of faction, and don't meet to censure or annoy those who are absent, but to enjoy one another: when they are thus combined for their own improvement, or for the good of others, or at least to relax themselves from the Business of the Day, by an innocent and cheerful conversation, there may be something very useful in these little Institutions and Establishments."Joseph Addison (as quoted in Oldenburg and Brissett 1982, p. 268) It is 4:30 a.m. on a dark and cold January morning in Chicago. Six older-aged men each sit in their parked cars outside a neighborhood diner. Harriet, a morning waitress, arrives a few minutes later. The men follow Harriet into the restaurant, and they begin their daily routines. One of the men fills the saltshakers, and one fills the sugar containers. Another man assembles the crayons for each child's menu, and another fills the ketchup bottles. By 5:30 a.m., Harriet and the men have completed their tasks, and the restaurant opens for business. The men take their usual positions at the counter, order breakfast, and kibitz among one another. The men begin to depart at 9 a.m., knowing that they will meet again the following morning.Many service organizations would relish the idea of customers not only displaying loyalty to their firms but also voluntarily performing helping behaviors that improve their firms' service performance and quality.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to help senior center managers and service researchers understand why some patrons experience health benefits, primarily fatigue relief, through senior center day services participation. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conduct two separate studies at a senior center. The first study represents a grounded theory that offers an original, basic social process regarding mental restoration in senior centers. The second study draws on Attention Restoration Theory (ART) and employs survey methodology. Findings – Senior center patrons who perceive a center's restorative stimuli experience health benefits such as relief from four types of fatigue, enhanced quality of life, and improved physical and mental well-being. Research limitations/implications – The paper shows that senior centers may be relatively inexpensive, non-medical services that can help patrons relieve fatigue symptoms, which are often treated with pharmaceutical medication and medical visits. A limitation is the small sample size, which restricts generalizability. Practical implications – The results show that senior center managers may promote patron health by fostering service designs and programs that allow members to temporarily escape from everyday life and interact in an ever-changing environment that fosters a sense of belonging. Social implications – Senior center day services help patrons relieve fatigue, and its symptoms, in an affordable, non-medical, and non-pharmaceutical manner. Originality/value – The paper clarifies the role of senior centers in patrons’ lives by drawing on ART. Senior centers that can offer patrons restorative environments are likely to play a significant role in patrons’ physical, social, and mental well-being.
Purpose -When consumers help other users of the same brand, both the brand and consumers benefit. To determine when consumer-to-consumer helping behaviors occur and to help managers encourage this value-creating activity, this paper aims to investigate relationships between social identification and helping behavior intentions within a consumption community and its subgroups. Design/methodology/approach -Surveys were given to consumers identified as members of a consumption community during an annual consumption event. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings -Consumers' identification with the overall community was positively related to helping behavior intentions toward the overall community, but not subgroup level. Subgroup identification was positively related to helping at the subgroup but negatively related to helping behavior intentions at the community level. When consumers identify with the overall community, they assist other consumers. However, consumers are less likely to help consumers in the overall community when identifying with a subgroup. Practical implications -When consumers identify with a consumption community and its subgroups, their identification can lead to helping between members. Voluntary helping between consumers provides value to consumers and contributes to the firm's value-creation process. This study helps managers understand how consumption community development simultaneously encourages and discourages consumer value-creation through helping behaviors.Originality/value -This study examines consumer value-creation through the context of consumer helping intentions within consumption communities on a continuum, as opposed to the dichotomy implied by prior research. This study empirically demonstrates how consumers' membership in subgroups can motivate consumers to help some, but not other consumption community members.
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