Although recovery activities are primarily managed by the operations function, service recovery has received little attention in the operations management literature. This paper outlines a framework for examining the service recovery process and then reports on an empirical study to test this framework. The results not only validate much of what is anecdotally claimed by researchers and casual observers of service industries, but also highlight the role of operational activities in service recovery. The paper then points to the need for an array of operations‐based research efforts that will lead to better understanding of the recovery process and to more empirically based descriptive and prescriptive models.

Service failures do not need to result in permanent negative consequences as long as effective recovery activities are undertaken. Unfortunately, existing research has been limited in providing information to support prescriptive approaches for applying specific service recovery techniques. By using data from a large sample (n = 861) of service failure incidents and employing the use of hierarchical and non‐hierarchical cluster analysis, this exploratory study creates and analyzes empirical types of service failures. The derived failure types, or common situations faced by service providers, focus on customer loyalty and the severity of the failure, and may be visualized in a two‐by‐two matrix. Regression analysis is then used to demonstrate how effective recovery strategies and supporting activities should vary, based on the location of the failure within the matrix. The approach and results offer important implications for strategy and service support activities as well as a foundation for systematizing service recovery efforts.

This study identifies the structural dimensions that constitute a service recovery system. We employ a structured scale development process to introduce, define, and operationalize seven distinct first-order constructs (i.e., structural dimensions) of service recovery. Potential constructs and their items are identified from the literature, experts and practitioners are employed to refine scales, and psychometric properties are tested using data from a sample of 158 service providers. Constructs such as those developed here should prove to be useful as researchers strive to incorporate operational notions into service recovery studies and to move toward systematic recovery prescriptions for service providers. Accordingly, the results presented herein can provide a springboard for future research on service recovery while also providing practicing managers with a diagnostic tool against which to benchmark existing recovery systems.

One relatively unanswered question regarding operational efficiency and effectiveness is whether and how public sector or government operations can employ service strategy and design concepts to deal with the conflicting objectives of minimizing expenditures while providing for an increasing number of ''causes'' [Haywood-Farmer, J., Nollet, J., 1991. Service Plus: Effective Service Management, G. Morin Publisher, Quebec]. In this paper, we argue that the mechanism that permits or enables simultaneous success on these dimensions in public sector operations is information technology applied in conjunction with a unified set of service operations concepts. To demonstrate this contention, we employ an adaptation of the Goldstein et al. [Goldstein, S.M., Johnston, R., Duffy, J., Rao, J., 2002. The service concept: the missing link in service design research? Journal of Operations Management 20 (2), 121-134] service planning design framework, taking issue with some interpretative aspects of their strategic model. The modified planning framework was applied to an initiative in South Carolina state government to improve operations and technology deployment at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). The detailed and ongoing case study illustrates the utility of a broad service-based, IT-enabled approach to designing a government service, while simultaneously demonstrating that operational service alignment is the key to avoiding results that have long been labeled a dilemma in the public sector. #

This paper presents an important new means of analyzing service recovery efforts from an operational systems maturity perspective. Specifically, seven dimensions that measure the structure of a service recovery system are used to derive a set of service recovery system profiles. The dimensions and profiles are constructed using data obtained from 158 practicing service managers on their organizations’ approaches to correcting service failures. Cluster analysis is used to develop three distinct system profiles: recoverers, followers, and laggards. Additional analyses indicate that significant differences in the utilization of specific recovery practices, recovery outcomes, recovery performance, and organizational characteristics are associated with these groups.The results suggest that the systematic development of service recovery systems may follow a logical path as an organization matures in its approach to dealing with service failures. Additionally, it is apparent that mature firms exhibit a more advanced and integrated system, employ a wider range of techniques for recovery, and demonstrate superior performance. The results also point to a need to more fully understand the relative importance of service recovery structural dimensions to successful firms.

We present an empirical assessment of the productivity of individuals and institutions in terms of service operations management (SOM) research. We reviewed five mainstream operations management journals over a 17‐year time period to generate a sample of 463 articles related to service operations. The results indicate that SOM research has been growing and key contributions are being made by an array of researchers and institutions.

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent the factors of the operating environment influence the structural dimensions and subsequent performance of a firm's recovery system. Design/methodology/approach -Using contingency theory and a sample of 158 service firms, this research tests for structural differences in service recovery systems based on Schmenner's widely-cited taxonomy, the service process matrix. To conduct the analysis, both multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) models were tested to assess overall system differences and to detect individual dimensional differences. Findings -The results indicate that differences in the structure of service recovery systems do exist across divergent operating environments. Additionally, differences in performance measures were found only in capability improvements, while customer-oriented performance did not vary across operating environments. Originality/value -The paper is believed to be the first to empirically investigate how differences in operating environments increase the likelihood that firms will employ divergent recovery system configurations. This work yields valuable insights into how organizations can design their systems to more appropriately respond to the demands of the environments in which they operate. The results also lend credence to the concept of equifinality, which suggests similar ends are attainable through multiple means.