Companies today face the challenge not only of designing innovative customer-focused service strategies to compete and grow but also of translating such strategies into results through successful execution. Experience and research demonstrate the difficulty of such an execution, but little research in marketing has focused on strategy implementation, particularly at the employee level. Prior research has suggested that frontline employee participation is critical to successful innovation implementation, especially in service contexts. We develop a theoretical model to investigate the complex role of motivation in engaging employee participation in service innovation implementation and test it with field data from a real-world context.The study contributes to motivation research in marketing by adapting and extending a hierarchical conceptualization from psychology that incorporates three levels of motivation: global, contextual, and situational. We also investigate the antecedents managers can control to increase employee motivation to participate in implementation efforts and subsequently to improve participation behaviors that are critical to the successful implementation of a customer service innovation.

Purpose -This study aims to focus on the role of employee commitment in the success of organizational change initiatives. The authors seek to propose and test a model that delineates antecedents and consequences of affective, normative, and continuance commitment to organizational change. Design/methodology/approach -Data were collected via online survey from employees working in a large not-for-profit organization. A total of 191 responses (32 per cent) were obtained. The hypothesized model relationships were tested using structural equation modeling. Findings -The results demonstrate that the antecedents: fit with vision, employee-manager relationship quality, job motivation, and role autonomy all influence commitment to change (C2C). Notably, affective commitment, which in turn influences employee perceptions about improved performance, implementation success, and individual learning regarding the change, had the greatest impact.Research limitations/implications -Limitations that could lead to future research include three primary issues. First, the data were collected from one organization. Second, data were collected at one point in time. Third, the proposed model is far from exhaustive. Other antecedents to C2C could include risk acceptance, organizational culture, and/or leadership style. Practical implications -In addition, given affective commitment to change (AC2C) has the greatest influence on outcomes such as implementation success and improved performance, the antecedents of AC2C warrant management's attention. If managers can influence AC2C through such factors as those proposed here, outcomes such as individual learning, perceived implementation success, and perceived improved performance will be influenced. Originality/value -The paper integrates two models evaluating employee reactions to change, an under researched area, to help uncover ways to improve the success of change initiatives.

No abstract

Community service and service learning (CS&SL) exposes students to the business practice of giving back to society while reinforcing classroom learning in an applied real-world setting. However, does the CS&SL format provide a better means of instilling the benefits of community service among marketing students than community-based learning (CBL), a modification of client-sponsored projects using nonprofit organizations that emphasize societal benefits? A series of three studies reveals that CBL renders results that are more favorable than CS&SL by enhancing student awareness and perceived benefits of community service at the undergraduate and graduate curriculum levels.The authors received funding for the project from a center at their university that provides internship, learning and research opportunities for students, faculty, and the local community to work together to address societal needs.

No abstract