Service quality has become a central driver of competitive advantage and value creation. However, due to information asymmetries, many clients find it difficult to assess the service providers' quality ex ante. Nonetheless, this assessment is important to understand, as it affects service provider selection and, thereby, the service delivery. In this paper, we aim to reduce the opacity of service quality by interviewing 51 clients of professional services. Building on an in-depth analysis and a framework of signaling and screening theory, we develop a taxonomy of the dimensions on which professional service quality builds and of the signals clients use to assess quality in the ex ante phase. We also identify two types of signals, qualifying signals and signals of excellence, and develop a conceptual model of the screening process. We conclude the paper by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our results.
Seeking to benefit from higher levels of purchasing maturity, many organizations strive to formalize their purchasing practices. Why these practices are not adopted by certain organizations or for certain types of purchases is less well understood, however. It has been argued that the purchasing of knowledge-intensive services is particularly difficult to formalize, but an in-depth understanding of the inter-and intra-organizational dynamics influencing this process is lacking. This study contributes to the purchasing and supply management literature by providing a finegrained understanding of how actors respond to formalization initiatives. Building on an exploratory interview methodology and using institutional logic and power theory as foundations, we show that formalization initiatives lead to institutional complexity and conflicts. Sets of strategies and counterstrategies for how to deal with the complexity and conflicts are identified, and relational power is found to moderate which strategy is used by the actors. Based on the empirical findings, a conceptual model is developed to describe the response process.Initiatives to formalize relational purchases break the flow of stability (Weick, 1995) in organizations, because they challenge well-established practices and norms. The actors involved need to make sense of the new situation and decide on an appropriate response. As previous research has illustrated, perceptions of
Trends towards service standardization and formalization appear to be contradicting rather than supporting service-dominant logic. Few studies have tried to understand how organizations deal with these contradictions. This paper explores the presence of contradicting logics in businessto-business professional service relationships. Based on 78 interviews with buyers and sellers, the study shows that the nature of the relationship is defined by the need to balance the contradicting logics at both the individual and firm level. While individual relationships have traditionally been intimate, more instant relationships and knowledge of context is replacing intimacy under increased formalization and goods-dominant logic to ensure co-production. At the firm level, parallel rather than single relationships are used under a more formalized and goods-dominant logic. These findings add to existing knowledge about the integration of service-and goods-dominant logics and suggest that a revised conceptualization of clientprofessional relationships is needed. 2 Keywords: Service logic, professional services, business relationships, parallel relationships, formalization. 2007) in line with the service-dominant logic. However, to the extent that the goods-dominant logic influences the relationship, it would be interesting to understand whether and how the relationship incorporates this logic. To do so, this paper addresses the following research question: What is the nature of the client-professional relationship under conditions of combined service-and goods-dominant logic? By addressing this question, this paper aims to contribute to two main theoretical areas: First, the research acknowledges the co-existence of service-and goods-dominant logics and shows empirically how these conflicting logics are combined in client-professional relationships.Second, the research adds to the development of a theory of professional service firms in general (Greenwood, Li, Prakash, & Deephouse, 2005;Løwendahl, 2005;Von Nordenflycht, 2010), as well as to research on client-professional relationships in particular.The paper is structured as follows: First, the core theoretical foundation of service-and goodsdominant logics is described. The concepts of a professional service firm, a professional service and the client-professional relationship are then addressed. Following this theoretical background, we describe the methodology used to study the research question and present the findings, showing how client-professional relationships are structured where goods-and service-dominant logics are present. The final sections of the paper contain a discussion and a conclusion describing implications for research and practitioners.
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