An organizational behavior/human resource management perspective on the roles of people in a service organization context: frameworks and themes

Abstract

PurposeThis article overviews some key contributions to service research from the organizational behavior/human resource management (OB/HRM) discipline with its strong focus on the role of employees. This focus complements the Marketing discipline’s heavy emphasis on customers, largely true of service research, overall.Design/methodology/approachTen OB/HRM frameworks/perspectives are applied to analyzing the roles of people (with a focus on employees and modest consideration of customers as “partial” employees who co-create value) in a service organization context. Also, commentary is offered on how the frameworks relate to six key themes in contemporary service research and/or practice. The article concludes with five reflections on the role and status of employees in service research—past, present and future.FindingsEmployee roles in evolving service contexts; participation role readiness of both employees and customers; role stress in participating customers; an employee “empowered state of mind”; an emphasis on internal service quality; “strong” HRM systems link individual HRM practices to firm performance; service-profit chain with links to well-being of employees and customers; a sociotechnical system theory lens on organizational frontlines (OF); service climate as an exemplar of interdisciplinary research; emotional labor in both employees and customers; the Human Experience (HX); specification of employee experience (EX).Originality/valueService remains very much about people who still guide organizational design, develop service strategy, place new service technologies and even still serve customers. Also, a people and organization-based competitive advantage is tough to copy, thus possessing sustainability, unlike with imitable technology.

Customer experience (CX), employee experience (EX) and human experience (HX): introductions, interactions and interdisciplinary implications

“…EX management EX management as design EX management starts with understanding employees' needs and then designing touchpoints accordingly (Tucker, 2020;Yadav and Vihari, 2023). Design thinking and journey mapping can be used to gain a deep understanding of employees' needs (Plaskoff, 2017;Tucker, 2020) EX can be enhanced by empowering employees and fostering employee engagement (Bowen, 2021(Bowen, , 2024, whereas the use of technologies as substitutes for human labour (e.g. robots) may damage EX (Bowen, 2024) Table 2.…”

“…Design thinking and journey mapping can be used to gain a deep understanding of employees' needs (Plaskoff, 2017;Tucker, 2020) EX can be enhanced by empowering employees and fostering employee engagement (Bowen, 2021(Bowen, , 2024, whereas the use of technologies as substitutes for human labour (e.g. robots) may damage EX (Bowen, 2024) Table 2. Key themes of EXauthors' creation JOSM 35,3 including contributions from Bowen (2024), to identify key service organizational context and job content attributes that enhance our comprehension of EX.…”

“…robots) may damage EX (Bowen, 2024) Table 2. Key themes of EXauthors' creation JOSM 35,3 including contributions from Bowen (2024), to identify key service organizational context and job content attributes that enhance our comprehension of EX.…”

“…An employee empowered state of mind is proposed as a possible cornerstone for a favorable EX (Bowen, 2024). Advancing conceptualization of "empowering" service employees (Bowen and Lawler, 1995), also suggested that complex, non-routine service technologies warrant an employee empowerment approach rather than a production-line approach; and employees with high growth need strength to respond more positively to a high-involvement work context (Bowen and Lawler, 1995).…”

“…The field of scholarly service research is experiencing a nostalgic "back to the future" revival, fueled by the dramatic increase in interest in the service experience. This resurgence is spearheaded by the profound exploration into customer experience (CX), as exemplified by Lemon and Verhoef (2016) and De Keyser et al (2020), the burgeoning details of employee experience (EX) highlighted by Batat (2022) and Bowen's (2024) work and the advent of human experience (HX) introduced by Fisk et al (2020). Indeed, the foundational distinction between services and products established decades earlier by Gr€ onroos (1988) was primarily anchored in the concept that services are inherently experiential rather than merely tangible.…”