Jörg Finsterwalder

In recent years, the concept of customer engagement (CE) has gained a considerable amount of attention among practitioners and in the academic community. However, there appears to be a lack of research on the impact of natural disasters on customer needs of the affected population and how brands engage with customers through social media. This study investigates how insurance firms use social media to engage customers during Cyclone Debbie in Queensland, Australia. Using a netnographic approach and rhetorical analysis, we employ the software Social Studio to monitor and study marketing messages of insurance firms and online conversation regarding insurance services. Findings will contribute to both disaster management literature as well as the broader themes of relationship marketing and customer engagement. The study further provides insights for insurance managers developing social media communication strategies during disaster events in order to foster customer relationships.

... Jörg Finsterwalder, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, joerg.finsterwalder@canterbury. ac.nz Billy O'Steen, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, billy.osteen@canterbury.ac.nz Sven Tuzovic, Pacific Lutheran University, USA, stuzovic@plu.edu Abstract ...

Purpose This study aims to systematically review and conceptualise service-related research on refugees to identify gaps in the literature, derive future research avenues and stimulate interdisciplinary research and practice to improve well-being of refugees. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a systematic literature review (SLR) of 102 journal articles published or available online from 2010 to 2020. Findings Ten themes are identified across the three phases of the refugees’ service journey (entry, transition and exit). Most of the articles focus on the exit phase. One-third of the literature analyses refugees’ access and adaptation to health-care services. The dearth of research on other refugee services reflects the failure to attend to all aspects of service provision across all phases of the refugee service journey. Research limitations/implications While the ten themes across the three phases require scholars’ and practitioners’ attention, different aspects of the SLR...

In response to calls from literature for a more explicit connection between networking and service dominant logic literature, this paper conceptually explores how businesses can integrate co-creation into business networks to build competitive advantage. Research supports the growing importance of business networks, as firms are increasingly specialising on more limited sets of value adding activities. Co-creation has been described as particularly prevalent in business-to-business services marketing, where not one but several firms must work together to provide customers with satisfying co-creation experiences. This paper proposes a simple model in which business networks can be utilised to increase the value of co-creation experiences to assist in increasing competitive advantage and customer retention.

This paper investigates the phenomena of consumer tribes by reflecting on a traditional tribal system, the New Zealand Māori, to uncover tribal structures, ways of interacting and how resources are utilised within a community. We map contemporary conceptualisations of the consumer tribe against that of a traditional tribe. We focus on the traditional tribal structure and its concept of place to explain the creation, retention and distribution of resources in contemporary consumption communities. We propose that tribalism is an appropriate metaphor to explain the integration of people and structure of groups within contemporary societies. As such, it is also possible that the way a tribe’s resources are developed, enhanced, maintained and used by its constituents may explain the similar mechanisms within consumption communities.

Human beings are all individuals, yet in some societies recent academic and public debate has focused on whether there is a trend towards more self-centred individualistic behaviour of certain “social clusters” or generations. For example, terms such as Generation YOLO (“you only live once”) have recently been coined. Notwithstanding this discussion, humans are usually embedded in social networks and social systems created by people. Recent developments in technology appear to polarise the interplay between individualistic behaviour and the need for belonging to a social group. This interaction between the self and society has been discussed previously. For example, already Ichheiser in 1949 debates this issue. It has been commonly agreed that individual orientations based on one’s personality, as well as other factors such as the environment, i.e. the (social) system itself, drive a person’s behaviour. Whilst scholars have been focusing on the usage situation and value creation dur...

Transformative service research (TSR) has been labeled a “new area” in both consumer and service research. It is defined as “the integration of consumer and service research that centers on creating uplifting changes and improvements in the well-being of consumer entities: individuals (consumers and employees), communities and the ecosystem”. This encompassing definition opens the field for a broad range of potential research topics and applications related to improving the welfare of individuals and groups embedded in social systems and ecosystems. However, TSR is in its infancy and only a few researchers have to date tried to explain, develop, and apply TSR in their research. This early and first evolutionary stage can be classified as a discovery and risk taking phase in marketing research. In line with this, the latest calls are for TSR to provide a conceptual framework that can serve as a catalyst for future research in order to inform and motivate service researchers to engage...

Purpose The pandemic has accelerated the use of virtual learning spaces and led to rethinking post-pandemic course delivery. However, it remains unclear whether students’ online engagement in e-servicescapes can influence attachment to a place, i.e. a physical servicescape. This study conducted an exploratory study to inform place attachment and actor engagement literature in an online service context. Design/methodology/approach Quantitative survey design was used and 98 usable responses were collected from undergraduate and postgraduate students at a major New Zealand university during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The questionnaire consisted of 23 items relating to three dimensions of online student engagement and 19 items referring to six dimensions of campus attachment. Findings Results of the exploratory study indicate that classmate community in online lectures, referring to student–student interactions, can positively influence five of the dimensions of campus attachment, i...

... Volker G. Kuppelwieser, University of Leipzig, Germany, volker.kuppelwieser@gmx.de JörgFinsterwalder, University of Canterbury, joerg.finsterwalder@canterbury.ac.nz Sven Tuzovic, Pacific Lutheran University, USA, stuzovic@plu.edu Merlin C. Simpson, Pacific Lutheran ...

Purpose This study aims to investigate whether the antecedents of co-creation influence braggart word-of-mouth (WoM) in a participative leisure context, theorising the concept of co-created food well-being and highlighting implications for interactive experience co-design. Design/methodology/approach A sequential mixed-method approach was used to test a theoretical model; 25 in-depth interviews with cooking class participants were conducted, followed by a post-experience survey (n = 575). Findings Qualitative results suggest braggart WoM is rooted in active consumer participation in co-designing leisure experiences. The structural model confirms that participation in value co-creating activities (i.e. co-design, customer-to-customer (C2C) interaction), alongside perceived support from service providers, increases consumer perceptions of co-creation and stimulates braggart WoM. Degree of co-creation and support from peers mediate some relationships. Research limitations/implications ...

Supplemental Material, Web_Appendix_resub__August_31 for Rethinking Service Systems and Public Policy: A Transformative Refugee Service Experience Framework by Silke Boenigk, Raymond Fisk, Sertan Kabadayi, Linda Alkire, Lilliemay Cheung, Canan Corus, Jörg Finsterwalder, Aaron A. Kreimer, Nadina Luca, Mansour Omeira, Pallab Paul, Marcos F. Santos and Nina Smidt in Journal of Public Policy & Marketing

The design and use of the physical environment to provide particular experiences and services for consumers is wrapped up in the idea of a scape. The word ''scape'' refers to a view or a scene as well as to realist and abstract representations of a view. In marketing and related literature the notion of a scape has been utilised to refer to the physical environment that a consumer experiences and which often aims at encouraging consumption, providing a specific set of experiences, or at least satisfying a consumer's desires. Central to these notions is the idea of a servicescape. Yet, very little attention has been paid to the temporal dimension in connection with servicescapes that are an increasingly important part of urban form in post-disaster or crisis regeneration environments. The post-earthquake recovery in the city of Christchurch provides a suitable study environment to examine the role of servicescapes in regeneration. This research explores the temporal dimension of servicescapes in a post-quake environment, supplies examples to illustrate the different facets of " transitional servicescapes " , and suggests that a deeper understanding of the temporal character of spaces and scapes is required in understanding the nature of change in the urban environment.

This research examines the impact of the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquakes on cultural service providers (e.g., museums, art galleries) in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. As a consequence of these earthquakes, the city lost many of its unique cultural and heritage attractions and has been struggling with this form of tourism during the period of rebuild. Heritage is particularly relevant to the social and economic wellbeing of communities in destination areas. Heritage tourism utilises the cultural and historical capital of a region and contributes to the growth of the tourism sector. Cultural heritage not only promotes the historical resources and national and regional identities of these environments, but also puts an economic value on heritage assets thereby contributing to their preservation for future generations. This research utilises a case study approach to investigate the post-disaster responses and strategies of six well-known cultural service providers in pre-and post-earthquake Christchurch. In particular, it analyses the impact of the earthquakes on cultural heritage; the post-quake representation of heritage sites, features and activities; heritage preservation; and the implementation of substitute heritage attractions. Taken together, it provides knowledge about substitute heritage attractions and alternative ways to encourage more tourists in such post-disaster context.

The global refugee crisis is a complex humanitarian problem. Service researchers can assist in solving this crisis because refugees are immersed in complex human service systems. Drawing on marketing, sociology, transformative service, and consumer research literature, this study develops a Transformative Refugee Service Experience Framework to enable researchers, service actors, and public policy makers to navigate the challenges faced throughout a refugee’s service journey. The primary dimensions of this framework encompass the spectrum from hostile to hospitable refugee service systems and the resulting suffering or well-being in refugees’ experiences. The authors conceptualize this at three refugee service journey phases (entry, transition, and exit) and at three refugee service system levels (macro, meso, and micro) of analysis. The framework is supported by brief examples from a range of service-related refugee contexts as well as a Web Appendix with additional cases. Moreover...

Abstract Loyalty reward schemes often have their own currency, for example, frequent flyer miles, which is a form of near money or quasi money. In a variation of earlier work by Snelders et al. (1992) , when examining both New Zealand (Study 1) and Hong Kong (Study 2) residents, respondents provided typicality ratings, similarity ratings, and answers and reaction times to the question “Is X a type of money?” for examples of money, near money and objects of value. The results from both studies showed that near money is conceptualised in a way that is like but distinct from legal tender. Two further studies investigated implications of this conceptualisation. Study 3 found that preferences for spending near money were influenced by the ostensible purpose of the currency, and Study 4 showed that near money seemed to be placed outside of regular legal tender mental accounts.

Abstract Service provision is an integral part of hosting refugees. However, the service scholar community has remained rather dormant in regard to focusing on refugee issues. This is indeed surprising given international refugee influx is today one of the more pressing issues for developing and developed countries alike. This research note aims to identify the demands on countries’ “service ecosystems” after an influx of migrants arrives in a country, and suggests research avenues for scholars. Resolving service related issues can assist practitioners and government bodies in how to better design and manage the interface between refugees and the new (service) ecosystems these actors have entered when reaching a host country. Therefore, this research note outlines the challenges of such refugee in- or through flux relating to service provision by focusing on the incoming actors (refugees) as well as the resident actors (locals, service providers, government bodies etc.). Repercussions as well as the subsequent agenda for inquiry for service scholars outlined refer to the various system levels from micro to macro, such as on individual, family, city, regional, state and national level, but also outside the system on an international level.

PurposeClassical socio‐demographic segmentation approaches of tourists mostly fail to cluster customer groups appropriately. More recent segmentation approaches have employed a more customer‐centric perspective, attempting to capture consumer behavioral patterns. Within such segmentation, one very promising approach examines the activities pursued by tourists. This research aims to identify activity patterns of outbound travelers for segmentation and ultimately to recognize experiential consumption spheres created by tourists at a destination.Design/methodology/approachThis paper applies a posteriori, data‐driven, activity‐based segmentation to outbound travelers.FindingsThe present study identifies six activity‐based clusters: average short‐haul holiday experiences (Cluster 1); short repeat healthy winter experiences (Cluster 2); new beach experiences (Cluster 3); short social encounter experiences (Cluster 4); new place experiences (Cluster 5); and seniors' new place experienc...

Purpose This study aims to understand the engagement between an indigenous social service provider and marginalised clients deemed “hard-to-reach” to gain an insight into how to improve the client’s engagement and well-being through transformative value co-creation. Design/methodology/approach The exploratory study’s findings draw on primary data employing a qualitative research approach through document analysis and in-depth interviews with clients, social workers and stakeholders of the focal social service provider in New Zealand. Findings The findings indicate that there are inhibitors and enablers of value or well-being co-creation. The lack of client resources and a mismatch between client and social worker are primary barriers. Other actors as well as cultural practices are identified as enablers of well-being improvement. Research limitations/implications This research reports on a single social service provider and its clients. These findings may not be readily transferrabl...

represent a selection of revised papers originally submitted to the Services Marketing Track and presented at the Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) annual conference held in Christchurch, New Zealand in December 2010. This internationally recognised conference was hosted by the College of Business and Economics at The University of Canterbury and was attended by over 400 delegates from 28 countries. The theme of the conference was “Doing More with Less”. This theme proved to be both relevant and timely at a number of levels. 2 At one level, Christchurch and the University of Canterbury itself have faced their own unique challenges of “doing more with less”. On Saturday the 4th September 2010 at 4.35am, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit the Canterbury region of the South Island of New Zealand. Its epicentre was less than 40km west of Christchurch (Quigley et al., 2010a; Van Dissen et al., 2011). The City and the University recovered in time to host the ANZMAC confere...

This paper is a synthesis of findings from a three year research programme on “engaging with the ‘hard to reach’ to improve uptake of social and health service”. The researchers recognised that ‘hard to reach’ is a problematic way of thinking about potential clients of a service. The ‘hard to reach’ may not necessarily see themselves as ‘hard to reach’, and it may be services that are ‘hard to reach’. The project chose to focus on ‘making services reachable’. Following a typology published by Heatley (2016), the kind of programmes and agencies that have informed our findings, and for whom our findings are intended to be useful, are those that work with clients with complex needs (requiring multiple forms of support or intervention) and low capacity to “understand and manage their access to available services” (Heatley, 2016). Our data confirms that clients with complex needs tend to experience the services, rather than themselves, as being ‘hard to reach’. The research took an ecosy...

Over the last few years, ancillary fees have become a significant source of revenue for businesses in various service industries. The popular press in the U.S. has used the term “nickel and dimed” as companies charge consumers numerous (optional and otherwise) fees for new and/or those earlier considered as “free.” Despite media-focused controversy, cross- industry research on consumers’ perceptions of ancillary fees has been sparse. Based on attribution and fairness theory, the objective of this paper is to investigate consumer appraisals of being “nickel and dimed” in three consumer service industries (banking, hotels, and airlines). Implications for managers and researchers are discussed.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of service quality for settings where several customers are involved in the joint creation and consumption of a service. The approach is to provide first insights into the implications of a simultaneous multi‐customer integration on service quality. Design/methodology/approach - This conceptual paper undertakes a thorough review of the relevant literature before developing a conceptual model regarding service co‐creation and service quality in customer groups. Findings - Group service encounters must be set up carefully to account for the dynamics (social activity) in a customer group and skill set and capabilities (task activity) of each of the individual participants involved in a group service experience. Research limitations/implications - Future research should undertake empirical studies to validate and/or modify the suggested model presented in this contribution. Practical implications - Managers of service firms s...

This paper outlines an approach for teaching Marketing Principles in an MBA course through service-learning to enable adult learners to connect the lectures’ marketing content to a real-world marketing project. During the course, 40 students in groups of four to five individuals were involved in eight different client-sponsored marketing projects executed simultaneously. The rationale, planning and management of this approach utilised current research on service-learning, living cases and client-sponsored projects in marketing education. The experimental curriculum design is presented in a timeline that mirrors the preparation and management of the group projects and the considerations to be taken into account when initiating and facilitating the projects. Reflections from this iteration of the service-learning design suggest the importance of: detailed project planning, the involvement of students in choosing the projects, the introduction of forms and feedback loops, the role of t...

Actors increasingly engage in service ecosystems where multiple other actors can be present and influence value co-creation. Comprehending such contexts has gained importance in research, but remains an emerging field of study due to the complexity of such multi-actor encounters. To unpack this complexity, we add to extant research and establish novel actor engagement foundations to explicate value co-creation in multi-actor service ecosystems. Our research informs on value co-creation at a meta-theoretical level utilizing the explanatory power of mid-range theory. We suggest that actor pre-disposition (propensity to engage) differs from actor disposition (readiness to engage) outlined in more recent engagement literature. To achieve this, we apply a longitudinal study design and use an established, yet in business research largely neglected, measurement from organizational psychology. This paper uncovers a novel dynamic perspective on these pre-dispositions prior to and during reso...

Previous research has extended scholars’ focus on place attachment and the servicescape as the physical service setting. However, very little attention has been paid to exploring the temporal dimension in connection with attachment and servicescapes. In particular, how place attachment is maintained during the transition phase between the removal of, or disruption to, one permanent servicescape and the reestablishment of its replacement. For example, the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, suffered two major earthquakes in September 2010 and February 2011 causing significant damage to and the subsequent removal of large parts of the city’s retail, commercial and residential precincts. Six years on Christchurch is still undergoing an extensive rebuilding process. Because of the magnitude of destruction, especially in the CBD, and the logistics of clearing damaged buildings, designing, planning and funding new works have meant that only now a new permanent city is emerging. This rebuil...

An approach to teaching marketing theory and skills was developed in the MBA programme at the University of Canterbury. The Marketing Theatre Approach was created and implemented in 2008 as a collaborative effort among a marketing lecturer, a higher education lecturer, and two actor-facilitators from a local theatre company. The marketing instructor asked the actors to deliver two improvisational sessions in order to have students learn marketing objectives through experiential means. Data was collected from students’ openended responses to questions before and after the sessions and from observations during and after the sessions. The findings suggest that students’ experiences aligned with the intended objectives and also provided specific ways in which to improve the approach for its next iteration.

Purpose: The overarching goal of this paper is to increase awareness among researchers and practitioners that refugees are disproportionally impacted by COVID-19, which increases their suffering Second, it extends a recently introduced transformative refugee service experience framework by integrating and conceptualizing refugees' resource and service inclusion during a pandemic Third, it explores lessons learned and implications from the COVID-19 pandemic for the future of service research and practice Design/methodology/approach: This study synthesizes approaches on refugees, resources and transformative service research to develop an extended framework for addressing one of society's pressing issues during and after pandemics Findings: Recognizing refugees as providing resources rather than just needing or depleting resources can enable more inclusion It facilitates refugees' integration into society by drawing on their skills and knowledge This requires hospitable re...

This research aims at showing how customers of a service provider initiate and coordinate a service to co-create value with the wider community of a city and region. A multitude of service co-creators - a thousand and more on the "supply side" - are coordinated to meet the needs of several thousands of citizens on the "demand side". This work discusses the University of Canterbury Student Volunteer Army (SVA) which was founded after the September 4th 2010 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. This paper uses a case study approach. The case shows that to create value in this many-to-many service context a coordinated approach to mass service creation is necessary which allows for room to improvise.

Imagine you are in a restaurant and your experience is either enhanced or diminished by the behavior of other customers within the same environment. To whom do you attribute your experience? When things go well the enjoyment of other customers creates or enhances a positive atmosphere within environment (Grayson and McNiell 2009; Yoshida and James 2010) and may increase the value a customer places on the service experience. The positive atmosphere and enhanced value the customer experiences is likely to be reflected in positive attitudes and feelings toward the firm and result in positive repurchase intentions (Tombs and McColl-Kennedy 2013) and positive word-of-mouth (Hooper et al. 2013). However, if other customers’ behavior is incompatible with the particular service or creates any sort of negative event, then the value the customer attaches to the service experience decreases (Tombs and McColl-Kennedy 2013) and often results in customers not wanting to go back to that establishment. Even worse than that they are likely to indulge in negative word-of-mouth (Huang et al. 2010) therefore dissuading others from going. These approach or avoidance behaviors are often the result of customers perceiving that the atmosphere of the service environment and subsequent enjoyable or dissatisfactory experiences are reflective of the overall service experience provided by the organization. This chapter examines the responses of customers when exposed the positive or negative behavior of other customers. Specifically it applies Attribution Theory (Weiner 1980, 1986) to explain how customers allocate blame for having their experience within a service environment disturbed (either positively or negatively) and what this blame does to service evaluations and repurchase intentions. We report on a qualitative study of regular restaurant patrons. The findings revealed that the attribution of blame for a disrupted service experience will vary, i.e., to the perpetrators (other customers), the organization and its staff, or even to the affected customer, depending on such factors as controllability, and perceived stability. These factors may be more stable and better predictors of customers’ reactions to disruption than the apparently shifting locus of causality. Conversely positive behavior of other customers appeared to be attributed not to the other customers but to the firm itself. This may be because when a customer is in a positive mood they perceive the elements of the servicescape are in harmony and as such look at the service environment more holistically. Whereas the disturbance caused by other customers may produce conflicting signals from the servicescape (positive things the firm does to attract the customer in the first place and the negative actions of others within that same environment) thus causing customers to be more analytical in an effort to resolve these apparent conflicts.References available upon request.