The Complex Role of Complexity

Mikolon, Sven; Kolberg, Anika; Haumann, Till; Wieseke, Jan

doi:10.1177/1094670514568778

Cited by 64 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 103 publications

(151 reference statements)

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“…Especially when judging complex services, Mikolon et al . () emphasize the importance of cognitive resources. The authors state that, in such situations, available cognitive capacity positively affects loyalty and satisfaction; moreover, consumers react negatively to overwhelmingly complex encounters.…”

Section: Consumer Perspective On Cementioning

confidence: 99%

The Multilevel Nature of Customer Experience Research: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda

Kranzbühler

Kleijnen

Morgan

et al. 2017

Int J Management Reviews

268

252

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Over the last three decades, customer experience (CE) has developed from a burgeoning concept to a widely recognized phenomenon in terms of both research and practice. To account for the complexity of consumption decisions, the CE literature encompasses both the rational information processing approach to consumer decision-making and the experiential approach, which includes emotions, feelings and sub-consciousness. The authors classify and examine CE research on two levels. Studies on static CE analyze experiences during touchpoints at one point in time, while studies on dynamic CE assess how experiences evolve over time. Furthermore, both static and dynamic CE research take place from two distinct theoretical perspectives: the organization and the consumer. As both theoretical perspectives essentially deal with the same phenomenonthe organizational perspective with the creation of CEs and the consumer perspective with the perception of customer experiences -there is potential for a productive symbiosis between them. The authors propose that connecting insights from both perspectives can contribute to a better understanding of what constitutes a CE for consumers and how firms can effectively manage it. First, the authors discuss the development of CE and argue that it has evolved into a broad and fragmented 'umbrella construct'. Second, after distinguishing and defining static and dynamic CE, they systematically evaluate the state of knowledge in both the organizational and consumer perspectives. Finally, they develop an agenda for future research that integrates the consumer perspective into organizational CE research. IntroductionCompetitive advantage is the focus for much management and organizational research. Yet the bases of differential advantage between competitors are often marginal, subject to change, and open to imitation (D'Aveni et al. 2010;McGrath 2013). This is largely attributable to the growing commoditization of goodsThe authors are grateful for comments provided by Tim Edwards on an earlier draft of this paper. and services (D'Aveni et al. 2010;Pine and Gilmore 1998). In seeking to explain emerging sources of competitive advantage, customer experience (CE) has been identified as a compelling antecedent. Increasingly, scholars argue that firms' differential advantage is derived from CE (Pine and Gilmore 1998; Verhoef et al. 2009). Both practitioners and scholars agree that a favorable CE positively affects marketingrelevant outcomes such as customer satisfaction, loyalty and word-of-mouth behavior (e.g. Mascarenhas et al. 2006;Pullman and Gross 2004). Despite this consensus, the CE phenomenon is limited by a lackThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. of conceptual clarity, explained by a diverse set of theories, and founded upon divergent empirical concl...

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Section: Consumer Perspective On Cementioning

confidence: 99%

The Multilevel Nature of Customer Experience Research: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda

Kranzbühler

Kleijnen

Morgan

et al. 2017

Int J Management Reviews

268

252

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Importantly, customer participation stress differs from other types of perceived service stress, as it is not caused by employees' misbehavior or by service failure; instead, customers can perceive this stress during a regularly delivered service experience (Blut et al, 2020; Haager et al, 2022). Overextending participation efforts especially applies to the context of knowledge‐intensive professional services, as they are characterized by high complexity (Mikolon et al, 2015) and their advisories often result in information asymmetries between customers and the organization or its employees.…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When customers have to participate in professional services, which are complex and require specialized knowledge and cognitive capacities, they will likely face high cognitive demands, that is, a stressor (Haager et al, 2022; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Mende & van Doorn, 2015; Mikolon et al, 2015). Based on the transactional stress theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), individuals engage in a primary appraisal to evaluate whether a stressor is positively challenging (i.e., leading to a positive psychological state) or threatening (i.e., leading to a negative psychological state) (LePine et al, 2004, 2005; Srivastava et al, 2015; Tarafdar et al, 2019; Yazdanmehr et al, 2022).…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on the transactional stress theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), individuals engage in a primary appraisal to evaluate whether a stressor is positively challenging (i.e., leading to a positive psychological state) or threatening (i.e., leading to a negative psychological state) (LePine et al, 2004, 2005; Srivastava et al, 2015; Tarafdar et al, 2019; Yazdanmehr et al, 2022). For instance, before a financial advisory appointment, customers are aware of the need to provide detailed information about their financial situation and risk preferences, understand the advantages and disadvantages of different financial products which are offered to them and finally have to make a decision with often far‐reaching consequences (Mikolon et al, 2015). Hence, in the context of financial services, these anticipated cognitive demands could potentially be perceived as challenging as well as threatening.…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Understanding the negative consequences of customer participation, which is a form of behavioral customer engagement (Hollebeek, 2011), is especially relevant in professional service industries such as legal, financial, and medical services, as they are knowledge‐intensive, involve personal interactions, and their outcomes are usually of vital importance for customers (Mikolon et al, 2015). Moreover, service providers gradually shift responsibility for executing a professional service to individual customers (e.g., Mende et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

How can customers cope with cognitive demands of professional services? The role of employee coping support

Garbas

Blaurock

Büttgen

et al. 2023

Psychology and Marketing

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Even though researchers are increasingly acknowledging the dark side of customer participation (i.e., behavioral customer engagement), particularly in professional services with high cognitive demands that cause customer participation stress (i.e., negative psychological state resulting from the customer's overextension by required customer participation efforts), insights on how firms can effectively mitigate customer participation stress remains limited. Building on transactional stress theory, we investigate whether customers can effectively cope with the expected cognitive demands of professional services. Moreover, by introducing an adapted coping construct (i.e., coping support), we examine whether employees can provide coping support to help decrease customer participation stress. The findings of a time-lagged field study with customers of a large German bank (N = 117) suggest that customer coping before the encounter cannot mitigate the effect of anticipated cognitive demands on customer participation stress. Instead, the results of both the field study and a follow-up experimental study (N = 218) show that a certain set of employee coping support during service encounters is crucial. While focusing on action coping support is not ideal in situations with high cognitive demands, firms should advise their professional service employees to offer emotional coping support to attenuate the unfavorable effect of cognitive demands on customer participation stress.

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Embeddedness of individual expertise in professional business service relationships

Nätti

Ulkuniemi

2022

Knowl Process Manag

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The study aims to create an understanding of the embeddedness of individual expertise in the customer relationships of professional business service firms. A theoretical pre-understanding based on discussions of professional service business relationships in general and the role of individual experts in customer relationships, in particular, is assessed through a case study of a professional business services provider and four customer organizations. The study suggests that the embeddedness of individual expertise within professional services in business relationships manifest itself in four ways: (1) expertise embedded in knowledge of the service context, (2) expertise that can be transferred between organizational contexts, (3) expertise embedded in personal relationships, and (4) expertise embedded in the personal interactions that enable knowledge-sharing. Each has implications for various activities performed by the parties and relationship management practices, which are also scrutinized in the present study. Also, the adoption of a new concept of personified service in business relationships is put forward. The study highlights that the reliance on personal expertise is not only a challenge for relationship management, as often suggested, but can also generate effectiveness in both customer and supplier relationship management.

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The Complex Role of Complexity

Cited by 64 publications

References 103 publications

The Multilevel Nature of Customer Experience Research: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda

The Multilevel Nature of Customer Experience Research: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda

How can customers cope with cognitive demands of professional services? The role of employee coping support

Embeddedness of individual expertise in professional business service relationships

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