Toward a General Theory of Competitive Rationality

Customer service is a key component of a firm's value proposition and a fundamental driver of differentiation and competitive advantage in nearly every industry. Moreover, the relentless coevolution of service opportunities with novel and more powerful information technologies has made this area exciting for academic researchers who can contribute to shaping the design and management of future customer service systems. We engage in interdisciplinary research-across information systems, marketing, and computer science-in order to contribute to the service design and service management literature. Grounded in the design-science perspective, our study leverages marketing theory on the service-dominant logic and recent findings pertaining to the evolution of customer service systems. Our theorizing culminates with the articulation of four design principles. These design principles underlie the emerging class of customer service systems that, we believe, will enable firms to better compete in an environment * This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. † Corresponding author. 404Design Theory Approach to Building Strategic NCSS characterized by an increase in customer centricity and in customers' ability to selfserve and dynamically assemble the components of solutions that fit their needs. In this environment, customers retain control over their transactional data, as well as the timing and mode of their interactions with firms, as they increasingly gravitate toward integrated complete customer solutions rather than single products or services. Guided by these design principles, we iterated through, and evaluated, two instantiations of the class of systems we propose, before outlining implications and directions for further cross-disciplinary scholarly research.

Section: Service-dominant Logicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Customer-managed Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Design Theory Approach to Building Strategic Network‐Based Customer Service Systems*

Brohman¹,

Piccoli²,

Martin³

et al. 2009

“…The above objective function explicitly incorporates the need to balance the requirements of a diverse customer base (as reflected by the numerator, which is an aggregation of perceived interaction value across different customers) against the firm's requirement to control the investment of resources (as reflected by the denominator). Since NCSS interaction value is based on customers' perceptions, its magnitude changes over time as competition runs its course and customers' expectations and perceptions change (Dickson, 1992).…”

Section: Ncss Interaction Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

“…new ways of serving customers. As new approaches are identified, effective innovations are imitated and the impetus for further innovation is created (Dickson, 1992). Guided by these theoretical perspectives, and using our taxonomy as the basis for Web site analysis, we analyzed data from field interviews and Web sites of leading service companies to surface the stable rules underlying the development of Web site functionality, and to identify the specific stages of the model.…”

Section: New Products and Services Procedural Efficiency Increasementioning

confidence: 99%

Net‐Based Customer Service Systems: Evolution and Revolution in Web Site Functionalities*

Piccoli

Brohman

Watson³

et al. 2004

134

Firms' Web sites are becoming an increasingly important component of their customer service systems. Yet there is a dearth of research-based insights and guidelines concerning the roles, functionalities, and effective design of Web sites. In this article we describe and discuss findings from a three-phase, multimethod research study aimed at filling this literature void. We first propose and validate a descriptive taxonomy of customer needs amenable to online fulfillment. Complementing this taxonomy, we next propose, and offer preliminary validation of, a five-stage conceptual model for understanding and predicting the development of a firm's Web site design and functionality. Findings from our study suggest that firms' Web sites are by and large in the early stages of development with respect to their ultimate potential, but that executives in leading service firms have begun to conceptualize and plan for subsequent stages. We conclude the article with managerial implications and important avenues for further research.

“…Over the past decade organizational learning has been established as an important capability for achieving competitive advantage. Indeed, some consider the ability to learn faster than competitors to be the only source of sustainable competitive advantage (DeGeus, 1988;Dickson, 1992;Slater & Narver, 1995). One area of study within the organizational learning research stream focuses specifically on the organization's existing knowledge base, sometimes referred to as "memory level" (Moorman & Miner, 1997), and its influence on organizational adaptation abilities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Existing Knowledge in New Product Innovativeness and Performance

Brockman¹,

Morgan²

2003

332

223

The purpose of this study is to provide a more thorough assessment of the link between existing knowledge and organizational performance than currently exists in the literature. We identify factors and processes influential in the management of existing knowledge within the areas of learning culture, knowledge building, and organizational performance. Through structural equation modeling, a more thorough examination is given of the role existing knowledge plays in new product performance and innovativeness. In completing this task, we provide insight into the subprocesses of knowledge building by evaluating the influence of shared interpretation and two aspects of information acquisition-efficiency and degree of innovativeness of newly acquired information-on new product development (NPD) outcomes. Included in the examination of these processes are organizational culture and structure characteristics believed to influence knowledge management success.