Working with 'the passionate few': the indirect benefits of actor engagement in mundane service settings

Matthew Alexander, Katharina Kils

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The engagement concept has grown in importance in recent years with firms recognizing and seeking to leverage the latent potential within their customers and finding innovative ways to engage them. However, engagement has, to date, been explored within high contact service settings where benefits are largely dyadic (between firm and customer) or shared (within the customer community). This study contributes to literature on engagement by assessing the potential for engagement in low contact settings, between a firm and minority customer groups to have positive indirect effects on other ‘unengaged’ customers. To do so, we use multi-level modeling within a public transport setting where a firm has invited local community members to ‘adopt’ their local railway stations. We propose that neither a small number of passionate customers, nor low contact, ‘mundane’ service settings, should be an impediment to firms benefiting from engagement.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-36
Number of pages36
JournalJournal of Service Management Research (SMR)
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 12 Apr 2023

Keywords

  • actor engagement
  • customer engagement
  • value co-creation
  • generalized exchange theory
  • hierarchical linear modeling

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