دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی قابلیت مداخله مشتری و عملکرد شرکت خدمات: نقش واسطه نوآوری - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

This study contributes to the literature on customer involvement by assessing the influence firm-level customer involvement capability has on service firm performance in two economic contexts. The study further examines innovation as a necessary mediator between customer involvement capability and firm performance. Data collected from service firms operating in two countries, the United Kingdom and Ghana, is analysed and used to validate the article's theoretical and empirical contributions. The results show that customer involvement capability has a positive and direct relationship with service firm performance in Ghana but a negative and direct relationship in the British context. The implication is that the effect of firm-level capability can be contextspecific and that its development must therefore be aligned with the context in which a firm operates. On the other hand, it was found that in both contexts, innovation (product and process) mediated the relationship between involvement capability and firm performance.

6. Discussion and conclusions

This study seeks to assess the firm-level capability for efficiently and effectively facilitating value creation collaboration with customers and the mediating effect of innovation on the relationship between customer involvement capability and firm performance. The findings support the three hypotheses specified and therefore present significant implications for theory and practice.

The initial hypothesis posited that customer involvement capability would positively influence firm performance. This was supported at the general sample analysis level and thus confirms what existing studies have found. The finding confirms the assertion made by Srivastava et al. (1998) that customers are market-based resources and that firms with the right kind of capability (involvement) could exploit this resource to improve their performance. The positive effect thus found reinforces the assertions of Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) and of Payne et al. (2009) that developing and utilising customer involvement capability enhances firm performance. It shows that involvement capability licenses service firms to create the needed platform for customers to engage with the firm in order to customise their own world (Chan et al., 2010). The disaggregated analysis at the specific country level, however, shows that the much-emphasised positive relationship can be context-specific and that the relationship is not positive at all times. While a positive relationship was found within the Ghanaian sample, a negative effect was recorded within the British sample. The findings clearly reinforce Youngdahl, Kellogg, Nie, and Bowen's (2003) warning that “we cannot assume that what holds true in one context will apply to another” (p. 110) and that it would be inappropriate to circumvent ethnocultural issues in communicating research applicability.