QUALITY, SATISFACTION AND VALUE IN OUTSOURCING: ROLE OF RELATIONSHIP DYNAMICS AND PROACTIVE MANAGEMENT

Service Quality, Value and Satisfaction literature in the past have shown that quality drives satisfaction leading to loyalty and financial growth – both revenues and better profits. Recently Relationship Marketing, Information Systems and Service Science streams have focused on relationship factors. But the dynamic perspective of this interdisciplinary model has not been studied within business-to-business context. We show, based on a qualitative study of three large outsourcing accounts, how networked relationships between provider and client plays a crucial role in driving the dynamics of this model. At an operational level, relationship helps manage the expectations so that the client satisfaction levels can be sustained higher and create the opportunity for value proposition. When managed proactively, it helps facilitate value creation with the clients. At extended levels, it helps enhance client value perceptions. From a theoretical perspective, grounded theory from the cases suggests recursive dynamics between quality and satisfaction

More is not always better: The impact of value co‐creation fit on B2B and B2C customer satisfaction

Organizations increasingly rely on customer involvement in the value creation process (i.e., co-creation) to enhance customer satisfaction and differentiate themselves from competitors. While past research has largely indicated that more co-creation is beneficial, some have suggested yet not empirically validated that excess co-creation may negatively impact customers. Applying the service-dominant logic, two studies (B2B and B2C customers) offer insight into the appropriate levels of the co-production and value-in-use dimensions of co-creation. For both B2B and B2C customers, polynomial regression and surface plot analyses indicate an inverted U-shaped relationship between value co-creation and satisfaction, establishing that more co-creation is beneficial only up to a point. As such, we inform managers of factors that can cause the relationship between co-creation and satisfaction to peak and then turn negative. Further, customer expertise and process enjoyment moderate this relationship for B2C (but not B2B) customers, thereby offering ways to mitigate the negative effects of excess co-creation for end-customers. The studies also highlight the importance of value co-creation “fit” between the customer\u27s expected and experienced levels of co-creation. Interestingly, positive misfit (i.e., excess co-creation) retains a stronger negative influence on customer satisfaction than negative misfit (i.e., insufficient co-creation) for both B2B and B2C customers