Managing engagement behaviors in a network of customers and stakeholders: evidence from the nursing home sector

Firms striving for long-term profitability need to build stronger customer-firm relationships by getting their customers more engaged with the firm. One path to this end is introducing practices to manage different forms of customer engagement behaviors (CEBs). To develop more effective and efficient CEB management practices, this research proposes and empirically tests a theoretical model on managerial and psychological processes to encourage CEBs that are embedded in a broader network of customers and stakeholders. Based on qualitative and quantitative studies in nursing homes, we demonstrate that organizational support and overall service quality toward significant others influence some forms of CEBs—more particularly feedback and positive word of mouth (WOM) behaviors—through customer affect toward the organization. It is interesting to note that customer affect toward the organization encouragesWOMbehaviors, while it discourages feedback behaviors. Conversely, managerial processes that increase customer role readiness—such as organizational socialization and support from other customers—were found to have a positive impact on all forms of CEBs. This research helps managers of nursing homes and other services with a broad network of customers and stakeholders to improve existing CEB management practices and develop new CEB management practices that are beneficial for the firm and its stakeholders

Engaged customers as job Resources or demands for frontline employees?

Purpose – This paper proposes and empirically tests a theoretical model on how different customer engagement behaviors (CEBs), such as giving feedback and helping other customers, affect the role stress–job strain relationship among frontline employees. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing from the job demands-resources model, this paper hypothesizes that some CEBs weaken the role stress–job strain relationship among frontline employees, whereas the opposite holds for other CEBs. To test these hypotheses, the study involved a survey among 279 frontline employees in 20 nursing home teams in Belgium. Findings – The results reveal that the impact of role stress on job strain is stronger when frontline employees notice more helping behaviors among customers and weaker when frontline employees receive more customer feedback or notice that customers spread positive word of mouth about the nursing home. Originality/value – This research contributes to the customer engagement and frontline employee literature by showing that CEBs can act as both job demands and job resources for frontline employees

How Individual Technology Propensities and Organizational Culture Influence B2B Customer’s Behavioral Intention to Use Digital Services at Work?

This study examines how individuals’ technology readiness in conjunction with organizational culture impacts on B2B customers’ behavioral intention toward using digital services in their procurement processes. We test our hypotheses with 755 B2B customers of a large Finnish supplier of furniture and interior solutions. We find that the propensity of individuals towards the use of technology, measured by the technology readiness of the buyers, has a significant effect on the behavioral intention toward using digital services at work. In addition, the customer organization’s strategic emphasis – cost containment and revenue enhancement – have significant effects, while coping resources – task control and organizational support – do not affect the buyers’ behavioral intention to use digital services in their procurement processes. \

To be yourself or to be your ideal self? Outcomes of potential applicants' actual and ideal self-congruity perceptions

Recruitment research on person–organization fit has typically focused on organizations’ fit with potential applicants’ actual self, not considering other possible self-images. Based on image congruity theory, we investigate how actual and ideal self-congruity relate to application intentions and intentions to spread word-of-mouth. In a first study, conducted in Belgium, actual and ideal self-congruity related positively to both outcomes. The relation with application intentions was equally positive for actual and ideal self-congruity. Ideal selfcongruity showed a stronger positive relation with word-of-mouth intentions. A second study replicated these findings in the United States and tested for social adjustment concern (need to impress others) as a moderator. As social adjustment concern increased, relations of both outcomes with ideal (actual) self-congruity were stronger (weaker)