MODELLING AND MEASURING OF CUSTOMER PARTICIPATIVE SERVICE INNOVATION BEHAVIOR

Abstract

Customer participation has been considered as an important research area for the creation of a service. Customers participate in the value creation process and contribute their operant resources to develop new services. Customers and service providers play important roles at every stage of the service process. At the same time, in some services (especially highly participatory services), customers’ active participation is necessary in the process. However, services have been categorized into three groups on the basis of the levels of customer participation-low, medium and high. In cases of high levels of participation, customers can actually be involved in co-creating the service. While customer participation levels may differ due to customer characteristics, differences can also be seen in their participative behavior and adoption intention. Subsequently, knowing about the psychological factors that drive customers to display positive behavior while participating in service innovation process and activities are necessary and how the drivers impact adoption intention towards newly developed services and what is the mediating role of customer participative service innovation behavior (CPSIB) on adoption intention are necessary for service firms to explore. Further, in the hospitality industry, provision of mobile technology and apps enable customers to perform service innovation activities and enjoy their participatory role in developing new services. Customers use their smartphone apps for performing simple to complex activities such as booking of hotel rooms, customizing menu and developing room ambience. The present study seeks to propose and develop a conceptual model on customer participation in service innovation in the hotel industry using smartphone apps. To attain the research goal, a scale was developed and validated to measure customer participative service innovation behavior in hotel service innovation using smartphone apps. Next, the conceptual model had been empirically examined to understand the relationship between antecedents and consequence variables of CPSIB using smartphone apps. Finally, the mediation effect of CPSIB was tested between personal innovativeness, perceived trust in the service provider and adoption intention. Further, in order to achieve research objectives, researcher employed qualitative research method (i.e., focus group discussion) and quantitative research method. As a part of quantitative research method, a systematic scale development method recommended by Churchill (1979) was followed. The method has been followed in numerous other scale development studies (e.g., Baldus iii et al., 2015). Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were used to reduce items and validate the measurement scale. Finally, to examine the influence of CPSIB, personal innovativeness, perceived trust in the service provider and adoption intention, an advanced modelling technique called structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed with the help of AMOS 22.0 software. SEM tests a theoretically hypothesized model using a two-step procedure where the first step tests whether the identified set of observed variables can define the underlying constructs (or latent variables) and the second step tests the relation among the hypothesized latent variables based on various model fitness parameters. Data for scale development and hypotheses testing were collected from 348-star category hotel guests using questionnaire based survey approach. In addition to providing novel perspectives on customer participation in hotel service innovation using smartphone apps, the present research gives directions for future avenues of research. Several managerial implications are also provided in this thesis.