Department of Marketinghttp://hdl.handle.net/10106/252042024-03-28T14:46:39Z2024-03-28T14:46:39ZAudience Engagement Techniques in Oral PresentationsUsera, Danielhttp://hdl.handle.net/10106/318402023-11-07T16:13:55Z2023-08-31T00:00:00ZAudience Engagement Techniques in Oral Presentations
Usera, Daniel
Public speaking is often conceptualized as a one-way monologue performed by a speaker for a listening audience. This monologic approach faces challenges and limited results as demonstrated by the education literature on active learning. In response to this research, this practitioner article explores the nature and effective execution of five universal Audience Engagement Techniques that provide opportunities for a speaker to turn their passively listening audience into active participants in a dialogue. Practical and theoretical implications of Audience Engagement Techniques generally are also discussed.
2023-08-31T00:00:00ZDYNAMIC CONTROL SYSTEMShttp://hdl.handle.net/10106/317172023-11-09T22:52:14Z2023-07-31T00:00:00ZDYNAMIC CONTROL SYSTEMS
As a fundamental managerial tool for sales management, sales controls have received researchers’ attention for a long time. However, current research on sales controls has mainly adopted a static perspective to examine the roles of sales controls. To overcome this limitation, I propose a new construct, dynamic sales control systems, to extend the static research on sales controls to a dynamic perspective. This dissertation includes two papers. Paper 1 focuses on dynamic control systems’ antecedents and boundary conditions and their impacts on sales team performance. In Paper 2, I have investigated the mediating mechanisms between dynamic control systems and sales performance at the individual level. These two papers have enriched people’s understanding of dynamic control systems and provided sales managers with critical managerial implications.
2023-07-31T00:00:00ZThe Role of Emotions and Collective Satisfaction in the Customer Journey from Service Experience to Customer Engagementhttp://hdl.handle.net/10106/316902023-12-05T21:23:29ZThe Role of Emotions and Collective Satisfaction in the Customer Journey from Service Experience to Customer Engagement
Service providers serving business customers face some unique challenges in assessing and building customer satisfaction. These challenges arise when service providers have to deal with a team or a group of people within the client’s organization. Each of these individuals, depending on their role in the service provision, go through a unique customer journey and have a distinctive service experience. Imagine yourself in a situation with several bosses with different expectations and evaluations. Not only is it challenging to meet their expectations, but it is also hard to know if they are truly satisfied with you. This dissertation explores the above challenges and develops a comprehensive view of customer satisfaction in a business-to-business (B2B) services context. In the first essay, we conduct a meta-analysis on the antecedents and consequences of customer satisfaction and investigate the inconsistencies from previous research. There is a need to examine the antecedents of satisfaction as it is difficult to prioritize attributes that drive overall customer satisfaction or know which antecedent(s) has the strongest effect on satisfaction. We also find it necessary to look at the outcomes of satisfaction, which include, attitudinal loyalty and direct and indirect customer engagement (purchase intention and WOM/recommend). This study will examine these relationships in addition to moderating variables that affect the strength of the antecedent-satisfaction-outcomes relationships. The second essay elaborates on the research shortcomings identified in the first essay. To address them, we develop a conceptual framework for evaluating collective satisfaction of all client’s team members, hereafter called overall firm satisfaction (OFS). We first propose that OFS should be based on a weighted average of the individual satisfactions of all actors in the customer firm with a vested interest in service provision. We then explore how overall firm OFS changes over time due to interpersonal interactions. Furthermore, we dig into the relationships between decision makers and other actors, and propose that they will influence the overall satisfaction of one another over time. Finally, we explore when the OFS framework is applicable and when other approaches provide a satisfactory understanding of customer satisfaction. The third essay further develops and empirically tests some of the ideas put forth in the conceptual framework. We shed light on the role emotions have in a B2B context, how they exist and what are their consequences. To get a better understanding of how customers experience and evaluate the service, we studied group interactions among clients’ team members. We conducted a series of scenariobased role-playing experiments. Our sample included 160 undergrad students who were assigned to three-member teams. Our study showed that group dynamic elements influence group members’ emotions and behaviors towards the firm. We contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the importance of a multi-perspective evaluation of a service provider as opposed to the common single informant approach.
Designing Better Experiences Through Storytelling: Two Essays Examining the Application of Storytelling in Service Design and its Impact on Customer and Service Offering-Related Outcomeshttp://hdl.handle.net/10106/314582023-07-01T08:27:16Z2022-08-12T00:00:00ZDesigning Better Experiences Through Storytelling: Two Essays Examining the Application of Storytelling in Service Design and its Impact on Customer and Service Offering-Related Outcomes
**Please note that the full text is embargoed until 8/12/2024** ABSTRACT: The service literature has long recognized that storytelling can be applied in the design of service offerings and their associated customer journeys. The literature also suggests that applying storytelling in service design can enhance the customer experience. However, the customer and firm outcomes that result from applying storytelling in service and customer journey design have not been addressed by the literature. The underlying mechanisms through which storytelling enhances the customer experience and other customer outcomes when applied in service design have also not been addressed by the literature. In addition, there is a shortage of research that addresses the application of storytelling in service design from a customer journey perspective, and even less research that addresses service or customer journey design for experiential services. Using experiential services as a research context, the two essays in this dissertation address the above-identified knowledge gaps in the literature by conceptually and empirically exploring the customer and service offering-related outcomes associated with the application of storytelling in service and customer journey design and the mechanisms leading to these outcomes. Potential moderators of the effectiveness of storytelling as an approach to service and customer journey design are also conceptually and empirically examined. This dissertation also provides guidelines for managers of experiential services on how to apply storytelling in service and customer journey design to enhance the customer experience, customer affective responses, and customer behavioral intentions towards a firm’s service offerings. Overall, the findings of this dissertation contribute to the literature by providing a richer understanding of the effects of applying storytelling in service and customer journey design, the mechanisms leading to these effects, and potential moderators of the observed effects. It also empowers service firms generally, and experiential service firms specifically, to leverage the power of storytelling to design and deliver better experiences for customers that translate into favorable firm outcomes.
2022-08-12T00:00:00Z