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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Athanasia Daskalopoulou, Dr Josephine Go JefferiesORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
As technology becomes a common element of service interactions, service providers frequently turn to niche technology to support their work. Service research has started to unpack service providers' role in addressing the barriers of technology mediation, mostly at the service delivery level. However, there is still limited understanding about the role of organizational support in dealing with the demands and associated emotional ambivalence of technology mediated services. This study follows a qualitative methodology. Insights are drawn from in-depth interviews with fourteen healthcare service providers who hold strategic and operational roles in healthcare organizations and participant observations. Our findings introduce and outline the strategic sense-giving process and further highlight how certain healthcare service providers enact the sense-giver role. We illustrate that strategic sense-giving involves three steps; (a) recognition of sense-making gaps, (b) identification of sense-giving opportunities, and (c) provision of templates of action. This paper contributes to existing literature on service provider roles by illustrating that sense-giving can and should extend beyond the peer-to-peer level. Specifically, we highlight the importance of strategic sense-giving in providing templates of action for service providers and consumers alike. We also show how strategic sense-giving safeguards against confusion and errors during technology mediated service interactions by communicating appropriate ways of technology use. Finally, we demonstrate the role of strategic sense-giving in helping service providers and consumers to cope with the emotional ambivalence of technology mediated service interactions.
Author(s): Daskalopoulou A, Go Jefferies J, Skandalis A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Services Marketing
Year: 2020
Volume: 34
Issue: 7
Pages: 909-920
Online publication date: 05/10/2020
Acceptance date: 21/08/2020
Date deposited: 21/08/2020
ISSN (print): 0887-6045
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-11-2019-0452
DOI: 10.1108/JSM-11-2019-0452
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