“Futurizing” smart service : implications for service researchers and managers

Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to craft a future research agenda to advance smart service research and practice. Smart services are delivered to or via intelligent objects that feature awareness and connectivity. For service researchers and managers, one of the most fascinating aspects of smart service provision is that the connected object is able to sense its own condition and its surroundings and thus allows for real-time data collection, continuous communication and interactive feedback. Design/methodology/approach: – This article is based on discussions in the workshop on “Fresh perspectives on technology in service” at the International Network of Service Researchers on September 26, 2014 at CTF, Karlstad, Sweden. The paper summarizes the discussion on smart services, adds an extensive literature review, provides examples from business practice and develops a structured approach to new research avenues. Findings: – We propose that smart services vary on their individual level of autonomous decision-making, visibility and embeddedness in objects and customer lives. Based on a discussion of these characteristics, we identify research avenues regarding the perception and nature of smart services, the adoption of smart services, the innovation through smart services as well as regarding the development of new business models. Originality/value: – Smart services is a new emerging topic in service marketing research, their implications on organizations, customers and the service landscape have not been fully explored. We provide a fresh perspective on service research by characterizing relevant aspects of smart service that will stimulate fruitful future research and advance the understanding and practice of smart services

Proposal, project, practice, pause: developing a framework for evaluating smart domestic product engagement

Smart homes are fast becoming a reality, with smart TVs, smart meters and other such “smart” devices/systems already representing a substantial household presence. These, which we collectively term “smart domestic products” (SDPs), will need to be promoted, adopted, and normalized into daily routines. Despite this, the marketing canon lacks a substantive discourse on pertinent research. We look to help correct this by melding ideas from organizational sociology, innovation diffusion and appropriation studies, and service dominant logic. Consequently, we suggest a framework for research that responds directly to the specific characteristics of SDPs. Using the SDP eco-system as a context, our framework emphasizes the interplay of embeddedness, practice, value and engagement. It comprises a four-stage horizontal/ longitudinal axis we describe as proposal, project, practice and pause. Cross-sectionally we focus on value, and combine aspects of existing thought to suggest how this impacts each stage of our engagement continuum. We subsequently identify perceived personal advantage as the resultant of these two axes and propose this as the key for understanding consumer and SDP sociomaterial engagement. This article also advances a definition of SDPs and ends with an agenda for further research

A Nice and Friendly Chat with a Bot: User Perceptions of AI-Based Service Agents

As more organizations establish artificial intelligence-based service agents to offer an automated customer dialogue it is crucial to understand how users perceive this new form of technology-mediated communication. AI-based service agents interact in a similar way as humans in human-to-human chat conversations, but instead of a live person on the other end, a chat bot steers the communication based on artificial intelligence and Natural Language Interaction. By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, we examine this context and explore the role of perceived authenticity and its impact on users’ attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Our results from the qualitative studies show that users infer the authenticity of the AI-based service agents based on two different categories of cues: (1) agent-related cues and (2) communication-related cues. We employ additional experimental studies to empirically test antecedents and consequences of authenticity perceptions in AI-based service encounters

Anwendung und Erweiterung eines Stoss-Strahlung-Modells fuer H_2 und H

The report is based on an already existing collisional-radiative model for H_2 and H. The underlying model is introduced and the limits of the models are discussed. It is shown that the quality of the results strongly correlates with the quality of the data implied in the model. Possible improvements and extensions of the model are suggested whereas some of the improvements, i.e. changes in transmission probabilities, are carried out and tested. Other suggestions are postponed due to the lack of data to a later time. In a next step, systematic investigations on the equilibrium population of atomic and molecular levels are carried out. Population and depopulation processes are studied and their dependence on electron temperature and electron density is shown. The population of the electronic excited levels of the molecule is connected with molecular ground state, atomic hydrogen and the various hydrogen ions. Therefore, the composition of the ion species in representative laboratory plasmas is calculated by a simplified particle balance. In the case of populations of excited atomic levels the influence of self-absorption of Lyman lines on the emission of Balmer lines is shown. (orig.)Report represents a diploma thesis of D. Wuenderlich, Augsburg Univ., November 2000Available from TIB Hannover: RA 71(10/18) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman