IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ororsc/v3y1992i4p537-555.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Service Encounters as Rites of Integration: An Information Processing Model

Author

Listed:
  • Caren Siehl

    (Thunderbird, American Graduate School of International Management, 15249 N. 59th Avenue, Glendale, Arizona 85306-6000)

  • David E. Bowen

    (Business Programs, Arizona State University West, 4701 West Thunderbird Road, Phoenix, Arizona 85069-7100)

  • Christine M. Pearson

    (Center for Crisis Management, School of Business Administration, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1421)

Abstract

We propose that service encounters (the interaction between customers and employees) can be conceptualized, and managed, as rites of integration. Rites of integration are defined as planned social interactions that have the objective of achieving “a temporary sense of closeness” between customers and service providers. We argue that such rites help to establish the appropriate level of psychological involvement or the appropriate degree of psychological closeness between the service provider and the customer. Psychological involvement facilitates (a) the sharing of information by customers and employees that is necessary for service production and (b) the favorable evaluation, by customers, of the service delivery process. We describe (and give examples of) different types of rites that result in varying levels of involvement. We conclude by offering propositions for the consequences associated with customers having their expectations of involvement confirmed or disconfirmed. These consequences include the importance of a “zone of indifference” around individual expectations of levels of involvement and the negative effects of too much closeness between the employee and customer.

Suggested Citation

  • Caren Siehl & David E. Bowen & Christine M. Pearson, 1992. "Service Encounters as Rites of Integration: An Information Processing Model," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(4), pages 537-555, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:3:y:1992:i:4:p:537-555
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.3.4.537
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.3.4.537
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/orsc.3.4.537?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yang, Jie & Wong, Christina W.Y. & Lai, Kee-hung & Ntoko, Alfred Ngome, 2009. "The antecedents of dyadic quality performance and its effect on buyer-supplier relationship improvement," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 243-251, July.
    2. Julian Gould-Williams, 1999. "The Impact of Employee Performance Cues on Guest Loyalty, Perceived Value and Service Quality," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 97-118, July.
    3. Mathieu Lajante & David Remisch & Nikita Dorofeev, 2023. "Can robots recover a service using interactional justice as employees do? A literature review-based assessment," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 17(1), pages 315-357, March.
    4. Prior, Daniel D. & Keränen, Joona & Koskela, Sami, 2018. "Sensemaking, sensegiving and absorptive capacity in complex procurements," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 79-90.
    5. Esi A. Elliot & Carmina Cavazos & Benjamin Ngugi, 2022. "Digital Financial Services and Strategic Financial Management: Financial Services Firms and Microenterprises in African Markets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-15, December.
    6. Vredenburg, Jessica & Bell, Simon J., 2014. "Variability in health care services: the role of service employee flexibility," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 168-178.
    7. Jahyun Goo & C. Derrick Huang & Chul Woo Yoo & Chulmo Koo, 2022. "Smart Tourism Technologies’ Ambidexterity: Balancing Tourist’s Worries and Novelty Seeking for Travel Satisfaction," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 24(6), pages 2139-2158, December.
    8. Fábio Augusto Reis Gomes & Cleomar Gomes da Silva, 2006. "Hysteresis Vs. Nairu And Convergence Vs. Divergence: The Behavior Of Regional Unemployment Rates In Brazil," Anais do XXXIV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 34th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 161, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    9. Forrest Briscoe, 2007. "From Iron Cage to Iron Shield? How Bureaucracy Enables Temporal Flexibility for Professional Service Workers," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(2), pages 297-314, April.
    10. Viswanath Venkatesh & James Y. L. Thong & Frank K. Y. Chan & Paul J. H. Hu, 2016. "Managing Citizens’ Uncertainty in E-Government Services: The Mediating and Moderating Roles of Transparency and Trust," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 87-111, March.
    11. Islam, Gazi, 2008. "Rituals in Organizations: A Review and Expansion of Current Theory," Insper Working Papers wpe_136, Insper Working Paper, Insper Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa.
    12. Mishra, Debi P., 2013. "Firms’ strategic response to service uncertainty: An empirical signaling study," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 187-197.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:3:y:1992:i:4:p:537-555. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.