The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of restaurant employees’ social perceptions of their supervisors on employees’ work engagement and extra-role customer service behavior. We also assessed restaurant employees’ social perceptions of their coworkers as a moderator. Utilizing an online survey design, data were collected from frontline restaurant employees via an online commercial subject pool (N = 477). Results showed that the more employees perceive their supervisors as warm, competent, and moral, the more employees were willing to engage in extra-role customer service behavior via the indirect effect of increased work engagement. The effect of work engagement on extra-role customer service was also found to be more pronounced when employees developed positive social perceptions of their coworkers. These results offer implications for work engagement, as they suggest a new antecedent in the form of social perceptions, as well as a boundary condition to the positive outcomes of engagement through the interactive effect of social perceptions of coworkers and extra-role customer service behavior. In doing so, these results also shed light on the relevance of social perceptions in hospitality operations.

Purpose: Adopting a socio-spatial approach, this study develops a consumer-centric conception of service experience customization. In contrast to existing service customization research, which has focused on company-centric approaches, the purpose of this paper is to examine the practices through which consumers use, abuse, subvert, transform, or complement organizational resources to construct their consumption experiences. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical context for this study is a Meetup group: a consumer network organized around members’ shared interests and activities in theme parks. The research utilized participant observation of members’ face-to-face activities during two years and over 80 events, interviews with key informants, and content analysis of online interactions. Findings: The findings outline how consumers interact across physical and virtual spaces utilizing technologies and material objects. The data are used to propose a new consumer-centric conceptualization of experience customization, distinguishing between three modes: collaborative co-production, cooperative co-creation, and subversive co-creation. Originality/value: It is argued that the three modes of customization provide a way to understand how consumers mobilize and (re)deploy organizational resources to create experiences that may complement existing service propositions, but may also transform them in ways that challenge the service provider’s original goals and expectations. Furthermore, this study identifies the factors that shape which modes of customization are possible and how they are enacted. Specifically, the discussion examines how experiential complexity, governability, the compatibility of consumer and organizational practices, and the collective mobilization of resources may determine the scope and form of customization.

This study aims to investigate the differential effects of determinants of satisfaction on subsequent electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) behavior in the sharing economy with peer-to-peer accommodations and timeshares. Data were collected from consumers who stayed at either a timeshare or peer-to-peer accommodation within the previous year (N = 785). Structural equation modeling was used to test the relationship between the determinants and eWOM through satisfaction, followed by multiple-group comparison to examine the moderating effect of accommodation type. The results indicated that amenities, economic benefits, and trust demonstrated an indirect effect on eWOM behavior through satisfaction, but community belonging affected eWOM behavior directly. Multiple-group SEM revealed that accommodation type moderated the indirect effects of community belonging, economic benefits, and trust on eWOM behavior, such that the indirect effect was significant only for timeshare accommodations. This study contributes to the sharing economy literature by filling the gap of lodging research beyond Airbnb and including timeshares. The findings highlight competitive differences that influence eWOM between peer-to-peer accommodations and timeshares that otherwise offer similar home-like accommodations. The study revealed a newly found direct relationship between community belonging and eWOM.