Jagdip Singh

• PhD
• Managing Director at Case Western Reserve University

Purpose Learning in organizations is well-recognized as a key determinant of innovation and success in competitive markets, and a rich literature examines learning mechanisms in large-sized and professionally-run organizations. Relatively little is known about the learning processes in family-run firms, most of whom are small- and medium-sized ente...

Machine-age technologies, including automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence, are profoundly expanding the variety of service interfaces and therefore the possible ways that customers and firms can interact across customer journeys. This expansion challenges service firms’ capabilities to deliver coherent streams of interactions for effect...

E-negotiations, or sales negotiations over email, are increasingly common in business-to-business (B2B) sales, but little is known about selling effectiveness in this medium. This research investigates salespeople’s use of influence tactics as textual cues to manage buyers’ attention during B2B e-negotiations to win sales contract award. Drawing on...

Service organizations often view customer-facing or frontline employees (FLEs) as sources of inimitable knowledge valuable for innovation. This is due to the experiential nature of service and subtle qualities of engaging customer interactions. Yet, organizations face significant challenges while leveraging the knowledge of their FLEs to develop se...

Recognizing the rapid advances in sales digitization and artificial intelligence technologies, we develop concepts, priorities, and questions to help guide future research and practice in the field of personal selling and sales management. Our analysis reveals that the influence of sales digitalization technologies, which include digitization and a...

This study examines the impact of frontline employees’ problem solving on customer satisfaction (CSAT) during ongoing interactions prompted by service failures and complaints. Based on outsourced regulation theory, we predict negative moderating effects of frontline relational work and displayed affect on the dynamic influence of frontline solving...

Using a novel approach with video-recordings of sales interactions, this study focuses on a dynamic analysis of salesperson effectiveness in handling customer queries. We conceptualize salesperson behaviors, namely, resolving, relating, and emoting, as separate elements of customer query handling and empirically identify the distinct verbal and non...

Advances in frontline interface technologies and devices are profoundly disrupting how organizations and customers interact to create and exchange value. Where once customer interactions were limited in variety, multiplicity, and complexity, today’s broadband Internet and wireless connection technologies defy limitations to enable organization-cust...

At the frontlines, retail store managers serve a unique boundary spanning role of creating value by blending merchandising and service practices that lead to superior customer experiences and strong financial outcomes (Brady and Cronin 2001; Voss and Voss 2000; Mulhern 1997). As Lusch and Serpkenci (1990, p. 98) noted there is, “a strong positive r...

By its nature, the holiday season is community-oriented. Consumers focus most of their attention on families, friends and neighbors. Retailers try to entice consumers into stores with sales, decorations, extended hours and other promotions. For national chains, this drive toward community presents the opportunity for frontline employees and local s...

The paper presented here aims to develop theoretically grounded hypotheses for examining several moderators of the relationship between role ambiguity and various job outcomes. This follows Jackson and Schuler’s suggestion that investigation of potential moderators, especially for the relationship between role ambiguity and such important outcome v...

User generated (e.g., peer-to-peer or word-of-mouth) reviews and professional experts' reviews are important sources of external information that consumers use in making consumption decisions, but studies of their simultaneous effects is scarce. We develop a conceptual model for hypothesizing the simultaneous effects of the volume and valence of us...

This paper conceptualizes, operationalizes and validates a Multidimensional, Multirole Entrepreneurial Behavior (“MEB”) construct. Retailing is an emergent context for entrepreneurship as big-data shakes traditional governance structures and pushes value-creation opportunities to the frontlines. Yet validated constructs to study entrepreneurship in...

The conceptualization, operationalization and the measurement of the construct of service quality is important from theoretical and managerial standpoints. However, it is only recently that attempts in this direction have been made. This paper proposes an agenda for future research that is directed toward further development of the service quality...

Service memberships are commonly used to support consumer relationships, yet the mechanisms for consumers' membership decisions are poorly understood. This paper develops a model of consumers' decision to modify (upgrade or downgrade) a service membership conditional on their decision to renew. Bridging insights from relationship marketing and cons...

Why do some customer contact employees (CCEs) show high levels of engagement while others of similar profile and training in the same organization remain disengaged and disinterested? We address this question by a grounded study that aims to extract themes of engagement from the words that CCEs use to describe what makes them tick in their roles at...

This chapter identifies a strategy-tactics gap in most previous studies of pharmaceutical marketing, and addresses it by systematically analyzing the marketing strategies used in practice with the help of a unique dataset of court discovery documents unsealed in a recent litigation. Adopting an institutional theory perspective, we examine the domin...

Organizational agility—defined loosely as a combination of flexibility, nimbleness, and speed—is increasingly regarded as a source of competitive advantage in today’s fiercely competitive and fast changing markets. We aim to tighten and explicate a conceptualization of organizational agility that clarifies what it is and what it is not. We theorize...

Decision making is a key responsibility of top management team (TMT) members, including CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers), yet, ineffective decision making is increasingly recognized as a problem at the top rungs of organizations. By combining insights from past literature with those obtained from a grounded study using qualitative data from 23 CMO i...

Retail managers act as entrepreneurs to compete effectively in today’s retailing environments where fickle customers are quick to shift loyalties as they seek value, variety and vitality in store experiences. We draw from entrepreneurship theory of orientations and passion to (a) distinguish between, and incorporate merchandizing and service focus...

Frontline processes are crucial in order to stem performance losses in service organizations. Using a frontline perspective, this article outlines the key factors that contribute to performance losses in the implementation of service innovations and identifies frontline mechanisms that help stem performance losses. By offering guidelines to organiz...

Building on the forces of change in selling identified in the introductory paper of this Special Issue of JPSSM, we identify and explicate trends, managerial implications, and research opportunities in two important domains of the selling field: training and development (TD) and selection. Part One focuses on TD of salespeople, and argues why a fre...

Ineffective decision making at the top rungs of organizations is a perennial concern, yet empirical research into the decision styles of corporate leaders is scant. Conceptually sound and psychometrically validated constructs for alternative decision styles of corporate leaders are rare. This study develops and validates a multi-dimensional measure...

Integrating institutional and role theories, this paper develops a Logics-Roles-Action (LRA) framework for understanding how for-profit organizations structure institutional work to managerially control the work of professionals they employ. Structurally, this institutional work involves three elements: (1) internalizing pluralistic logics (logics)...

Using qualitative analysis of in-depth interview data from 23 Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) in diverse industries, the study aims to advance theoretical understanding of (a) when and how corporate leaders experience entrenchment, (b) what strategies corporate leaders use to disrupt or break free from their entrenchment and (c) how leaders generat...

Prayas is a unique healthcare initiative, launched in India by Sanofi-Aventis, a French multinational pharmaceutical company, with the objectives of updating the medical knowledge of doctors in semi-urban and rural areas, bridging the gap between diagnosis and treatment, and making available quality medicines at affordable prices. This case discuss...

This study proposes a frontline learning process by which organizations capture new knowledge generated by frontline employees in addressing productivity-quality tradeoffs during customer interactions and transform it into updated knowledge for frontline use. Updated knowledge, in turn, is posited to influence customer satisfaction and financial ou...

A retail business model articulates how a retailer creates value for its customers and appropriates value from the markets. Innovations in business models are increasingly critical for building sustainable advantage in a marketplace defined by unrelenting change, escalating customer expectations, and intense competition. Drawing from extant strateg...

Innovativeness is much desired in the nonprofit sector to meet emerging market challenges, yet research has largely neglected to examine factors that influence individual managers’ innovativeness on specific projects, or the effect of innovation on project outcomes. We develop and test a theoretical framework of main and interactive effects of orga...

Stoked by corporate failures from Enron to Lehman Brothers, consumers are increasingly skeptical of the motivations of industry sectors ranging from banking to health care. Do organizations dare build trust in times of distrust? Does it pay? Using institutional perspectives of trust production, we examine consumer perceptions of firm-level trust un...

Consumers’ conceptions of a market's institutional logic affect mechanisms of firm – consumer relationships, but are generally neglected in comparative studies of international marketing. This study bridges institutional and relationship marketing theories to examine two questions: do consumers hold meaningful mental models of a market's institutio...

We examine consumer social learning from distributed inquiry capabilities in online communities. Using an inquiry-action framework rooted in pragmatic learning theory, we longitudinally trace community inquiry processes and their link to individual action in six health-related online communities. Our interpretive analyses reveal leaps and lapses in...

Objectives This study draws from the resource depletion and conservation theories to develop a process model of informal caregiving. The model includes the burnout as a key mediator of the relationship between benefit/threat appraisals and critical outcomes including perceived physical health, depression and life satisfaction. Methods A self-repor...

This article discusses learning processes that draw on information gleaned from customer interactions for service oriented businesses. The effectiveness of deliberate learning processes that draw upon interactions between service providers and customers is studied in the context of multiple strategic business units. Issues of productivity-quality t...

This study identifies a frontline mechanism comprising autonomy, cohesion, and feedback that helps explain when and why the simultaneous pursuit of quality and productivity orientations has positive or negative effects on unit revenue, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. An empirical test of the proposed framework using data from 423 employees i...

Adopting a frontline employee (FLE) perspective, this study models a performance loss process during an organization's strategic change implementation. The process is activated by changes in unit management's emphases on cost containment and revenue-generating strategies and is governed by FLE detachment. The authors also examine an intervention me...

Physician decisions to discontinue prescription medications for chronic conditions are fundamental determinants of drug use but have been inadequately studied. The decision to stop growth hormone (GH) therapy is an important example because of high cost (approximately $26,000/y for a 48-kg child), complexity of treatment options, and expansion of p...

The H & H Lactation (H & H) scale is a useful instrument for understanding mothers' perceptions of insufficient milk supply, which is the common reason given for premature cessation of breastfeeding. This instrument may be used to intervene in postbirth dropoff in breastfeeding among mothers. To examine construct and nomological validity and relate...

This paper examines cognitions and behaviors of organizational boundary spanners' individuals who work on the periphery of an organization and provide a bridge between external constituencies (e.g., customers and suppliers) and internal members (e.g., managers and support personnel). The specific focus of this study is on salespeople in B2B context...

Despite the virtually unchallenged view that passion is important for new venture creation and growth, surprising little systematic theoretical or empirical work exists concerning the notion of passion and its influence on entrepreneurial activities. Through a review of the literature, we highlight the inconsistencies and gaps concerning work on en...

With a myriad of diverse funding and operating challenges facing nonprofit organizations, many are adopting a more entrepreneurial approach. Despite the study of a myriad of firm-level factors that may promote entrepreneurial behavior in organizations, the existing body of research provides no significant clues as to why some organization members i...

The emerging cultural, societal, and environmental milieu of the twenty-first-century marketplace presents coping challenges for even strong and well-established companies. Few, if any, attempts have been made to examine systematically a firm's symbiotic link with society by focusing on the complexity and interconnectedness of its disparate market...

A dissatisfied consumer's decision to seek redress from third parties has significant implications for society in general and the focal industry in particular, yet little is known about why consumers choose such actions. To address this gap, a generalizable, comprehensive, and testable model of the processes that result in consumers’ decisions (not...

Drawing from need, motivation, and social exchange theories, this study conceptualizes and empirically examines the differential curvilinear effects of multiple determinants of loyalty intentions, including transactional satisfaction, trust, and value for relational exchanges. The authors conceptualize trust as a "motivator," satisfaction as a "hyg...

This study utilizes consumers' perspective to examine emerging treatments—those based on genetic technology and aimed at improving the quality (rather than quantity) of life—on medical decision making. We discuss market, medical, social and consumer issues that are germane to such emerging treatments in the context of growth hormone therapy for sho...

Interest in measurement issues remains unabated, as evidenced by published research in the area of reliability, validity, and, in particular, scale development. At the same time, psychometricians have continued to generate alternative measurement approaches and models at an explosive pace. Surprisingly, these alternative measurement approaches have...

Interest in measurement issues remains unabated, as evidenced by published research in the area of reliability, validity, and, in particular, scale development. At the same time, psychometricians have continued to generate alternative measurement approaches and models at an explosive pace. Surprisingly, these alternative measurement approaches have...

Few, if any, past studies have attempted to develop a model to capture and explain industry context variability and hypothesize its effects on consumer-firm relationships. Generally, industry effects are ignored, described, or explained post hoc. Using the notion of consumers' dispositions toward a market, a framework is proposed for understanding...

How do salespeople make judgments of merit pay fairness? By what mechanisms do fairness judgments influence the performance and commitment of salespeople? Using equity and social exchange theories, the authors examine these questions for industrial salespeople who work in a Fortune 500 firm and provide four key findings. First, of the three dimensi...

More than 15 years ago, when as a "fresh" scholar I submitted my first manuscript for review at a major journal, I had an experience that was remarkable only in retrospect. At that time, it appeared ordinary. After 3 months of submission and a wait that was measurably longer, I got the envelope back--a 9  12 brown packet that contained a fresh sch...

The authors develop a framework for understanding the behaviors and practices of service providers that build or deplete consumer trust and the mechanisms that convert consumer trust into value and loyalty in relational exchanges. The proposed framework (1) uses a multidimension al conceptualization for the trustworthiness con- struct; (2) incorpor...

Cognitive and learning theories were used to develop a framework in which different knowledge representations prime recipients with different schemata and thereby differentially affect their decision making. We evaluated interpretive, general, and particular knowledge representations in a laboratory experiment with managers. The hypotheses received...

The authors propose a framework for understanding key mechanisms that shape satisfaction in individual encounters, and loyalty across ongoing exchanges. In particular, the framework draws together two distinct approaches: (1) agency theory, rooted in the economic approach, that views relational exchanges as encounters between principals (consumers)...

To understand mechanisms that govern the productivity and quality of frontline employees (FLEs), this study (1) provides a conceptual distinction between frontline productivity and quality, (2) proposes an extended role theory-based model for mapping the influence of key antecedents and consequences of FLE productivity and quality, and (3) examines...

This article is concerned with the assessment of the substantiation of management decisions in practice. The necessity for this undertaking derives from the fact that to be successful, management must choose the right extent of analysis for preparing major decisions. Testing this hypothesis requires the ability to measure the thoroughness of a deci...

This paper examines the role of parents' attitudes and preferences regarding growth hormone therapy for childhood short stature. Four main questions are addressed. First, what are the demographic characteristics of families seeking medical advice for their child's short stature? Second, what are parents' attitudes towards short stature? Third, what...

Drawing on the premise that the diversification decisions are driven by antecedent factors such as a firm's existing resources (Teece 1982) and industry structural conditions, this paper develops formal hypotheses for reciprocity between the type of diversification and mode of expansion decisions. We consider the specificity of antecedent resources...

This study examines two questions that relate to patients' role in medical decision making: (1) Do patients utilize multiple attributes in evaluating different treatment options?, and (2) Do patient treatment preferences evidence heterogeneity and disparate patterns? Although research has examined these questions by using either individual- or aggr...

The goals of this study were to examine the relationship of patient assessments of hospital care with patient and hospital characteristics. In addition, the authors sought to assess relationships between patient assessments and other patient-derived measures of care (eg, how much they were helped by the hospitalization and amount of pain experience...

Objectives. This study examines two questions that relate to patients' role in medical decision making: (1) Do patients utilize multiple attributes in evaluating different treatment options?, and (2) Do patient treatment preferences evidence heterogeneity and disparate patterns? Although research has examined these questions by using either individ...

Most previous studies have focused on the linear effects of role stressors and job characteristics on salespersons' behavioral (e. g., performance) and psychological (e. g., satisfaction) job outcomes. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Yerkes-Dodson law, activation theory, and overstimulation hypothesis, the author examines some unconvention...

Most previous studies have focused on the linear effects of role stressors and job characteristics on salespersons’ behavioral (e.g., performance) and psychological (e.g., satisfaction) job outcomes. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Yerkes-Dodson law, activation theory, and overstimulation hypothesis, the author examines some unconventional...

This paper develops and tests a framework for understanding the performance of small firms operating in highly turbulent environments. Performance is conceptualized as being multidimensional, taking into account both financial and market performance. The purpose was to delineate the importance of CEO characteristics (self-efficacy, tolerance for am...

The burnout condition of employees is a well-known phenomenon in psychology and several applied business disciplines. Despite some degree of recognition in the practice community, little explicit academic accounting recognition of this topic appears to exist. This paper introduces the burnout construct by showing that it has not been captured by ot...

To determine current expert opinion and recommendations regarding the controversial issue of the use of growth hormone (GH) to treat short children who do not have classical GH deficiency (non-GHD children). Analysis of a national survey mailed to 534 US physician experts on the management of short stature (pediatric endocrinologists) with a respon...

When do consumers complain? This study probes this question by developing a conceptual framework that includes multiple theoretical perspectives, empirically testing a portion of the proposed model, and using dissatisfaction/complaint data from three different service industries. The hypothesized model uses multidimensional consumer complaint respo...

Objective. —To determine current expert opinion and recommendations regarding the controversial issue of the use of growth hormone (GH) to treat short children who do not have classical GH deficiency (non-GHD children).Study Design. —Analysis of a national survey mailed to 534 US physician experts on the management of short stature (pediatric end...

Previous research and meta-analyses suggest that the influence of organizational variables on boundary role stress processes is weak and marginal. Using the emerging work in organizational practices and configurations, the authors reexamine this relationship by addressing three critical gaps: (1) conceptualizing organizational environment as a mult...

Previous research and meta-analyses suggest that the influence of organizational variables on boundary role stress processes is weak and marginal. Using the emerging work in organizational practices and configurations, the authors reexamine this relationship by addressing three critical gaps: (1) conceptualizing organizational environment as a mult...

Substantive inference from cross-national studies have important implications for theory (e.g., because they reveal insights into generalizability and boundary conditions) and managerial practice (e.g., because they offer guidelines to MNC managers). However, few empirical studies attend to measurement issues involved in cross-national research, an...

Previous research addressed the question whether job performance (JP) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) are distinct constructs. However, a literature review indicated that this redundancy issue is far from resolved. We examined possible redundancy between salespersons' JP and OCB in a structured and systematic way, from both conceptual...

Marketing boundary spanners-especially customer service representatives-are notably susceptible to burnout. The authors define the burnout construct and develop hypotheses to examine if burnout acts as a partial mediator between role stressors and key behavioral and psychological job outcomes. Responses from 377 customer service representatives rev...

Marketing boundary spanners—especially customer service representatives—are notably susceptible to burnout. The authors define the burnout construct and develop hypotheses to examine if burnout acts as a partial mediator between role stressors and key behavioral and psychological job outcomes. Responses from 377 customer service representatives rev...