Service innovativeness in retailing: Increasing the relative attractiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic

Joanna Pilawa, Lars Witell*, Aku Valtakoski, Per Kristensson

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

37 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

COVID-19 primarily spreads through close contact between humans and has affected retailing industries extremely hard. To manage the situation retailers have turned to service innovation to change their operations to make consumers feel safe while shopping. This research focuses on the role of service innovativeness in retailing firms during the COVID-19 pandemic through an empirical study of almost 6000 consumers of 28 retailing firms. The results suggested that retailers with high service innovativeness performed COVID-19 imposed innovations better to improve their relative attractiveness. For retailers with physical stores, changes to the servicescape and the offering were found to be the key antecedents of service innovativeness. The findings on COVID-19 imposed service innovations demonstrate the importance of service innovativeness in successfully changing retailing services to adjust to the restrictions from governments and safety needs of customers.

Original languageEnglish
Article number102962
Peer-reviewed scientific journalJournal of Retailing and Consumer Services
Volume67
ISSN0969-6989
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article - refereed

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • Retail
  • Service innovation
  • Service innovativeness
  • 512 Business and Management

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