The research of the chair focuses on three major issues: cross-cultural management, cross-cultural marketing, and (international) service recovery management.
To get an impression of the research activities at the chair, it is also worth taking a look at Prof. Dr. Katja Gelbrich's publication list and the lists of staff members.
You can get an impression of our current and former research partners here.
Automated agents are playing an increasingly important role in marketing. They come in the form of embodied service robots, chatbots, or voice agents and take over tasks that were once performed by firm employees, such as serving food in a restaurant, providing advice, suggesting the shortest route to a destination, or providing support on a website or in an app. They often perform these tasks more quickly and efficiently and, unlike their human counterparts, do not fatigue. With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered language models such as ChatGPT, automated agents can even engage in conversations with customers. However, automated agents lack a human touch and in addition, have raised concerns about privacy, copyright, and job loss. In this research area, we address questions such as:
Starting with Hofstede’s seminal work “Cultures and Organizations,” national culture was put on the agenda of management and marketing research. In brief, members of different societies share different values (e.g., the importance of family, freedom, happiness etc.), and thus, think, feel, and behave differently. These differences apply to internal stakeholders of organizations and thus, require different leadership and conflict styles of culturally diverse firms. Importantly, cultural differences also apply to consumers, requiring different marketing strategies and instruments (product, price, promotion, and place) from firms targeting an international customer base. Since cultural values are closely related to those evolving from religiosity and religious affiliation, cross-religious marketing is an important, but largely neglected subdomain of cross-cultural marketing. In this research area, we address questions such as:
Gelbrich, K.; Müller, S.; Westjohn, S. A. (2023): Cross-Cultural Consumer Behavior, Edward Elgar Cheltenham, UK.
Müller, S.; Gelbrich, K. (2021): Interkulturelles Konsumentenverhalten, München.
Gelbrich, K.; Stedham, Y.; Gäthke, D. (2016): Cultural Discrepancy and National Corruption: Investigating the Difference between Cultural Values and Practices and Its Relationship to Corrupt Behavior, in: Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 201-225
Gelbrich, K.; Roschk, H.; Gafeeva, R. (2016): A Cross-National Observation of Counter-Cultural Consumer Behaviour, in: Marketing ZFP – Journal of Research and Management, Vol. 38, No. 3 pp. 150-162
Müller, S.; Gelbrich, K. (2015): Interkulturelles Marketing, 2. Aufl., München.
Müller, S.; Gelbrich, K. (2014): Interkulturelle Kommunikation, München.
Product flaws are inevitable, due to the complexity of production processes, external circumstances, or human failures. Thus, it is important that firms try to eliminate the resulting inconveniences and impairments for customers. This holds particularly true for the automobile industry, where customers’ safety has to be ensured. In this research domain, we examine how to improve the service process of car recalls. We aim to show that a product recall, which is typically perceived as a negative episode, may offer the chance to improve the firm-customer relationship and to reduce negative effects on firm reputation.
Service failures are unavoidable, whether due to negligence on the part of the providers (e.g., inattentive staff, long waiting times) or imponderables (e.g., power failure, pandemic outbreaks). We investigate how firms manage complaints after service failures in order to regain customers' trust and satisfaction and avoid negative effects (e.g., negative word-of-mouth via social media).
We also look at two special forms of service failure: double deviation and intentional service failure. A double deviation occurs when a service provider is unable to restore customer satisfaction even after a complaint has been filed (i.e., complaint management has failed). In this case, two successive failures occur: a service failure and a recovery failure. Our research deals with the particularities of double deviations compared to "simple" service failures. In particular, we are interested in how customer relationships can be restored after double deviations.
An intentional service failure occurs when firms accept or even deliberately make a failure. This is the case, for example, in the airline industry where firms overbook flights in order to ensure full capacity usage and then have to bump passengers if the number of no-shows is less than expected. We examine how to proactively handle overbooking and provide adequate compensation. An extreme form of intentional service failure is service termination. Firms may seek to end relationships with certain customer groups because they do not fit into their portfolio, do not pay their bills, or order clothes online just to wear them for one occasion and return them afterwards. This is a very sensitive issue, and we are investigating how to terminate such customer relationships and avoid negative effects (e.g., loss of image).
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