Subjective and Objective Air Quality in Servicescapes: Measurement and Consequences

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Gianfranco Walsh
• Subject Area: Accounting and Finance
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 460276061

The servicescape is the physical environment of a service organization in which the service is delivered. Servicescape air quality (and ambient factors more generally) is critical to service marketing and management, in that air quality represents a health and cost factor, as well as a potential differentiator. For example, a key determinant of the popularity of indoor shopping malls in China is their good air quality. Air quality also is inextricably linked to the well-being and health of everyone in a servicescape, particularly frontline employees and customers. It therefore behooves service firms to ensure good air quality, as well as to gain a clearer understanding of how poor air quality might adversely affect important service marketing outcomes. However, existing subjective measures of air quality suffer from questionable validity and their relationships with objective measures, as well as the costs of providing a certain air quality, remain poorly understood. Managing the physical environment associated with service delivery entails notable costs; according to some estimates, between 4% and 9% of overall operating costs for retail stores are energy-related, such as air conditioning and ventilation. To cut costs, some service firms realistically might entertain the possibility of reducing these investments. For example, airlines launched initiatives to reduce energy costs by providing less outside air for ventilation. Yet good air quality could be a point of differentiation in services sectors. Considering these varying influences, we seek to establish an empirical foundation to guide service firms’ decisions about how they should manage air quality most effectively in their servicescape. To ensure this research proposal presents the biggest picture possible, we have defined the following goals:• Establish a reliable, valid, multidimensional perceived air quality scale applicable in different servicescapes and to both customers and employees.• Provide insights into the differential effects of objective and subjective air quality on customer and employee outcomes in real-life service situations.• Address important contingencies of the relationships between air quality (from customer and employee perspectives) and outcomes.• Explain the psychological processes responsible for the effect of air quality on customer and employee outcomes, which may reflect conscious or unconscious mediators and moderators of the proposed relationship.• Inform service organizations’ decisions about the business case for poor air quality, by addressing the air quality elasticity of demand according to spending levels.• Inform public policy makers about the need for policies to mandate certain air quality standards for work, shopping, and service environments.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Partner Organisation: Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (SNF)
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Marc Linzmajer