Purpose

In many contemporary service organizations, service teams or service units are the main engines used to deliver key services to customers, client or patients. However, it remains unclear how teamwork mechanisms (i.e. the ways team members work together) influence customer service outcomes, and whether these relationships vary across different service contexts. To advance knowledge on the nature of teamwork in service teams and to set an agenda for further work in this area, there is a need to integrate and synthesize findings across the diverse literature on service teamwork. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objectives.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a meta-analytic approach, the authors analyzed a substantial pool of relevant effect sizes (a total of 372 effect sizes from 82 studies, with 14,291 service teams/units) to examine the effects of affective, behavioral, cognitive, motivational as well as perceptual teamwork mechanisms on customer service outcomes. The authors also investigated two key service context variables (service climate and service type) as boundary conditions on these effects.

Findings

The authors found that cognitive teamwork mechanisms were more strongly positively associated with customer evaluative outcomes than other mechanisms, whereas motivational and perceptual teamwork mechanisms had stronger associations with financial outcomes. Further, four of the five teamwork mechanisms demonstrated stronger correlations under a high service climate. The strength of the correlations between the teamwork mechanisms and customer service outcomes also exhibited different patterns when considered for different service types.

Research limitations/implications

As with all meta-analysis, the quality of the primary studies influences the quality of the insights obtained from summarized effects. As most studies are cross-sectional design, the relationships examined in this paper cannot be interpreted causally. The authors cannot rule out the possibility of reverse causality, for example, reciprocal effects of customer service outcomes on teamwork dynamics due to the reciprocal feedback loop between customers and service providers.

Practical implications

The results hold important practical implications for enhancing customer evaluation and financial performance. First, the overall findings point to the need for employers to emphasize on certain types of teamwork training in order to encourage employee collaboration within service teams. For instance, service organizations could plan team building activities for service teams to promote trust, strengthen interpersonal bonds and improve problem-solving.

Originality/value

The results of this study provide an integration of previous research on service teamwork and fill two important gaps in the knowledge: (1) which aspect of teamwork is more important in determining customer service outcomes? And (2) does the effect of teamwork on customer service outcomes differ across different service contexts?

中文翻译：

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服务团队合作机制与客户服务成果关系的元分析

目的

在许多当代服务组织中，服务团队或服务单位是向顾客、客户或患者提供关键服务的主要引擎。然而，目前尚不清楚团队合作机制（即团队成员一起工作的方式）如何影响客户服务结果，以及这些关系在不同的服务环境中是否有所不同。为了增进对服务团队团队合作本质的了解，并为该领域的进一步工作制定议程，有必要整合和综合有关服务团队合作的各种文献的研究结果。本文旨在讨论上述目标。

设计/方法论/途径

作者使用荟萃分析方法，分析了大量相关效应大小（来自 82 项研究的 372 个效应大小，涉及 14,291 个服务团队/单位），以检查情感、行为、认知、动机以及对客户服务结果的感知团队合作机制。作者还研究了两个关键的服务环境变量（服务氛围和服务类型）作为这些影响的边界条件。

发现

作者发现，与其他机制相比，认知团队合作机制与客户评价结果的正相关性更强，而动机和感知团队合作机制与财务结果的相关性更强。此外，五个团队合作机制中的四个在高服务氛围下表现出更强的相关性。当考虑不同的服务类型时，团队合作机制和客户服务结果之间的相关性强度也表现出不同的模式。

研究局限性/影响

与所有荟萃分析一样，初步研究的质量影响着从总结效应中获得的见解的质量。由于大多数研究都是横断面设计，因此本文研究的关系不能用因果关系来解释。作者不能排除反向因果关系的可能性，例如，由于客户和服务提供商之间的相互反馈循环，客户服务结果对团队合作动态的相互影响。

实际影响

研究结果对于提高客户评估和财务绩效具有重要的实际意义。首先，总体调查结果表明，雇主需要强调某些类型的团队合作培训，以鼓励员工在服务团队内进行协作。例如，服务组织可以为服务团队规划团队建设活动，以促进信任、加强人际纽带并改善问题解决能力。

原创性/价值

这项研究的结果整合了先前关于服务团队合作的研究，并填补了两个重要的知识空白：（1）团队合作的哪个方面在确定客户服务结果方面更重要？(2) 团队合作对客户服务结果的影响在不同的服务环境中是否有所不同？