Organizational Frontline Marketing and a High-Tech World: Dissertation Proposal: An Abstract

This three-essay dissertation explores the intersection of organizational frontline marketing and a high-tech world, utilizing mixed-method approaches. The traditional retail and service environment is swiftly and drastically changing, and this fundamental shift in the retail and service landscape provides marketers with both great challenges and opportunities for great success. Some have attributed this retail apocalypse to the inability of traditional retailers to evolve quickly enough to handle the drastically-changing retail landscape. This fundamental change in retailing has been associated with increasing in-store technology and digital touchpoints which have changed how retailers and service organizations communicate with their customers along their purchase journey. One way retailers can stay competitive in this swiftly-changing environment is the development of their frontline management practices. Using field, manager-provided, experimental, attitudinal, and behavioral data, Essay I explores (1) What effect does providing free food have on FLEs’ customer responsiveness and sales; (2) Through what mechanisms does free food affect key outcome variables; and (3) Are there boundary conditions to the free food effect? Adopting a longitudinal field experimental approach with behavioral data, Essay II examines (1) How frontline technology can influence five dimensions of the consumer experience and retail sales; (2) Through what mechanism does frontline technology affect key outcome variables; (3) How the frontline consumer experience develops longitudinally over time through three developmental variables; and (4) How the consumer experience changes when multiple products are experienced at one touchpoint. Utilizing field, archival, experimental, attitudinal, and behavioral data, Essay III investigates (1) Whether online social media use affects offline blood donations; (2) Through which mechanisms does social media affect blood donations; (3) Whether there are boundary conditions for these effects; and (4) how blood donations can be increased in the field. Across all three essays, implications and discussion are provided for academics, marketing managers, retailers, and service providers.