Variability in health care services: The role of service employee flexibility

Abstract

Researchers in services marketing in general, and health services in particular, are increasingly recognising the need for strategies to manage customer variability in the service encounter. The focus of theory and practice to date has been on managing or reducing variability through means such as customer education and tightly controlled service protocols. Growing recognition of the value of co-creation in health care raises the prospect of providers embracing rather than reducing the variability in the service encounter. In this study we investigate how flexibility on the part of service employees can help manage customer variability, and whether this employee flexibility results in favour..