Method for analyzing sequential services using EEG: Micro-meso analysis of emotional changes in real flight service.

Capturing customers' emotional changes in sequential service should be realized using physiological measurements to assess customer delight. Questionnaire-based customer surveys may miss significant and dissipating emotional responses. This study developed a micro­meso analysis method of capturing emotional changes for sequential service using electroencephalograph (EEG) measurement, dealing with both service encounters (micro-level) and servicescape (meso­level) over a couple of hours. Customers' emotion states were defined based on emotional arousal and valence. Emotional responses caused by human interactions were evaluated, and periods of high positive affect throughout the customer journey were visualized. Experiments in actual flight services demonstrated successful emotion estimation across flight phases using a single-channel EEG measurement over two hours. Analysis results on the measurement data revealed emotional peaks outside service encounters that are not captured in customers' individual self-reports. The results also statistically revealed that two individual services (asking about a refill and conversations started by flight attendants) evoked high positive affect. Temporal dynamic analyses around high positive affect suggested patterns of interplay between joy and surprise, which are key components of customer delight. Compared with questionnaire-based evaluation, the proposed method contributes significantly to empirical studies on sequential services in marketing and design by enabling the extraction of "high positive affect," which needs to be identified for customer delight. This study supplements existing research on the interactions among physiology (EEG), behavior (emotional changes), and customer service research.

Human Augmentation Technologies for Employee Well-Being: A Research and Development Agenda.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the style of work. In adapting to the changing work environment, human augmentation technologies (HAT) can provide employees with new options to support their work. However, the agenda for research and development of HAT for the new normal is still unclear. In this study, we set two research questions: (i) what type of technology demand has emerged among employees due to the COVID-19 pandemic; and (ii) what is the nature of job satisfaction experienced by employees during the COVID-19 pandemic? This study aims to clarify the technology demand and job satisfaction of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed data from in-depth interviews with employees based on a grounded theory approach to answer the research questions and proposed an agenda for the research and development of HAT to enhance employees' well-being in this new normal based on the crosspoint of technology demand and job satisfaction. The theoretical contribution of this study is the development of models of technology demand and job satisfaction of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. The practical contribution is the development of a crosspoint framework to enable the development of HAT to support work while considering their impact on employees' well-being.

How Does a Family Caregiver's Sense of Role Loss Impact the Caregiving Experience?

Family caregivers reportedly have a powerful sense of role loss, which is felt when one senses a change in role or responsibility, relationship distancing, or a changed asymmetry. Little is known about the impact it has on the caregiving experience, so the purpose of this study was to clarify this in three distinct settings: when an individual's primary role changed to the caregiver role after the start of caregiving; when their primary role was other than the caregiver role after this start; and when their primary role was the caregiver role before caregiving started. Sixty-six individuals responded to an online survey, and a framework method was employed to organize the collected data and uncover themes for analysis. Our findings shed light on the sense of caregiver role loss and pointed to the possibility of generating it when family caregivers rotate through held roles and the use of it as a tool to maintain or regain a sense of personal choice in life and self-priority. Our study is probably the first to analyze this phenomenon in different caregiving settings based on an individual's primary role and role transitions and brings to light a new perspective of the phenomenon by understanding how it arises, its nuances, and its impact on the caregiver's experience.