Service firms need to handle customer-induced uncertainty during service production. The literature argues for several mechanisms that organizations utilize to handle customer-induced uncertainty in service production. Specifically, the literature argues that involving customers as coproducers, or quasi-employees, in the production system could decrease such uncertainty. This reduction in turn decreases the need for a complex production system and high levels of human capital. Moreover, research suggests service production complexity and human capital to be interchangeable mechanisms in handling customer-induced uncertainty. In contrast to these past findings, we argue that such relationships might not hold in service firms exhibiting high captivity; firms where the customer has difficulty exiting the system once service delivery begins. Our empirical analysis provides support to our arguments leading us to identify an important boundary condition to existing theory regarding service production mechanisms.

服务公司需要在服务生产期间处理客户引起的不确定性。文献提出了组织用来处理客户引起的服务生产不确定性的几种机制。具体而言，文献认为，将客户作为联合生产者或准员工参与生产系统可以减少这种不确定性。这种减少反过来减少了对复杂的生产系统和高水平人力资本的需求。此外，研究表明，服务生产的复杂性和人力资本是处理客户引起的不确定性的可互换机制。与这些过去的发现相反，我们认为这种关系可能在具有高圈养率的服务公司中不成立。服务交付开始后，客户很难退出系统的公司。