Antiservice as Guiding Maxim

Abstract

The service literature is replete with theoretical and practical paradigms to improve service quality and advance goals of service providers as well as their customers. Often taken for granted is the assumption that organizations and their actors are interested in the well-being of those they serve as a way to bolster corporate images and engender long-term customer loyalty. While service failures are expected to happen, most successful firms seek to recover from these occurrences to maintain good relationships with their customers. However, is it possible for an organization to operate in a culture of antiservice? To address this question, we conducted an 18-month ethnographic investigation with men incarcerated in a maximum security prison using the participatory action research methodology. Findings discuss various facets and consequences of service failure that quickly become normal functioning in this institution. Descriptive themes and their interpretations follow and reveal that such treatment occurs because the men are viewed as less than fully human noncustomers who require strict control of need fulfillment. They react in a variety of ways that impact their ability to cope with this paucity of services. Recommendations for public service providers are presented along with implications for the larger service field.

Keywords

antiservice service failure service recovery public services

Antiservice Orientation

Below-expectations service experiences have consumed much of the field’s attention, giving rise to concerns about complaining behaviors and possible service recovery (Andreassen 2001). Such occurrences end in what McColl-Kennedy and Sparks (2003, p. 257) refer to as “counterfactual thinking.” This thinking causes negative emotional states in which customers believe behaviors by service providers could have been different that would have led to greater satisfaction. When customers are given opportunities to voice their concerns as part of recovery efforts, the ability to positively impact satisfaction may be enhanced through greater perceived procedural justice (Karande, Magnini, and Tam 2007). Yet, customers come in contact with a variety of possible service providers in searches for exchange relationships, with wide-ranging ideas about their characters and intentions. In some cases, reputations are decidedly negative and made up of “shared, cynical preconceptions of why the employees are behaving the way that they do” (Patterson and Baron 2010, p. 443).

While at least a portion of these deleterious beliefs and attitudes are a consequence of customer “mental baggage” that may or may not be accurate (Patterson and Baron 2010), the remainder is due to conscious antiservice efforts by providers to disrupt delivery to reduce or negate customer satisfaction. There are a host of rationales for why customers select to maintain relationships with organizations that fail to meet their needs, including high perceived switching costs, few acceptable alternatives, and social bonds with providers or employees (see Colgate et al. 2007 for a more complete listing). Regardless of such perceived barriers to change, the greater the negativity of the experience, especially as they accumulate over time, and subsequent rage and other emotions, the more likely the situation is to trigger coping strategies (Surachartkumtonkun, McColl-Kennedy, and Patterson 2015). This cause-and-effect association is even more pronounced if the self-identity of customers is threatened, which may lead to various forms of resistance along with physical hostility (Harris and Reynolds 2003).

Public services typically have fewer or more expensive substitutions when poor treatment manifests. Consider public versus private education, use of toll roads or highways versus back streets, and utilities versus wood stoves, bottled water, and solar energy. Additionally, providers may operate with a different mentality than the open marketplace, supplying services in uniform ways that fail to recognize heterogeneity of needs across customers at least in the United States (Baker and Hill 2013). This strategy is particularly true for public services provided to individuals or groups that are considered outside the mainstream citizenry. For example, Hill (2002) studied service provision to homeless teens living on the streets in Portland Oregon, who aroused much negative attention while selling drugs, prostituting themselves, and panhandling. The various constituencies that came together to develop a model of service delivery expressed a variety of motivations that had little to do with need fulfillment. In fact, early conversations suggested outright disdain by empowered stakeholders rather than commitment to serving their needs.

As a consequence of our limited understanding of perceptions of service quality and delivery characterized by antiservice, or an organizational climate that seeks to reduce or deny satisfaction, we examined a culture of institutional disregard that positions service end users as less than human and deserving less than would normally be offered to “customers.” We show that this perspective of incarcerated men leads to power imbalances that give guards and other prison employees wide prerogatives over how and if service needs are met, with a focus on less rather than more because of their stigmatized status as criminals. Antiservice treatment does not exclude expectations for performance, and we reveal that the men studied continue to engage in counterfactual thinking and compare service quality and delivery inside prison with what they feel ought to be provided based on perceptions of their current circumstances. Thus, while they believe that crimes committed should legitimately require punishment, they fight negative labels placed on them as well as treatment that negates natural rights to basic goods and services such as nutritious foods and health care. They react with a variety of emotions that are best captured by frustration and rage. The depth and breadth of these responses are vast because of threats posed by restrictions on core self-identities, causing development of an illicit prison marketplace that returns some sense of choice and agency.

Methodological Considerations

Maximum security prison at Gramercy (pseudonym) is a lockdown facility that is outside a major U.S. city. It was originally built to contain just over 3,000 men, but it often houses about 4,000. The average age of these incarcerated men is 37 years, with a racial profile of 50% Black, 38% White, 11% Hispanic, and 1% described as “other.” The dominant occupation before arriving there is “unskilled laborer,” average reading level is below U.S. eighth grade (typical age of about 13), and 40% failed to graduate high school or receive a high school graduate equivalency diploma (GED). The men who cocreated this research project are enrolled in a degree-granting program that is provided on-site. The majority of coresearchers received life sentences between their 14th and 19th birthdays, without any chance for reprieve unless original verdicts are overturned or they are granted pardons by the state governor. Demographics of these students and the larger prison population are nearly identical.

Given the nature of incarceration and inmates’ designation as a protected class, institutional review board approval for this study required that each researcher take and apply the dictates provided by San Diego State University’s online training program. These directives include respect for persons, beneficence, and justice, which are demonstrated when individuals give voluntary informed consent, benefits yielded by the investigation outweigh risks, anonymity of information and participation are protected, and persons are fairly selected for study. To this end, the men were allowed to withdraw at any time without penalty, information about study purposes were clearly explained, and issues raised that question research directions were encouraged. More on the intersection of these principles and the methodology are presented next.

Discovery and analysis involved three phases that were determined and implemented by researchers and the men. The need to develop trusting relationships used tenets of ethnography whereby researchers occupy locally appropriate roles (Hill 1991). Principles of participatory action research (PAR) were used to give participants the opportunity to join the research process on their terms and, potentially, seek reform (Ozanne and Saatcioglu 2008). Thus, the nature of the men’s subordinate status in the prison required a period of trust building referred to as Phase 1, while Phase 2 included movement of the power relationship away from the researcher role to that of a facilitator and active contributor to the process. The last phase (Phase 3) saw a change in leadership, where the men used information on service quality and delivery, along with thematic descriptions, to advance collective agendas in formal settings and initiate advocacy for change.

The initial phase continued over a period of about 6 months and was consistent with attendance by the men in an academic class offered by the lead researcher, which included readings on vulnerability and market exchanges. Trust progressed over these months, and the men were excited about examining course work within the milieu of service quality and delivery for the prisoners. After hours of discussion inside and outside the classroom, the men came to believe that the researcher had a sincere interest in capturing their perceptions of how material lives unfolded in this institution, with an emphasis on the variety of services that are essential to healthful lives. As a result, several men gave the researcher poems, readings, short books, and novels they had written that spoke to issues discussed in the course (see Table 1 for an example), and they elaborated on personal experiences with service quality and delivery across the prison system. The men used this period to establish vocabulary for articulation of their service needs, consistent with empowerment dimensions of PAR, to describe how and why services were below reasonable standards.

Table 1.

Coresearcher’s Dream of Incarceration.

Pitch-blackness. In the center, a twinkling dot, growing bigger, or coming closer; flickering wilder now; a flame, yes; a crackling campfire. Glowing ashes rising up, swirling like fire flies, flying higher everywhere into the blackness, becoming countless twinkling stars.

I’m under a starlit sky, sitting Indian-style by a campfire. The silhouettes of endless pine trees surround me.

I hear sounds: crickets, frogs, owls, wind, whispering tree leaves … howling wolves … my heart beat … pounding. And a familiar voice: “[My name], in five words, say something about your situation.”

I spin around, turning my head in every direction, scanning the landscape, buy my view is besieged by monstrous concrete walls and towers all around me. I swivel back around … on my metal desk stool to face the campfire … that is now my desk lamp. The stars are gone; the sounds are that of jingling, not like bells but more like … keys … and footsteps.

“Say something about your sentence to life without parole, in five words.”

“Five words?”

“Yes, five words.”

Jingling keys and footsteps get louder. A full moon appears, unusually and disturbingly bright, blinding me. But hold up; that ain’t no moon …

It streaks away as suddenly as it intruded. The afterglow fades away with the jingling keys and footsteps.

“Your sentence in five words,” the voice persists.

“Okay, that’s easy,” I said. “This … is … not … my … destiny.”

The second phase was introduced along with proposed legislation that would allow such incarcerated men to work on projects for companies outside the prison walls while still contained within the institution, suggesting more PAR opportunities. As a consequence, the researcher and the men explored the possibility of starting an inmate-run research firm from prison that would serve the nonprofit and social enterprise communities in the state that lacked resources to receive consulting services. To develop necessary skills, the men began a data collection effort with the fuller prison population on restricted service quality and delivery that utilized dialogic methods, requiring development of observational, interview, and other action research skills. The goal was to establish a comprehensive understanding of service experiences and failures from perspectives of inmates, with a deeper analysis of the consequences for the incarcerated population. Contextually, the men did not discount crimes or society’s right to seek retribution. Yet, the extent and nature of their punishments as they impact service quality and delivery were subject to continual criticism. This emic perspective permeates their findings.

Training included classic PAR-oriented writings about process (Herr and Anderson 2005) and interaction (Bohm 2004), as the men sought to develop a comprehensive understanding of lived experiences of service consumption among the inmate population. To enhance both written and cognitive skills, the men were also required to keep individual journals that allowed them to organize thoughts, feelings, and impressions as information was gathered and findings emerged. No attempt was made to reduce the sense of subjectivity of their writings, and this method is consonant with service research that seeks to reflect customers’ perceived levels of satisfaction rather than some objective measure of quality (see Burton, Sheather, and Roberts 2003 for a discussion of differences). Criterion for validity of these findings, then, is that they ring true to the men who provided information. To this end, procedures based on the protocol proffered by Herr and Anderson (2005) were discussed and agreed upon by all parties. To collect this second level of data, the 35 men were self-assigned into research teams based on residential blocks and spent several weeks working to come up with questions about service quality and delivery to ask 350 other incarcerated men. Their initial questions are provided in Table 2.

Table 2.

Initial Grand Tour Questions for the Inmate Population.

1. Can you tell me any feelings or thoughts you have about life here at Gramercy?

a. Probe for individual perceptions rather than group perspectives.

2. What freedoms do you enjoy here at Gramercy? What restrictions do you face?

a. Probe to see if freedoms or restrictions dominate their responses.

3. Describe the various things you need to live your life as you would like?

a. Probe for concrete examples of goods and services that are needed or desired.

4. How likely are they (particular goods and services) to be available when you want them?

a. Probe for sources of freedoms or restrictions.

5. Let’s go through each group of items that you mentioned previously one at a time.

a. Probe for education, food service, health care, worship, and commissary.

6. How do you acquire freedoms? Why do restrictions exist?

a. Probe for how both freedoms and restrictions make them feel.

7. How do you act when faced with freedoms? How about when faced with restrictions?

a. Probe for sources of need fulfillment that yield freedom or counter restriction.

8. What is the best way to summarize your ability to satisfy your basic needs at Gramercy?

a. Probe for global statements that capture their tenure at Gramercy.

9. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about meeting your needs here?

a. Probe to make sure that any thoughts about previous questions are given.

Table 3.

Summary of Descriptive Themes.

Theme	Description		Consequence
Negation of humanness	Removal of names and individuating possessions, designation of “inmate” status, dehumanization and commodification		Fear and anxiety associated with expectations of inhumane treatment, frustration caused by reduction in status
Power imbalance and service restriction	Purposeful restricted choice with few and poor options, used as punishment for crimes committed, outcast status eliminates bargaining power and decision making		Resentment and anger toward service providers, suffer from feelings of being disrespected, belief that they are subject to exchange injustice
Antiservice and zone of intolerance performance	Intentional antiservice organizational culture, voices of service users ignored, unpredictable and unreliable service quality and delivery		Negative judgments of and attitudes toward service providers, lack of self-efficacy and control over consumptive lives
Reactions, coping strategies, and use of informal economy
Emotional Consequences		Behavioral Consequences
✓ Perceived quality gaps between service delivery and expectations ✓ Built up anger, resentment, and negative feelings from continual exchange injustice ✓ Desire to fulfill needs neglected by service providers ✓ Sense of excitement and personal accomplishment from usurping the formal system of service delivery		✓ Seeking to have service options that are deemed equitable and consistent with their current situations ✓ Avoidance of formal marketplace that takes advantage of them ✓ Willingness to risk punishment if caught as buyers or sellers in the underground marketplace ✓ Seeking expanded agency and self-efficacy through increased decision making and choices

During the last phase, the researcher transitioned into a consultative role, allowing the men to organize themes and recommendations for service quality and delivery for purposes of advocacy in response to widespread service failure. The result is a series of interrelated themes that portray service consumption as existing in a captive environment that disavows status as human beings and, intentionally or unintentionally, caused the men to suffer negative emotions and other consequences that lead to functional and dysfunctional behaviors (Freire 2000). After the data collection was completed, they turned all materials, approximately 1,500 pages of text, over to the researcher. These materials were read into a voice-recognition software program and condensed so that original information, written in the men’s own hand, could be destroyed and no longer subject to identification. Resulting transcription of over 750 pages was subject to a final thematic analysis, along with 200 hours of in situ observational work by the researcher. The men’s findings were presented to a commissary district manager and a state government official in order to support consciousness raising about service failure and its negative impact.

Voices of the men themselves provide for deeper comprehension of service quality and delivery and are used judiciously in the thematic descriptions that follow. It is inappropriate and a clear violation of their privacy to give identifying characteristics of the men. As an alternative, we provide individual numbers and research positions as the sources of verbatim comments. Thus, men are presented as coresearchers (i.e., written remarks from individuals involved in this research that are contained in reflections in personal journals), and interviewers (i.e., comments by the same men from materials written during or following interviews with individuals on their blocks). The other 350 men are called interviewees (these men are not engaged in the research enterprise but reside at Gramercy and were interviewed for this project). It is through the use of PAR methodology that both the men and research team involved in data collection were able to comprehend, interpret, and summarize findings around topics of service quality, delivery, and failure in the prison system.

Analysis and Interpretation

Themes that ultimately emerged through descriptions by the men and interpretations by the researchers chronicle perceptions of rationales for subjecting them to poor quality services and service failures (Theme 1: Becoming and Being Less than Fully Human), uses of power and perceived power imbalances to maintain control and restrict service quality and delivery (Theme 2: Perceived Power Imbalance and Service Restriction), an antiservice maxim that results in dissatisfaction based on comparisons with a more equitable distribution of services (Theme 3: Antiservice and Performance Expectations), and negative reactions and coping strategies including service provision from the underground or illicit prison economy (Theme 4: Reactions and Coping Strategies). See Figure 1 for a guide to our conceptual development. These themes are presented in the next subsections, emphasizing connections to extant literature, words of the men to deepen understanding of thematic nuances, and interpretations by the researchers.

Figure 1.

Visual representation of conceptual development.

Becoming and Being Less Than Fully Human

The service literature has relatively little to say about why service providers and their representatives actively decide to sabotage service delivery. Ple and Caceres (2010) call such overt or covert behaviors “value co-destruction” that seeks to reduce the well-being of receiving parties or customers. Under certain conditions, service providers seek to match emotions that are presented by customers through a process called “emotional contagion,” most especially negative feeling states like anger (Dallimore, Sparks, and Butcher 2007). Thus, one possible explanation for antiservice is that it is triggered by affective responses that mirror the pathos expressed by incarcerated men. However, an alternative explanation from the men is that service providers view them as entities that they are forced to interact and exchange with who are unworthy and deserving of poor treatment through inadequate service quality and delivery (Skarlicki, Van Jaarsveld, and Walker 2008). If these beliefs are widely shared, as occurred in contexts described by Hill (1991) and Goffman (1963), then antiservice behaviors may be customary and public or occurring regularly and overtly (Harris and Ogbonna 2002).

The verbatim comments below describe in the men’s words how negative personas are acquired at the very beginning of their lengthy stays at Gramercy, denuding them of names and things that mark them as individuals with associated statuses that often are used to suggest more traditional responses by service providers. Other verbatim comments not included here due to space limitations yield specificity to depersonalization processes and show how they manifest from one orienting event to the next consistent with different types of total control institutions (Hirschman and Hill 2000). It is beyond the scope of this research to compare or contrast the extent to which actions reduce “humanness,” but such conduct clearly and negatively impacted these men. Additional remarks give examples of initial experiences with service providers in the prison and how the men are quickly shown that they are in an environment that has little concern for their satisfaction with service quality or delivery.

State correctional institutions across the country are total control institutions where men are denied free will and human dignity. This happens through a systemic process. Men and women are first removed from family and friends. They are further removed from property and possessions. Finally, their only remaining possessions are removed from them—they are stripped of everything including their name, they are given a number. This is a dehumanizing process and a common practice. (Coresearcher #10)

These comments are particularly troubling because they go to the heart of human desire for agency and the right to control one’s life through choice processes that are respected by others. Whether real or an illusion, people view some of their behaviors as freer than others, and they view actions of different people in a similar fashion (Baumeister et al. 2008). Baumeister (2008) suggests that free will exists when more than one option is available. However, despite these limited efforts, the literature is silent on perceptions of extreme restriction as a near complete abrogation of free will and its devastating consequences that go beyond the need for service recovery.

One by one, each man is removed and ran through a series of pit stops—photo room, finger print room, psych evaluation room, shower room, clothing room. Five or six hours later, all are back in the same holding cell, looking and smelling exactly the same. Numbers and prison garb have replaced names and street clothes. An attempt is made on the individualities of men. Almost all will spend the next months, years, even decades rejecting what took place on that first day—the day men become state property. (Interviewer #22)

This dehumanizing process has few other exemplars outside scholarship on environments like the Holocaust (see Klein and Hill 2008 for an example). It begins with a growing realization that the men have forcibly exchanged the depth of original and personal identities for numbers that signify their transition to long-term prison life. This number further propagates the notion to prison personnel and other associated parties that “inmates” are no longer in good standing as members of society, and it simultaneously signals to incarcerated men to drop expectations of humane treatment.

The group of new commitments that I belonged to was then taken to the infirmary for further medical processing; this was my first encounter with medical. I noticed immediately that this was unlike any hospital I ever encountered; the nurses and doctors were all wrong—cold, mechanical, and uncaring. The first question they asked me left me completely frazzled—Where do you want your body sent? All the other questions, such as: Who is your next of kin contact? Any chronic illness? Any mental health issues? Are you on any medications? Are you suicidal? Everything after the shock of the first question became a drone in my ears.… The impressions medical left on me last, and has continued to do so up to this very day, though for many other reasons. (Interviewer #7)

Whether by accident or design, the process of intake finishes with a reminder of their complete movement to nonhuman status and its continuation until their ultimate demise. This “shock” is a first of several emotional reactions that are a consequence of living in a context characterized by Conlon et al. (2004) as high in both level of captivity (the inability to have many or any other options) and level of intensity (involving provision of a significant number of essential services). The close with “for many other reasons” provides a clear reminder that intake is just the beginning of interactions with guards and other prison personnel that seek to reinforce their subjugated status that leaves them as less than human and unworthy of typical service.

The next verbatim comment represents a short but telling remark about how the men perceived underlying motivations for and processes of co-destruction of rendered services to reduce well-being (Ple and Caceres 2010). They spoke about criminal acts and subsequent punishments as cause-and-effect relationships that occurred as a consequence of poor decision making as young persons without ability to navigate complex adult worlds of their communities. Thus, they see a stark difference between lawful imprisonments for bad judgments that resulted in illegal activities and lack of service quality and delivery that continues for decades throughout sentences. The combination of lengthy stays at Gramercy with treatment based on retribution rather than redemption appears to be counter to any sense of personhood and humanity.

The amount of men constantly coming through the doors of medical have left many employees insensitive to the fact that these are people that they are dealing with, and not livestock, which is the impression that has been communicated to many men. (Interviewer #7)

This statement sets the stage for movement from dehumanized to commoditized status and the possibility of holding exploitable value to the institution in ways that supersede normal exchange relationships (Hirschman and Hill 2000). The insensitivity to their medical needs, which was a common complaint across the men, demonstrates more than the usual interpersonal distance between some physicians and patients where the concentration is the disease rather than the person. Such a perspective has dehumanizing effects, but reference to livestock reveals that the men are both less than human and have exploitable value that is not under their charge to barter or refuse to surrender.

Their agenda appears to be punishment, not rehabilitation, not forgiveness. Any time men are served foods that are outlawed for animal consumption, there has to be a problem. (Coresearcher #32)

This final comment is the first full expression of the antiservice culture of the institution as perceived by the men. In many respects, it has similarities with oppositional cultural models presented by Ringberg, Odekerken-Schroder, and Christensen (2007) in their examination of different customer approaches to service failures. When providers do not live up to expectations that are viewed as reasonable, their customers believe that they are being taken advantage of and come to see interactions as opportunities to be exploited by powerful but duplicitous exchange partners. Service provision becomes a true battleground that is a struggle for resources. The only possible resolution from the men’s vantage point is an increase in options across needed and desired services, which is counter to their status as less than human.

Perceived Power Imbalance and Service Restriction

An antiservice mentality can only operate in the long term in an exchange environment typified by power imbalances that seek to restrict choice behaviors in ways that favor providers to the detriment of users (Klein and Hill 2008). Such an organizational outlook is promulgated on the belief that service consumers do not deserve better treatment because they manifest some undesirable qualities that make them unworthy of the ordinary respect often afforded by exchange partners (Skarlicki, Van Jaarsveld, and Walker 2008). In this particular situation, prisoners are deemed outcasts whose lawlessness removes them from the natural right to make decisions in their best interests for services most fundamental to human flourishing (Martin and Hill 2012). Consistent with our earlier discussion, one result of these power differences and subsequent restrictions is counterfactual thinking by service users that lead to beliefs that providers could (and should) have acted differently to meet their needs (McColl-Kennedy and Sparks 2003).

The remarks that follow provide a glimpse into their mind-sets about how restrictions are used without concern for impact on service recipients. These verbatim comments show that the power imbalance is used for punishment that continues a lack of respect for incarcerated men that began at intake. According to Botti et al. (2008), restricted choice has the worst possible effects on recipients when they are continuous, long-term, and involve services essential to thriving. The other remarks not provided here demonstrate how restricted offerings from the commissary and medical personnel fail to consider larger ramifications for the men’s health as well as fragile social support networks that help the men cope with decades in prison. Together, responses reveal how depersonalization permeates treatment by service providers and how it is operationalized as restricted access.

As a result of the stranglehold held over the consumer, power is restricted. Preferred choices are minimized which creates a display of disrespect shown by the Corporate Umbrella of the DOC and the Corporate entities beneath which provide the products. Regardless of the consumers’ feelings or thoughts, they seize complete control, thereby creating a process of unfulfilled needs. (Interviewee #45)

This individual provides an apt designation of perceived abuse of power by organizations that seek to subjugate the men under their charge. A host of telling images is presented that are communicated using words like “stranglehold,” “minimized,” and “disrespect,” which strongly suggest disregard noted earlier that is a defining characteristic of an oppositional culture between service providers and service users (Ringberg, Odekerken-Schroder, and Christensen 2007). This also means that the men see little redemptive value in these restrictions as constructive forms of punishment or opportunities for redemption because of crimes committed earlier. These tactics are overt and powerbrokers “seize” control over the men for the purpose of explicitly denying service requirements.

We don’t have any real options [at the commissary]. They lack variety. For example, there are seven salted chips, but one unsalted. Eight brands of salted crackers, but one unsalted. And prices for the unsalted items are sky-high. Even the nuts they sell are highly salted and the oatmeal highly sugared. The mind, body, and immune system are not properly nourished and strengthened. It’s impossible to grow right on a diet like this. Their Commissary doesn’t aid in your development. (Interviewee #311)

These remarks move concerns from the general to the specific, while maintaining an “us versus them” mentality between the men and their overseers and agents (i.e., commissary). The issue also is larger than merely restricted choice. It includes limited selection from among items that only have negative consequences for their health. This decision context calls to mind forms of marketing exchange injustice by Voorhees and Brady (2005) that question distributive fairness. It is obvious that choosing from a constrained number of commissary items that are forced choices with harmful outcomes is perceived as unjust.

The reason being is that the DOC has outsourced its medical care by regions and institutions (to supposedly save cost). For example, Gramercy is now the cancer treatment center for its [state] region. Anyone in need of treatment for cancer regardless of their institution can be shipped here for treatment. For a man classified across the state, close to home, this is a terrible thing, because you are taking him away from home and family including his visitations. This is wrong for so many reasons, at a time of illness, support is important, the security of being close to home and loved ones is important, reasonable travel for families is important. Many families cannot make the trip across the state to see their loved ones once shipped. As a result, some men even refuse treatment so as not to be shipped, costing them their lives. (Coresearcher #10)

This statement reinforces the theme of power imbalance and service restriction that manifests as few and poor options that neglect humanness of the men. It also goes to the heart of perceptions of justice noted earlier, while simultaneously adding procedural justice that should be inherent to processes as well as outcomes of service provision (Karande, Magnini, and Tam 2007). The situation described comprises life and death consequences that place the men in a proverbial Catch-22. On the one hand, staying put allows them to have access to constrained support of loved ones who face considerable hurdles to maintaining regular contact even under the best of circumstances. On the other hand, leaving to go to a different facility yields greater opportunities to receive health care in order to increase the likelihood of survival.

Of course, counterfactual thinking as delineated by McColl-Kennedy and Sparks (2003) may lead to ideas about how to resolve the problem through service recovery. The premise is that service providers who exhibit extraordinary efforts to correct problems by listening to customers and meeting or going beyond original needs may recoup or exceed previous levels of satisfaction (Karande, Magnini, and Tam 2007). The dehumanizing processes that are described in the last theme are consonant with perceptions of lack of genuine caring for the men by service providers at Gramercy, and they also negate tenants of interactional justice in service encounters such as interpersonal sensitivity, dignified treatment and respect, and the provision of explanations for decisions made on their behalf. The next verbatim comments demonstrate that the men are able to articulate alternatives to current offerings, which occur because of counterfactual thinking. Other remarks reveal the widespread desire to exert their personhood through recovery voices that regain some power and control.

Where are the crock-pots, stingers, electric razors, iPods, DVDs and players, CDs and players, and better food and snacks? Where is the [commissary] book or catalog so we can see what they [potentially have to] offer so we can make choices? Why is the administration blocking this information and service when every prison in the country is getting this stuff but us? (Interviewee #136)

Once again, the theme of power imbalance and service restriction is reinforced by this man, while also revisiting the oppositional cultural model. However, it elucidates for the first time explicit reference to some type of gap analysis that suggests service quality and delivery are below the zone of tolerance. Bordley (2001) articulates that the gap is the difference between what service providers yield versus user expectations. Lack of satisfaction is an outcome that may result in negative emotional states described later.

We need to have a voice in deciding what products we … buy [at commissary] and make sure the price is right and the quality of the merchandise is good. (Interviewee #27)

The need to exert control in the face of such severe restriction is no longer a surprise, and emphasis on recovery voices is consonant with the service literature review as presented earlier (e.g., Karande, Magnini, and Tam 2007). The theme makes evident lack of voice that permeates a wide range of service offerings. This person’s desire to enhance self-efficacy is a potential path to cocreation of service quality and delivery (McKee, Simmers, and Licata 2006). Yet, the men appear to have little or no bargaining power as a result of their criminal behavior and subsequent incarceration.

Antiservice and Performance Expectations

If satisfaction and perceived performance are highly correlated, as argued earlier and in the service literature (see Burton, Sheather, and Roberts 2003), it begs the question about the frame of reference used in the comparison between service quality that is delivered and level of service quality that should have been delivered. Bordley (2001) provides an array of possibilities that considers equitable, ideal, or expected service performance by customers. Among the men, service provision consonant with previous lives outside the institution quickly becomes unlikely, as would ideal performance that is rarely achieved even under the best of circumstances. Thus, their negativity about service quality and delivery is based on comparing and contrasting what they received versus what they believe people in their situations should receive. This judgment harkens back to our discussion of Voorhees and Brady (2005, p. 194), who define distributive justice as “degree to which consumers feel that they have been treated fairly with respect to the outcome of the service encounter.” It also calls to mind the research of Martin and Hill (2012), who coined the term “consumption adequacy” to signify the baseline of goods and services that consumers need to survive and thrive within their material environments.

The next verbatim remarks clarify how antiservice is determined by lack of performance that ought to be delivered. Research validates the proposition that service within and above the zone of tolerance is established through strategies and embedded structures that ensure consistent and reliable quality and delivery (Harris and Ogbonna 2002). The following comments reveal how processes used by commissary fail this test and are perceived to be inadequate, disallowing the ability to predict important ingredients to exchanges such as price and time of delivery.

He was less then pleased with the generic quality of [commissary] products and felt that the ordering process was cumbersome. When asked to elaborate, he pointed to the fact that whenever your order is shipped without an item or items included, one must wait 10 days before missing items can be reordered and delivered.… Another cause for aggravation was the changing of order numbers and prices without adequate notice. In either case, the result was a delay in delivery for those who either didn’t get the word or were spending on a tight budget. (Interviewer #18)

These remarks clarify that the antiservice culture of the institution is expressed not only in poor selection provided by the commissary but also in processes of interaction and delivery. Such issues are noted in other public service provision contexts, especially if recipients are from socially disapproved populations (Hill 2002). In these cases, the voices of service users are not only ignored but actively repressed as an essential part of the antiservice oppositional culture. Under normal circumstances, customers should expect that service providers will ask about and listen to their concerns so as to maintain long-term relationships (Karande, Magnini, and Tam 2007). In fact, procedural justice demands that recovery voices be heard.

The laziness of some teachers is a contributing factor on why there is a low rate of GED graduates. The GED program had 300 or more students, but only 30 or so pass the test every year. Most students leave the education program when they get 300 hours, which is the minimum number of hours requirement needed in order to dropout without a penalty. (Coresearcher #1)

While these comments seem on the surface as if they are an exaggeration or the numbers are outside the purview of the men, lengthy conversations with senior administrators reveal the great difficulties they were experiencing with the educational unit and its lack of achievement by any standard. Interestingly, the idea of a 10% success rate is described as a failure by this man without reference to any particular benchmark. Apathy of the service providers is the rationale for this man’s negative judgment and denies the possibility of a meaningful service experience. The problem may be some reverse emotional contagion as discussed earlier (Dallimore, Sparks, and Butcher 2007), whereby disregard exuded by teachers impacts levels of effort by the men who approach education classes with the same or similar negative affect.

Call for either a wheelchair or gurney/stretcher. The time for their arrival varies, depending on the individuals on call, whether they are competent or not, the same can be said for the guards’ assistance. It also varies whether or not you will be charged $25.00 for the wheelchair service. For a chronic ailment or assault, you may or may not be charged; it’s discretionary. If you request a wheelchair because you are too weak to walk, or too sick, you may … be charged. (Co-researcher #10)

These observations have moved from important to essential services, and any lack of concern has grave consequences. These remarks include a nuance to our understanding of antiservice cultures that is uncertainty. Harris and Ogbonna (2002) suggest that successful service quality and delivery require reliability across a number of dimensions. Thus, antiservice evidences a lack of reliability that leaves customers or service users without the ability to predict either positive or negative outcomes. Unquestionably, this condition has the men sorely lacking self-efficacy that often comes from predictable consequences of service providers’ actions as well as eliminating the possibility of cocreation of service offerings (Ple and Caceres 2010).

The next remarks in this theme describe the very public nature of service consumption and how failure to understand the men’s backgrounds and their basic desires leads to avoidable problems. Once again, McColl-Kennedy and Sparks (2003) clearly indicate such lack of insight leads to harsh judgments of service providers who should have known better and/or behaved differently. Additionally, when one’s identity is at risk, which occurs in such communal settings where individuals are easily observed and judged to be below par, service failure can be seen as even more detrimental (Harris and Reynolds 2003). Such is the case with the following remarks, which chronicle how a lack of educational achievement and subcultural coping styles worsen learning outcomes when service failure is the likely result.

Most men and women come from a distinctive culture where they must maintain respect with their peers.… It is hard for many to admit that he or she has to go to a pre-GED class because they cannot read. Others feel they will be stigmatized for being too intellectual if they are seen by their peers reading books or attending college classes. So they resist enrolling in school out of fear of being labeled as “acting white.” (Co-researcher #1)

This statement reveals belief in subcultural differences between the men and prison personnel who provide services such as education. Once again, the men are in a Catch-22 and cannot admit a lack of literacy or show a sincere interest in schooling. Their social selves are aligned with peers, many of whom come from their former communities and represent similar values of the streets where certain personas are considered acceptable. Removal of possessions and other dehumanizing and commoditizing processes and procedures breakdown most previous identity structures, but they fail to replace them with acceptable alternatives. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the men cling to past ways of posturing in front of others to regain previous statures or retaliate against service provision that jeopardizes self-identities (Harris and Reynolds 2003).

As a human being, I need ample space to move around and be able to arrange my personal property. It really demeans me not to have enough room to move around without bumping into someone or something. Sometimes, I feel like a caged animal. I believe the problem with limited space is used as a control mechanism to demonstrate constantly, they (the administration) are in control. Not only do I have to wash, clean, eat, sleep, pray, study, and defecate, all in the space the size of a small closet … I have to share that space with another person. (Interviewee #95)

This theme closes with a poignant example of antiservice and failure to meet reasonable service delivery standards from perspectives of the men. His remarks yield a benchmark for comparison between what one needs and what one gets at Gramercy. The desire for “ample space” is contrasted sharply with “the size of a small closet,” leaving him feeling like a “caged animal” who must share this inadequate space with another person. We harken back to research of Bordley (2001) and Voorhees and Brady (2005) around forms of exchange justice in service contexts, and we find that these perceptions show the nature of comparison is much below ordinary benchmarks like equitable, ideal, or expected service delivery.

Reactions and Coping Strategies

When service quality and delivery are below the zone of tolerance, dissatisfaction occurs that may result in a variety of negative emotional reactions (Estelami and De Maeyer 2002). Predicted outcomes, unless serious attempts and resulting successes occur for service recovery, are that customers will be frustrated and seek what they believe to be more capable alternatives. In traditional competitive market contexts, customers may be willing to change service providers if encounters are significantly deficient (Strizhakova, Tsarenko, and Ruth 2012). However, in the case of total control institutions, recipients of services have little or no power to move from one exchange partner to another without support from administrators who lack incentives to support such alternatives. As a result, they seek novel paths that usurp the formal system such as coping mechanisms used by other captives who took service quality and delivery into their hands (Klein and Hill 2008).

The next comments explain the men’s reactions and give an indication as to why they sought alternative service delivery. It reveals how the inside-outside comparison intersects with equitable performance expectations that typically come up short among the men. The prisoner interviewee explains that life prior to incarceration sets the stage for learning about what the material world has to offer that the prison system seems to ignore, which plays out as a moral failure.

We are incarcerated people that were once part of the outside society. We still have the same needs. Because we are incarcerated, markets shouldn’t remove their good moral judgment when it comes to our needs for [good service]. (Interviewee #199)

The connection to “outside society” and their former status and concomitant ability to access markets operate as a template for understanding how needs can be met. Additionally, the reference to “good moral judgment” is a clear indication of service failure that is based less on competence and more on intentions. In these circumstances, the men believe that Gramercy employees consciously engage in value co-destruction that reduces their well-being through poor service quality and delivery. Ple and Caceres (2010) suggest that these behaviors are driven by value imbalances, which in this institution manifest as differences in perspectives on humanness of the men.

The original rules show a $2.00 fee for sick call (medical/dental); it has since gone up to $5.00. The quality of care has not improved, the medications are still generic. This increase is just for the visit; it costs an additional $5.00 for each medication, type of injury, or circumstance. It has become a bit overwhelming and a point of contention on more than one occasion, due to the limited income inmates earn. The most hours an inmate can work on average is 6 hours. They [earn] anywhere from 19 to 42 cents an hour … The income we earn has not increased in decades, though costs all around us have. Poor care for profit and the little income prisoners have caused resentment. (Coresearcher #7)

Reactions to issues of exchange justice are given specific context that simultaneously calls into question their commoditization as workers. The men regularly complain about low wages for imposed labor that they firmly believe enhance coiffures of the prison while yielding pay that has not changed since the 1980s. This treatment adds to contentions of distributive injustice because costs associated with even inadequate services continue to rise without acknowledgment of their ability to buy. Thus, from an exchange perspective, they pay more of scarce dollars for items and services that are deemed unsatisfactory even at lower costs.

To fulfill one’s needs in this place, one must learn to master the heavy, insane changes that come with the process of being oppressed. The journey often seems an endless maze of huge barriers and deadly traps. Different people fulfill their needs differently. Me, if I can’t get what I need the legal way, I go underground and get it, that’s how I fulfill my needs. (Interviewee #275)

This verbatim is the first mention of the alternative marketplace for goods and services that emanates from the illicit prison economy. The rise of such markets has been documented elsewhere in the literature, emphasizing gruesome conditions of Nazi concentration camps that held millions of captives in places like Buchenwald and Dachau (Hirschman and Hill 2000; Klein and Hill 2008). We make no attempt to compare across institutions or seek parallels between these men and purely innocent victims. However, there are some commonalities of note, namely, willingness to risk harsh punishments if caught, desire to seek fulfillment of individual needs neglected by those who supply services, search for agency through expanded choice sets, and some excitement from successfully usurping the formal system of service delivery. Taken together, these directives and motivations lead to the rise of a thriving informal exchange economy.

The last set of remarks further describes the rationale for and reactions to service failure in Gramercy. As presented in earlier themes, the men consider gaps between service quality and delivery in the prison compared to equitable performance expectations (Bordley 2001), leading to growing reliance on the illicit, inmate-run economy. As the comments suggest, part of their decision calculus is based on the dearth of value in exchanges with the formal prison system caused by poor quality and high prices that lead to frustration and a resulting desire to avoid participating in markets that take advantage of the men.

I buy cosmetics, cigarettes, and greeting cards twice a month. If I can’t get what I want, I go to the [jailhouse] merchants. Most of the time, I get a better deal from them anyway. They [commissary] sell the same old cards and you never know what you will get by picking a number [to wait for service]; where is the catalog [of products] so you can see them? The cosmetics and tobacco are sky high—they need to bring the prices down. We only make pennies and they find a way to take them back plus more. That’s why the dudes hustling on the block [selling goods and services] can get my money—I’m fed up. (Interviewee #136)

What occurs here is a comparison of one exchange system versus another, with the illicit marketplace coming up as the better service alternative. This man summarizes several issues that were raised previously about the formal prison exchange system such as poor selection, high prices relative to perceived quality, uncertainty regarding availability and delivery, and treatment that suggests duplicitous provider motives. The result is negative emotional reactions that left this man “fed up,” and as Strizhakova, Tsarenko, and Ruth (2012, p. 415) contend, “angry and [with] vengeful thoughts, feelings, and behavioral intentions.”

Buyers and sellers; just as the system goes in society, so does the [underground] system in prison. The external workings of the exchange system never changes. Prisoners are owners, manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, wholesalers, and buyers, each competing against the Department of Correction commissary system. To even compete is to become a part of the under [ground] exchange system. (Coresearcher #12)

These final comments demonstrate one last time the “us versus them” mentality that permeates the men’s perspective of service quality and delivery at Gramercy. However, this man reveals the parallel exchange system as fully functioning, with the primary distinction that one is operated by the Department of Corrections (DOC) and the other under the aegis of the men. While an increase in self-efficacy and agency remain important, removal from the DOC system seems to be equally essential. This separation may be informed by service sabotage research from Harris and Ogbonna (2002), who suggest that the opposite is reliable service delivery that has at its core deep and abiding value of customers.

Discussion and Implications

How widespread antiservice is across service providers and how deeply it penetrates within particular firms is mostly unknown. Harris and Ogbonna (2002) found that 90% of their organizational informants believed that service sabotage was an everyday event. Thus, any form of remediation that follows is an unnecessary consequence of improper employee performance. This organizational climate begs the question: Is it possible for service providers to be perceived as going to the service sabotage extreme and using antiservice beliefs and actions to guide their service delivery strategies? If so, what is the result? To this end, we addressed these research questions with an ethnographic investigation of service provision and delivery across major categories of services that are provided to men confined to a restricted prison environment. Several implications for service research emerged, and they are provided next.

The few service investigations that have looked at the “dark side” of service delivery have had little to say about why antiservice or sabotage happens. We considered emotional contagion that seems reasonable on the surface, but this explanation was dismissed because the evidence strongly suggests that treatment of the men by Gramercy personnel was driven by the ethic of a total control institution and its oppositional culture. When these forces combine, they dehumanize the men in ways that eliminate previous stature that might lead them to be treated as customers. Instead, they are deemed unworthy of quality services offered outside the prison. Of course, no one would seek such treatment, but they have little choice because of their captive situation and resulting power imbalance in favor of prison employees. This causes counterfactual thinking that culminates in an “us versus them” mentality that fails to reduce recidivism.

While Vargo and Lusch (2004, p. 10) note in their treatise on service dominant logic that “all economies are service economies” and “the customer is always a co-producer,” these tenets are violated in this context as co-destruction replaces cocreation. The antiservice oppositional culture leads to judgments by the men that services are substantially below the zone of tolerance, articulated in the service literature as the difference between performance expectations and performance delivered. The benchmark used by the men is far from conceptions of ideal or even expected services outside the institution when they were in more typical customer roles, and it is instead based on beliefs in equitable treatment under circumstances in which they currently exist. Consequences include negative affective states that place the blame on service providers for an absence of concern for the well-being of the men under their charge. They experience a lack of certainty and self-efficacy about important services that impact essential aspects of their lives, which concludes in a dearth of agency and the search for alternative providers. Many turn to the men themselves, who operate a parallel, illicit market that is more responsive to their needs and also allows them to reject sources of dehumanization.

The use of ethnographic methodology in a PAR framework also has implications for service scholars since it allows for several positive outcomes that may be useful for uncovering relevant information that informs developing theory. For example, this combination was conducive to establishment of intimate and trusting relationships between the men and the lead researcher, which fostered open dialogues about complex and deeply rooted beliefs and allied behaviors. This accomplishment is no small task given the men must endure random searches and lockdowns along with arbitrary punishments for what are perceived to be minor infractions. Therefore, they tend to avoid sharing information unless they have complete confidence in the other party. Further, this methodological blend is based on lived experiences of one party to exchange relationships, avoiding false compromises between reliability of objective data and depth of subjective data. Instead, it seeks to comprehend viewpoints of a constituency and the impacts of service quality and delivery on their well-being so that their experiential lenses dominate perceptions rather than including perspectives of multiple parties.

Another benefit is the ability to give back to individuals who support our research efforts. Scholars are or should be thankful that “informants,” “subjects,” or “consumers” provide access to information that eventually is molded into published articles. For those researchers who work with vulnerable populations such as the men at Gramercy, their desire to help in some way might be particularly high. In our specific case, important outcomes included learning a new language that supported articulation of service quality and delivery concerns, developing and extending models of service delivery by sharing with and informing other incarcerated men, presenting findings to power brokers who changed preconceived notions of the character and abilities of the men, and joining as a community to the list of authors on papers that are given at conferences or published as articles. Such opportunities were viewed as empowering as well as developmental in their continuous quest for better living conditions or eventual clemency and a return to society.

Implications for Public Services

While discussions of public service quality and delivery are modest compared to private services within the literature, there is even less available in the antiservice arena (Harris and Ogbonna 2002). However, some excellent research suggests that many of the principles we use to investigate (Berry and Bendapudi 2007) and evaluate (Zeithaml et al. 2006) services should be applied in public settings. They also provide little distinction between the term “customers” as used in private contexts compared to public settings. While readers may select to differentiate among service recipients by their value to society, any such differences are beyond the scope of this project. Instead, our goal was to consider consequences of this mentality on how certain public services are received by users who are marginalized and deemed less than worthy for a variety of individual, cultural, or structural reasons.

We return to our findings to discuss larger implications for public service quality and delivery. Consider repercussions of viewing these service recipients as a negatively defined “other” instead of customers. While Hill and Martin (2014) suggest that the latter moniker has its drawbacks since it negates additional features that make them truly human, at least it has the connotation of meeting needs and desires as articulated by them. Hill and Gaines (2007) note several subpopulations that also rely on public services such as welfare recipients, homeless individuals and families, and rural health care consumers. In each of these cases, they share the unflattering distinction of not covering the full costs of service(s) provided as well as shouldering negative societal labels. Similar programs that yield health services are called Medicare versus Medicaid to distinguish one group of worthy recipients from another less worthy group. Similarities also exist for food stamps recipients, revealing their lower status.

Suspending judgment of these subgroups and looking at them through lenses of service quality and delivery may require rehumanizing such individuals, at least in the context of basic need fulfillment. Hill (2002) reveals the mixture of opinions of various constituencies to the committee that developed the service plan for homeless teenagers. Several members began the process with decidedly negative opinions of these youths and were adamant that compliance with certain rules of conduct would be mandatory. In response to this perspective, the governmental leadership invited some impacted teens to join the committee at an initial sequence of meetings designed to be informational sessions. By the end of these encounters, even the most recalcitrant committee members softened and refocused attention away from punishment by withholding services to helping children with untenable living conditions leave the streets.

Obviously, some or all of the subpopulations noted are subject to restrictions that are, in theory, designed to safeguard members of the larger human community. For example, the men at Gramercy (and the homeless teenagers) have committed crimes that caused action by the justice system. Their adjudication ended in punishments that are based on restrictions. Nonetheless, the concept of consumption adequacy mentioned earlier suggests that a subset of goods and services available more broadly within a particular culture should be offered to every person because of their membership among humanity (Martin and Hill 2012). Further, even if the primary goal of society is to penalize people outside the mainstream for their deviance, emotional reactions and coping behaviors recorded here show that the men substitute frustration and anger for remorse and avoid many restrictions through patronizing an illicit marketplace, reducing profitability of legitimate service providers such as the commissary and contracted health care workers.

Thus, we are left with service delivery systems built on prerogatives of nonusers who reduce well-being of recipients. This antiservice culture has a potentially devastating effect that may or may not be consistent with underlying goals of behavioral change. Alternative solutions that may be in the best interest of all concerned parties that do not infringe on the rights of users such as those noted here include allowing greater decision-making power and encouraging more competition. In the first instance, public officials could evolve dominant approaches from that of restriction-as-punishment to restriction-as-necessary. This change means that any limitations to service quality and delivery would only occur in contexts where rights of others are infringed upon by such freedoms. The second instance requires increase in competition between current and possible service providers. As a result, there must be a joint process in selection of service providers that allows public officials and private recipients to have their different voices heard.

General Service Remarks

Service researchers may find this investigation interesting but also wonder about its applicability to the larger field. Figure 2 provides a look across three contexts, namely, total control institutions, dependent public services, and depersonalized private services. In this figure, we present several similarities that exist across environments from prisons to more typical service contexts. For example, consider types of firms that may have some characteristics associated with depersonalized treatment presented in this third category, namely, U.S. airlines, gasoline stations, and banks. Scholarship has shown that airlines are perceived to offer less procedural justice and provide lower levels of satisfaction compared to service providers such as hotels (Karande, Magnini, and Tam 2007). This may be due in part to change from a focus on service quality to price that occurred after industry deregulation in the 1980s, followed by the 9/11 attacks which repositioned travelers from customers to potential terrorists. The former issue also significantly impacted other industries noted.

Figure 2.

Service quality and delivery in antiservice contexts.

While there are examples of extraordinary service in each of these industries (see Edvardsson, Enquist, and Johnson 2005 for airlines), a combination of technology, price competition, and lower intimate contact with customers has led to a perceived distance between service providers and users. As a consequence, some depersonalization, which is a predecessor to dehumanization and commodification (e.g., Hirschman and Hill 2000), may occur that reduces interest in overall customer satisfaction. Anecdotally, one needs to only consider radical differences between “service with a smile” in the 1960s from gas station attendants to the Plexiglas barriers for payments that are widely used in many parts of the United States today. Such treatment may result in counterfactual thinking and anger and frustration among consumers who remember previous service delivery options or have experienced better treatment in similar contexts elsewhere.

These outcomes suggest below zone of tolerance levels of satisfaction and the possible search for alternative providers after other forms of retaliation occur (see Harris and Reynolds 2003). Of course, this strategy requires that acceptable replacements are available or that any existing restrictions are of a short-term nature (Botti et al. 2008). If this situation does not exist, then service recipients have little choice but to exchange with current providers given they may want at least some portion of their needs met and seek to use their recovery voices during future transactions to improve satisfaction. Yet, as the public education versus charter school example makes clear, the long term may lead to other options that are not presently available, leaving firms with poor images without customer loyalty or continued sales (Jha et al. 2013). Regardless, strategies that have antiservice as a central component to exchange relationships risk the loss of customers.

Without question, researchers recommend that service providers, even within the public arena, use common principles to maintain high-quality services and delivery (Price and Brodie 2001). These dictates include commitment by senior management to change the organizational culture and dynamic away from customer as other or exploitable object to cocreator of service offerings that enhance self-efficacy (McKee, Simmers, and Licata 2006). Additionally, mission, vision, values, and goals must be in alignment along with organization structure, accompanying systems, and rewards. Gap analyses should be performed that allow for multiple constituencies to be heard, especially when facing service delivery with societal concerns and consequences. However, the importance of many services to human existence and well-being should be the overriding factor that ensures service recipients are treated with dignity unless other relevant parties are disadvantaged or placed in unnecessary danger. Giving anything less is a failure to meet our larger responsibilities as service providers.

One possibility for future research on general service quality and delivery is to examine the extent to which consumers are dehumanized or commoditized by providers. The question as to whether consumers are treated without regard to their humanness has been discussed recently (Hill and Martin 2014), and the concerns expressed involve everything from business goals (e.g., consumer lifetime value vs. individual life satisfaction) to language (e.g., targets, informants, and exploitation) to selective use of demographics (e.g., sex, gender, and race) for the purpose of selling to rather than serving humankind. What may result are strategies and tactics that are suboptimal in the long run as individuals, communities, and even governments look to well-being as the benchmark for success and advancement. While dehumanization and commoditization do not often manifest in the same ways they do in prisons, service scholars and practitioners must be mindful of interacting with and meeting the needs of consumers in such a one-sided fashion.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The financial support of the Naclerio family is warmly appreciated, as are the helpful comments of Valarie Zeithaml, the Editor, and the Review Team.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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