See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/353829606

'Employees First': The Relationship between Employee Experience Management

Systems and Customer Experience Management

Conference Paper · August 2021

CITATIONS READS

0 1,230

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Employee Experience in the Age of A.I. View project

Employee Innovation and Social Technologies View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Kaveh Abhari on 11 August 2021.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Association for Information Systems
AIS Electronic Library (AISeL)

Strategic and Competitive Uses of Information

AMCIS 2021 Proceedings & Digital Technologies (SCUIDT)

Aug 9th, 12:00 AM

‘Employees First’: The Relationship between Employee Experience

Management Systems and Customer Experience Management
Kaveh Abhari
San Diego State University, kabhari@sdsu.edu

Jennifer Ly
San Diego State University, jly2815@sdsu.edu

Arsham Sanavi
San Diego State University, arshamsanavi@gmail.com

Marina Wright
San Diego State University, mkwright@sdsu.edu

Follow this and additional works at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2021

Abhari, Kaveh; Ly, Jennifer; Sanavi, Arsham; and Wright, Marina, "‘Employees First’: The Relationship
between Employee Experience Management Systems and Customer Experience Management" (2021).
AMCIS 2021 Proceedings. 18.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2021/strategic_is/strategic_is/18

This material is brought to you by the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) at AIS Electronic
Library (AISeL). It has been accepted for inclusion in AMCIS 2021 Proceedings by an authorized administrator of
AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contact elibrary@aisnet.org.
 ‘Employee First’: The Relationship between EEM and CEM

‘Employees First’: The Relationship between

Employee Experience Management Systems
and Customer Experience Management
Completed Research

Kaveh Abhari Arsham Sanavi

San Diego State University San Diego State University
kabhari@sdsu.edu asanavi@sdsu.edu
Jennifer Ly Marina Wright
San Diego State University San Diego State University
jly2815@sdsu.edu mkwright@sdsu.edu
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to understand the importance of Employee Experience Management Systems
(EEM) in supporting Customer Experience Management initiatives (CEM). CEM can be characterized as
the data-driven process of designing customer experiences or experience co-creation opportunities to create
enduring customer value. Following the same logic, EEM is a data-driven solution directed to offer
employees positive, meaningful and engaging work experiences. This study examined the role of EEM in
supporting CEM and ultimately on Customer Equity. The results revealed the direct effect of EEM on CEM
and its indirect effect on Customer Equity through CEM. In particular, the study proposes three EEM
system affordances that can support CEM and drive Customer Equity: identifying employees’ experiential
needs for job-crafting, engaging employees in innovation and including employees in customer experience
design. The proposed model is validated in the context of the hotel industry with implications for the service
industry in general.

Keywords

Employee Experience, Employee Engagement, Customer Experience, Employee experience management.

Introduction
Customer experience is broadly defined as a customer’s impression of a brand, service, or product they
purchased. This includes what the customer felt, learned, and could recall from their interactions, or
involvement, with a service or product and its overall environment. Customer Experience Management
(CEM) can be described as the data-driven process of managing customers’ experiences in an integrated
fashion to improve their enduring value. Previous research demonstrated the positive influence of CEM on
business outcomes such as customer attitude, satisfaction, retention, and fervent advocacy (Fatma 2014;
Grønholdt et al. 2015). CEM is often considered as a strategic and technology-enabled and information-
intensive solution that can potentially addresses traditional marketing challenges such as low customer
lifetime values, high switching rates, and a lack of emotional bond (Verhoef et al. 2009; Walden 2017).
Therefore, in this study, CEM is regarded not only as an information system but also as a set of technology-
supported organizational competencies. Despite its broad scope, we contextualize CEM in the context of
the service sector with a focus on the hotel industry where CEM adaption is expanding (Kandampully,
Zhang, and Jaakkola 2018; Line and Runyan 2012; Yoon and Lee 2017). In this context, CEM initiatives
and technologies aim to support customers in co-creating their own desirable experiences through a set of
experiential values (Forlani, Buratti, and Pencarelli 2018; Jaziri 2019). This is based on the idea that
designing, monitoring, and evaluating experience co-creation processes is a critical organizational
competency, which can potentially enhance business outcomes in the service industry (Brakus, Schmitt,
and Zarantonello 2009; Kranzbühler et al. 2017).

Twenty-Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, 2021 1

 ‘Employee First’: The Relationship between EEM and CEM

Information systems such as customer and employee engagement platforms serve critical roles in
supporting CEM by assisting and empowering frontline employees (Gelb et al. 2020; Hoyer et al. 2020;
Talón-Ballestero et al. 2018). They provide various methods that enable businesses to understand their
customer base and react to their needs at the right time and setting. Among different information systems
that support CEM implementation, this study is centered around the key role of employees and employee
support systems. This obvious, yet often overlooked antecedent of CEM, is critical to the success of CEM as
employees are the most valuable asset in any organization (Brito 2018; Kodithuwakku, Jusoh, and Chinna
2018; Tims, Bakker, and Derks 2012). CEM heavily depends on how employees are engaged and supported
in customer experience design. Despite recent developments, the role of employee related information
systems left relatively unnoticed. As a result, CEM literature falls short of offering the full picture of
employee related systems (Janhofer et al. 2020). Hence, this study is an attempt to narrow this gap by
focusing on the role of Employee Experience Management (EEM) systems in supporting CEM initiatives
and harvesting the values of CEM technologies. In this context, employee experience refers to perception
of experiential values offered by work environment (Abhari et al. 2021). These experiential values are
mainly created when an employee attains meaningful goals, contributes to innovation, and interacts with
customers—respectively as proxies for competence, autonomy and relatedness (cf. Deci, Olafsen, and Ryan
2017). Accordingly, we defined employee experience management (EEM) as a data-driven process that
allows organizations to provide engaging job experiences for their employees that satisfies these three inner
psychological needs. EEM as a system is a group of technologies and processes that are responsible for
tracking, designing and managing employees and therefore provide organizations the ability to launch,
deliver, and enhance their employees’ experiences. In this study, we focus on three main affordances
provided by these systems: job-crafting, participatory innovation and customer connection as previous
studies confirmed their role in creating meaningful employee experiences (e.g. Jurburg et al. 2019; Lemon
2019; Naqshbandi, Tabche, and Choudhary 2019; Tims et al. 2012). This study is an attempt to show that
EEM, even if limited to these three functions, can support the successful implementation of CEM and
ultimately enhance customer equity.

Background
The word, ‘experience’, refers to the dynamic acquisition of knowledge and feelings during everyday life
(Dewey 1958). Each emotional, physical, intellectual, or spiritual engagement pertains to our experiences
(Dewey 1986). Thus, this study defines experience as an acquisition of perceptual memory by an individual,
during both direct and indirect interactions with surrounding environment—physical or virtual—over a
specific period of time. On this account, customer experience—customer’s impression on a brand, product,
or service—is co-created (Jaakkola, Helkkula, and Aarikka-Stenroos 2015; McColl-Kennedy, Cheung, and
Ferrier 2015). Hence, in this study, customer experience rests on the service-dominant logic paradigm that
reflects the experience as a result of phenomenological (experiential) value co-creation process (Forlani et
al. 2018; Lusch and Nambisan 2015). From this perspective, customer experience is subjective response to
the purposefully designed environments or interactions with experiential values (Forlani et al. 2018; Hwang
and Seo 2016; Voorhees et al. 2017). While not all sources of customer experience are manageable, firms
can create and watch over some prominent and manageable ‘value co-creation opportunities’ that can lead
to a positive impression on a brand, product, or service (Homburg, Jozić, and Kuehnl 2017; Lusch and
Nambisan 2015). Therefore, we limit the scope of CEM to managing the experiences that can be co-created
with customers. These experiences should be carefully designed, branded, and staged by the firm based on
customer information (e.g., background, behavior, preferences).
Within service industries, the prominence of offering a positive customer experience is growing (Carù and
Cova 2015; Verleye 2015). In the hotel industry, customer retention depends on how hotels can design,
deliver, and enhance personalized experiences (Manhas and Tukamushaba 2015; Torres, Fu, and Lehto
2014). From this perspective, CEM is not merely a technology; rather, it is characterized as a system for
customer experience co-design with emphasis on experiential values over radical changes to service
operations (Chang 2018). Therefore, CEM relies on frontline service employee to (a) provide deeper
connection with customers to learn about their needs and preferences, (b) identify the key experience co-
creation opportunities, (c) define/refine the experiential values associated with these opportunities, (d)
optimize the number of positive interactions and minimize unnecessary or negative interactions, and (e)
invite and integrate all related business functions to contribute to these efforts (Carù and Cova 2015; Chen
et al. 2017; Homburg et al. 2017; Hsu et al. 2019). However, management literature contributes little to our

Twenty-Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, 2021 2

 ‘Employee First’: The Relationship between EEM and CEM

understanding of the underlying mechanisms including required information systems to enable or facilitate
employees’ participation in CEM implementation (Arkadan, Macdonald, and Wilson 2017; Kranzbühler et
al. 2017; Pine and Gilmore 2016). This partially explains why many service firms are still far from the level
of success in CEM implementation.

Customer Experience Management

In this study, we followed the recent studies that proposed to operationalize CEM with an emphasis on
designing and offering experience co-creation opportunities (Lei et al. 2020; Lugosi et al. 2020; Schiavone
et al. 2020; De Silva et al. 2020) and model CEM after experiential values (Jain, Aagja, and Bagdare 2017;
Schmitt, Brakus, and Zarantonello 2015). Therefore, we operationalize CEM as managing experiential value
co-creation opportunities and use experience theory (Dewey 1958) to characterize experiential values as:
(a) emotional experience, (b) cognitive experience, (c) sensorial experience, (d) behavioral experience, and
(e) social/relational experience. Accrding to Brakus et al. (2009), emotional experience refers to the
customer’s feelings, emotions, and personal sentiments that could lead to a positive or negative mood (e.g.,
strong emotion of joy and pride). Cognitive experience refers to what can engage a customer’s creativity in
problem solving and elaboration, or in active thinking. It also refers to ‘customer rethinking’ to revise the
previous belief, or expectation. Sensorial experience is formed when an offering triggers a customer’s senses
including tastes, sounds, scents, tactile impressions, and visual images (Schmitt et al. 2015). Positive
sensorial experiences result in pleasure, excitement, and sense of beauty. Behavioral experience is about
physical experience, participation, and direct involvement. Lastly, social (relational) experience stems from
social interactions, networking and sense of belongingness. Social experience is also associated with lifestyle
and social identities because customers like to differentiate themselves from their community by consuming
a brand that has a particular identity. Accordingly, we can claim CEM, depending on the context, should
focus a set of experiential values—emotional, cognitive, sensorial, behavioral, and social—that can be co-
created with customers. In context of the service industry, employees, directly or indirectly, are playing
critical roles in customer experience co-creation. Thus, the next step involves inquiring about how service
firms support their employees in co-creating the aforementioned values with customers.

Employee Experience Management Systems

Service employees (as the most tangible service interface) highly contribute to understanding customers’
experiential needs, creating experiences, delivering brand experiences, and consequently optimizing the
value and differentiating service brand. Harris (2007) discussed that customer experience is formed at the
heart of an organization by employees who are ‘living the brand’. Internal marketing literature implied that
engaging employees (internal customers) is an essential step toward CEM because employees are the key
constituent of service experience co-design and co-creation (e.g. Abhari, Saad, and Haron 2008; Bharwani
and Jauhari 2013; Wu and Liang 2009). Employees can contribute to customer experience co-creation more
effectively if they find their role meaningful by realizing the immediate impact of their work, and if they are
included in decision-making, service innovation, and acknowledged for their contribution (Saks 2014).
Therefore, employee engagement is critical in building positive employee experiences.
Information systems can help service firms manage their employees’ experiences including engagement
through job-crafting, participatory innovation and customer experience design (Pascual-Fernández et al.
2021; Tims et al. 2012; Yohn 2016). Employee experience can be defined as what an employee acquired
during interactions with their careers’ elements (e.g., supervisors, colleagues, customers, environment) that
affect their perception of the brand and the subsequently their behaviors (Abhari et al. 2008). For example,
the level of employees’ emotional engagement determines the level of their commitment and productivity
(Jurburg et al. 2019). Accordingly, EEM can be conceptualized as a solution to deliver more engaging
experiences to employees by allowing them to design their work experience (Saks 2014). EEM systems then
focuses on data-driven solutions to encourage, engage, train and support employees in job crafting. These
systems, for example, can help improve employees’ experiences by offering recommendations on how to
improve job designs and working conditions. As a result, employees that have positive experiences can
convey better service experiences compared to unengaged employees (Seijts and Crim 2006). EEM also
drives CEM by effectively deploying employees in CEM implementation based on their interests, skills and
preferences. Therefore,

Twenty-Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, 2021 3

 ‘Employee First’: The Relationship between EEM and CEM

H1. Successful implementation of an Employee Experience Management system leads to a higher

attainment in Customer Experience Management.

Customer Equity
Customer equity renders business performance based on the value of current customers who continue and
expand their business, as well as the acquisition of new customers (Leone et al. 2006; Villanueva and
Hanssens 2007). Therefore, we can conceptualize customer equity as the value that is created through
customer acquisition, customer retention, and add-on selling and captured as sales growth, market share,
and profitability (O’Sullivan and Abela 2007). Previous research revealed that customer equity depends on
how customers are effectively engaged and served during the end-to-end service process (Fatma 2014;
Homburg et al. 2017; Jain et al. 2017; Manhas and Tukamushaba 2015; Mathis et al. 2016; Xu and Chan
2010). When employees are responsible for service delivery, their behavior directly affect customer
purchase and repurchase decision (Abhari et al. 2008; Brito 2018). Hence, highly motivated and engaged
employees can further contribute to the business bottom-line by responding to customers’ needs and
nurturing bond between customers and brand (Pascual-Fernández et al. 2021). Therefore,
H2. Successful implementation of an Employee Experience Management system leads to a higher
attainment in Customer Equity.
Similarly, experiential values offered through services or service environment can encourage customers to
repeat the purchase and recommend the brand (Brakus et al. 2009). For example, past research empirically
showed that the customer retention is the immediate outcome of managing customer experience (Walden
2017). Acquiring new customers are also germane to excellent brand image and brand attraction, which can
be set by experiential values (Kao, Huang, and Yang 2007). CEM can enhance this process by highlighting
the experiential values of service and in turn enhance customers’ willingness to buy and referral (Fatma
2014). The increase in customer acquisition and retention normally results in higher profitability, market
share and/or sales growth (Yohn 2016). Therefore,
H3. Successful implementation of a Customer Experience Management system leads to a higher
attainment in Customer Equity.
CEM systems are implemented and ran by employees (Harris 2007). Therefore, the success of CEM,
measured as customer equity in this study, depends on how the employees are motivated, engaged and
empowered through employee support programs and systems (Bharwani and Jauhari 2013; Wu and Liang
2009). EEM can offer a systematic solution to employee engagement and thereby enhance employees’
participation in customer experience co-design and delivery—the crux of CEM. Therefore,
H4. Successful implementation of an Employee Experience Management system leads to a higher
attainment in Customer Equity through supporting the implementation of Customer Experience
Management system.

Model Specifications and Method

We evaluated the relationship between EEM and CEM in the hotel industry. The hotel industry is a proper
representative for the service sector due to its various touchpoints , several tangible experience cues, and a
wide range of services shared with other service industries (Hwang and Seo 2016; Kandampully et al. 2018).
We modeled CEM use as a formative second-order construct with five reflective first-order constructs
rendering customer experience co-creation design, along with EEM and Customer Equity, as first-order
reflective constructs. The CEM construct was developed after the topology of experiential values that can
be designed and added to service offerings and their context. The five dimensions of designing experience
co-creation opportunities proposed by this study include: (a) Sensorial experience design refers to
enriching the context of experience with sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and textures (Schmitt et al., 2015).
In service, engaging in five senses is often associated with environmental stimuli (e.g., visual cues) in the
context of experience co-creation (Berry et al., 2006; Brakus et al., 2009; Morrison & Crane, 2007; Stuart,
2006). (b) Emotional experience design refers to meeting a customer’s emotional desires during experience
co-creation (Brakus et al., 2009; Gentile et al., 2007; Morrison & Crane, 2007). Designing emotional
experiences aims to co-create an emotionally engaging experience, which satisfies customers’ expectations
through appeal, appraisal, and aspiration (Morrison & Crane, 2007; Schmitt et al., 2015). (c) Cognitive

Twenty-Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, 2021 4

 ‘Employee First’: The Relationship between EEM and CEM

experience design for engaging customers in creative thinking or problem-solving processes (Brakus et al.,
2009; Gentile et al., 2007). Allowing customers to assess the values of different service options and helping
them make rational or creative decisions are examples of cognitive experience design. (d) Social experience
design refers to engaging customers in co-creating relational or social experiences (Brakus et al., 2009).
Engaging customers in a brand community and connecting them to other like-minded customers are
examples of social experience design. And (e) behavioral experience design refers to granting customers
control over participatory value co-creation with high physical involvement (Ramaswamy, 2009; Schmitt
et al., 2015; Williams, 2006). This enhances the level of control in service experience co-creation. This
hierarchical view of the CEM construct is introduced for its empirical advantages (Polites, Roberts, and
Thatcher 2011). We argue the bandwidth-fidelity dilemma can be reduced by higher-order constructs
(Cooke and Michie 2001) that provide a more comprehensive measurement (Mowen and Voss 2008).
Instrument items used in this survey were adapted from previous studies, contextualized for accuracy and
relevancy and measured with Likert-type scale (1 = “very poor,” and 7 = “outstanding”). To model EEM, we
adapted the concept of ‘job-crafting’ with four dimensions suggested by previous studies: Increasing
structural job resources, Increasing social job resources, Increasing challenging job demands and
Decreasing hindering job demands in three groups: work practices, innovation and customer interactions
(Tims et al. 2012). CEM construct was developed after previous works on measuring customer experience
(Brakus et al., 2009; Gentile et al., 2007; Morrison & Crane, 2007). For Customer Equity, we asked the
respondent for their subjective evaluation of three performance metrics: Sales growth, Market share, and
Profitability (O’Sullivan and Abela 2007). These generated items were pre-tested for face validity and
content validity. Five researchers and five hotel general managers participated in the pre-test. In the next
phase, the instrument was pilot tested to establish the scale reliability for the first order constructs (Hair et
al. 2013). The pilot study also helped to test the validity and multicollinearity for the CEM construct (Hair
et al. 2013). The refined version of the instrument was used for the field study. We collected through the
direct invitation of the four and five-star hotels registered with the Malaysia Ministry of Tourism. In total,
223 hotels (101 five-star and 122 four-star hotels) were invited to participate in the study. We employed
Partial Least Squares (PLS) to test our hypotheses using SmartPLS 3.0 (Ringle, Wende, and Becker 2015).

Results
Following a pre-test that established and increased internal validity, we conducted a pilot study with 66
hotels. The pilot sample included 30 4-star hotels (randomly selected and excluded from the field test) and
33 hotels from the comparable population (‘A’ Class 3-star hotels in Malaysia that are comparable with low-
tier 4-star hotels). The data were normally distributed, which indicates that we obtained a reasonable
sample size for multivariate analysis with PLS (Hair et al. 2013). We tested the measurement model in two
steps: (a) first-order reflective construct examination and latent variables estimation and (b) CEM
formative second-order construct evaluation. We calculated Cronbach’s alpha and performed composite
reliability tests to measure the data’s reliability for the first order constructs. We also assessed convergent
validity by examining the average variance extracted (AVE) and discriminant validity by using the Fornell-
Larcker criterion. The pilot-test helped us to remove and/or adjust 19 items before the field test.
Following instrument refinement, we conducted the field study to test both our measurements and
structural model. From 223 invitations, we received 127 responses from which we included 108 responses
from respondents who passed our screening questions. Screening questions inquired as to respondents’
position in hotel to ensure they were familiar with the content of the questionnaire. Stand out categories in
the hotel profile were a relative balance between participating four-star and five-star hotels, and the hotels
mainly served international tourist travelers. Besides, most respondents were general managers with six to
15 years of experience and had been in their current position for about five years.

Measurement Model
We evaluated the reflective construct’s reliability and internal consistency, construct factorability, and
construct validity (convergent validity and discrimination validity). All the loadings of measurement items
on their latent constructs were found to exceed 0.7, except four items, indicating acceptable item reliability.
Four items had lodgings between 0.6 and 0.7 that are acceptable in exploratory studies. As shown in Table
1, Cronbach’s alpha and the composite reliability of all the constructs are higher than 0.7, indicating
adequate internal consistency among the items measuring each construct (0.72—0.85). Three criteria were

Twenty-Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, 2021 5

 ‘Employee First’: The Relationship between EEM and CEM

then adopted to assess convergent validity and discriminant validity. First, all Average Variance Extracted
(AVE), as shown in Table 2, values are higher than 0.5 (0.57—0.67) (Hair et al. 2013). Second, the square
root of the AVE of each construct is larger than the correlations of this construct with the other constructs
as reported in Table 2 (Hair et al. 2013).
Table 1. Psychometric Properties of Reflective Constructs

REFLECTIVE CONSTRUCTS α CR AVE

Customer Experience Management
Sensorial experience design 0.71 0.82 0.53
Emotional experience design 0.84 0.89 0.67
Cognitive experience design 0.79 0.85 0.57
Social experience design 0.78 0.85 0.59
Behavioral experience design 0.71 0.82 0.53
Employee Experience Management 0.72 0.82 0.54
Customer Equity 0.74 0.85 0.66

Table 2. Discriminate Validity Results

CEM:BED CEM:CED CEM:EED CEM:RED CEM: SED EEM CEQ

CEM:BED 0.76
CEM:CED 0.47 0.77
CEM:EED 0.38 0.46 0.82
CEM:RED 0.55 0.54 0.44 0.72
CEM:SED 0.50 0.49 0.54 0.57 0.71
EEM 0.55 0.37 0.40 0.48 0.43 0.73
CEQ 0.33 0.35 0.52 0.41 0.57 0.46 0.81
BED: Behavioral experience design; CED: Cognitive experience design; EED: Emotional experience design; RED: Relational
experience design; SED: Sensorial experience design.

Structural Model
To test the theoretical model proposed here, we examined the direct and indirect effects of EEM on CEM
and Customer Equity accounting for control variables (hotel star). The results revealed that the EEM
constructs were positively related to CEM, thereby supporting H1 (β = 0.59, p < 0.001). The study also
demonstrated the positive effect of EEM and CEM on Customer Equity that support H2 (β = 0.23, p < 0.03)
and H3 (β = 0.42, p < 0.001). Besides these hypotheses, we also examined the significance of the mediation
effects of CEM usage via bootstrapping (Hair et al. 2013). The indirect effects of EEM on Customer Equity
through CEM were also positive and significant (β = 0.25, p < 0.001, CI: 0.12—0.43). The summary of the
results is presented in Tables 3. Our model adequately explained the substantial variance of our dependent
variables CEM (R2 = 0.35), and Customer Equity (R2 = 0.35). The Q2 values indicating the predictive
relevance of the constructs were also calculated by the Blindfolding technique to ensure EEM and CEM
predictive relevance (Hair et al. 2013).
Table 3. Results of the Structural Model Assessment

HYPOTHESIS SUPPORT ß f2 R2 Q2
H1: EEM → CEM Supported 0.59*** 0.53 0.35 0.19
H2: EEM → CEQ Supported 0.23* 0.05
0.35 0.21
H3: CEM → CEQ Supported 0.42*** 0.18
H4: EEM → CEM → CEQ Supported 0.25*** - - -
* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001; β = path coefficients; f2 = Effect Size; R2 = determination coefficient; Q2 = predictive relevance
(calculated by Blindfolding); † Mediation.

Twenty-Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, 2021 6

 ‘Employee First’: The Relationship between EEM and CEM

Discussion
The aim of this study was to develop and test a model of CEM by drawing on marketing and information
systems literature. We operationalized CEM as a set of customer experience design competencies enabled
by information systems that enable customers to co-create five experiential values—sensorial, emotional,
cognitive, relational and behavioral values. Then, we examined the role of EEM systems in supporting CEM.
Additionally, we identified customer equity as the main outcome of both CEM and EEM and highlight the
indirect effect of EEM through CEM on customer equity. We argued employees support CEM by
contributing to understanding, designing, and communicating experiential values of a service offering to
the customers and accordingly conceptualized EEM as a systematic mechanism to engage and empower
employees to support CEM. Supporting previous studies, the findings confirmed the dependency of CEM
in the service industry on employees and how they are supported. EEM systems, especially when
implemented as a job-crafting and engagement platforms, can motivate frontline employees and grant them
more autonomy to participate in customer experience co-creation and co-delivery in the way they prefer.
The results also showed that the more successful the CEM implementation, the higher the customer equity
measured by sales growth, market share, and profitability. Experience co-creation opportunities in the hotel
industry among both employees and customers can not only attract new customers and businesses but also
enhance the emotional bond with the brand. This emotional bond could be the main reason behind the
higher retention rate. We also showed that EEM directly and indirectly supports hotels in achieving higher
customer equity. That means the positive effect of CEM on EEM partly depends on how hotels treat and
support their employees in the first place.
This study poses that engaging employees and satisfying their experiential needs could easily go beyond the
concept of internal marketing. EEM systems, if implemented from job-crafting perspective, can encourage
and support service employees who are playing a significant role in CEM implementation. For example,
relational experience design highly relies on the employees’ participation and interaction with customers,
especially in the hotel industry. This aligns well with previous findings that argue the level of employees’
engagement directly affects customer experiences.

Implications
This study used the Malaysian hotel industry as a proxy for the service industry and offered a
comprehensive, inclusive, and non-industry-specific framework to inform future EEM and CEM research.
While we acknowledge that the results of this study are not directly generalizable to other service contexts,
we believe that our model is transferable with notable implications. Firstly, this study reconceptualized
customer experience in the service context based on their experiential values. Then, we modeled CEM from
a managerial perspective as an information-driven organizational competency unlike the prior studies that
characterized CEM as a technological solution. The results are a comprehensive topology for CEM tested in
the hotel industry, with five dimensions: sensorial, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and relational
experience design. The study revealed that these experience design competencies together have a significant
role in maintaining customer equity in the hotel industry.
Secondly, this study conceptualizes and operationalized EEM systems from a job-crafting perspective with
important implications for successful CEM implementation. We bring the attention to the importance of
EEM systems as a modern tool enabled businesses in directly supporting CEM and indirectly improving
customer equity. EEM can support CEM by addressing employees’ needs, preferences and expectations and
thereby mobilizing them in participating and contributing to customer experience design.
Thirdly, we demonstrated how CEM can be implemented in the hotel industry as an inherently experience-
centric industry. This research’s approach to managing customer service experience can be adopted by
researchers and practitioners alike to study CEM in other service contexts such as leisure and airlines. This
study also contributes to the design of EEM systems from job-crafting perspective in these industries. This
study also expands the importance of experiential values beyond customers and proposes offering
experiential values should start with employees through identifying and addressing employees’ experiential
needs, including employees in service innovation and engaging employees in customer experience design.

Twenty-Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, 2021 7

 ‘Employee First’: The Relationship between EEM and CEM

Future Direction
The findings of this study are subject to some limitations. The relatively small sample size was the first
limitation. While this does not necessarily mean that the sample was insufficient, a further replication and
validation is recommended. Additionally, we relied on subjective and self-reported responses from the hotel
managers. This ran the risk of response bias; however, this methodology was preferred over objective
measures due to the respondents’ lack of access to actual data or confidentiality concerns. The next
limitation was the potential bias due to the inability of respondents to recall all related practices in the
questionnaire. This would likely result in answering the questionnaire based on the most recent activities.
These limitations offer implications for future research. First, this research has taken a step towards better
conceptualization and operationalization of CEM. The measure for CEM needs to be retested in different
settings. Replication of this study in different contexts would be helpful in establishing and generalizing our
findings. For example, future research may further examine the role of EEM in other service sectors.
Moreover, future research may further examine the role of other dimensions of EEM. This study limited
EEM systems to the mechanism support job-crafting; hence, other possible engagement dimensions such
as reward systems could be considered. We also suggest that future research examine the relationship
between employee experience and customer experience at an individual level. The role of other variables
such as internal branding and brand equity are also pertinent to further exploration.

References
Abhari, K., N. M. Saad, and M. S. Haron. 2008. “Enhancing Service Experience through Understanding: Employee
Experience Management.” in International Seminar on Optimizing Business Research and Information, Binus
University, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Abhari, Kaveh, Chloe Ostroff, Bailey Barcellos, and David Williams. 2021. “Co-Governance in Digital Transformation
Initiatives: The Roles of Digital Culture and Employee Experience.” in Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii
International Conference on System Sciences.
Abubakre, Mumin, Yiwei Zhou, and Zhongyun Zhou. 2020. “The Impact of Information Technology Culture and
Personal Innovativeness in Information Technology on Digital Entrepreneurship Success.” Information
Technology and People.
Arkadan, Farah, Emma K. Macdonald, and Hugh N. Wilson. 2017. “A Systematic Literature Review of Practices in
Customer Experience Management.” P. 47331 in Marketing at the Confluence between Entertainment and
Analytics, Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science.
Bharwani, Sonia and Vinnie Jauhari. 2013. “An Exploratory Study of Competencies Required to Co-Create Memorable
Customer Experiences in the Hospitality Industry.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management 25(6):823–43.
Brakus, Joško Josko, Bernd H. Schmitt, and Lia Zarantonello. 2009. “Brand Experience: What Is It? How Is It
Measured? Does It Affect Loyalty?” Journal of Marketing 73(3):52–68.
Brito, Michael. 2018. Participation Marketing, Unleashing Employees to Participate and Become Brand Storytellers.
Carù, Antonella and Bernard Cova. 2015. “Co-Creating the Collective Service Experience” edited by D. Elina Jaakkola,
Anu Helkkula and Dr. Journal of Service Management 26(2):276–94.
Cenfetelli, Ronald T. and Geneviève Bassellier. 2009. “Interpretation of Formative Measurement in Information
Systems Research.” MIS Quarterly 33(4):689–707.
Chang, Seohee. 2018. “Experience Economy in the Hospitality and Tourism Context.” Tourism Management
Perspectives 27:83–90.
Chen, Ja-Shen, Don Kerr, Cindy Yunhsin Chou, and Chinhui Ang. 2017. “Business Co-Creation for Service Innovation
in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
29(6):1522–40.
Chin, Wynne W. and Jens Dibbern. 2010. Handbook of Partial Least Squares.
Cooke, David J. and Christine Michie. 2001. “Refining the Construct of Psychopathy: Towards a Hierarchical Model.”
Psychological Assessment 13(2):171–88.
Deci, Edward L., Anja H. Olafsen, and Richard M. Ryan. 2017. “Self-Determination Theory in Work Organizations: The
State of a Science.” Ssrn 4(April):19–43.
Dewey, J. 1958. Experience and Nature. Dover Publications.
Dewey, John. 1986. “Experience and Education.” Educational Forum 50(3):242–52.
Fatma, Saba. 2014. “Antecedents and Consequences of Customer Experience Management- A Literature Review and
Research Agenda.” International Journal of Business and Commerce 3(6):32–49.
Forlani, Fabio, Andrea Buratti, and Tonino Pencarelli. 2018. “Experiential Perspective in Management Literature: A
Systematic Review.” Pp. 15–42 in The Experience Logic as a New Perspective for Marketing Management.
Cham: Springer.

Twenty-Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, 2021 8

 ‘Employee First’: The Relationship between EEM and CEM

Gelb, Betsy, Deva Rangarajan, Bryan Hochstein, and Mikael Blaisdell. 2020. “One Approach to Repeat Business:
‘Customer Success Managers.’”
Grønholdt, Lars, Anne Martensen, Stig Jørgensen, and Peter Jensen. 2015. “Customer Experience Management and
Business Performance.” International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences 7(1):90–106.
Hair, Joseph F., G. Tomas M. Hult, Christian M. Ringle, and Marko Sarstedt. 2013. A Primer on Partial Least Squares
Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Harris, Patrick. 2007. “We the People: The Importance of Employees in the Process of Building Customer Experience.”
Journal of Brand Management 15(2):102–14.
Homburg, Christian, Danijel Jozić, and Christina Kuehnl. 2017. “Customer Experience Management: Toward
Implementing an Evolving Marketing Concept.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 45(3):377–401.
Hoyer, Wayne D., Mirja Kroschke, Bernd Schmitt, Karsten Kraume, and Venkatesh Shankar. 2020. “Transforming the
Customer Experience Through New Technologies.” Journal of Interactive Marketing 51:57–71.
Hsu, Hsuan Yu, Feng Hsu Liu, Hung Tai Tsou, and Lu Jui Chen. 2019. “Openness of Technology Adoption, Top
Management Support and Service Innovation: A Social Innovation Perspective.” Journal of Business and
Industrial Marketing 34(3):575–90.
Hwang, Johye and Soobin Seo. 2016. “A Critical Review of Research on Customer Experience Management: Theoretical,
Methodological and Cultural Perspectives.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
28(10):2218–46.
Jaakkola, Elina, Anu Helkkula, and Leena Aarikka-Stenroos. 2015. “Service Experience Co-Creation:
Conceptualization, Implications, and Future Research Directions” edited by D. Elina Jaakkola, Anu Helkkula and
Dr. Journal of Service Management 26(2):182–205.
Jain, Rajnish, Jayesh Aagja, and Shilpa Bagdare. 2017. “Customer Experience – a Review and Research Agenda.”
Journal of Service Theory and Practice 27(3):642–62.
Janhofer, Dustin, Benjamin Barann, Ann-Kristin Cordes, and Jörg Becker. 2020. “Mastering Omni-Channel Retailing
Challenges with Industry 4.0 Concepts.” in Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System
Sciences.
Jarvis, Cheryl Burke, Scott B. Mackenzie, and Philip M. Podsakoff. 2003. “A Critical Review of Construct Indicators and
Measurement Model Misspecification in Marketing.” Journal of Consumer Research 30(9):199–218.
Jaziri, Dhouha. 2019. “The Advent of Customer Experiential Knowledge Management Approach (CEKM): The
Integration of Offline & Online Experiential Knowledge.” Journal of Business Research 94:241–56.
Jurburg, Daniel, Elisabeth Viles, Martin Tanco, Ricardo Mateo, and Álvaro Lleó. 2019. “Understanding the Main
Organisational Antecedents of Employee Participation in Continuous Improvement.” TQM Journal 31(3):359–
76.
Kandampully, Jay, Tingting(Christina) Zhang, and Elina Jaakkola. 2018. “Customer Experience Management in
Hospitality: A Literature Synthesis, New Understanding and Research Agenda.” International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management 30(1):21–56.
Kao, Yie Fang, Li Shia Huang, and Ming Hsien Yang. 2007. “Effects of Experiential Elements on Experiential
Satisfaction and Loyalty Intentions: A Case Study of the Super Basketball League in Taiwan.” International
Journal of Revenue Management 1(1):79.
Kodithuwakku, Manesha, Mazuki Jusoh, and Karuthan Chinna. 2018. “Impact of Human Resource Practices on
Intention to Leave among Generation Z- The Future Workforce.” International Journal of Human Resource
Studies 8(4):267278–267278.
Kranzbühler, Anne-Madeleine, Mirella H. P. Kleijnen, Robert E. Morgan, and Marije Teerling. 2017. “The Multilevel
Nature of Customer Experience Research: An Integrative Review and Research Agenda.” International Journal
of Management Reviews 20(2):433–56.
Lei, Sut Ieng, Shun Ye, Dan Wang, and Rob Law. 2020. “Engaging Customers in Value Co-Creation through Mobile
Instant Messaging in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry.” Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research
44(2):229–51.
Lemon, Laura L. 2019. “The Employee Experience: How Employees Make Meaning of Employee Engagement.” Journal
of Public Relations Research 31(5–6):176–99.
Leone, Robert P., Vithala R. Rao, Kevin Lane Keller, Anita Man Luo, Leigh McAlister, and Rajendra Srivastava. 2006.
“Linking Brand Equity to Customer Equity.” Journal of Service Research 9(2):125–38.
Line, Nathaniel D. and Rodney C. Runyan. 2012. “Hospitality Marketing Research: Recent Trends and Future
Directions.” International Journal of Hospitality Management 31(2):477–88.
Lugosi, Peter, Richard N. S. Robinson, Gabby Walters, and Sarah Donaghy. 2020. “Managing Experience Co-Creation
Practices: Direct and Indirect Inducement in Pop-up Food Tourism Events.” Tourism Management Perspectives
35:100702.
Lusch, Robert F. and Satish Nambisan. 2015. “Service Innovation : A Service-Dominant Logic Perspective Service.” MIS
Quarterly 39(1):155–75.
Manhas, Parikshat Singh and Eddy Kurobuza Tukamushaba. 2015. “Understanding Service Experience and Its Impact
on Brand Image in Hospitality Sector.” International Journal of Hospitality Management 45:77–87.
Mathis, Elaine F., Hyelin (Lina) Kim, Muzaffer Uysal, Joseph M. Sirgy, and Nina K. Prebensen. 2016. “The Effect of Co-
Creation Experience on Outcome Variable.” Annals of Tourism Research 57(1):62–75.

Twenty-Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, 2021 9

 ‘Employee First’: The Relationship between EEM and CEM

McColl-Kennedy, Janet R., Lilliemay Cheung, and Elizabeth Ferrier. 2015. “Co-Creating Service Experience Practices”
edited by D. Elina Jaakkola, Anu Helkkula and Dr. Journal of Service Management 26(2):249–75.
Mowen, John C. and Kevin E. Voss. 2008. “On Building Better Construct Measures: Implications of a General
Hierarchical Model.” Psychology & Marketing 25(6):485–505.
Naqshbandi, M. M., I. Tabche, and Neetu Choudhary. 2019. “Managing Open Innovation: The Roles of Empowering
Leadership and Employee Involvement Climate.” Management Decision 57(3):703–23.
O’Sullivan, Don and Andrew V. Abela. 2007. “Marketing Performance Measurement Ability and Firm Performance.”
Journal of Marketing 71(2):79–93.
Pascual-Fernández, Primitiva, María Leticia Santos-Vijande, José Ángel López-Sánchez, and Arturo Molina. 2021. “Key
Drivers of Innovation Capability in Hotels: Implications on Performance.” International Journal of Hospitality
Management 94:102825.
Petter, Stacie, Detmar Straub, and Arun Rai. 2007. “Specifying Formative Constructs in Information Systems
Research.” MIS Quarterly 31(4):623–56.
Pine, Joseph B. and James Gilmore. 2016. “Integrating Experiences into Your Business Model: Five Approaches.”
Strategy & Leadership 44(1):3–10.
Polites, Greta L., Nicholas Roberts, and Jason Thatcher. 2011. “Conceptualizing Models Using Multidimensional
Constructs: A Review and Guidelines for Their Use.” European Journal of Information Systems 21(1):22–48.
Ringle, CM, S. Wende, and JM Becker. 2015. “SmartPLS 3.” Boenningstedt: SmartPLS GmbH.
Saks, Alan M. 2014. “Antecedents and Consequences of Employee Engagement: A Critical Analysis of Literature
Review\t\n.” International Journal of Human Resources Management 3(2):73–86.
Schiavone, Francesco, Daniele Leone, Annarita Sorrentino, and Alessandro Scaletti. 2020. “Re-Designing the Service
Experience in the Value Co-Creation Process: An Exploratory Study of a Healthcare Network.” Business Process
Management Journal.
Schmitt, B. H., J. Brakus, and L. Zarantonello. 2015. “The Current State and Future of Brand Experience.” Journal of
Brand Management 21(9).
Seijts, By Gerard H. and Dan Crim. 2006. “What Engages Employees the Most or , The Ten C ’ s of Employee
Engagement.” Ivey Business Journal (April).
De Silva, Muthu, Zaheer Khan, Tim Vorley, and Jing Zeng. 2020. “Transcending the Pyramid: Opportunity Co-Creation
for Social Innovation.” Industrial Marketing Management 89:471–86.
Talón-Ballestero, Pilar, Lydia González-Serrano, Cristina Soguero-Ruiz, Sergio Muñoz-Romero, and José Luis Rojo-
Álvarez. 2018. “Using Big Data from Customer Relationship Management Information Systems to Determine the
Client Profile in the Hotel Sector.” Tourism Management 68:187–97.
Tims, Maria, Arnold B. Bakker, and Daantje Derks. 2012. “Development and Validation of the Job Crafting Scale.”
Journal of Vocational Behavior 80(1):173–86.
Torres, Edwin N., Xiaoxiao Fu, and Xinran Lehto. 2014. “Examining Key Drivers of Customer Delight in a Hotel
Experience: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.” International Journal of Hospitality Management 36:255–62.
Verhoef, Peter C., Katherine N. Lemon, a. Parasuraman, Anne Roggeveen, Michael Tsiros, and Leonard a. Schlesinger.
2009. “Customer Experience Creation: Determinants, Dynamics and Management Strategies.” Journal of
Retailing 85(1):31–41.
Verleye, Katrien. 2015. “The Co-Creation Experience from the Customer Perspective: Its Measurement and
Determinants.” Journal of Service Management 26(2):321–42.
Villanueva, Julian and Dominique M. Hanssens. 2007. “Customer Equity : Measurement , Management and Research
Opportunities.” Management 1(1):1–95.
Voorhees, Clay M., Paul W. Fombelle, Yany Gregoire, Sterling Bone, Anders Gustafsson, Rui Sousa, and Travis
Walkowiak. 2017. “Service Encounters, Experiences and the Customer Journey: Defining the Field and a Call to
Expand Our Lens.” Journal of Business Research 79:269–80.
Walden, S. 2017. Customer Experience Management Rebooted: Are You an Experience Brand or an Efficiency Brand?
Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Windeler, Jaime B., Likoebe Maruping, and Viswanath Venkatesh. 2017. “Technical Systems Development Risk
Factors : The Role of Empowering Leadership in Lowering Developers ’ Stress Technical Systems Development
Risk Factors : The Role of Empowering Leadership in Lowering Developers ’ Stress.” (September 2018).
Wu, Cedric Hsi-Jui and Rong-Da Liang. 2009. “Effect of Experiential Value on Customer Satisfaction with Service
Encounters in Luxury-Hotel Restaurants.” International Journal of Hospitality Management 28(4):586–93.
Xu, Jing Bill and Andrew Chan. 2010. “A Conceptual Framework of Hotel Experience and Customer-Based Brand
Equity: Some Research Questions and Implications.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management 22(2):174–93.
Yohn, Denise Lee. 2016. “Design Your Employee Experience as Thoughtfully as You Design Your Customer Experience.”
Harvard Business Review 8–11.
Yoon, Sung-Joon and Hyong-Ju Lee. 2017. “Does Customer Experience Management Pay Off? Evidence from Local
versus Global Hotel Brands in South Korea.” Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management 26(6):585–605.

Twenty-Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, 2021 10

View publication stats