Partial Employees and Consumers

Abstract

This analysis aims to highlight the impact of both ‘partial employees’ and ‘partial consumers’ on the service delivery process. Effective service delivery often requires the participation of the customer. Accordingly, the customer may be conceptualized as a partial employee. Further, service employees may ‘consume’ their roles and duties as providers of service. Although the services literature has developed the notion of the partial employee to some extent, the concept is not developed within a comprehensive, theoretical framework. And, the portrayal of service employees as consumers (i.e. partial consumers) is largely undeveloped. As an emergent cultural philosophy, postmodernism offers a basis for developing a framework incorporating the notion of the partial employee, as well as an understanding of the effects and contributions of other service participants (i.e. service providers) as partial consumers. The implications of treating the consumer as partial employee and the employee as partial consumer in the delivery of the service experience are many. For instance, this notion inspires an expanded view of service exchange as a productive (consumptive) moment, which, in turn, requires a shift in orientation from an emphasis that considers only managing the functional benefits that the service provides to managing both employees and consumer alike.