Abstract
Climate services seek the timely production and delivery of useful climate information to decision-makers, yet there continues to be a reported ‘usability gap’. To address this, many have advocated the coproduction of climate services between knowledge producers, providers and users, with a tendency to focus on tailoring information products to user needs, with less attention towards the service environment itself. In service management and service marketing fields, this is referred to as the ‘servicescape’ and is shown to influence behavioural intention, value creation and perceived service quality. In an effort to facilitate cross-disciplinary learning, this research asks whether climate services can learn from other service-based research in public administration/management, service management and service marketing. Performing a semi-deductive literature review, this perspective article examines themes of coproduction and servicescapes, and identifies relevant topics for future climate services research around the added value of service-dominant logic, the subjective experience of users’ interaction with servicescapes, and empowerment of users as co-producers of value. This is an important first step in promoting further cross-disciplinary learning to advance both scholarship and operational delivery of climate services.
Highlights
The importance of climate services in society has long been recognised (Hecht 1984), yet the concept has more recently gained momentum in research, industry and institutional initiativesThis article is part of a Special Issue on BPutting Climate Services in Contexts: Advancing Multi-disciplinary Understandings^ edited by Sophie WebberClimatic Change (2019) 157:133–149(WMO 2014; Vaughan and Dessai 2014; European Commission 2015)
Many have called for improved knowledge exchange and collaboration between knowledge producers, providers and users, otherwise referred to as coproduction (Meadow et al 2015; Briley et al 2015; Bremer and Meisch 2017)
Some researchers have involved users in the design of service platforms and examined their interaction with the service environment in an effort to enhance the usability of climate services (Hewitson et al 2017; Christel et al 2018)
Summary
The importance of climate services in society has long been recognised (Hecht 1984), yet the concept has more recently gained momentum in research, industry and institutional initiatives. Given the considerable breadth of service-based research, we focus on the themes of (i) coproduction, which has steadily established itself in climate services research (Lemos et al 2012; Vaughan et al 2018), and (ii) the notion of servicescapes The latter theme derived from our early reading of service management and service marketing literature, and addresses the influence of interactions between service users, providers and service environments upon users’ intentions, value creation and perceived service quality (Reimer and Kuehn 2005; Mari and Poggesi 2013). This research area is noticeably lacking from current climate services, but is arguably implicit in research focused on the design of user-interfaces (e.g. Christel et al 2018) and users’ experiences of climate information websites (Hewitson et al 2017), suggesting that servicescapes are of interest to climate services scholarship These themes were selected as starting points only in an effort to demonstrate the potential for cross-disciplinary learning
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
