What can climate services learn from the broader services literature?

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.

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