Servicescapes and E-Servicescapes Design Issues in Emerging Markets: Imperatives, Challenges and Agenda Setting

Emerging markets present one of the significant challenges as well as opportunities for multi-national service firms, but the existing knowledge on the market is inadequate to address the same, even in the context of servicescapes. Servicescape plays a significant role in service delivery for services that are facility driven. The emerging markets are characterised by challenges in infrastructure, capital investments, cultural diversity, illiteracy, poverty and many other resource constraints. These different challenges become a major point of difference as against developed economies while considering designs in servicescapes. Drawing from literature in servicescapes designs, this chapter discusses the design issues that need to be addressed in servicescapes and e-servicescapes with particular reference to emerging markets and identifies the challenges that could limit the adoption of these designs. This chapter also offers a blueprint that would guide future research in this area.