What Are These Strange Things Called Emotions? An Analysis of Service Interactions in the Funeral Industry: Issues, Implications, and Future Research Directions

Abstract

The role played by emotions in funeral services, as in unwanted services in general, is still largely unexplored in the literature. While no theoretical attempt has been made yet to shed light on the dyadic and processual emotional relationship occurring in a service of this nature, a narrative literature review has been conducted from a multidisciplinary corpus. The analysis is designed to present both sides of this relationship, e.g., the perspective of the consumer as well as that of the service provider. Research avenues are developed to deepen the understanding of emotions in the consumer-organizational relationship specific to funeral services.

Keywords:

• Funeral services
• emotions
• service experience
• transformative service
• consumer-employee service relationship
• vulnerable clientele