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Service Experience and Servicescape in Sustainable Consumption

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 July 2026 | Viewed by 3041

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Escuela de Ingeniería Informática, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso 2340000, Chile
Interests: tourist experience (TX); customer experience (CX); user experience (UX); human–computer interaction (HCI); service science

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Guest Editor
Escuela de Ingeniería Informática, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso 2340000, Chile
Interests: user experience (UX); customer experience (CX); human–computer interaction (HCI); education; culture; tourism; cyber security

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Guest Editor
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Económicas, Universidad Católica del Maule, Avenida San Miguel 3605, Talca 3460000, Chile
Interests: decision support system; data mining; machine learning; health management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Sustainability seeks to investigate the crucial role that service environments and experiences play in fostering sustainable consumption across diverse sectors, including digital platforms, healthcare, education, tourism, and retail. Consumption experiences, both of individuals and groups, have emerged as important determinants of sustainable behavior, especially in high-involvement environments such as healthcare, education, travel, and interactions with digital services. To strengthen its theoretical and practical relevance, this Special Issue emphasizes the role of behavioral science and service design in shaping sustainable consumer decisions and highlights actionable implications for managing data-driven and resource-efficient services. We believe that it could be beneficial if emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions to service environments could be modeled, optimized, and predicted using data-driven methods.

This Special Issue focuses on three main areas: (a) examining how service experience design and delivery affect sustainable consumer behavior; (b) incorporating cutting-edge technological tools, including digital twins, simulation, machine learning, and decision support systems (DSSs), into the study of servicescapes and their sustainability implications; and (c) differentiating itself from existing trends by fostering interdisciplinary insights into smart and sustainable service ecosystems (especially in high-involvement, public-facing contexts), particularly those that seek to improve patient satisfaction, student experience,  visitor engagement, and environmentally conscious decision-making.

This Special Issue aims to contribute to the existing literature by embedding the scientific, technological, and socioeconomic dimensions of sustainability into service design and experience management. Its objective is to quantify and assess how service interactions affect consumer well-being, environmental efficiency, and resource utilization. Applications of explainable AI (XAI), behavioral analytics, predictive models, and integrated DSS frameworks are encouraged to measure and track sustainable consumption, particularly in the contexts of public services, healthcare delivery, tourism systems, and digital transformation.

Where earlier studies by Zhou et al. (2022), Pappas et al. (2023), and Shah et al. (2025) explored sustainability largely within isolated sectors and treated consumer emotions and operational data as distinct lines of inquiry, this Special Issue deliberately converges service experience design, behavioral science, and intelligent systems to narrow that divide. It emphasizes the integration of socio-emotional responses with data-driven optimization techniques, extends the analysis across high-involvement public services and digitally mediated contexts, and advances explainable AI decision-support frameworks capable of quantifying consumer well-being while simultaneously monitoring environmental performance and resource efficiency.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Cristian Rusu
Dr. Nicolás Matus
Dr. Fabián Silva-Aravena
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • service experience
  • servicescape and environmental design
  • sustainable consumption and behavior
  • tourism experience and tourist behavior
  • health service management and patient experience
  • education and student experience
  • predictive analytics and consumer modeling
  • decision support systems (DSS) and explainable AI
  • digital transformation and smart services
  • service ecosystems

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 377 KB  
Article
Modeling Service Experience and Sustainable Adoption of Drone Taxi Services in the UAE: A Behavioral Framework Informed by TAM and UTAUT
by Sami Miniaoui, Nasser A. Saif Almuraqab, Rashed Al Raees, Prashanth B. S. and Manoj Kumar M. V.
Sustainability 2026, 18(2), 922; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18020922 - 16 Jan 2026
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 662
Abstract
Urban air mobility solutions such as drone taxi services are increasingly viewed as a promising response to congestion, sustainability, and smart-city mobility challenges. However, the large-scale adoption of such services depends on users’ perceptions of service experience, trust, and readiness to engage with [...] Read more.
Urban air mobility solutions such as drone taxi services are increasingly viewed as a promising response to congestion, sustainability, and smart-city mobility challenges. However, the large-scale adoption of such services depends on users’ perceptions of service experience, trust, and readiness to engage with emerging technologies. This study investigates the determinants of sustainable adoption of drone taxi services in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by examining technology readiness and service experience factors, interpreted through conceptual alignment with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). A structured questionnaire was administered to potential users, capturing perceptions related to optimism, innovation readiness, efficiency, control, privacy, insecurity, discomfort, inefficiency, and perceived operational risk, along with behavioral intention to adopt drone taxi services. Measurement reliability and validity were rigorously assessed using Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability, average variance extracted (AVE), and the heterotrait–monotrait (HTMT) criterion. The validated latent construct scores were subsequently used to estimate a structural regression model examining the relative influence of each factor on adoption intention. The results indicate that privacy assurance and perceived control exert the strongest influence on behavioral intention, followed by optimism and innovation readiness, while negative readiness factors such as discomfort, insecurity, inefficiency, and perceived chaos demonstrate negligible effects. These findings suggest that in technologically progressive contexts such as the UAE, adoption intentions are primarily shaped by trust-building and empowerment-oriented perceptions rather than deterrence-based concerns. By positioning technology readiness and service experience constructs within established TAM and UTAUT theoretical perspectives, this study contributes a context-sensitive understanding of adoption drivers for emerging urban air mobility services. The findings offer practical insights for policy makers and service providers seeking to design user-centric, trustworthy, and sustainable drone taxi systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Service Experience and Servicescape in Sustainable Consumption)
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22 pages, 1067 KB  
Article
Developing and Validating an Intercultural Student Experience Scale Using Structural Equation Modeling
by Nicolás Matus, Cristian Rusu, Virginica Rusu and Federico Botella
Sustainability 2025, 17(18), 8224; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17188224 - 12 Sep 2025
Viewed by 1587
Abstract
This study proposes and validates a culturally responsive instrument for assessing Student Experience (SX) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Guided by Customer Experience (CX) theory and Hofstede’s cultural framework, we drafted a thirty-item scale: nine educational, seven social, three personal, and twelve cultural [...] Read more.
This study proposes and validates a culturally responsive instrument for assessing Student Experience (SX) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Guided by Customer Experience (CX) theory and Hofstede’s cultural framework, we drafted a thirty-item scale: nine educational, seven social, three personal, and twelve cultural items spanning Indulgence–Restraint, Individualism–Collectivism, Masculinity–Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance, Long- versus Short-Term Orientation, and Power Distance. Undergraduate respondents from universities with contrasting cultural profiles completed the survey. Confirmatory factor analyses affirmed a three-dimensional SX structure (Educational, Social, Personal) and six first-order cultural dimensions. A hierarchical second-order Structural Equation Model (SEM) linked the higher-order construct Cultural Aspects (CA) to the higher-order construct SX. The path from CA to SX emerged positive and statistically relevant, indicating that national-culture orientations systematically color students’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral evaluations of institutional touchpoints. The scale enables researchers and academic managers to pinpoint SX gaps, benchmark performance internationally, and design culturally congruent and sustainability-aligned interventions. The article deepens theoretical understanding of how culture shapes service perceptions in global HEIs by explicitly integrating cultural theory and cultural studies into SX evaluation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Service Experience and Servicescape in Sustainable Consumption)
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