Exploring Territorial Elements in Servicescape: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Abstract

This article aims to conduct a comprehensive literature review to delve into the territorial elements within servicescape. In the service industry, customer territoriality can reflect a customer’s identification with the business, enhance their purchasing inclination, or, conversely, lead to strong defensive or retaliatory behaviors towards other customers or employees, significantly affecting business operations. Understanding customer territoriality is crucial for comprehending customer behavior. The article begins by introducing the concepts of servicescape and territoriality, followed by the identification of territorial elements within servicescape. The literature review encompasses research on various aspects of servicescape, including physical factors and social factors, with the aim of revealing how territorial elements influence customer behavior and experiences. Through this literature review, we provide profound insights into territorial elements within servicescape, underscoring their importance for service quality and customer satisfaction. These research findings are expected to offer practical information to practitioners and researchers on optimizing servicescape to enhance customer experiences. Finally, we discuss future research directions to advance the understanding of territorial elements in various servicescape.