Invited Speaker
Prof. Atsushi Inuzuka
Nagoya University, Japan
Atsushi Inuzuka is Professor of Management at Nagoya University, Japan. He received his Ph.D. from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in 2004. After serving at JAIST and the University of Tokyo, he held academic positions at Okayama University and has been Professor at Nagoya University since 2016.
With an academic background spanning engineering, psychology, and management, he adopts an interdisciplinary approach that integrates quantitative methods, network analysis, and organizational theory. His core research fields include network organization theory, knowledge management, organizational behavior, strategic management, and service management.
In recent years, his work has focused on how organizations realize servitization from an organizational and strategic perspective. Rather than examining services solely from the customer side, he investigates how firms redesign structures, coordination mechanisms, and leadership practices to enable sustainable service transformation. His research combines large-scale behavioral data and survey-based empirical analysis to explore issues such as knowledge integration, R&D productivity, dysfunctional leadership, and organizational change in small and medium-sized enterprises.
Professor Inuzuka has published 35 peer-reviewed journal articles and is the author of the book Servitization Management. He has received 14 academic awards in Japan and internationally.
Title: Customer Satisfaction Without Satisfaction? What COVID-19 Revealed About Online Reviews
Abstract: This study examines a counterintuitive phenomenon observed during the COVID-19 pandemic: average online hotel review ratings in Japan increased despite severe travel restrictions, reduced services, and limited on-site amenities. From a conventional customer satisfaction perspective, this pattern is difficult to explain.
To investigate this anomaly, I conducted three complementary analyses using large-scale review data. First, I compared evaluations by the same customers at the same hotels before and during the pandemic. Second, I examined whether changes in customer composition driven by nationwide government support programs accounted for the observed rating dynamics. Third, I linked a nationwide survey of hotel managers conducted at the end of 2021 to subsequent online review outcomes.
While each approach explained part of the variation, none fully accounted for the pronounced rating peak observed in 2021. These findings suggest that the increase in ratings cannot be attributed solely to improvements in service quality or shifts in customer segments.
I argue that the pandemic altered not only customer experiences but also the conditions under which evaluations were formed and expressed. Drawing on cognitive dissonance theory and reference point adaptation, I propose that online ratings during the crisis partly reflected processes of self-justification and contextual reframing rather than straightforward assessments of service performance.
The study contributes to service and marketing research by highlighting that customer satisfaction scores are not merely stable indicators of underlying attitudes. Instead, they are outcomes produced within specific social and psychological contexts. Periods of crisis function as stress tests that reveal the contextual assumptions embedded in widely used performance metrics.