Purpose – Economic theories applied to the study of buyer‐seller relationships draw to a large extent on the problems caused by specific investments. This contribution aims to develop a new perspective on specific investments that accounts for their value‐adding character and also to...

Purpose – While researchers in other disciplines seek to determine the impact that humour has in personal interactions, studies of humour in service delivery are lacking. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether it is beneficial to deliberately use humour in service encounters....