Serviceology for Services: 7th International Conference, ICServ 2020, Osaka, Japan, March 13–15, 2020, Proceedings

This paper focuses on the cognitive competencies enabling front-line employees to grasp context, which previous has not taken into account. To this end, we developed two studies. Study 1 identifies the key factors and models the cognition during service based on interview data from flight attendants. Interview data was analyzed by Grounded Theory Approach. In study 2, the cognition of 155 flight attendants was obtained and features representing cognitive competency were quantitatively identified. Our findings propose the hospitality concept of “serving not to serve” from a cognitive perspective, for which risk perception and thoughtfulness are important cognitive competencies.