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To provide customers with a more compelling experience, many firms have begun to deploy augmented reality (AR) as a frontline technology. However, managers and customers alike remain skeptical whether firms are currently exploiting the full potential of AR. This presents a need for a better understanding of the value creation processes that underlie AR-enabled customer experiences. However, current literature offers little guidance; research has yet to adequately describe how AR might enhance experiences and facilitate decision making throughout the customer journey. In this dissertation, I address this research gap in three distinct manuscripts. In the first manuscript, “Making omnichannel an augmented reality”, my co-authors and I review previously published research and currently deployed applications to provide a roadmap for future research efforts on ARenabled experiences across the customer journey. On the basis of situated cognition theorizing, we demonstrate that AR offers myriad opportunities to provide customers with a seamless omnichannel journey, smoothing current obstacles, through a unique combination of i) embedded, ii) embodied, and iii) extended customer experiences. These three principles constitute the overarching value drivers of AR and offer coherent, theory-driven organizing principles for managers and researchers. In the second manuscript, “Augmenting the eye of the beholder”, my coauthors and I demonstrate that AR enables firms to enhance the online service experience by pursuing a strategy of service augmentation. In a series of studies (n = 1,033) with the AR applications of L’Oreal and Mister Spex, we provide evidence that AR-based service augmentation promotes effective and enjoyable online shopping by i) allowing customers to embed online offerings into their personal environments, and ii) simulating a sense of physical contr

To provide customers with a more compelling experience, many firms have begun to deploy augmented reality (AR) as a frontline technology. However, managers and customers alike remain skeptical whether firms are currently exploiting the full potential of AR. This presents a need for a better understanding of the value creation processes that underlie AR-enabled customer experiences. However, current literature offers little guidance; research has yet to adequately describe how AR might enhance experiences and facilitate decision making throughout the customer journey. In this dissertation, I address this research gap in three distinct manuscripts. In the first manuscript, “Making omnichannel an augmented reality”, my co-authors and I review previously published research and currently deployed applications to provide a roadmap for future research efforts on ARenabled experiences across the customer journey. On the basis of situated cognition theorizing, we demonstrate that AR offers myriad opportunities to provide customers with a seamless omnichannel journey, smoothing current obstacles, through a unique combination of i) embedded, ii) embodied, and iii) extended customer experiences. These three principles constitute the overarching value drivers of AR and offer coherent, theory-driven organizing principles for managers and researchers. In the second manuscript, “Augmenting the eye of the beholder”, my coauthors and I demonstrate that AR enables firms to enhance the online service experience by pursuing a strategy of service augmentation. In a series of studies (n = 1,033) with the AR applications of L’Oreal and Mister Spex, we provide evidence that AR-based service augmentation promotes effective and enjoyable online shopping by i) allowing customers to embed online offerings into their personal environments, and ii) simulating a sense of physical contr