Managerial Service Research
• Managerial Foundations and Research Topics
– Mary Jo Bitner, ASU
• Crafting and Executing Successful Research
Partnerships
– Stephen W. Brown, ASU
• The Practice of Management Research
– Mark Gabbott, Monash University
Managerial Foundations and Topics
for Service Research
AMA SERVSIG Doctoral Consortium
Frontiers in Services Conference
October 4, 2007
Mary Jo Bitner
W. P. Carey School of Business
Early Service Research
• Growth of service sector
• Complexities of managing
services
• Strong pockets of global
interest
• Establishment of journals,
conferences
Today: Emerging Interest
• IBM’s Catalytic Role
• Mushrooming of conferences, workshops,
publications
• Cross-disciplinary including engineering,
computer science, business, social sciences
Communications of the ACM July
2006
An Historical Perspective
• Journal of Retailing, Spring 1993
– “Building a New Academic Field—The Case of Services Marketing”
by Berry and Parasuraman
– “Tracking the Evolution of the Services Marketing Literature,” by
Fisk, Brown and Bitner
• Services Marketing Self-Portraits, 2000
– Introspections, Reflections, and Glimpses from the Experts, by Fisk,
Grove, and John, American Marketing Association.
• Journal of Marketing, January 2004
– “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing,” by Vargo and
Lusch
Characteristics of the research
• Problem-based
• Global community from the beginning
• Method-neutral
• Partnerships with business
Topics Explored
• Service marketing – customer focus
– service quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty, service encounters, servicescapes,
blueprinting, customer-centric innovation, generating revenue and loyalty through
service(s), technology-delivered service, co-production and co-creation of service,
self-service technologies
• Service operations – internal system and process focus
– service operations design, queuing theory, efficient delivery of services, technologydelivered service, yield management
• Service management – employee focus
– service-profit chain, service orientation, frontline service, service culture and climate,
linkage theory, hiring practices for service, service strategy
• Note: There is intriguing overlap in the research represented by the
three disciplinary streams
Dependent Variables
What do business service researchers
attempt to understand and predict?
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Service profitability
Lifetime value of customers
Customer satisfaction and loyalty
Service quality, service excellence
Employee performance related to
service
Service brand image
Service productivity and efficiency
Competitive advantage and differentiation through service
Linkages between employee performance, service outcomes, and customer
behavior
Why Services Research is Relevant to
Business
• Services frequently provide higher profit
margins and new growth opportunities
• Customer satisfaction and loyalty are driven
by service excellence
• Services can be used as a differentiation
strategy in competitive markets
Service Excellence and Customer
Goals
Enhancing
Retaining
Satisfying
Getting
Copyright Mary Jo Bitner
The Service Profit Chain
Source: An exhibit from J. L. Heskett, T. O. Jones, W. E. Sasser, Jr., and L. A. Schlesinger, “Putting
the Service-Profit Chain to Work,” Harvard Business Review, March-April 1994, p. 166.
Strategic Services Pyramid
Company
Technology
Providers
Customer
(Parasuraman 1996)
Growing Demand for Services Knowledge
• National focus on innovation and growth
– Services are the engine for growth for companies, organizations
and nations
• Job opportunities for our students
– Growth in services and knowledge-worker jobs and need for
specialized skills
• Demand for new research and better use of existing
knowledge
• Need to bridge academic and functional silos
PhD Seminar in Service Science
• Marketing 791 – PhD Seminar
• Service Science: Marketing, Management and Technology
• Fall 2007
• Professor:
Mary Jo Bitner
• Office:
BAC 451
• Office Hours:
By appointment
• Contact:
480-965-1992; maryjo.bitner@asu.edu
• Class meeting: Thursdays, 8:30-11:30 AM
Overview
• Service Science draws on strong research foundations in the field of services marketing,
management and technology to focus on challenges and opportunities relevant to service
innovation and competing through service(s). This emerging trans-disciplinary field is
substantively grounded in real, cross-functional issues of business and its theoretical roots lie
in the business disciplines, engineering, technology and the social sciences.
• This is an exciting time to be involved in services science and research. Service research is a
relatively young (by academic standards) and very dynamic cross-functional research area,
with its deepest roots being in the marketing and management disciplines. While services
research struggled for recognition in the 1980s, it has evolved over the last two decades to be a
prominent field of its own. Today there is growing attention worldwide to service research
including services marketing and management, service engineering, and service innovation.
This seminar will provide students with foundational understanding of services research,
exposure to current and award-winning publications, and opportunities to learn about new,
emerging research areas. Through the seminar, I hope that you will catch the excitement of the
field and see opportunities for your own development as a researcher.
PhD Seminar 2007 – Topics
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Aug 23
Aug 30
Sept 6
Sept 13
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Sept 20
Sept 25
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Oct 2
Oct 11
Nov 7-9
Nov 15
Nov 29
Dec 6
Dec 11
Course Introduction/Overview
Services Marketing – History/Topics/Trends
Service Encounters and Service Quality
Service Science/Service Innovation
Guest Faculty: Stefan Michel
Customers as Co-Producers/Co-Creators of Services
B2B Services/IT Services - Manufacturers and Service
Guest Faculty: Michael Goul
Service Design and Servicescapes
Service Recovery
Guest Faculty: Stephen Brown
CSL’s Compete Through Service Symposium
Funding Proposal Presentations
Employees’ Roles/Service-Profit Chain
Guest Faculty: David Bowen
Technology and Service, SSTs
Guest Faculty: Amy Ostrom
Final paper presentations
Research Opportunities
• Build on characteristics of the Services
Literature
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Focus on substantive business issues
Cross-functional integration
Global contributions
Multiple methodologies
Research Opportunities
• Build on existing research streams – add
depth and strengthen what we know
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Service quality
Service/customer experiences
Technology and service
Service recovery
Customer satisfaction and loyalty
Customer co-production
Financial impact of services and service quality
Research Opportunities
• Chart new directions
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Non-profit applications of services
Synergies with customer experience work
B2B services – strategy and implementation
Service solutions in manufacturing
Service supply chains and service outsourcing
Service networks
Service design
Services branding
Cross-disciplinary collaboration on services topics
Macro issues in services
Global challenges and integration
Managerial Foundations and Topics
for Service Research
AMA SERVSIG Doctoral Consortium
Frontiers in Services Conference
October 4, 2007
Mary Jo Bitner
W. P. Carey School of Business