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Special issue on European research in service marketing
Journal of Business Research 57 (2004) 372 – 373
Editorial
Special issue on European research in service marketing 1. Introduction Services and service management are of high interest and have become increasingly important issues over the last decade. The first topics discussed in the literature were focused on service quality; its definition and measurement. Since its foundation services researchers have made remarkable contributions to this area and in turn have identified and generated new and exciting challenges for research in service marketing. One such development is the increasing tendency of research to approach service systems from a multidisciplinary perspective. Such a perspective raises such issues as the examination of interaction decisions throughout the service system, from design aspects, via operational and channel aspects to the actual service delivery to customers. We have collected contributions in each of these areas, starting with the design of services to the explicit focus on the interactions between provider and consumer. With this in mind we have put the contributions in the following order. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Studying new financial service development processes Blueprinting the service process Internal market orientation Service productivity Multichannel delivery systems Service encounter emotions and satisfaction Service encounter emotions and behavior
This leads us from a more managerial view to a view focused on sales person and consumer behavior in service delivery encounters. At the end of 1999, we started organizing a European Workshop on Quality Management in Services at Aston Business School, UK with John Saunders, and Gordon Greenley. This was the 10th workshop organized by the European Institute of Advanced Studies in Management. In thinking of the theme of the year 2000 we noticed that for some years ideas in services marketing had departed from the basic focus on service quality, and so we decided to propose a broader perspective for the workshop, finally settling on ‘‘service system chains.’’ This broader brief resulted in a number of interesting contributions, and together with a number of invited papers we came to the collection of articles under the umbrella of European service research. The authors are from six different nationalities and after a rigorous double blind review process the result is this special issue. 0148-2963/$ – see front matter D 2002 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0148-2963(02)00271-0
Day (2000) concludes that a firm with customerrelating capability must also be organized in ways that support customer relationships. This means for services that services need to be structured around customers, rather than service products or functions. Moreover, companies must commit adequate resources to developing and maintaining customer information, service processes and communications. In that sense the service processes are ‘‘on the move’’ and in the spotlight of shaping service strategy development of companies. From different angles we will now give an idea of the different studies in this special issue. The first study by Blazevic and Lievens stresses the crucial influence of management support, harmonious crossfunctional interfaces. Regarding the service innovation process itself they conclude that the up-front activities of the innovation process seem to have an important leveraging effect on learning and performance. In the second study by Fließ and Kleinaltenkamp blueprinting tools are used in an unusual way; deciding on the degree of customer participation, and in general the design of the vertical and horizontal structure of service companies. The third contribution by Lings addresses internal marketing and the importance of developing an internal focus. He reconceptualizes marketing and develops a new construct, internal market orientation. The fourth contribution by Gro¨nroos and Ojasalo considers service productivity as a function of internal efficiency, external efficiency and capacity efficiency. This productivity concept can be important in future studies in this area. The fifth contribution by Wiertz, De Ruyter, Keen and Streukens deals with the increased number of service delivery options available to companies. More specifically the study investigates cooperation between Customer Interaction Centers and channel intermediaries. They conclude that trust directly enhances channel partners’ willingness to cooperate, which makes it possible to leverage the potential of partnerships within service delivery systems. The sixth and seventh contributions by Van Dolen, De Ruyter and Lemmink, and Zeelenberg and Pieters respectively discuss emotions, satisfaction and behavior in service encounters. Their conclusions are that employee-specific and interaction-induced behaviors allow a better understanding of customer encounter and relationship satisfaction, and
Editorial / Journal of Business Research 57 (2004) 372–373
that emotions have a direct impact on behavior, over and above the effects of dissatisfaction. In closing we thank the many people who made this special issue possible *). We extend a special thanks to Arch Woodside, who encouraged us to create this special issue and also thank the many reviewers and authors. Finally, a special word to the people from Aston Business School who helped us in organizing the workshop and selecting these contributions from over 20 initial submissions, 10 passed through to the second stage and finally 7 remain in the special issue. Although the special issue does not represent a fully streamlined research focus in services, the different contributions represent the diversity and potential of European research into services marketing.
Lings, Ian Mattsson, Jan Mo¨ller, Kristian Mu¨hlbacher, Hans Piercy, Nigel Pieters, Rik Ruyter, Ko de Stauss, Bernd
*) Reviewers for the special issue Wetzels, Martin Baumgartner, Hans Bell, Simon Botschen, Gu¨nther Botschen, Martina Cadogan, John Ennew, Christine Greenley, Gordon Grønhaug, Kjell Harris, Lloyd Hooley, Graham Lemmink, Jos
Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK Norwegian School of Economics and Business, Bergen, Norway Cardiff University, Wales, UK Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
373
Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield, Bedford, UK Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands Katholische Universita¨t Eichstaett, Ingolstadt, Germany Technical University Eindhoven, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Reference Day, G., 2000. Capabilities for forging customer relationships, MSI Report No. 00-118. Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, MA.
Jos G.A.M. Lemmink* Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Department of Marketing and Marketing Research Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands E-mail address: [email protected] Gu¨nther Botschen Ian N. Lings Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +31-43-3210265; fax: +31-43-3884918.
Editorial
Special issue on European research in service marketing 1. Introduction Services and service management are of high interest and have become increasingly important issues over the last decade. The first topics discussed in the literature were focused on service quality; its definition and measurement. Since its foundation services researchers have made remarkable contributions to this area and in turn have identified and generated new and exciting challenges for research in service marketing. One such development is the increasing tendency of research to approach service systems from a multidisciplinary perspective. Such a perspective raises such issues as the examination of interaction decisions throughout the service system, from design aspects, via operational and channel aspects to the actual service delivery to customers. We have collected contributions in each of these areas, starting with the design of services to the explicit focus on the interactions between provider and consumer. With this in mind we have put the contributions in the following order. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Studying new financial service development processes Blueprinting the service process Internal market orientation Service productivity Multichannel delivery systems Service encounter emotions and satisfaction Service encounter emotions and behavior
This leads us from a more managerial view to a view focused on sales person and consumer behavior in service delivery encounters. At the end of 1999, we started organizing a European Workshop on Quality Management in Services at Aston Business School, UK with John Saunders, and Gordon Greenley. This was the 10th workshop organized by the European Institute of Advanced Studies in Management. In thinking of the theme of the year 2000 we noticed that for some years ideas in services marketing had departed from the basic focus on service quality, and so we decided to propose a broader perspective for the workshop, finally settling on ‘‘service system chains.’’ This broader brief resulted in a number of interesting contributions, and together with a number of invited papers we came to the collection of articles under the umbrella of European service research. The authors are from six different nationalities and after a rigorous double blind review process the result is this special issue. 0148-2963/$ – see front matter D 2002 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0148-2963(02)00271-0
Day (2000) concludes that a firm with customerrelating capability must also be organized in ways that support customer relationships. This means for services that services need to be structured around customers, rather than service products or functions. Moreover, companies must commit adequate resources to developing and maintaining customer information, service processes and communications. In that sense the service processes are ‘‘on the move’’ and in the spotlight of shaping service strategy development of companies. From different angles we will now give an idea of the different studies in this special issue. The first study by Blazevic and Lievens stresses the crucial influence of management support, harmonious crossfunctional interfaces. Regarding the service innovation process itself they conclude that the up-front activities of the innovation process seem to have an important leveraging effect on learning and performance. In the second study by Fließ and Kleinaltenkamp blueprinting tools are used in an unusual way; deciding on the degree of customer participation, and in general the design of the vertical and horizontal structure of service companies. The third contribution by Lings addresses internal marketing and the importance of developing an internal focus. He reconceptualizes marketing and develops a new construct, internal market orientation. The fourth contribution by Gro¨nroos and Ojasalo considers service productivity as a function of internal efficiency, external efficiency and capacity efficiency. This productivity concept can be important in future studies in this area. The fifth contribution by Wiertz, De Ruyter, Keen and Streukens deals with the increased number of service delivery options available to companies. More specifically the study investigates cooperation between Customer Interaction Centers and channel intermediaries. They conclude that trust directly enhances channel partners’ willingness to cooperate, which makes it possible to leverage the potential of partnerships within service delivery systems. The sixth and seventh contributions by Van Dolen, De Ruyter and Lemmink, and Zeelenberg and Pieters respectively discuss emotions, satisfaction and behavior in service encounters. Their conclusions are that employee-specific and interaction-induced behaviors allow a better understanding of customer encounter and relationship satisfaction, and
Editorial / Journal of Business Research 57 (2004) 372–373
that emotions have a direct impact on behavior, over and above the effects of dissatisfaction. In closing we thank the many people who made this special issue possible *). We extend a special thanks to Arch Woodside, who encouraged us to create this special issue and also thank the many reviewers and authors. Finally, a special word to the people from Aston Business School who helped us in organizing the workshop and selecting these contributions from over 20 initial submissions, 10 passed through to the second stage and finally 7 remain in the special issue. Although the special issue does not represent a fully streamlined research focus in services, the different contributions represent the diversity and potential of European research into services marketing.
Lings, Ian Mattsson, Jan Mo¨ller, Kristian Mu¨hlbacher, Hans Piercy, Nigel Pieters, Rik Ruyter, Ko de Stauss, Bernd
*) Reviewers for the special issue Wetzels, Martin Baumgartner, Hans Bell, Simon Botschen, Gu¨nther Botschen, Martina Cadogan, John Ennew, Christine Greenley, Gordon Grønhaug, Kjell Harris, Lloyd Hooley, Graham Lemmink, Jos
Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK Norwegian School of Economics and Business, Bergen, Norway Cardiff University, Wales, UK Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
373
Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield, Bedford, UK Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands Katholische Universita¨t Eichstaett, Ingolstadt, Germany Technical University Eindhoven, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Reference Day, G., 2000. Capabilities for forging customer relationships, MSI Report No. 00-118. Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, MA.
Jos G.A.M. Lemmink* Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Department of Marketing and Marketing Research Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands E-mail address: [email protected] Gu¨nther Botschen Ian N. Lings Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +31-43-3210265; fax: +31-43-3884918.