scholarly journals Mapping of journal of services marketing themes: a retrospective overview using bibliometric analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naveen Donthu ◽  
Satish Kumar ◽  
Chatura Ranaweera ◽  
Debidutta Pattnaik ◽  
Anders Gustafsson
Keyword(s):  
Services Marketing ◽  
Service Industries ◽  
Bibliographic Coupling ◽  
Customer Engagement ◽  
Service Research ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Thematic Structure ◽  
Coupling Analysis ◽  
Content Type

Purpose Journal of services marketing (JSM) is a leading journal that has published cutting-edge research in services marketing over the past 34 years. The main objective of this paper is to provide a retrospective of the thematic structure of papers published in JSM over its publication history. Design/methodology/approach This study uses bibliometric methods to present a retrospective overview of JSM themes between 1987 and 2019. Using keywords co-occurrence analysis, this paper unveils the thematic structure of JSM’s most prolific themes. Bibliographic coupling analysis uncovers the research trends of the journal. Findings Leading authors, leading institutions, authors’ affiliated countries and critically, the dominant themes of JSM are identified. As its founding, JSM has published approximately 40 papers each year, with 2019 being its most productive year. On average, lead JSM authors to collaborate with 1.30 others. Keywords co-occurrence analysis identifies nine prominent thematic clusters, namely, “marketing to service”, “quality, satisfaction and delivery systems”, “service industries”, “relationship marketing”, “service failure, complaining and recovery”, “service dominant logic”, “technology, innovation and design”, “wellbeing” and “service encounters”. Bibliographic coupling analysis groups JSM papers into four clusters, namely, “brand & customer engagement behaviour”, “service co-creation”, “service encounters & service recovery” and “social networking”. Research limitations/implications This study is the first to analyse the thematic structure of JSM themes over its history. The themes are analysed across time periods and then compared to dominant themes identified in contemporary service research agendas. Recommendations are made based on the gaps found. This retrospective review will be useful to numerous key stakeholders including the editorial board and both existing and aspiring JSM contributors. The selection of literature is confined to Scopus. Originality/value JSM’s retrospection is likely to attract readership to the journal. The study’s recommendations regarding which areas have matured and which are still ripe for future contributions will offer useful guidelines for all stakeholders.

scholarly journals Editorial: service research in the new (post-COVID) marketplace

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. I-V
Author(s):  
Mark Scott Rosenbaum ◽  
Rebekah Russell-Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Services Marketing ◽  
Service Industries ◽  
Service Research ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Global Perspectives ◽  
Personal Reflections

Purpose The aim of this paper is to encourage service researchers to consider the long-term or permanent impact of the coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) on services, service delivery, organizational structures, service providers and service systems from global perspectives. Design/methodology/approach This editorial is based on the personal reflections of the Journal of Services Marketing editors. Findings The services marketing discipline emerged in a time when customers and employees were encouraged to engage in social interaction and to form relationships, as many service encounters were deemed as social encounters. COVID-19 has impacted the ability of customers and employees to freely engage in social interaction, and as a result, we need to consider the steadfastness of our foundational theories and conceptual models in the “new” marketplace. Research limitations/implications The editors put forth a series of sixteen research questions that warrant future empirical and descriptive research. Practical implications Managers can understand how COVID-19 will profoundly impact dramatic changes in the marketplace and prepare for them. Originality/value This study suggests that our theoretical and practical understandings of service industries has been significantly impacted by COVID-19.

scholarly journals Editorial: bringing socially unacceptable services into services marketing

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (7) ◽  
pp. 885-887
Author(s):  
Mark Scott Rosenbaum ◽  
Rebekah Russell-Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Services Marketing ◽  
Service Industries ◽  
Service Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Societal Welfare ◽  
Personal Reflections ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This paper aims to define the term “socially unacceptable services” and call for novel research in these under-researched service industries. Design/methodology/approach Personal reflections. Findings Service offerings exist that, despite their ability to create value for customers, clients or partners, many in society at large deem to be offensive, inappropriate or harmful for a variety of reasons. Service researchers have ignored the existence and impact of socially unacceptable services on consumers and society for too long. Research limitations/implications Given the expanding role of the transformative service research (TSR) paradigm in the services marketing domain, especially given its emphasis on exchanges that influence consumer and societal well-being and the reality that many socially unacceptable services profoundly influence consumer and societal welfare in both positive and negative manners, the time is opportune for service researchers to begin exploring socially unacceptable services from a TSR perspective. Practical implications Given that buyers and sellers who enter socially unacceptable exchanges often seem satisfied by doing so, the authors encourage researchers to unearth how consumers obtain value from these exchanges and to explore whether consumers enter these exchanges with full information to make informed decisions. Originality/value This viewpoint is one of the first to provide authors with an impetus to begin research program in socially unacceptable services and offers researchers a list of potential research topics in this new area. The authors believe that socially unacceptable service research may emerge as a separate research paradigm.

scholarly journals Journal of Service Theory and Practice at age 30: past, present and future contributions to service research

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naveen Donthu ◽  
Satish Kumar ◽  
Chatura Ranaweera ◽  
Marianna Sigala ◽  
Riya Sureka
Keyword(s):  
Citation Count ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Intellectual Structure ◽  
Bibliographic Coupling ◽  
Service Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Scopus Database ◽  
Service Theory

PurposeIn 2020, the Journal of Service Theory and Practice (JSTP), previously titled Managing Service Quality, celebrates its 30th anniversary. This study provides a retrospective of the evolution and contribution of the journal to service research by identifying its major trends, research constituents, factors contributing to citations and thematic structure over its 29 active years (1991–2019). The paper concludes by providing directions and ideas for progressing service researchDesign/methodology/approachThe study uses the Scopus database to extract JSTP's bibliographic data. It employs bibliometric methods to study the trends of the journal, such as the citation structure and most-contributing authors, institutions and countries. Bibliographic coupling and keyword co-occurrence analyses are used to study the intellectual structure of the journal. Regression analysis discloses the factors influencing citations of JSTP articles. Factors explaining the citation count of JSTP articles include article age, number of author keywords, article length, title length and number of references.FindingsJSTP's influence has grown significantly in the scientific community, which is evidenced by findings relating to the citation counts, the thematic scope/variety and authorship features of the JSTP papers published during the last 30 years. JSTP attracts publications from around the globe, but most contributions come from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Although JSTP has continuously evolved with new and varied themes, a bibliographic coupling analysis clustered JSTP articles into five major clusters.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations of the Scopus database may impact the study's results.Originality/valueThis study is the first to provide a comprehensive review of JSTP since its launch. It is useful to the editorial board and other JSTP stakeholders as well as service scholars alike.

Customer delight during a crisis: understanding delight through the lens of transformative service research

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald C. Barnes ◽  
Jessica Mesmer-Magnus ◽  
Lisa L. Scribner ◽  
Alexandra Krallman ◽  
Rebecca M. Guidice
Keyword(s):  
Critical Incident ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Service Research ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Need Fulfillment ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Customer Delight ◽  
Service Experiences

PurposeThe unprecedented dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced firms to re-envision the customer experience and find new ways to ensure positive service encounters. This context has underscored the reality that drivers of customer delight in a “traditional” context are not the same in a crisis context. While research has tended to identify hedonic need fulfillment as key to customer well-being and, ultimately, to invoking customer delight, the majority of studies were conducted in inherently positive contexts, which may limit generalizability to more challenging contexts. Through the combined lens of transformative service research (TSR) and psychological theory on hedonic and eudaimonic human needs, we evaluate the extent to which need fulfillment is the root of customer well-being and that meeting well-being needs ultimately promotes delight. We argue that in crisis contexts, the salience of needs shifts from hedonic to eudaimonic and the extent to which service experiences fulfill eudaimonic needs determines the experience and meaning of delight.Design/methodology/approachUtilizing the critical incident technique, this research surveyed 240 respondents who were asked to explain in detail a time they experienced customer delight during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed their responses according to whether these incidents reflected the salience of hedonic versus eudaimonic need fulfillment.FindingsThe results support the notion that the salience of eudaimonic needs become more pronounced during times of crisis and that service providers are more likely to elicit perceptions of delight when they leverage meeting eudaimonic needs over the hedonic needs that are typically emphasized in traditional service encounters.Originality/valueWe discuss the implications of these findings for integrating the TSR and customer delight literatures to better understand how service experiences that meet salient needs produce customer well-being and delight. Ultimately, we find customer delight can benefit well-being across individual, collective and societal levels.

Customer fairness perceptions in augmented reality-based online services

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Christ-Brendemühl ◽  
Mario Schaarschmidt
Keyword(s):  
Augmented Reality ◽  
Customer Participation ◽  
Service Research ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Price Fairness ◽  
Online Services ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Fairness Perceptions ◽  
Shopping Experience ◽  
Service Managers

PurposeAn increasing number of retailers is trying to stimulate customers by embedding augmented reality (AR) features such as video try-on into the online shopping experience. As such AR-based online services require customers to actively participate in the service provision, this paper aims at investigating fairness perceptions and customer responses associated with AR-enabled customer participation.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual framework of this study is based on equity theory. To compare customer responses after an in-store service encounter as opposed to AR-enabled customer participation involving video try-on, this study contains a between-subject online experiment. The effective sample comprises N = 215 participants.FindingsThe data analysis demonstrates that AR-enabled customer participation leads to significantly lower levels of distributive, procedural and price fairness as well as lower engagement intentions than in-store service encounters. Simultaneously, participants in the video try-on scenario report higher negative word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions than in the in-store scenario.Research limitations/implicationsThe extra mile customers go when using AR-based online services is reflected in less favorable fairness evaluations.Practical implicationsService managers should design AR applications in a manner that requires minimum customer participation.Originality/valueThis study contributes to service research by linking AR-enabled customer participation to evaluations of distributive, procedural and price fairness and their outcomes. This is vital to fully exploit the potential of AR in services.

scholarly journals Exploring the ZMET methodology in services marketing

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Hancock ◽  
Carley Foster
Keyword(s):  
Services Marketing ◽  
Student Experiences ◽  
Service Research ◽  
Process Step ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Qualitative Approaches ◽  
Limited Application ◽  
Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique ◽  
Service Experiences ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This paper aims to explore how the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET) can be adopted in services marketing to provide deeper customer experience insights. Design/methodology/approach This paper explores how ZMET interviews, which use images selected by the participant to facilitate discussion, can be used by researchers. This paper draws upon a study of 24 student experiences at a UK university. Findings Adopting this qualitative method for services marketing can counter depth deficit when compared to other qualitative approaches, because it is participant led. However, the method requires competent interview skills and time for the interview and analysis. We find that ZMET has not been widely adopted in academia because of its commercial licenced use. The paper illustrates how to use the ZMET process step-by-step. Research limitations/implications Findings are limited to student experiences. Further research is necessary to understand how researchers could use ZMET in other areas of services marketing. Practical implications This paper provides guidance to researchers on how to use ZMET as a methodological tool. ZMET facilitates a deeper understanding of service experiences through using participant chosen images and thus enabling researchers to uncover subconscious hidden perceptions that other methods may not find. Originality/value ZMET has been used commercially to gain market insights but has had limited application in service research. Existing studies fail to provide details of how ZMET can be used to access the consumer subconscious. This paper makes a methodological contribution by providing step-by-step guidance on how to apply ZMET to services marketing.

scholarly journals Viewpoint: The impact of coronavirus on service ecosystems as service mega-disruptions

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 809-817 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sertan Kabadayi ◽  
Genevieve E. O’Connor ◽  
Sven Tuzovic
Keyword(s):  
Research Community ◽  
Service Industries ◽  
Service Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Massive Scale ◽  
Service Ecosystems ◽  
Service Sectors ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Impact

Purpose This paper aims to synthesize the widespread economic impact of the outbreak of COVID-19 and presents a new concept, service mega-disruptions (SMDs), which refers to fast moving market disturbances at a massive scale caused by a pandemic. The purpose of this paper is to offer a framework to recognize the impact of SMDs on service ecosystems and a call to action for service researchers in light of the COVID-19 outbreak. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents an overview of massive market disturbances that is observed across multiple service sectors based on current news reports. It then develops themes for timely and actionable research for service scholars. Findings The outbreak of COVID-19 demonstrates that both service industries and the service research community face a new reality, something that we are not well-prepared to handle. A new framework is needed to understand the impact of such virus outbreaks, and current service marketing concepts need to be re-investigated from a new perspective. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature and service research community by addressing the phenomenon of SMDs by curating a framework and collection of research themes to understand what we observe and what we need to learn to do better in the future.

Blockchain security research: theorizing through bibliographic-coupling analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lurdes D. Patrício ◽  
João J. Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Data Encryption ◽  
Bibliographic Coupling ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Coupling Analysis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Future Research Agenda ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
Stage Of Development

PurposeThe continuous presence and intensity of the Internet of things (IoT) in our lives and the risk of security breaches in traditional transactional and financial platforms are the major cause of personal and organizational data losses. Blockchain emerges as a promised technology to ensure higher levels of data encryption and security. Thus, this study aims to develop a systematic literature review analyzing the previous literature and to purpose of a framework to better understand the process of blockchain security.Design/methodology/approachThe 75 articles reviewed were obtained through the Scopus database and a bibliographic-coupling analysis was developed to identify the main themes of this research area, via VOSviewer software.FindingsThe results enable the categorization of the existing literature revealing four clusters: 1) feasibility, 2) fintech and cryptocurrency, 3) data trust and share and 4) applicability. Blockchain technology is still in its early stage of development and counting on researchers in security and cryptography to take it further to new highs, to allow its applicability to different areas and in long-term scenarios.Originality/valueThis systematic literature creates a base to reduce the blockchain security literature gap. In addition, it provides a framework that enables the scientific community to access the main subjects discussed and the articulation between concepts. Furthermore, it enhances the state-of-the-art literature on blockchain security and proposes a future research agenda.

scholarly journals Emotional timescapes: the temporal perspective and consumption emotions in services

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Maguire ◽  
Susi Geiger
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Services Marketing ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Temporal Perspective ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Consumption Emotions ◽  
Temporal Aspect ◽  
Per Se

Purpose – This study aims to examine how the temporal aspect of service consumption impacts the emotions that are created within consumers during service encounters. Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopted mobile phone or ‘SMS’ diaries to capture the emotions that participants experienced at the very moment they were being felt or ‘in-vivo’. The study included thirteen different services including both ‘brief’ and ‘extended service transactions’. Findings – The study suggests that the temporal perspective is a dominant cause of consumption emotions in services, influencing consumers’ emotions from before the service encounter commences to its conclusion and, in some cases, beyond the conclusion of the service event. Other antecedents of consumption emotions such as interactions with staff and the servicescape are influenced by and interwoven with this temporal aspect. By capturing emotions as they were experienced, recall difficulties that might have been encountered had the emotions been measured retrospectively were eliminated, allowing the researchers to construct a comprehensive account of the chronology and contiguity of the emotions created within consumers during service encounters. Originality/value – Although certain aspects of time such as the consequences of queuing and waiting have been addressed in the services marketing literature, a detailed understanding of how time impacts consumption emotions in services from the start to the conclusion of service encounters has not been undertaken to date. This research addresses that gap by examining how the temporal perspective influences not only consumption emotions in customers per se but how it also influences other causes of consumption emotions that customers encounter during service transactions.

Viewpoint: service research in Post-Soviet states and the former eastern bloc

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Gnusowski
Keyword(s):  
Special Section ◽  
Services Marketing ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Relationship Building ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Service Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Do It Yourself

Purpose This paper aims to improve the service discipline’s understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities that services marketers encounter in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) and Post-Soviet states. This paper also serves as an introduction to the special section about services marketing perspectives in this region. Design/methodology/approach Considering the Post-Soviet reality, the paper is a viewpoint regarding the specific development potential of services marketing in the CESEE region. In addition, the three papers included in the special section use a variety of research methods, participants and service settings. Findings First, this paper outlines the positive and negative consequences of the radical changes in the services markets over the past 30 years. Next, all three papers included in the special section explore the distinctive customer perspective of services marketing. Finally, this paper discusses the specific relationship building environment of the Post-Soviet reality and how its unique do-it-yourself background contributes to the existing discussion on consumers’ involvement in the co-creation of value. Research limitations/implications The findings from this special section have valuable implications for future research on services marketing in the CESEE markets, although these may not always be generalizable beyond the unique context of the research detailed in each of these papers. Practical implications This research, along with the three papers, presents some useful directions for services marketing managers cooperating with the CESEE markets, such as understanding and managing the expectations of their customers or employees. Originality/value This paper is one of the first attempts to understand the uniqueness of the under-researched area of services marketing in the CESEE and Post-Soviet States, both from a theoretical and empirical point of view. This also provides previously under-represented authors from the region the opportunity to present their perspective to an international service community.

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