guest article by Mary Jo Bitner, Editor JSR
As the current editor of the Journal of Service Research, it is my privilege to observe first-hand what people are thinking about, what they are working on, and how the discipline is evolving. I also have decades of personal experience as an active service researcher, starting with the early days when our discipline was just forming. From this somewhat unique vantage point, I often say: “It is a wonderful time to be a service researcher!” The opportunities and the need for high-quality service research that is both rigorous and academically sound have never been more clear.
Why do I say that? Here are a few reasons:
- More and more companies and organizations are focused on competing through service than ever before. New business realities for traditional manufacturers and technology companies are driving them toward service as a way to compete, grow, and profit. These organizations are in need of business models, metrics, and frameworks to help them in this transition. While there is solid research to build from, much more is needed.
- Young, innovative companies are bursting onto the scene and a huge percentage of these start-ups are service businesses—think Uber, Airbnb, and many smaller, lesser-known companies. Recently I spoke at an industry conference on Service Experience Design put on by Adaptive Path in San Francisco and the energy in the room, the creative ideas, and enthusiasm of the young business leaders was contagious. For these new business contexts, more research is needed that cuts across design, experience, and customer-focused disciplines to produce tools and theoretical understanding of these innovative types of service experiences.
- Interconnected cities, cars, homes, remote service, cloud services and other technology advances are all forms of service innovation that are rapidly engulfing our ever-day lives. Yet, our full understanding of these technology-based businesses and networks requires research and new approaches for managing them, for designing them, and for predicting customer adoption.
- In parallel with these exciting practical developments, the service research field is responding, leading, and developing in important ways. The focal topics of our work are ever-more relevant and global in their impact. Service Innovation, Service Design, Sevice Experience, Metrics and Analytics – and many more topics – are increasingly important to service researchers and managers focused on growth and competition through service.
- Ecosystems, service systems, networks, co-production, value co-creation, service dominant logic, customer logic, transformative service and wellbeing – all of these are new terms, constructs and areas of research that are rapidly developing across the service disciplines. These are all part of the new language of service research.
Our discipline is uniquely positioned to contribute in these areas and to again be a leader in developing new concepts, theories, constructs, and methodologies that have practical relevance. We have always been interdisciplinary, global, and problem-focused. These are our disciplinary roots. We have the opportunity once again to be on the forefront. The difference now versus a few decades ago is that we have a lot to build on and from – so we need to be sure we take advantage of all we know as we take the next steps forward!
Twenty years from now, I look forward to reflecting on what we have accomplished over the next two decades. From my current vantage point, I expect it will be a lot!
Mary Jo Bitner
Edward M. Carson Chair in Service Marketing, Arizona State University
Editor, Journal of Service Research
