Guest article by Jochen Wirtz, Christopher Lovelock Award Recipient 2019
It is an honor to have been asked as the recipient of the 2019 Christopher Lovelock Career Contributions Award to contribute to this article. Werner told me that “How you write textbooks is what many are wondering about you” and also the “why”. Let me share some thoughts.
Are textbooks important?
I believe having a good textbook is important for learning, getting a good overview and mastering a subject for the typical undergraduate and masters-level student. Textbooks provide knowledge and guide learning by synthesizing research from trusted sources and by organizing and presenting it in a way that makes it easy for students to acquire, work with and internalize that knowledge.
Textbooks provide a sound overview as a backdrop for the deep diving into those topics the professor finds particularly important. Together, the professor and the textbook provide breadth and depth, and students can gain a solid understanding of a field. Also, there is lots of research that shows that students learn better if they can work with their own books. I would add that ideally, they should keep their books even after completing a course as reference material – they worked through the book, and know what is where, how the subject is structured and will be able to easily refer back to what was learned.
As I believe students should have a textbook for every course they take, I worked hard to convince my publisher not to follow standard textbook pricing but make my book affordable. That is why the e-book version of Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy, 8th edition is currently available on Amazon for $27.95.
Why do I write textbooks?
I love the excitement of going through new research and organizing knowledge. Also, in my EMBA class discussions, we often touch on topics that have not been truly explored in academic research and are not yet covered in textbooks. If a topic excites me I am then happy to dive in and start a research project on it. Examples include when my course participants asked “as word-of-mouth is so important, how do we stimulate it?”, “we have to be careful as some customers do take advantage of generous service recovery policies”, and “are there other organizations besides Shouldice Hospital that deliver service excellence while being a cost leader?” These classroom discussions led to research streams over the years on “referral reward programs”, “opportunistic claiming during service recovery”, and “cost-effective service excellence”.
Exciting topics executives grapple with and which will enter services textbooks include robotics and AI, cost-effective service excellence, platform business models and peer-to-peer sharing, and corporate digital responsibility. If interested, you can follow these topics on ResearchGate.
Writing textbooks is my way of learning and developing myself and digging deeper when executives disagree with conventional knowledge or ask questions we as a community haven’t yet addressed very well.
Jochen Wirtz, Frontiers in Service conference 2019 in Singapore
How do I write textbooks?
I have been working on a new edition about every five years. For each edition, I sift through the key literature that was published since the previous edition and integrate and synthesize the incremental knowledge gained. For the next edition to be published in 2021 the SERVSIG Literature Alert is proving immensely helpful! I keep track of topics that are hot and have to be included.
Working still with hardcopies, I print all the papers that are relevant and may be included into the text. Then for each paper, I write my thoughts on the cover page where it potentially should be included (e.g., a paper may be relevant for Chapters 1, 4 and 11). Then, I start 15 piles (one for each chapter) and put each of the papers on the pile for the first chapter it is of relevance to. Next, I start with the pile for Chapter 1 and integrate what I think should go into the new edition. Each paper that is processed will then move to the next pile it shows on the cover (e.g., Chapter 4 in our example). This way, I systematically work through pile by pile and ensure that I don’t miss anything important. It is quite fun seeing these enormous piles of papers move from chapter to chapter until they are all processed.
As you probably can see, I love organizing knowledge into chapters and textbooks. It gives me great satisfaction once I am happy with a new chart, organizing framework, or a revised chapter, and in the end seeing the entire book come together. I hope you enjoy our community’s textbooks too and see value in having them.
Jochen Wirtz
Professor of Marketing
Vice Dean Graduate Studies
NUS Business School, National University of Singapore
Much appreciated indeed, clear, sound, contemporaneous and concise.