Guest article by Ray Fisk.
Contributors: John Bateson, Leonard Berry, Mary Jo Bitner, David Bowen, Stephen Brown, Bo Edvardsson, Christian Grönroos, Parsu Parasuraman, and Ben Schneider.
On behalf of Evert Gummesson’s fellow pioneering founders of the service research field, I collected stories about Evert from them to help us all celebrate Evert’s life. [1] The pioneering founders who contributed stories to this SERVSIG Newsletter story all met Evert as the service research field was emerging.
As service scholars know, Evert was one of the first to advocate for relationship marketing. The photos we share provide glimpses into Evert’s human relationships. There is no doubt that his scholarly life and his personal life were in harmony. Evert cherished his many relationships with members of the service research community and, especially, his many long friendships. These photos capture Evert’s serious side and his humorous side.
Each story about Evert will help reader’s appreciate Evert and our cherished memories of him. These memories are organized based upon the most salient year of the memories shared. This sorting resulted in the following comment order: Grönroos, Edvardsson, Brown, Bateson, Bitner, Bowen, Parasuraman, Fisk, Schneider, and Berry.
Christian Grönroos
I met Evert in 1977 at a service marketing workshop arranged by Pierre Eiglier and Eric Langeard outside Aix-en-Provence. We quickly realized that we had two things in common: we had both developed a passion for service firms’ marketing challenges, and we were both associated with universities, where no real interest in and active support for our Ph.D projects existed. We had to fight for our ideas. The mutual support we developed was invaluable. We became friends and our families at one time even swapped houses – and countries.
Over the years we continued to visit each other in Sweden and Finland. Our joint conference spree commenced in 1980, when Bill George invited us to submit papers to the AMA’s first special conference on services marketing in Orlando and continued for decades. We realized that we and one Australian researcher were the only “international” (non-North American) participants. More importantly for our future research avenues, we also realized that our way of looking not only at marketing of services but also at scientific research differed from the mainstream. As a consequence, the Nordic school of service research emerged. Over the years we attended lots of conferences, workshops and symposia on services and relationships together, discussed research and life issues, argued and had fun, simultaneously developing and deepening our thoughts on the scientific issues we were engaged with and about methods. Eventually, Evert developed a passion for qualitative methods and case study research. In our discussion, he often talked about his visits to the San Francisco area discussing grounded theory with Barney Glaser, who also visited Evert in Stockholm. Evert was instrumental in creating service monuments, such as the Service Research Centre in Karlstad, the QUIS conference series, and the Naples Forum, all still very much influential.
Bo Edvardsson
Evert had an open and creative mind and was an important mentor, especially in my early career and when CTF-Service Research Center was established. He was very generous in opening up doors to other scholars, not least internationally, and to businesses in Sweden. Evert was the first professor at CTF and played an especially important role in establishing the QUIS conference. It was always stimulating to discuss not only research but life in general with Evert. He took time to listen, not always agreeing with my views, but always showing genuine interest. As director of CTF, his advice and suggestions were very helpful for me and his ideas have shaped my research over the years. His articles and books were often a synthesis of research, practical experience as marketer and consumer, and personal ideas. He presented and argued for his own perception of what marketing and service is or should be – often in a provocative way that created fruitful discussions. Evert was a “thinker”, always looking to the future and the need to rethink rather than support the past. He argued that science as a reflection of “reality” and “truth” is complex. By denying the complexity and variety of science, a community of academic and political power-centers is reducing science to a bureaucratic and political system, a planned economy. Evert as a true scholar focused on breaking free and emphasized relevance, but without missing out on scientific rigor!
Steve Brown
I got to know Evert when we co-chaired the inaugural QUIS conference at Karlstad University. This was a landmark international conference with most of the early service scholars contributing along with some leading global executives. Evert was a pleasure to work with – professional, forward-thinking, and committed to making that first QUIS conference extraordinary. Subsequent encounters and work with Evert were always special. I could always count on him to have a provocative and thoughtful new idea to share. Evert was a consummate scholar. I will miss his wit, contributions and mostly his friendship.
John Bateson
Evert Gummesson was a True Pioneer. I first met Evert at the 1986 Services Marketing Conference. He was talking about using internal marketing to develop a new culture. It was typical of the man that he was doing something different! Applying marketing in new and novel ways. I already knew of him through his work on the Nordic School. That is how I will remember him. Always learning and always pushing boundaries.
Mary Jo Bitner
If memory serves me, I first met Evert Gummesson in 1988 at the inaugural QUIS conference in Karlstad, Sweden. He was then and forever a gentleman and a brilliant researcher. His ideas were big and profound, and he shaped much of the thinking in service research as it relates to relationships, the role of marketing, and ideas around collaboration and many-to-many interactions. We would not be where we are without his vision and consistent questioning of ideas, prodding us all to think bigger and harder. Evert was an inspiration and a visionary.
He also had quite a sense of humor – not the loud and boisterous kind, but the subtle, dry and clever kind. To illustrate: In the early days of the service disciplines, there was a friendly rivalry amongst all of us as we worked to develop new theories and business practices for services. Evert and Christian Grönroos advocated for The Nordic School and sparred good naturedly with others in public and behind the scenes on a number of occasions to promote their views. One time, very early on, Evert and Christian conspired to declare “victory” of The Nordic School over the Seven P’s by sending me and my coauthor, the late Bernard Booms, a framed certificate—a real, framed piece of art that traveled via snail mail from Sweden to the US. The certificate showed a hand-drawn cartoon of a graveyard with a headstone that read “RIP 7 Ps” and declared long life for The Nordic School. We took it in good humor and returned the favor with something equally as silly in defense of the 7 Ps. It was this kind of humor, combined with mutual respect, that moved our field forward and characterized Evert’s wise approach.
David Bowen
A “Gentleman and a Scholar” is applied too freely to some who are not. For Evert, the fit is perfect. Evert was such a gentleman when he helped me feel I belonged in the service research community in the late 80s/early 90s. I was a young service management researcher attending service conferences attended largely by service marketing folks. I felt out of place.
Then at a conference in Stockholm early in my career, Evert invited me to his home for dinner with his wife and him. Afterwards, we went to his study, and he shared what he was working on. I realized I knew many researchers but listening to Evert I realized I did not know that many actual, true scholars, myself included.
On the same trip, Evert made it possible for me to meet Jan Carlzon at SAS headquarters. Carlzon back then was the very visible CEO and apostle for service quality and managing Moments of Truth. Very charming, also. He greeted me with a smile saying, “David Bowie” so pleased to meet you! Evert, what a kind, thoughtful gentleman.
Years later at a Nashville Frontiers in Service Conference, I was skipping out to visit former US. President Andrew Jackson’s home, Hermitage. I invited Evert. He was jazzed to go, being endlessly curious about things. On the way back, he spotted a Walmart and asked to stop so he could visit one for the first time. I waited in the car, and he returned 45 minutes later. He had spent the whole time talking to the “Greeter” at the entrance about that role, the culture of the store, etc. I told him that in 45 minutes I could have had all employees complete a survey. He smiled at me with that twinkle in his eye.
I told the above story in my Lovelock Award acceptance speech years ago. It was only an excuse to say Evert’s name at that moment. On this poignant occasion, I close with — “Evert”, once more.
Parsu Parasuraman
It was a sunny but freezing-cold morning in Stockholm airport when I landed there around 8 am on November 3, 1999, after an overnight flight from the US. Evert had invited me to give a talk to his marketing classes at Stockholm University on that day before flying to Karlstad the same evening for a research visit to the Service Research Center (CTF) at Karlstad University. Evert had told me that he would arrange for someone to pick me up at the airport and take me to Stockholm University. When I came out of the immigration and customs area, I was surprised to see Evert himself, with his typical pleasant smile, waiting there for me! He said: “It is such a nice, sun-shiny day – we don’t get too many such days in winter in Sweden – that I decided to drive to the airport by myself to fetch you!” After expressing gratitude for his personal welcome and exchanging pleasantries, I got into his car with him for our drive to the university. As we were pulling out of the airport, Evert said: “By the way, I hope you don’t mind if we take a slight detour to make a quick stop at a recycling dump!” Wondering – somewhat anxiously – what I was in for, I politely responded that taking a detour was fine with me. After driving for about ten minutes, we got to the dump—an airy, open shed with a metal roof and a row of neatly labeled receptacles for different types of potentially hazardous used products (e.g., batteries, paint cans, etc.). Evert took out a cardboard box from his car’s trunk. In the box were a few paper bags into which he had sorted used batteries, empty spray-paint cans, and leftover household cleaning supplies. As he dropped these into the corresponding recycling receptacles, he lamented the fact that many people just dumped such hazardous products into their regular trash, with utter disregard for the environment.
During the remainder of our long drive to the campus we had a captivating conversation that not only enlightened me about environmental pollution, sustainability, etc., but also revealed to me how passionate Evert was about such issues, decades before they became the burning issues they are today. The full day I spent with Evert also revealed to me in spades his admirable personal traits – his kindness, hospitality, sense of humor, humility, story-telling prowess – that may not be as well-known as his voluminous, thought-provoking published work. Thank you Evert for that memorable day and for the many more years of friendship that followed.
Ray Fisk
Evert and I met in 1981 at the first services marketing conference in the United States. He and Christian Grönroos had come to the USA to share their unique perspective on service. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. When I met them again two years later at the next service conference, they introduced the Nordic School of Service. Later I got to hear them tell me about inventing their idea in the sauna, which is a very fitting Scandinavian origin story.
My conversations with Evert echoed the wisdom in his many articles. His trailblazing and eclectic mind led him to question the prevailing logic of human societies. Most importantly, Evert was never merely a critic of human service systems. He worked hard to help service scholars rethink and reimagine how service systems could be configured. My favorite memory of those many conversations is that he delighted in expanding his own thinking and the thinking of anyone he was talking with.
Evert also had a delicious sense of humor, which often resulted in hilarious conversations with him. After email messages became a common scholarly tools, we often emailed each other about activities in the service research community. His email comments were always thoughtful and funny. Because we shared a passion for our service research work, my favorite funny email comment from Evert was in a message on January 17, 2002. After a paragraph describing the many things he had been doing and was planning to do, he wrote this:
“As both you and I know, if we are not busy all the time the world will collapse.”
The cherished photo I attach shows Christian, Evert, and me at the 2003 SERVSIG Conference in Reims, France. Another photo in this newsletter tribute shows me laughing at something Evert said to me at the 2010 Frontiers in Service Conference in Karlstad, Sweden. In a different photo from the same conference, you can see that he has Christian laughing as they talk, too.
Ben Schneider
I think I only met Evert personally three or four times, always at international meetings early in our birthing of this services interest group. Most of the early founders of the group were people like me who stumbled on the fact that they were a services researcher but welcomed nevertheless by those who knew it early on. When I met Evert, it was to say the least an interesting chat since he was ensconced in some qualitative work he was doing and I was ensconced in some survey work I was doing—so the conversation was a spirited one about which approach was most appropriate. NOTE: Evert was definitely low-key but spirited in his own way.
The really cool thing was that we reached the mutual conclusion that the issue of best or better in the abstract was really silly since it depended on the question being asked! And, in fact, the issue was how well it was done and did it help answer the question or provide some answers to the question with implications for further research. Evert was always about further theory and research; always inextricably linking the two. In his view, research was the way to enhance and understand theory and theory was the way to push for improved research. One of the reasons why SERVSIG folks have proliferated and become so central to understanding modern commerce has been this constant emphasis on theory and research. Indeed, I think we have been central players in business strategy with our focus on the customer and the links of same to organizational practices—including of course Marketing and HR. In summary, I think of Evert as having established research as the central foundation on which our field has been built—and we have been very fortunate indeed to have that foundation.
Len Berry
A small but feisty group founded the services discipline more than 40 years ago. Some of the founders are now deceased, including Christopher Lovelock, Bernie Booms, Eric Langeard, and Pierre Eiglier (“The French Connection”), and Lynn Shostack. We now have lost Evert Gummesson, one of the leading disciples of the “Nordic School” of services. Evert was a remarkable scholar with a broad portfolio of interests, a creative thinker, and a prolific writer. He delighted in bringing a contrary view to a discussion, if only to force a deeper consideration of the issues. I was last with Evert in the summer of 2019 when my wife, Nancy, and I visited his home in Stockholm for dinner. It was a delightful evening full of reminisce available only to old friends. After dinner, he drove Nancy and me around his neighborhood, proudly showing us the home where an ABBA singer lives. The photo of Evert and me is from that evening, standing outside his home near his garden.
Closing Comments from Ray
The service research community has a reputation for being a very friendly group that is both intellectually stimulating and fun. As one of the earliest service research pioneers, Evert was an essential catalyst for the shared emergence of such an approach to scholarly work and scholarly life. The comments you have just read shared personal examples of those community relationships. [2]
When Evert retired in 2007, he sent me an email telling me he had retired. His last sentence captured his love for work and his love for humor:
“I attach two things; one is a recent article in a British journal and the other is a photo from the business school’s crayfish party last week.”
Evert’s party photo has been my iPhone address book photo for him ever since!
Footnotes:
[1] The title of this newsletter tribute refers to Evert as a “Pioneering Founder of the Service Research Field,” which is part of the title of a forthcoming article in the Journal of Service Management. David Bowen and I instigated that article to collect the wisdom of the pioneering founders who are still living. We had hoped that Evert would be well enough to participate, but alas, we were too late. David and I will present a preview of that article containing the wisdom from 12 pioneering founders at the Frontiers in Service Conference in June.
[2] Please write any comments about this article in SERVSIG’s Facebook and LinkedIn social media channels. Comments on this web page are not likely to be seen by the service research community.
Ray Fisk
Professor at Texas State University
Founder of SERVSIG
Thank you all for these beautiful glimpses into Evert’s colorful life—a true service titan.
Thank you Tor!
Thanks, Ray. It as so touching to read all the stories.
Cristina