Guest article by Jonas Holmqvist.
In June 2024, we had the pleasure of hosting the 13th AMA SERVSIG Conference at Kedge Business School in Bordeaux. This edition was the largest conference so far in the 25 years of SERVSIG conferences, with more than 300 participants. As conference chair, with my colleague Frédéric Ponsignon as co-chair, we were honoured and thrilled to welcome academic colleagues from all over the world to our beautiful city of Bordeaux.
The theme of this year’s SERVSIG was Service for Humanity, through which we wanted to emphasize both the roles that services can play to improve the world for individuals and societies, and also draw attention the human touch of services. There were many wonderful academic contributions on this topic, including the paper that won the Best Paper award, a wonderful contribution by Floriane Goosse, Wafa Hammedi, and Dominik Mahr on how services can help to empower the visually impaired.
SERVSIG 2024 Key figures:
– We received close to 450 submissions, distributed across sixteen academic tracks.
– We could accept 214 submissions that were presented at the conference.
– There were close to 320 participants in total, including partners and guests, and exactly 300 academic participants from 33 different countries and all continents.
Unlike some previous SERVSIG conferences, there was not any one track that clearly dominated among submissions. While Digital Services received the most submissions, just ahead of Transformative Service Research, no less that twelve of the sixteen tracks received more than twenty submissions, indicating a diverse and vibrant research field.
Keynotes and Plenary Session
An outstanding and highly engaging keynote speech was delivered by Professor Yves Van Vaerenbergh from KU Leuven. The speech focused on open science in service research and included several thought-provoking insights on research practices and how to improve transparency in research. Throughout the speech, the audience could react by green or red cards to indicate their agreement of disagreement. The speech was very well received by the audience and provoked discussion in the amphitheatre, throughout the conference, and on social media.
The plenary session featured three marketing legends as panellists, Professors Christian Grönroos, Hope Schau, and Ray Fisk. Each panellist presented their view on service research and where it is heading. The plenary session was concluded by the awards given by the service journals Journal of Service Management, Journal of Service Marketing, and Journal of Service Theory and Practice.
Pre-conference Workshops
There were two pre-conference workshop sat SERVSIG this year. The first, in the afternoon on Wednesday 5thJune, was a workshop on Customer Vulnerability run by Amanda Beatson and Rebekah Russell-Bennett, and was followed by a cocktail sponsored by Queensland University of Technology and Canberra University. The second workshop, in the morning on Thursday 6th, was a ServCollab workshop run by Ray Fisk.
Day 1: June 6th 2024
The conference started at noon on Thursday 6th with registration and the first two parallel sessions on campus, with eight parallel tracks for each session. This format was a deviation from previous SERVSIG conferences which had only had sessions over two days. However, we had extended the conference to Thursday to be able to accommodate more papers.
In the evening, the opening ceremony was held at Palais de la Bourse in central Bordeaux. Kedge’s Director Alexandre de Navaille and the conference chair Professor Jonas Holmqvist gave the welcome speeches during an evening centered around Bordeaux wines and French food.
Day 2: June 7th 2024
The day started early with a welcome speech by Kedge’s Dean, Elisabetta Magnaghi, and a short welcome by Jonas Holmqvist before the keynote speech by Professor Yves Van Vaerenbergh (see above). There were parallel sessions and also a meet the editors-session with IJRM (Professor Eric Arnould), JAMS (Professor John Hulland), JBR (Professor Mirella Kleijnen) and JSR (Professor Martin Wetzels).
In early evening, we all met up at Quai Richelieu in central Bordeaux to board two large river boats for a one-hour ride up the Garonne River to Château Grattequina where the gala dinner took place. Arriving at the château, we had a champagne cocktail event in the château gardens before moving inside for the AMA SERVSIG Awards ceremony. Linda Alkire won the Emerging Scholar Award, and Bart Larivière the Steve Baron Award. After the awards ceremony, we enjoyed the gala dinner during which Sertan Kabadayi was thanked for his four years as AMA SERVSIG Officer, and Pugh Harrisson was announced as his successor. The gala was followed by an after-party with a DJ and lots of dancing until the returning to Bordeaux by busses.
Day 3: June 8th 2024
The final conference day saw three more parallel sessions and a second meet the editors-session, this time with JHTM (Professor Marianna Sigala), JSIBR (Professor Rebekah Russell-Bennett), JSM (Professor Mark Rosenbaum), JOSM (Professor Linda Alkire), and JOSTP (Professor Chatura Ranaweera),
The closing ceremony took place at Cité du Vin, the world’s largest wine museum and experience center. Participants were first invited to explore the museum at their own pace, and we concluded the conference with a cocktail dinner in the Lafayette room. The SERVSIG Selfie Machine proved very popular with participants. Professors Kristina Heinonen, Sertan Kabadayi (as AMA SERVSIG officers) and Jonas Holmqvist (as conference chair) delivered the closing speeches, and Professor Jochen Wirtz was awarded the Grönroos Service Research Award.
Looking back
Hosting the 2024 AMA SERVSIG Conference was an unforgettable experience. The conference committee wants to thank everyone for the support we received, and particular thanks to Sertan Kabadayi and Kristina Heinonen as AMA Officers for their support, and to our student helpers: Aiste, Brooke, Georgia, Jade, Karina, Louie, Remy, Sydney. Last but not least, we want to thank all the 2024 AMA SERVSIG participants – you made this conference together with us, and we hope you will remember it as fondly as we do! See you all in Braga for the next AMA SERVSIG conference in 2026!
Best Abstract Award
Highly Commended Abstracts
PS Unfortunately, our pictures from the two award ceremonies and from the closing speeches are blurry. If anyone has good pictures and can share them with us, we would be most grateful!
Jonas Holmqvist
Associate Professor of Marketing,
Kedge Business School,
Bordeaux, France
Please find all the pictures of the event here.
