Call for Paper for a Special Issue of the Journal of Service Management.
Reimagining the Service-Profit Chain: Multidisciplinary Insights for an Age of Disruption
Guest Editors: Jens Hogreve, Ilias Danatzis, Joy Field, Kristina Lindsey Hall, Marah Blaurock
Deadline: 1 November 2026
Introduction
The service-profit chain (SPC) is one of the most influential concepts in service research. Introduced by Heskett et al. (1994), the SPC emphasizes the significance of both internal and external service quality for a firm’s long-term financial performance. It bridges service companies’ internal and external environments by positing employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity as mediators between internal and external service quality, and customer satisfaction and loyalty as mediators between external service quality and financial outcomes. In doing so, the SPC links three domains: (a) internal marketing, encompassing internal service quality and employee attitudes and behaviors; (b) external marketing, reflecting external service quality and customer attitudes and behaviors; and (c) firm performance, including revenue growth and profitability. Over the past three decades, the SPC has gained considerable scholarly attention and continues to inspire organizations that place employees and customers at the center of their strategies.
Now is a particularly timely moment for the Journal of Service Management to devote a special issue to the SPC. Despite its widespread influence, recent developments have challenged its original assumptions, calling for both revision and reimagination (Hogreve, Iseke, & Derfuss, 2022). Three developments in particular highlight the need for renewed scholarly attention.
First, the digital transformation of service work, including the rise of service robots, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI), is profoundly reshaping the roles of service employees. These changes alter the meaning of internal service quality and affect how customers evaluate service encounters (e.g., Huang & Rust, 2021; Hollebeek, Sprott, & Brady, 2021). SPC research must therefore account for the opportunities and unintended consequences of AI-driven transformations.
Second, employee and customer well-being have become central concerns in both academic scholarship and practical applications. Well-being increasingly influences transformative service research and may complement—or even substitute—the SPC’s traditional satisfaction measures (Hogreve et al., 2022). Understanding whether well-being is a stronger predictor of loyalty and performance outcomes is a critical next step.
Third, external shocks and turbulent environments, from pandemics to economic crises, challenge the stability of SPC relationships. These shocks not only critically disrupt service provision but also have profound effects on customer-employee interactions. Service employees must quickly adapt to shifting processes, environments, and often enforce service rules that are not well received by customers, adding another layer of stress to their already challenging jobs (e.g., Danatzis and Möller-Herm 2023). Disruptive events, therefore, raise questions about how resilient the SPC framework is and how firms can adapt internal and external marketing practices to maintain performance in uncertain times (e.g., Voorhees, Fombelle, & Bone, 2020).
Taken together, these challenges provide an impetus to further develop and extend the SPC. This special issue aims to build on its rich legacy while critically assessing how it must evolve to remain relevant. By explicitly including practitioners’ perspectives, the issue will not only illustrate how the SPC is lived in practice but also identify where its core links need to be rethought. We call for an interdisciplinary perspective, engaging scholars across marketing, management, operations, finance, and human resources to reflect, revise, and reimagine the SPC for the next generation of service research.
List of topic areas
In the special issue we seek for manuscripts that cover the gist of the SPC in a way that its main areas are covered (i.e., internal marketing, external marketing and firm performance). We welcome conceptual, empirical, and methodological contributions that address, but are not limited to, the following questions:
- Digital Transformation and AI
- How do service employees adapt to and engage with AI and automation, and impact SPC relationships? What roles do technostress, co-design opportunities, or AI functions play in shaping acceptance?
- How does AI reshape customer experiences and loyalty? Does it complement or substitute for human frontline interactions, and what unintended effects may emerge?
- What are the optimal levels of AI implementation within the SPC across contexts, and how do they vary by industry, leadership, or employee/customer loyalty levels?
- Well-Being and Alternative Mediators
- Does employee or customer well-being serve as a stronger predictor of loyalty and performance than traditional satisfaction measures?
- How do well-being and satisfaction interact, and what are their respective short-term versus long-term effects on firm performance?
- Resilience, Contingencies, and Methods
- How do external shocks and turbulent environments moderate SPC relationships?
- How do service employees adapt to shifting processes, environments, and interaction demands during disruptive events, and how does this adaption affect key SPC links?
- How does enforcing service rules – especially when facing customer resistance or misbehavior – affect employee well-being, service quality, and the strength of SPC linkages?
- To what extent are SPC links universal versus context-sensitive (e.g., across industries, cultures, or service types)?
- What new methodological approaches (e.g., longitudinal, experimental, multi-source, big data) can uncover causal, non-linear, or feedback effects within the SPC?
- Internal Marketing and Employee Outcomes
- How do under-researched internal service marketing practices (e.g., workplace design, digital tools for customer service) influence employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity?
- Which HRM systems and practices are most effective in enhancing internal service quality, and how do they jointly shape employee and organizational outcomes?
- How do alternative work arrangements (e.g., gig, remote, hybrid) influence employee satisfaction and SPC outcomes?
Submissions Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here.
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here.
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
Key deadlines
Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 01/07/2026
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 01/11/2026
Guest editors
Jens Hogreve, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany, Jens.hogreve@ku.de
Ilias Danatzis, King’s Business School, United Kingdom, Ilias.danatzis@kcl.ac.uk
Joy Field, Boston College, USA, Joy.field@bc.edu
Kristina Lindsey Hall, Louisiana State University, USA, lindseyhall@lsu.edu
Marah Blaurock, Catholic University of Eichstatt-Ingolstadt, Germany, Marah.blaurock@ku.de
