Guest article by Christian Kowalkowski for our My Academic Role Model series.
When my good friend Jonas Holmqvist nominated me to write about my academic role models, it was easy for me to pick two, as they have both influenced me greatly—albeit in different ways.
Like Jonas, my first choice is Christian Grönroos. Having read Christian’s excellent service management textbook as well as many of his articles, it was a pleasure to meet him in person during my very first PhD course: a one-week course in Service and Relationship Marketing at Hanken in November 2004. The weather did anything but show Helsinki at its best, but the course faculty were outstanding, and Christian was one of those I had the pleasure of talking with during the week. As someone doing research at the intersection of service and industrial marketing, I was particularly inspired by the so-called Nordic School, whose work includes Christian, as well as the late Richard Normann and Evert Gummesson. I read countless papers and books by these scholars (while, of course, also closely following Bob and Steve’s work on SDL and their edited volume published during those formative years).
Over the years, I have had many opportunities to meet and talk with Christian at conferences and other academic events, and even more so when I later moved to Hanken for a couple of years and we became colleagues. Discussions with him were always enjoyable, and he has a subtle sense of humor that resonates strongly with me. I very much appreciate Christian’s writing style, and although much of his work is conceptual, I have often found it highly applicable to business contexts (more so than much of the service literature). I also greatly value his collegiality and his genuine interest in, curiosity about, and support for the work of PhD students and junior faculty. That is something I particularly appreciate and strive to carry forward myself.
The second person who has influenced and inspired me tremendously is Wolfgang Ulaga. I probably first met him at a pre-Frontiers seminar at CTF in 2010, where we had an engaging discussion on B2B services and solutions during the bus ride. As with Christian, I have always enjoyed Wolfgang’s writing style, which I find clear, rigorous, and firmly anchored in managerial relevance. Having both written books for managers on service-led growth (in Swedish and French, respectively), we began discussing the idea of writing a book together when we met in Chicago two years later.
That project unfolded over several years, during which I had the pleasure of visiting Wolfgang on multiple occasions and learned an incredible amount along the way, both about how to write and present research that resonates with practitioners and about how to find hot topics and conceptualize novel research ideas. Wolfgang is among the very best presenters I have ever encountered, and it is no surprise that he excels at running executive programs.
Down-to-earth and genuinely warm, he is a wonderful host who also happens to appreciate excellent food and wine, whether hosting me at IMD, ASU, or INSEAD. One particular highlight was just before the pandemic, when we were invited by the co-authors of the Japanese edition of our book, Keiko Toya and Masaaki Mochimaru, to present and meet executives at Meiji University in Tokyo. I am very glad that our collaboration continues, and we are currently finalizing a manuscript for submission.
I would like to nominate Sabine Benoit and Per Kristensson to write about their role models.
Christian Kowalkowski
Professor of Marketing
Linköping University, Sweden
Thank you very much for your kind words, Christian. I’m very honored to come to mind as an inspiration to your own very impressive research agenda. Your words and photo from our experience in Tokyo triggered such fond memories of many discussions on exciting research ideas and projects. Looking forward to many more to come! Warm wishes, Wolfgang.