SERVSIG Doctoral Consortium
29 June 2026
Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki (Finland)
Submission deadline: 1 May 2026
The Service Special Interest Group (SERVSIG) of the American Marketing Association (AMA) is pleased to announce the 32nd SERVSIG Doctoral Consortium, to be held on June 29th, immediately preceding the Frontiers in Service Conference at the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland.
The consortium is designed to help doctoral students and early-career faculty thrive in their careers. It has two components, in the morning to early afternoon, we have panel sessions followed by a small group individual mentor session in which you will get advice on the state of your research.
— Panel sessions: In an intimate and collegial setting, participants engage directly with leading service scholars from around the world. This year’s theme focuses on pathways to launching strong early-career trajectories. The program will include tips from experienced scholars on selecting interesting research ideas, from early-career researchers on getting through the PhD and landing a job, on experience-sharing on how to (not) use AI to increase research productivity, and on finding a mentor and being a good mentee. And we promise to have fun doing it!
— Mentoring sessions: A hallmark of the consortium is our afternoon mentoring session from some of the kindest and yet most successful service researchers in the field. This is a unique opportunity to meet in small groups with outstanding scholars in the field—dedicated time to discuss your research and receive substantive, personalized feedback. Whether you just want to pitch your research idea or are working on the first conference or full paper, all submissions are welcome. You will be assigned to a group of approximately 3 students with similar topics, along with one or two mentors with expertise in this area. Each group should have at least 30 minutes to discuss each submission. Your submission will be read by all group members, and you commit to reading the other group members’ papers.
We invite PhD students at all levels and early-career-stage faculty to register and participate in the Doctoral Consortium! So mark the dates in your calendar and stay tuned for more details on the program!
Participation requirement
To participate in the Doctoral Consortium, you must register and attend the Frontiers in Services Conference.
Application
Please submit a short research summary (2–3 pages, with up to 2 additional pages for appendices) by May 1, 2026. Please upload your proposal using the Qualtrics link below. If applicable, you may submit a working paper/conference paper as an appendix. Please make this all a single PDF for upload. Please follow formatting guidelines. Answer all questions to the best of your ability. Every PhD student is at a different point in their journey.
Upload Application here: https://neu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3n0ohqZ0xJGiTt4
In your submission, please include the following information (to the extent applicable):
- Your name & affiliation
- Your supervisors
- Year in program, estimated graduation, stage in dissertation
- Your primary research question(s)
- Why is it important to study
- Applicable theory
- Details on data analyzed or that you plan to collect, methodological approach, and a rough timeline for your planned studies
- Next steps
Scholarships
We have eight $500 travel awards available for deserving candidates. All applicants who have submitted their research summary via the Qualtrics link will automatically be considered for the two highly competitive awards: The Liam Glynn Travel Scholarship, sponsored by SERVSIG and the Arizona State University’s Center for Services Leadership, and the Michael Brady Young Service Scholar Award, sponsored by Chair Omer DeSerres of HEC Montréal.
*please note you must attend the conference to receive the award.
The Liam Glynn Travel Scholarship
SERVSIG and the ASU Center for Services Leadership gives emerging services scholars the opportunity to attend the Services Doctoral Consortium and the Frontiers in Services Conference. The ASU Center for Services Leadership is a research center within the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. Founded in 1985 to pioneer the study of services, the Center for Services Leadership has established itself as a globally recognized authority on how to compete strategically through the profitable use of services. The Center for Services Leadership is the sponsor of this year’s Services Doctoral Consortium and the Liam Glynn Research Scholarship Award.
Liam Glynn was a Lecturer at the University College Dublin in the Smurfit Graduate School of Business. The first Director of the UCD Centre for Quality and Services Management, Liam published services marketing articles in France, Ireland, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Co-editor of Understanding Services Management in 1995, he was the Membership Coordinator for SERVSIG and co-chaired the first SERVSIG Conference on services research in 1999. He was 40 when his long battle with cancer ended. SERVSIG created an annual travel scholarship in Liam’s name to honor his memory.
Michael Brady Young Service Scholar Award
Sponsored by Chair Omer DeSerres of HEC Montréal, this award honors Professor Michael Brady’s extraordinary dedication to the service discipline and to the scholars who carry it forward. Throughout his career, Brady has shown an unwavering commitment to nurturing the next generation—investing deeply in his own students and mentoring emerging researchers across the globe. This award reflects that spirit, recognizing outstanding early-career contributions to service scholarship.
Consortium Chairs
The Doctoral Consortsium is chaired by Sabine Benoit, Professor of Marketing at Singapore Management University, and Paul W. Fombelle, Associate Professor of Marketing at Northeastern University, Paul W. Fombelle
