TY - JOUR
T1 - Service Research Priorities in a Rapidly Changing Context
AU - Ostrom, Amy
AU - Parasuraman, A.
AU - Bowen, David E.
AU - Patrício, Lia
AU - Voss, Christopher A.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors thank the Center for Services Leadership at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University for providing financial support for the research.
Funding Information:
The authors offer their sincere thanks to JSR ’s former editor Katherine N. Lemon for her immense help and expert guidance in her role as a guest editor of this article. The authors also thank the six anonymous reviewers for their extensive and constructive feedback. Thanks also go to Ranjit M. Christopher and Daniel C. Brannon for data analysis assistance, Sofia Coutinho for developing the aesthetics for the changing-context-of-service figure, and Nancy Gray for her efforts in helping to improve the design aesthetic of the service-research-priorities framework. The authors also acknowledge all the efforts of Darima Fotheringham, Center for Services Thought Leadership Project Manager, and thank her for her substantial contribution to the project. The authors thank the Center for Services Leadership at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University for providing financial support for the research. Finally, the authors thank all the service centers/networks and roundtable facilitators for their important contributions to the research as well as all of the service researchers and practitioners who participated in the research-priorities-setting process.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2015.
PY - 2015/5/18
Y1 - 2015/5/18
N2 - The context in which service is delivered and experienced has, in many respects, fundamentally changed. For instance, advances in technology, especially information technology, are leading to a proliferation of revolutionary services and changing how customers serve themselves before, during, and after purchase. To understand this changing landscape, the authors engaged in an international and interdisciplinary research effort to identify research priorities that have the potential to advance the service field and benefit customers, organizations, and society. The priority-setting process was informed by roundtable discussions with researchers affiliated with service research centers and networks located around the world and resulted in the following 12 service research priorities:stimulating service innovation,facilitating servitization, service infusion, and solutions,understanding organization and employee issues relevant to successful service,developing service networks and systems,leveraging service design,using big data to advance service,understanding value creation,enhancing the service experience,improving well-being through transformative service,measuring and optimizing service performance and impact,understanding service in a global context, andleveraging technology to advance service. For each priority, the authors identified important specific service topics and related research questions. Then, through an online survey, service researchers assessed the subtopics’ perceived importance and the service field’s extant knowledge about them. Although all the priorities and related topics were deemed important, the results show that topics related to transformative service and measuring and optimizing service performance are particularly important for advancing the service field along with big data, which had the largest gap between importance and current knowledge of the field. The authors present key challenges that should be addressed to move the field forward and conclude with a discussion of the need for additional interdisciplinary research.
AB - The context in which service is delivered and experienced has, in many respects, fundamentally changed. For instance, advances in technology, especially information technology, are leading to a proliferation of revolutionary services and changing how customers serve themselves before, during, and after purchase. To understand this changing landscape, the authors engaged in an international and interdisciplinary research effort to identify research priorities that have the potential to advance the service field and benefit customers, organizations, and society. The priority-setting process was informed by roundtable discussions with researchers affiliated with service research centers and networks located around the world and resulted in the following 12 service research priorities:stimulating service innovation,facilitating servitization, service infusion, and solutions,understanding organization and employee issues relevant to successful service,developing service networks and systems,leveraging service design,using big data to advance service,understanding value creation,enhancing the service experience,improving well-being through transformative service,measuring and optimizing service performance and impact,understanding service in a global context, andleveraging technology to advance service. For each priority, the authors identified important specific service topics and related research questions. Then, through an online survey, service researchers assessed the subtopics’ perceived importance and the service field’s extant knowledge about them. Although all the priorities and related topics were deemed important, the results show that topics related to transformative service and measuring and optimizing service performance are particularly important for advancing the service field along with big data, which had the largest gap between importance and current knowledge of the field. The authors present key challenges that should be addressed to move the field forward and conclude with a discussion of the need for additional interdisciplinary research.
KW - Big data
KW - Cocreation
KW - Innovation
KW - Research priorities
KW - Service design
KW - Service field
KW - Technology
KW - Transformative service research
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U2 - 10.1177/1094670515576315
DO - 10.1177/1094670515576315
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84927646419
VL - 18
SP - 127
EP - 159
JO - Journal of Service Research
JF - Journal of Service Research
SN - 1094-6705
IS - 2
ER -