Abstract
The last 4 years have passed very quickly! As everyone says, each year seems to pass by faster than the one before it, and I would agree. This will be my last editorial as editor in chief of Journal of Service Research (JSR), and the last issue on which my name will appear as editor. As such, I want to take this opportunity to recognize some of our shared achievements as a field, think a bit about the future, and thank people.
The Essential Roles of Rigor and Relevance
Service researchers have honored and aimed for both rigor and relevance in our research since the field began to emerge in the early 1980s. We were spurred into existence by leaders in the business community who hungered for new ideas, new theories, and new knowledge related to the management of services. From the very beginning, we were called on to focus on managerially relevant topics and challenges faced by service organizations. Quickly we all learned, by talking with our counterparts in business, that the challenges were not the same as those faced in manufacturing contexts. We responded by creating new ideas, theories, frameworks, and models to capture the challenges and assist managers in service industries. As we moved along, it soon became apparent that manufacturing and high-technology companies also cared about service. They had their own unique challenges around offering services to generate revenue and shifting their organizations toward a service culture. Again, our community responded to these challenges. Relevance is clearly at the heart of what we do, and it is evolving now to focus on the future of service whether that be in technology-delivered services (think the Cloud, Internet of Things (IoT) artificial intelligence, etc.) and services for the base of the pyramid and underserved or vulnerable populations (think transformative service research).
Relevance to business, communities, and society is at the heart of what we do in service research, and it is a requirement of papers published in JSR. However, relevance without rigor is meaningless, potentially misleading, and some would say useless. Thus, theoretical and methodological rigor and reliability are, not surprisingly, also fundamental requirements of JSR. Because the field is open when it comes to methods, that means that a number of different methodological approaches are acceptable. Most importantly, however, the method must fit the research problem, and it must be used appropriately and credibly. Further, what is appropriate methodology at one point in time may not be appropriate at a later point in time. The field is also open with regard to theoretical frameworks and lenses that contribute to our understanding of important service issues and that build upon our decades-long history.
Service Research: From Then to Now
I have had the great fortune to be a service researcher since before we had a name for it. My earliest research was published at a time when many were still arguing about whether goods were different from services; whether we needed special research, theories, and practice for services; and whether service research would just be a fad. Fast-forward a couple of decades and researchers were espousing the idea that all exchange is about service and that everything, essentially, is a service. Customer logic, service logic, and service dominant logic were widely discussed, and the image that service research was a fad had long faded from view. The JSR, born in 1998, is viewed today as a leading and aspirational journal for researchers all over the world. The 2015 impact factors for JSR (2.462 for 2 year and 5.713 for 5 year) place it among the top business journals. When I was asked to be editor of this fine journal, I was truly honored and my only hesitation stemmed from whether or not I could do it justice. Now, here I am at the end of a 4-year term as editor even more proud of our community and its contributions than I have ever been.
Over the past 4 years, I have come to appreciate things about our community that I knew before, but now know much more deeply through my experience as editor. The service research community is very special. It is welcoming, progressive, and focused on real, meaningful, and relevant research. The authors and editorial board are committed to excellence, and they are willing to work very hard to achieve it. The wonderful group of associate editors that I was able to appoint early on are also an incredible group whose commitment to the dual goals of relevance and rigor has truly helped move the journal further down this path. I have also come to deeply understand and appreciate the theoretical constructs of collaboration, cocreation, and ecosystems in a very practical way! The very real collaboration among authors, readers, reviewers, and associate editors is beautiful to see. The cocreation of value across all these groups is evident. And actors and institutions in the research ecosystem are highly interdependent and connected in complex ways.
I am very proud of what we have accomplished together during my time as editor. From August 2013 through May 2017, we have published 16 issues of the journal with 7 or 8 papers per issue, including the 2015 cross-disciplinary paper on “Service Research Priorities in a Rapidly Changing Context” by Amy Ostrom, Parsu Parasuraman, David Bowen, Lia Patricio, and Christ Voss. This paper, published under the guest editorship of, Katherine Lemon, looks forward to research that is needed in the future, and it has already been cited 185 times (as of February 2017). Building on the research priorities (both the 2015 paper and the earlier 2010 priorities paper), we published three special issues on: IT–related service (August 2013, guest editors, Ming-Hui Huang and Roland Rust), transformative service research (August 2015, guest editors, Laurel Anderson and Amy Ostrom), and organizational frontlines research (February 2017, guest editors, Jagdip Singh, Michael Brady, Todd Arnold, and Tom Brown). Another special issue is forthcoming on service design and innovation (planned for November 2017, guest editors, Lia Patricio, Ray Fisk, and Anders Gustafsson). We also published a special section on health-care service research (November 2016, guest editors Tracey Danaher and Andrew Gallan). The goals of the special issues and section were to advance service research in areas of critical need, advance the interdisciplinary and cross-functional goals of JSR, and expand the authorship and readership of JSR to new and relevant audiences.
What the Future Demands of Service Scholars
Just as our welcoming community of the past and present has shaped and cocreated the topics, focus, and direction of the field, so will it continue to do so in the future. As it always has been, the service research discipline will capture current trends and topics in service, study them, develop theories and metrics around them, and advance the field in this way. By doing this, we will remain relevant and will push knowledge forward in important ways. By grounding our work in theory, building new theories, and using appropriate methods appropriately, we will continue to bring rigor to our work.
On the horizon I see trends that need to be studied, things we don’t know much about yet from a service strategy and customer perspective. For example, the IoT—connected things that spin off information and data and feed the information back to stakeholders who value it—is all about service. Yet many times the data, information, and technology are the focus, not the service provided through these things. So, what does service look like in that context? Are new models and theories needed? The Cloud is also one big service, as are almost all mobile phone apps. We see analytics and data being used as service, and technology not only enabling service but performing service—think artificial intelligence and robotics. All of these developments bring opportunities for service innovation, service cocreation, new service business models, and the need to understand what service means in new contexts. Which theories, frameworks, and models of the past will apply and where do we need new knowledge and theories? As we look forward, what is needed from service researchers? When we look back in 10–20 years, what will we observe and what roles will service researchers have played?
Transition to a New Editor
It is my great honor and pleasure to turn the editorship of JSR over to Dr. Michael Brady, Carl DeSantis Professor of Business Administration at Florida State University, beginning June 1, 2017. As a transition step, Mike began taking new manuscripts on April 1 and will take over all manuscripts, new and in process, on June 1. Mike is an outstanding service researcher and scholar. He has served on the editorial board of JSR and as an associate editor and special issue guest editor. His work has been published in JSR and other leading journals in marketing and management and a number of awards including the Christopher Lovelock Career Contributions to the Service Discipline Award. He currently serves as Chair of the Marketing Department at Florida State University, and he is past president of the American Marketing Association’s Academic Council. Mike’s work and contributions are rigorous and relevant and exemplify the best of service research. The journal will be in good hands indeed!
And Thank-You
The JSR is a collaborative and cocreative endeavor with many people to thank for the key roles they have played over the past 4 years. First all of the past editors, Roland Rust, Parsu Parasuraman, and Katherine Lemon, have been incredibly responsive, helpful, and supportive. The editorial review board and associate editors deserve much thanks and great credit for the quality of papers published in the journal. Their reviews are timely constructive and detailed, and they provide great direction in moving papers along in meaningful ways. Sage, our publisher, is an awesome partner. Cynthia Nalevanko, our Sage publishing editor, and Puneet Bhardwaj, our production editor are incredibly reliable, helpful, and service oriented. The Marketing Department, Center for Services Leadership, and W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University also provided important support, flexibility, and encouragement. Finally, my two editorial assistants over the past 4 years, Rose Bohler and Candice Murphy, have been tireless and amazing to work with. Both provided me, the authors, editorial board, and associate editors with careful, detailed, and timely support. I and the journal owe a lot to each of them.