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ESMT 614: Services Management Report a Broken Link

Services lie at the hub of economic activity in many societies. In our society, and in that of other industrialized economies, the service sector employs a large and growing proportion of the workforce. As a result, managers must learn how a service strategy can contribute to a competitive advantage for their organizations. This course focuses on the marketing and operations components required to develop and implement a service-oriented strategy. Topics include the following:

  • the nature of services and their distinctive characteristics
  • service quality issues and approaches for measuring service quality
  • managing service operations including forecasting demand for services
  • managing capacity and demand

Suggested Readings

Week 1

Katzan Jr, H. (2009). Cloud software service: Concepts, technology, economics. Service Science, 1(4), 256–269.
Baines, T. S., Lightfoot, H. W., Benedettini, O., & Kay, J. M. (2009). The servitization of manufacturing: A review of literature and reflection on future challenges. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 20(5), 547–567.
Industry Canada. (2014, October 1). Canadian service industries.
Industry Canada. (2019, July 31). Research and business intelligence. 
Greenwood, J. (2015, April 1). The services industry: Canada’s secret economic playground? Maclean’s.
Loungani, P., Mishra, S., Papageorgiou, C., & Wang, K. (2017). World trade in services: Evidence from a new dataset [Working paper]. International Monetary Fund. 
Dooe, M., & Nickisch, C. (Producers). (2018, August 28). Understanding digital strategy [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/ideacast/2018/08/understanding-digital-strategy.html

Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (2011). The experience economy: Work is theatre & every business a stage. Harvard Business Press.
Zomerdijk, L. G., & Voss, C. A. (2010). Service design for experience-centric services. Journal of Service Research, 13(1), 67-82.

Week 2

Bitner, M. J., Ostrom, A. L., & Morgan, F. N. (2008). Service blueprinting: A practical technique for service innovation. California Management Review, 50(3), 66–94.
Barrett, M., Davidson, E., Prabhu, J., & Vargo, S. L. (2015). Service innovation in the digital age: Key contributions and future directions. MIS Quarterly, 39(1), 135–154.
D’Emidio, T., Dorton, D., & Duncan, E. (2014). Service innovation in a digital world. Mckinsey Quarterly, (4), 54–62.
Vondrasek, M. R. (2014). Redefining service innovation at Starwood. Mckinsey Quarterly, (4), 63–67.
Prange, C., & Schlegelmilch, B. B. (2018). Managing innovation dilemmas: The cube solution. Business Horizons, 61(2), 309–322. 
Van der Aa, W., & Elfring, T. (2002). Realizing innovation in services. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 18(2), 155–171. 
Patrício, L., & Fisk, R. P. (2013). Creating new services. In R. P. Fisk, L. C. Harris, & R. Bennett (Eds.), Serving customers: Global services marketing perspective (185–207). Tilde University Press.

Week 3

Ghobadian, A., Speller, S., & Jones, M. (1994). Service quality: Concepts and models. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 11(9), 43–66.
Ding, D. X., Hu, P. J., & Sheng, O. L. (2011). e-SELFQUAL: A scale for measuring online self-service quality. Journal of Business Research, 64, 508–515.
McKie, M. (2013, November 20). IKEA—servicescape [Video]. YouTube.
Hanks, L., & Line, N. D. (2018). The restaurant social servicescape: Establishing a nomological framework. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 74, 13–21. 

Week 4

Chuang, P. T. (2007). Combining service blueprint and FMEA for service design. The Service Industries Journal, 27(2), 91–104.
Hummel, E., & Murphy, K. S. (2011). Using service blueprinting to analyze restaurant service efficiency. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 52(3), 265–272.
Hutchins, B. (2016). ‘We don’t need no stinking smartphones!’ Live stadium sports events, mediatization, and the non-use of mobile media. Media, Culture & Society, 38(3), 420-436. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443716635862
Szende, P., & Dalton, A. (2015). Service blueprinting: Shifting from a storyboard to a scorecard. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 18(3), 207–225.

Week 5

Kietzmann, J. H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B. S. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, 54(3), 241–251.
Gallaugher, J., & Ransbotham, S. (2010). Social media and customer dialog management at Starbucks. MIS Quarterly Executive, 9(4), 197–212.
Forman, A. M., Thelen, S., & Shapiro, T. (2015). Domestic versus offshore service providers: The impact of cost, time, and quality sacrifices on consumer choice. Journal of Service Management, 26(4), 608–624.
DINTEC. (2016, February 25). Mega trends in the professional services industry [Video]. YouTube.

Week 6

Bustinza, O. F., Parry, G. C., & Vendrell-Herrero, F. (2013). Supply and demand chain management: The effect of adding services to product offerings. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 18(6), 618–629.
Engineerguy. (2010, December 20). Why the other line is likely to move faster [Video]. YouTube.
Kimes, S. E. (1989). The basics of yield management. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 30(3), 14–19.
McMahon-Beattie, U. (2011). Trust, fairness and justice in revenue management: Creating value for the consumer. Journal of Revenue & Pricing Management, 10(1), 44-46. 
Da Silva, K. C. N. (2012, August 3). The impact of yield management in the airline industry on customers’ feelings of price fairness. Aerlines Magazine, (53), 1–6.
Sahut, J. M., & Hikkerova, L. (2009). The impact of internet on pricing strategies in the tourism industry. Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce, 14(1), 1–8.
Varini, K., & Sirsi, P. (2012). Social media and revenue management; where should the two meet? Journal of Technology Management for Growing Economies, 3(1), 33–46.

Week 7

Lee, S., Cho, C., Hong, E. K., & Yoon, B. (2016). Forecasting mobile broadband traffic: Application of scenario analysis and Delphi method. Expert Systems with Applications, 44, 126–137.
Chen, H., Chiang, R. H., & Storey, V. C. (2012). Business intelligence and analytics: From big data to big impact. MIS Quarterly, 36(4), 1165–1188.
Chambers, J. C., Mullick, S. K., & Smith, D. D. (1971). How to choose the right forecasting technique. Harvard Business Review, 49(4), 45–70. 
Bitner, M. J. (1992). Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees. The Journal of Marketing, 56(2), 57–71. 
Stewart, D. M. (2003). Piecing together service quality: A framework for robust service. Production and Operations Management, 12(2), 246–265.

Week 8

Chopra, S., & Lariviere, M. A. (2005). Managing service inventory to improve performance. MIT Sloan Management Review, 47(1), 56.
You will be able to find PDFs of the following readings using Google Scholar.

Adam, M., Wessel, M., & Benlian, A. (2021). AI-based chatbots in customer service and their effects on user compliance. Electronic Markets, 31(2), 427–445.

Arsenijevic, U., & Jovic, M. (2019, September). Artificial intelligence marketing: Chatbots. In 2019 international conference on artificial intelligence: applications and innovations (IC-AIAI) (pp. 19–193). IEEE.

Chong, T., Yu, T., Keeling, D. I., & de Ruyter, K. (2021). AI-chatbots on the services frontline addressing the challenges and opportunities of agency. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 63, 102735.

Gupta, A., Hathwar, D., & Vijayakumar, A. (2020). Introduction to AI chatbots. International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology, 9(7), 255–258.

Nicolescu, L., & Tudorache, M. T. (2022). Human-computer interaction in customer service: The experience with AI chatbots—a systematic literature review. Electronics, 11(10), 1579.

Przegalinska, A., Ciechanowski, L., Stroz, A., Gloor, P., & Mazurek, G. (2019). In bot we trust: A new methodology of chatbot performance measures. Business Horizons, 62(6), 785–797.

Stoilova, E. (2021). AI chatbots as a customer service and support tool. ROBONOMICS: The Journal of the Automated Economy, 2, 21–21.
Zhang, J., Yang, H., & Xu, X. (2023). Research on service design of garbage classification driven by artificial intelligence. Sustainability, 15(23), 16454. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152316454

Additional Selected Readings

NOTE: Below are selected optional readings that relate to the latest developments in services management. You may refer to them as and when you deem necessary. In particular, they will prove beneficial when you are writing your assignments.

NOTE: Below are selected optional readings that relate to the latest developments in services management. You may refer to them as and when you deem necessary. In particular, they will prove beneficial when you are writing your assignments.
Babapour Chafi, M., Hultberg, A., & Bozic Yams, N. (2021). Post-pandemic office work: Perceived challenges and opportunities for a sustainable work environment. Sustainability, 14(1), 294. https://0-doi-org.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/10.3390/su14010294.
de Souza, T. S. P., Miyahira, R. F., Matheus, J. R. V., de Brito Nogueira, T. B., Maragoni-Santos, C., Barros, F. F. C., ... & Fai, A. E. C. (2022). Food services in times of uncertainty: Remodeling operations, changing trends, and looking into perspectives after the COVID-19 pandemic. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 120, 301-307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2022.01.005
Han, Y., Chen, J., Dou, M., Wang, J., & Feng, K. (2023). The impact of artificial intelligence on the financial services industry. Academic Journal of Management and Social Sciences, 2(3), 83-85. https://doi.org/10.54097/ajmss.v2i3.8741
Jiménez‐Barreto, J., Rubio, N., & Molinillo, S. (2021). “Find a flight for me, Oscar!” motivational customer experiences with chatbots. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 33(11), 3860-3882. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm-10-2020-1244
Law, R., Lin, K., Ye, H., & Fong, D. (2023). Artificial intelligence research in hospitality: a state-of-the-art review and future directions. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 36(6), 2049-2068. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm-02-2023-0189 
Narang, A., Vashisht, P., & Bajaj, S. (2024). Artificial intelligence in banking and finance. International Journal of Innovative Research in Computer Science & Technology, 12(2), 130-134. https://doi.org/10.55524/ijircst.2024.12.2.23
Qiu, H., Li, M., Bai, B., Wang, N., & Li, Y. (2022). The impact of AI-enabled service attributes on service hospitableness: the role of employee physical and psychological workload. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 34(4), 1374-1398. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm-08-2021-0960
Sun, Y. (2024, May). Efficiency Optimization of Enterprise Recruitment Management in the Context of Artificial Intelligence. In 2024 3rd International Conference on Humanities, Wisdom Education and Service Management (HWESM 2024) (pp. 601-610). Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-253-8_72
Wirtz, J., Patterson, P., Kunz, W., Gruber, T., Lu, V., Paluch, S., … & Martins, A. (2018). Brave new world: service robots in the frontline. Journal of Service Management, 29(5), 907-931. https://doi.org/10.1108/josm-04-2018-0119
Zhang, J., Yang, H., & Xu, X. (2023). Research on service design of garbage classification driven by artificial intelligence. Sustainability, 15(23), 16454. https://doi.org/10.3390/su152316454
Zhu, J. (2024). Analysis on the application of artificial intelligence in the field of logistics. Frontiers in Business Economics and Management, 14(3), 66-68. https://doi.org/10.54097/3pd01b02