Managing Research Managing Research in Services: in Services:

Themes,Tips, Take-Themes,Tips, Take-ways and Doggy-ways and Doggy-

bagsbags

Ko de RuyterKo de RuyterMaastricht UniversityMaastricht University

The NetherlandsThe Netherlands

www.marketingsite.nl

Gotta have a model: the Virtuous Circle

Source: Community Intelligence Labs, 2002

How to interpret this circle?scan the journals for…

New ways of organizing boundary-spanning structures

Increased use of technology-mediated service delivery

New types of service encounters… Unleashing creativity, that’s the real

challenge

Unleashing creativity, that’s the real challenge

(and you get to do cool research)

The power of technologies is fueling research opportunities

But…do not get carried away from theoretical anchor points

Remember, not every reviewer will know about service delivery in snow boarding virtual communities

Can anybody cite 20 papers on e-services published in the top journals this year?

Keep focused on the contribution!

Borrowing creatively from other disciplines

Services by definition is a multi-disciplinary field

There is a lot of stuff going on in neighbouring disciplines

Some of this can be adapted directly to fit your purpose, some needs a little bit of unleashing the creativity

Economies of scale and scope

Most journals are cutting back on the number of pp and my attention span as a reviewer is decreasing!

What is the contribution? There is no room for wall-to-wall models Yet, programmatic, nomological networks

do have advantages (left-overs taste great the next day)

Manage research from a data-base perspective

A data-base…

Containes a large number of data fields

Combines different types of data (cross-sectional-longitudinal, customer-employee perceptions, subjective-objective data)

Lobby for the creation of a data-base of respondents at your school

Work with industry

A well-developed idea is easy to sell, just do not expect any money

Practitioners sometimes do have well-developed ideas as well!

You have access to a reality check, real respondents, technological support, internal databases and maybe more…

Work with (external) experts

Again, a well-developed idea is easy to sell, just expect to do a lot of the work in the initial stage…

Network at conferences, explore your supervisor’s network. Try to find somebody who is willing to collaborate (most famous service researches are friendly and approachable!)

If you can’t beat them, ask the econometricians to join you!

Here’s the bottom line

…necessary for your career

…necessary to engage in a dialogue with other academics

…necessary for your teaching

…necessary to improve your work

…and probably the most frustrating aspect of early academic life!

Getting published is:

Difficulties (that’s what they call opportunities)

Many different journals Many different editorial practices Arbitrary?! “the big names secret handshake” Nationality/university reputation Coping with reviewers’ comments, they

will raise the Contribution issue!

Publish-don’t perish strategy Manage publications as a portfolio: A’s are

the greatest, B’s are still great, but also realize that focused C’s are great reputation builders!

Writing is behavior…like other behavior, the more often you write, the better you’ll get at it!

Be alert for special issues Scan a wider population than just

marketing journals (OB, Psych, IS, Dec.Sciences, Operations)

Take-aways…

Use any chance to present your work Select the journal before you start

writing The C-word: Contribution! Ask others to read your article

(“strategic” scholars) Spend a lot of time on the referee report! See it as a learning process…

…and doggy-bags

At a 3% acceptance rate, it pays to leave it for a little while

If you get rejected, put it in the fridge Heat up the stuff, try another marketing

journal Try another journal in a totally different field

(not at the same time, that’s a serious no-no)

Spice it up, with additional analyses Try the same journal, after an editor change

Questions

Thank you for Thank you for your attention!your attention!