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A small group of pioneering founders led the creation and early evolution of the service research field. Decades later, this article shares timeless service wisdom from ten of those pioneering founders.

Bowen and Fisk specified three criteria by which to identify a pioneering founder. In total, 11 founders met the criteria (Bateson, Berry, Bitner, Brown, Chase, Edvardsson, Grönroos, Gummesson, Parasuraman, Schneider and Zeithaml) and were invited to join Bowen and Fisk – founders that also met the criteria as coauthors. Ten founders then answered a set of questions regarding their careers as service scholars and the state of the field.

Insightful reflections were provided by each of the ten pioneering founders. In addition, based on their synthesis of the reflections, Bowen and Fisk developed nine wisdom themes for service researchers to consider and to possibly act upon.

The service research field is in its fifth decade. This article offers a unique way to learn directly from the pioneering founders about the still-relevant history of the field, the founders' lives and contributions as service scholars and the founders' hopes and concerns for the service research field.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/09564239410057672. When citing the article, please cite: Dwayne D. Gremler, Mary Jo Bitner, Kenneth R. Evans, (1994), “The Internal Service Encounter”, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 5 Iss: 2, pp. 34 - 56.

Technology is profoundly changing the nature of services and the ways in which firms interact with their customers. The result, while positive, also has its downside. This paper elaborates on the opportunities that technology presents for firms to develop new services, and provide better, more efficient services to customers as well as the paradoxes and dark side of technology and services. The paper concludes with a section on what customers expect from technology‐delivered services suggesting that “the more things change, the more some things remain the same”. Customers still demand quality service no matter how the firm chooses to structure the relationship. It is incumbent upon firms to develop technology‐based services that can provide the same high level of service that customers expect from interpersonal service providers.

Over the past two and a half decades services marketing has emerged as a well established area of inquiry in the marketing discipline. In many ways, its growth and acceptance in the academic arena are indeed noteworthy. A question arises, however, concerning the direction that services marketing as a field of study should take in the future. This article reports and content‐analyzes the insights of ten leading services scholars regarding that question. That group comprises Leonard Berry, Mary Jo Bitner, David Bowen, Stephen W. Brown, Christian Gro¨nroos, Evert Gummesson, Christopher Lovelock, Parsu Parasuraman, Benjamin Schneider, and Valarie Zeithaml. Recurring themes and provocative observations among the services experts’ comments are related and discussed. Concluding remarks are offered.

An internal customer′s (i.e. employee′s) satisfaction with a service firm can be significantly influenced by service encounters experienced with internal service providers. For example, a loan officer′s satisfaction with the bank he/she works for may well be influenced by internal services provided by the data processing group. Introduces the concept of the “internal service encounter” and presents the results of an initial study of internal service encounter satisfaction. The empirical study builds on previous research in using the critical incident methodology to examine internal services in a large US bank. Indicates that internal customers are similar to external customers in that, with a few interesting differences, the same types of events and behaviours distinguish satisfactory and dissatisfactory incidents in both internal and external encounters. Implications for managers and suggestions for future research are also presented.

Offers the personal interpretations of authors as participant‐observers together with a data‐based analysis of the evolution of the services marketing literature. Bibliographic analysis of more than 1,000 English language, general services marketing publications, spanning four decades, provides an additional resource. Using an evolutionary metaphor as the framework, traces the literature through three stages: Crawling Out (1953‐79): Scurrying About (1980‐85); and Walking Erect (1986‐present). Shows how the literature has evolved from the early services‐marketing‐is‐different debate to the maturation of specific topics (e.g. service quality, service encounters) and the legitimization of the services marketing literature by major journals. Presents a classification and summary of publications and authors. Closes with discussion and speculation on the future of the services marketing literature.

Focuses on the roles of customers in creating quality and productivity in service experiences. Presents two conceptual frameworks to aid managerial understanding and focus research efforts on customer participation. The first framework captures levels of customer participation across different types of services. The second discusses three major roles of customers in the service delivery process. Two examples of the concepts are presented ‐ one in a weight loss context and the other in a mammography screening setting. Both are based on empirical research and illustrate specific applications of customers’ roles in creating the service experience.

By examining my personal development and career trajectory, I hope to share some insights into life as an academic. My particular path has contained, as most paths do, twists and turns. As I look back, they all seem somehow related to each other, but they were not all planned.

I will discuss my life and career in chronological order, then reflect on my career and research philosophy. I will also discuss several of my most cited articles and how they emerged.

I emphasize research that is both academically rigorous and relevant to business. I also show that passion for a subject, even one that is risky and not encouraged by others, has resulted in lifelong interest and inspiration for me. While not appropriate for all because of the risk, I found it worth taking a chance, largely because I was highly inspired by the subject.

Research that is programmatic has benefits because it allows a scholar to own an area. Also, working with the right co-author teams – sometimes ones where different talents are distributed across the team is effective.

The story and opinions are mine alone.

The service environment is becoming increasingly turbulent, leading to calls for a systemic understanding of it as a set of dynamic service ecosystems. This paper advances this understanding by developing a typology of service ecosystem dynamics that explains the varying interplay between change and stability within the service environment through distinct behavioral patterns exhibited by service ecosystems over time.

This study builds upon a systematic literature review of service ecosystems literature and uses system dynamics as a method theory to abductively analyze extant literature and develop a typology of service ecosystem dynamics.

The paper identifies three types of service ecosystem dynamics—behavioral patterns of service ecosystems—and explains how they unfold through self-adjustment processes and changes within different systemic leverage points. The typology of service ecosystem dynamics consists of (1) reproduction (i.e. stable behavioral pattern), (2) reconfiguration (i.e. unstable behavioral pattern) and (3) transition (i.e. disrupting, shifting behavioral pattern).

The typology enables practitioners to gain a deeper understanding of their service environment by discerning the behavioral patterns exhibited by the constituent service ecosystems. This, in turn, supports them in devising more effective strategies for navigating through it.

The paper provides a precise definition of service ecosystem dynamics and shows how the identified three types of dynamics can be used as a lens to empirically examine change and stability in the service environment. It also offers a set of research directions for tackling service research challenges.