Citation
Morris, B. (1999), "Service Management: : Operations, Strategy and Information Technology, 2nd edition", International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 3-4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijsim.1999.10.2.3.3
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1998 saw an excellent service management text revised and updated. Although the title is different, this is the second edition of the authors′ excellent text, Service Management for Competitive Advantage. The title has been changed to reflect the three themes that run throughout the book, although there is no change to the primary focus on managing for competitive advantage.
The first edition was a very good text for teaching service operations, and this revised edition is even better. It retains the same structure and chapters as the first one, revised and updated, and has two additional chapters: managing service projects and managing facilitating goods. Learning objectives, previously in the instructor′s manual, have been added at the beginning of each chapter, and key terms and definitions at the end of each one. A further change is the addition of a service benchmark′′ at the end of each chapter to provide an example of excellent service. Some of the small cases have been updated, and new ones added. Quantitative models for service applications are presented in a substantial final section.
As with its predecessor, this is written in a lively, highly readable style with plenty of illustrations, which in this reviewer′s experience is well liked by MBA students. It covers most of the topics to be found in a traditional operations text, but is entirely focused on service operations.
The reviewer found the first edition was particularly appealing to students who have only service experience, who tend to have little empathy with the more traditional texts. Undergraduate students also found it easy to identify with, and understand, the many examples and illustrations. This second edition is likely to be equally popular with students.