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The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the author’s decade-long tenure as the Editor of the European Journal of Marketing (EJM). The paper presents his thoughts on the past 10 years of marketing scholarship, his views on future directions and some advice for those looking to publish their research in academic journals.

The paper takes a reflective, discursive approach, and also reviews a wide range of topics relevant to marketing researchers.

The author finds that EJM has grown substantially on many levels in the past decade. He also finds that there are some concerns around marketing research, and social scientific scholarship in general, that marketing scholars may wish to consider and take into account in their ongoing work.

The paper is partly a personal view, and does not rely on any empirical research. However, the views espoused are justified by theoretical review and conceptual argument.

The implications of this paper are relevant to marketing scholars, journal reviewers, readers of research, as well as those who manage scholarship (e.g. university administrators). The author suggests a number of directions that the research, publication and reward process could move in to improve practice.

The paper brings together a large number of different views and concepts relevant to further development of marketing research, and provides original summaries and extensions.

An examination of the commonalities and differences between performance management practices in the public and private sector.

A literature review of 100 publications in international academic journals over the last 20 years.

The chapter develops a framework which links the dimensions of the public/private-distinction (ownership, funding, control and type of goals) to the design and use of performance management systems (PMS). This framework subsequently informs a literature review, which can be summarised as follows: Multi-dimensionality of the PMS is core in both public and private sector organisations, but quite many private sector papers point to a financial focus at the top of the PMS, while public sector organisations show a broad variety of performance indicators, including those on societally relevant goals. In addition, a link between the PMS and strategies can be found in the public and the private sector, but the match between different strategies and PMS design is more elaborated in the private sector. These findings are largely in accordance with our expectations. The review also finds support for the assumption that performance information in public sector organisations is primarily used for external accountability reasons, while internal managerial control is the main purpose in private firms. The use of performance information is quite intensive and mostly functional in both sectors, which does not meet our expectations. Overall, the differences between performance management practices in the public and private sector are less stringent than expected.

Due to limited evidence about the importance of performance-related pay systems and no evidence about targeting in both sectors, a more focused literature review on these issues would be desirable.

Mutual learning between both sectors, for example the public sector can learn from the private sector on how to link strategy to the PMS and the private sector can learn from the public sector about serving a multitude of stakeholders in the PMS.

A comprehensive review of performance management practices in the public and private sector.

This chapter conceptualizes a framework that can be applied to examine the service experiences of business tourists at luxury hotels. A synthesized literature review results in the identification of three service constructs − surprise, recovery, and sweetness − that constitute the service experiences. In the development of five propositions and in views of emotional appreciation and reciprocity, the chapter posits that emotional value from these three constructs of service experiences can enhance business tourists’ attitude of gratitude and consequently their willingness to pay a price premium. The proposed conceptual framework extends the three service constructs to, and integrates them with, a value–attitude–behavior model.

Based upon social exchange theory, this study investigates the mediating effect of consumers' trust in banking industry frontline employees on two relationships: (1) the relation between consumers' perceptions of frontline employees' empathy and consumers' perceptions of frontline employees' performance, and (2) the relation between consumers' perception of frontline employees' customer orientation and consumers' perceptions of frontline employees' performance.

The authors used a time-lag research design to collect data through online questionnaires distributed in two waves. The sample comprises 375 respondents having experience and interaction with banking frontline employees.

Results confirm the mediating effect of consumers' trust in the banking industry on the relationships between their perceptions of frontline employees' empathy and consumer orientation on the one hand and their perceptions of frontline employees' performance on the other hand.

Results may be helpful to policymakers and managers in the service industries, prompting them to adopt approaches and strategies designed to build strong relationships with consumers, thus increasing consumers' trust and frontline employees' performance.

This study confirms the relevance of social exchange theory in understanding the role of consumers' trust and perceptions of frontline employees' empathy and consumer orientation in understanding their perception of frontline employee performance in the banking industry.

Employees are increasingly speaking out against their employer on relevant social issues, which raises the human factor to a next level in organisational affairs. The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the concept of employee activism and locate it in the academic and professional discussion about employees' active role as organisational communicators. After scrutinising some of the most popular cases from recent years, the relevant literature in the fields of social activism and employee communication as well as strategic organisational communication and public relations is critically reviewed with the idea to (1) provide a terminological clarification regarding employee activism, (2) outline the unique characteristics of its current forms, (3) discuss several factors that may trigger externally directed employee activism and (4) elaborate on the communicative nature of this phenomenon as well as its implications for organisational development and reputation. As a result, five propositions are suggested to explain what constitutes employee activism as a specific form of employee communication behaviour. The chapter also calls particular attention to related risks and opportunities for organisations and opens up questions for further research.

This paper examines motivational practices and engagements of schools – through strategies developed by principals with the members of the school management team – to improve academic performance.

The research used an interpretive approach within a qualitative design in which schools were purposefully selected. In each of the sampled schools, individual interviews were conducted with the principal as well as a focus group with the school management team and another focus group was identified teachers.

The main findings reveal that school labelling (where schools are labelled as underperforming schools) as a public notice was identified as the main push towards intrinsic motivation, especially when positive results in learner performance are eventually achieved. Extra classes, teaching collaboration, monitoring and team building were some of the main strategies used. Efforts appear to focus on performance in Grade 12 examinations. Therefore, the study recommends that attention be spread across all grades as a long-term improvement plan for the education system. Furthermore, since these strategies have worked successfully, the national and the provincial education departments should consider developing plans for academic improvement based on these strategies.

This research contributed to the understanding of school improvement in a specific context of low socio economic and societal context and schools are able to improve in spite of the challenging context. This is specifically in a developing country's context. More research can be conducted about the specific influence of intrinsic motivation and how extrinsic factors can become internalised as intrinsic motivation factors.

The findings from this project can provide leadership at schools with the necessary information and examples of what can be done to get teachers to improve the performance in a challenging context. The use of extrinsic as well as intrinsic motivational actions can provide the leadership with the necessary guidelines to implement in their schools. The appointment of principals with specific characteristics needed attention in policy as well as the practice of the appointment process.

The research is contributed to the knowledge of school improvement from a perspective of a developing country and is using motivational theories within this context. The limited literature which links motivation to the process of school improvement is advanced from ice perspective of low socio economic context in a developing country.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of individual customer characteristics on frontline employees’ (FLEs) customer need knowledge (CNK), a construct that objectively measures FLEs’ ability to accurately identify a given customer’s hierarchy of needs.

The study uses hierarchical data involving the customer and bank advisor levels in the banking sector of three European countries. The matched sample consisted of 1,166 customers and 332 employees. To account for the nested structure of the data, the study used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) using HLM software.

The results show that customers’ financial experience and risk aversion positively influence CNK and customer-perceived responsibility for the service outcome negatively impacts CNK. The results further show the impact of individual customer cultural values on CNK, which can be influenced by customer-oriented employee training. Cross-level interaction effects indicate that training measures can reverse negative influences of customers’ high power distance and uncertainty avoidance on CNK, whereas for customers characterized by high long-term orientations, training measures can backfire.

This study contributes to research on the antecedents of FLEs’ CNK by examining the currently overlooked influence of individual customer characteristics that are pertinent to the employee–customer interaction process. The study reveals customer characteristics as a new area of antecedents influencing FLEs’ accurate perceptions of customer needs.

Consumer forgiveness is an important concept in service failure and recovery research. To advance knowledge and develop future research agenda in this domain, this paper provides a systematic review of the literature on factors influencing consumer forgiveness while adopting the customer journey perspective.

Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol, a systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted of 102 peer-reviewed journal articles, on factors influencing consumer forgiveness, published between January 2000 and December 2020.

The authors' analysis offers a detailed account of the factors influencing consumer forgiveness across the three stages of the service journey: pre-transgression, transgression and recovery. From the review, the authors identified significant gaps relating to the interactions between the relevant factors influencing forgiveness throughout the various stages of the consumer service journey. Based on the findings, the authors offer several research questions to help managers optimize customer forgiveness following a service failure throughout each stage of consumer service journey.

The authors' review synthesizes the literature on factors contributing to consumer forgiveness and integrates these factors into the customer service journey. The authors' findings inform directions for future research and provide insights regarding the measures that service providers should take to understand and encourage consumer forgiveness.