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Most Western countries are demonstrating a trend in the public and private sector away from traditional manufacturing operations. This has resulted in customer‐led pressure for Production/Operations Management teachers to give service operations equal time with manufacturing. Service industries have the same operating issues as manufacturing but for effective teaching two aspects must be considered. The first is the context of service operations and the second is those differences that do exist between manufacturing and services. A teaching strategy is proposed. This emphasises the use of service cases and examples to illustrate the application of operations management approaches; an understanding of the key contextual differences in the service environment; and the development of electives focusing on specific service features in operations management. Examples from undergraduate and postgraduate teaching are given.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the differences in importance assigned by manufacturing or service organizations to topics related to operations management and its attendant body of knowledge.

The authors did this by cataloguing and analyzing vacancy announcements related to operations management, presented by manufacturing and services companies in major Brazilian human resources websites.

The results show that manufacturing companies primarily hire personnel with skills in routine process management, quality management, lean manufacturing, ergonomics and work organization. Service companies generally seek professionals with knowledge and experience in logistics, supply chain management and project management.

This study presents some limitations that reduce the power of its conclusions. There is some degree of subjectivity in the interpretation of the contents of the analyzed ads. In order to reduce this problem, the authors who did the tabulation of data marked the situations for which there were some doubts about the classification, discussing them with the other author, until they reached a consensus on the best way to classify each one.

The discussion about the importance assigned by manufacturing and service companies to the topics of operations management is crucial for not only the results obtained, but also to stimulate the debate on topics that comprise or should comprise the body of knowledge of operations management, and the way they are incorporated into business practice. This provides an additional opportunity to reflect on the potential of operations management in supporting business managers now and in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to present exciting and innovative research questions in service operations that are aligned with eight key themes and related topics determined by the Journal of Service Management (JOSM) Service Operations Expert Research Panel. By offering a good number of such research questions, this paper provides a broad range of ideas to spur conceptual and empirical research related to service operations and encourage the continued creation of deep knowledge within the field, as well as collaborative research across disciplines that develops and incorporates insights from service operations.

Based on a Delphi study, described in the companion article, “Service Operations: What Have We Learned?,” the panel identified eight key research themes in service operations where leading-edge research is being done or has yet to be done (Victorino et al., 2018). In this paper, three or four topics within each theme are selected and multiple questions for each topic are proposed to guide research efforts. The topics and questions, while wide-ranging, are only representative of the many ongoing research opportunities related to service operations.

The field of service operations has many interesting research topics and questions that are largely unexplored. Furthermore, these research areas are not only increasingly integrative across multiple themes within operations but often transcend functional disciplines. This creates opportunities for ever more impactful research with a greater reach throughout the service system and suggests that service researchers, regardless of functional affiliation, can contribute to the ongoing conversation on the role of service operations in value creation.

Leveraging the collective knowledge of the JOSM Service Operations Expert Research Panel to expand on the research themes generated from the Delphi study, novel questions for future study are put forward. Recognizing that the number of potential research questions is virtually unlimited, summary questions by theme and topic are also provided. These questions represent a synopsis of the individual questions and can serve as a quick reference guide for researchers interested in pursuing new directions in conceptual and empirical research in service operations. This summary also serves as a framework to facilitate the formulation of additional research topics and questions.

Over the last 20 years we have witnessed the emergence of a large‐scale, world‐wide academic movement concerned with the management of services. This paper charts the role and impact of operations management on this movement and proposes that the current key focus for service academics should be with the application of frameworks and techniques. Also suggests that as the service movement has grown, with increasing overlap between the subjects of operations, marketing and HRM for example, there is a need to “return to roots”. Contends that service academics, in their bid to develop cross‐functional service management material, may have lost, or inadvertently ignored, the strength of their core disciplines. Re‐focusing on the traditional strengths of operations management, such as performance quality, design, and operational improvement, might help provide a greater rigour to the developing subject of service management. Discusses nine areas for service operations research and suggests specific research questions. The topics include linking operational performance to business drivers, performance measurement and operations improvement, service design, service technology, the design of internal networks and managing service capacity.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the history and future of service operations, with the goal to identify key theoretical and technological advances, as well as fundamental themes that can help to imagine the future of service operations in 2050.

A review of the service operations literature was undertaken to inform a discussion regarding the role that technology will play in the future of service operations.

The future of service operations is framed in terms of three key themes – complexity, orchestration, and elasticity. The paper makes three contributions to the service science literature by: reviewing key themes underpinning extant service operations research to frame future trajectories of service operations research; elaborating a vision of service operations in 2050 based on history and technology; and outlining a research agenda for future service operations.

The case of service automation is used to provide an illustration of how the three themes converge to define future service operations, and in particular, to show how technology is recasting the role of the firm.

Service operations in the next 30 years will be very different from what it was in the past 30 years. This paper differs from other review papers by identifying three key themes that will characterize and instill new insights into the future of service operations research.

Traces the historical development of operations management from its factory management origins. Explores how the subject has tried to incorporate service inspirations issues from the mid‐1970s and its association with service management in the 1980s and 1990s. There is now a significant body of knowledge on service operations management though it appears to have had only limited recognition and inclusion in the developing subject of service management. Suggests that the key challenge for operations management academics is to try to embrace the service imperative more fully into the mainstream discipline. To bring this about some operations management researchers will need to shake off their inward‐looking, efficiency‐oriented view of operations which seems to be more concerned with the application of quantitative techniques to operational subsystems rather than the design and control of operations to meet the needs of customers. Also suggests that service management academics need to ensure the inclusion, and recognition, of operations issues and perspectives into the subject. Without operations there is no means or capability of delivering service promises.

The purpose of this paper is to identify research themes in service operations that have great potential for exciting and innovative conceptual and empirical work. To frame these research themes, the paper provides a systematic literature review of operations articles published in the Journal of Service Management (JOSM). The thorough review of published work in JOSM and proposed research themes are presented in hopes that they will inspire impactful research on service operations. These themes are further developed in a companion paper, “Service operations: what’s next?” (Field et al., 2018).

The JOSM Service Operations Expert Research Panel conducted a Delphi study to generate research themes where leading-edge research on service operations is being done or has yet to be done. Nearly 700 articles published in JOSM from its inception through 2016 were reviewed and classified by discipline focus. The subset of service operations articles was then further categorized according to the eight identified research themes plus an additional category that primarily represented traditional manufacturing approaches applied in service settings.

From the Delphi study, the following key themes emerged: service supply networks, evaluating and measuring service operations performance, understanding customer and employee behavior in service operations, managing servitization, managing knowledge-based service contexts, managing participation roles and responsibilities in service operations, addressing society’s challenges through service operations, and the operational implications of the sharing economy. Based on the literature review, approximately 20 percent of the published work in JOSM is operations focused, with earlier articles predominantly applying traditional manufacturing approaches in service settings. However, the percentage of these traditional types of articles has been steadily decreasing, suggesting a trend toward dedicated research frameworks and themes that are unique to the design and management of services operations.

The paper presents key research themes for advancing conceptual and empirical research on service operations. Additionally, a review of the past and current landscape of operations articles published in JOSM offers an understanding of the scholarly conversation so far and sets a foundation from which to build future research.

This paper reflects on the growing trend of engaging management consultancies in implementing operations management innovations in the public sector. Whilst the differences between public and private sector operations have been documented, there is a dearth of material detailing the impact of public sector engagements on the consultancies themselves and the operations management products and services they develop. Drawing on qualitative data, the paper aims to identify both the impact of operations management in the public sector and the impact of this engagement on the consultancies that are involved.

This paper draws on rich, qualitative data from six large management consultancies, amounting to over 48 interviews. An inductive methodology sought to identify both how consultancies have adapted their operations management products and services, and why.

The paper finds that the different context of the public sector provides consultants with considerable challenges when implementing operations management projects. The research shows that public services are often hampered by different cultures, structures, and managerial knowledge and investment patterns. Such constraints have an impact on both the projects being implemented and the relationship between consultants and clients.

There are few studies that consider the implementation of operations management in the public sector and fewer still which examine the impact of public sector engagement on the products that consultancies develop. This paper aims to develop understanding in both. At a more theoretical level, the paper contributes to considering operations management through knowledge management literature in seeking to understand how consumers of management knowledge influence its producers.

To develop and propose a framework, termed here as the value package prism, for assessing the kinds of management processes and flexibility available in providing a range of value packages (services and goods offering mix).

The literature is examined and a set of highly‐visible Latin‐American examples are presented to support the development of the proposed framework.

Provides an additional perspective to the traditional set of characteristics (intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity, and perishability) for differentiating services and goods. The proposed framework (stockability, intensity of interaction, simultaneousness of consumption, and ease of performance assessment) and the value prism may be useful to operations managers in developing, planning, organizing, or controlling the production and delivery of services or goods.

Offers a new framework and an applied way to improve operations management by moving away from the extremes of pure services and pure goods to embrace how businesses compete and operate today, by delivering value packages. Provides an approach that facilitates operations managers' understanding and ability to manage substantial changes in the value packages offered to customers.

The purpose of this paper is to close the gap between theoretical approaches to strategic operations auditing and empirical analysis of practice in service organisations. Through analysis of the two different views of strategy formulation – environment‐market and resource‐based – the paper aims to provide insights on how strategic operations audit methods are being used and under what circumstances.

The case study methodology was employed which involved a three‐stage data collection and analytical process. Its purpose was to identify how strategic operations audit methods were being used, why they were used and the particular circumstances of their use. Trails of operational improvement within each of six case studies show links between service operational activities, the benefits achieved by the improvements and the formulation and/or execution of each service company's business strategy. These trails of improvement provided a means by which to reveal some of the strategic operations audit methods being used. In addition, interviews and analysis of supporting documentation ensured the complete set of methods being utilised was identified.

The results indicate three main findings. First it is recognised that the service companies all look to adopt a top down approach to strategic operations auditing and seek to maintain, and where possible, gain greater strategic impact from their service operations. Second, the competitive state of the business impacts the choice of strategic operations audit method used. All companies studied employed an environment‐market method to assess operations – market fit. Only when a company is confident of its competitive position will managers then look to also devise a resource‐based method in order to assess its current ability to nurture new capabilities to exploit. Third, companies use a variety of integration techniques to verify on‐going cohesion across infrastructural decision‐making categories of the content of service operations strategy. The assessment of cohesion within service operations strategy takes place within subsets of the content of the strategy. The authors did not find integration techniques that hone structural decision categories or service operations strategy as a whole. The results also show that methods used by managers are pale imitations of the rigorous procedures originally devised by researchers.

Service operations managers possess inadequate understanding of how the application of a strategic operations audit method should be made and limited ability to undertake the audit in a structured and meaningful way. A strategic operations audit methods selection process is put forward to remedy this. The process acknowledges that the choice of a particular method is contingent on the stage of development of the company's service operations strategy. It guides managers through the decision‐making process of what strategic operations audit method to use and when managers should be using it. The message for academics is that new resource‐based methods need to be created that are accessible to managers and relevant when service operations strategy has successfully evolved to the point where greater influence is being sought from it in the formulation of business strategy.

An empirical study within service operations management of the practice of strategic operations auditing is rare. The paper's findings begin to address the gap between theory and practice. The paper presents revisions and additions to the operations manager's tool kit of strategic operations audit methods and culminates in a selection process to guide managers on which tool to use and when.