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The purpose of this paper is to create a benchmark and identify best practices for Project Portfolio Management (PPM) for both tangible product‐based and service product‐based development project portfolios.

A questionnaire was developed to gather data to compare the PPM methods used, PPM performance, PPM challenges, and resulting new product success measures in 60 Australian organisations in a diverse range of service and manufacturing industries.

The paper finds that PPM practices are shown to be very similar for service product development project portfolios and tangible product development project portfolios. New product success rates show strong correlation with measures of PPM performance and the use of some PPM methods is correlated with specific PPM performance outcomes.

The findings in this paper are based on a survey of a diverse sample of 60 Australian organisations. The results are strengthened by comparisons with similar North American research; however, they may not be representative of all environments. Research in other regions would further qualify the findings. As each organisation's PPM process is unique, case study methods are recommended for future studies to capture more of the complexity in the environment.

The paper shows that PPM practitioners and executives who make decisions about the development of tangible products and/or service products will benefit from the findings.

This paper extends the existing understanding of PPM practices to include service development project portfolios as well as tangible product development project portfolios and strengthens the links between PPM practices and outcomes.

Details a method for uncovering the direct and indirect influences of human values on consumer decisions. The procedure is quantitative, uses large samples and employs widely known statistical techniques such as correlations, regression and (optionally) factor analysis. Uses a study of Toyota Corolla as an example. Describes the four steps involved: development of the questionnaire; administration to sample of market; assessment of general preferences; and assessing the extent to which individuals in the sample apply their human values directly or indirectly when forming product preference. The main marketing strategies for which this method can yield useful information are: solidifying consumers’ current perceptions and evaluations of the product; and changing consumer perceptions of the product. Implications for marketing professionals are discussed.

Intangibility is one of the distinctive characteristics of service. However, the literature also highlights “tangibles” as one of the basic service quality dimensions. Investigates the importance of tangibles and intangibles in perceptions of service quality as assessed by both customers and service providers. Selects four service industries to reflect a range from high to low levels of tangible components and degree of intangibility in both service process and output. Based on 400 telephone interviews with consumers, shows that the level of tangible components has a positive impact on the perceived importance of the tangible dimension in service quality. However, the second phase of this research, involving a qualitative study with managers in the studied industries, shows that the tangibles dimension is relatively neglected in service industries with high tangible involvement. Presents a model of tangibility and intangibility to aid managers in understanding customers’ perceptions, and to stimulate further research.

Investigates the concept of product intangibility, considers its implications for marketing, and examines the way in which managers view intangibility and cope with its marketing consequences. Draws on existing literature and results of interviews with managers in service industries across a broad range. Provides evidence which strongly suggests that product intangibility has a profound effect on the marketing of services. Suggests, also, that there is a lack of guidance for service managers in relation to tackling the problems and making use of the opportunities created by intangible products. Proposes that marketing needs to address these problems by suitably adapting existing tools and providing new concepts to explain and manage intangibility correctly.

The purpose of this study is to develop new frameworks for operations strategy and service system design in electronic commerce (EC) to provide strategic insights to academics and practitioners.

Product/service process matrices for intangible and tangible products in EC operations are presented based on the classification of products and delivery channel options and three cases are investigated to illustrate the newly developed matrices.

The fit between two dimensions (characteristics of product/service, service delivery processes) in the matrices contributes to firm's competitiveness through market expansion and improvement of customer services. Through the case studies, it was confirmed that the conceptual framework developed in this study illustrates actual EC operations well.

Further case or empirical research on more diverse products or services will be required to increase robustness of the matrices and to additionally confirm the results of this study including the effects of the “fit”.

The new frameworks have the potential to be useful as a planning tool in developing an operations strategy and service system design, as well as a diagnostic tool for examining the causes of poor service quality and low customer satisfaction resulting from a mismatch between two dimensions.

The development of new frameworks is an important first step in the gradual process of theory building and theory testing, as well as providing strategic insights for practitioners.

In recent years there has been a marked development of the “service company”, first in North America and now in Western Europe. Much attention has been given to the marketing of services, but little in the sense of how to do services marketing. This is changing as more and more services begin to take the question of marketing seriously. This article looks at the theory, practice, and future of services marketing.

Explains how tangibility can be a useful concept for the services marketer, enabling a firm to identify its position relative to competition by measuring tangibility at various levels such as product class, brand, segment and thus develop specific strategies for improvement. Provides a scale, based on three empirical studies, for measuring tangibility and shows how the results can be used strategically.

The present studies provide support for a functional approach to instrumental and terminal values and the value‐attitude‐behaviour system. Study 1 surveyed individuals’ human values, the type of meaning to which they prefer to attend in products (i.e. utilitarian or symbolic), and how they choose to evaluate the products (i.e. a piecemeal or affective judgement). The study found that individuals who favoured instrumental to terminal human values showed a predisposition to attend to the utilitarian meanings of products and make piecemeal judgements. In contrast, individuals who favoured terminal over instrumental values preferred symbolic meanings, affective judgements, and human values in general. Study 2 found that individuals who favoured instrumental to terminal values had stronger instrumental attitudes towards cars and sun‐glasses. The results suggest that: psychological functions are not limited to attitudes or human values but span the breadth of the value‐attitude‐behaviour system; that two such psychological functions are instrumental and expressive; and that instrumental and terminal values serve instrumental and expressive functions, respectively.

Among the areas which need to be addressed in service quality research is the nature of consumer expectations across the range of intangibility. Previous research has compared consumers’ service quality expectations across services, but different groups of subjects were evaluated for each different service. The problem with using different subjects for each service is that the subject’s demographic characteristics may be responsible for the significant differences in expectations of quality. This research uses a controlled, repeated measures design where subjects were each asked to evaluate three services, varying in their degree of intangibility, over a ten week period. This made it possible to look at service quality expectations without risking the problem that demographics would account for most of the differences in the data. A classification matrix for services based strictly on the feature of intangibility is proposed. The managerial implications of this simplified classification scheme for services are discussed.

The majority of past classification models for services have failed to account for the different nature of online services, and therefore, they are not helpful in classifying online services. This paper aims to present a new model for classifying online services, and managerial implications for creating customer loyalty to online service organizations are discussed.

This paper presents an overview of the research in service classifications and a classification model for online services based on a review of the services literature.

The model for online services presented in this paper classifies online services into four categories: online mass services, online mass e-tailing services, online professional and personal services and online service shops.

The classification of online services has received very limited research attention; yet, online services represent a rapidly growing area. The model presented in this paper provides a foundation for the further study and research of online services.