Contemporary services marketing management: A reader

This Reader brings together a first-class collection of refereed articles from leading academics in the field of services management and is a welcome collection of important work.

Beginning with an impressive introduction, the book places individual articles in five sensible and relevant sections: The Classics; Service Experiences; Service Quality and Satisfaction; Service Management; and Services Marketing in Context. Each section includes between five and seven articles, ranging from original classic works from Shostak (1977) and Rathmell (1966), to Edvardsson (1992), Silvestro et al. (1992), Grönroos (1994), and not forgetting Parasuraman et al. (1988) and the excellent work from Buttle (1996).

While the collection is a highly welcome addition to publishers’ lists, there are nevertheless important areas of omission, as is often the case in such publications. The inclusion of the masterly review of emergent literature from Brown, Fisk and Bitner (1994), and the excellent case for creating a customer-oriented culture made by Parasuraman (1987) may well have improved the volume. Other notable absences include work pertaining to the services marketing mix - such as Murray (1991), Guiltinan (1987), and the pioneering work in customer demographics and marketing communications by FitzGerald and Arnott (1996) - and new service development, where the inclusion of the excellent work by Edvardsson and Haglund (1995) and Scheuing and Johnson (1989) would have been beneficial.

One must accept, however, that the creation of a Reader means that decisions have to be taken as to what must be included, and this text realistically reflects work in services so far. However, for a text entitled Services Marketing Management there seems to be a bias towards services management and too little towards services marketing. Thus, a title which reflects this might have been more appropriate.

Overall, and despite certain shortcomings, this text is recommended to any student of services - marketing or operations - as a useful and relevant collection of important literature.