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Provocative Conference Presentation Proposes New Way of Looking at Services |
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 In October 2004, Christopher Lovelock gave a plenary presentation at the annual Frontiers in Services conference at the University of Miami and co-sponsored by the American Marketing Association. His topic, whose tongue-in-cheek title and seasonal graphics reflected the fact that it was being delivered on the morning of Halloween, was “The Future of Services Marketing: Trick or Treat for Practitioners, Customers, Students, and Academics?” The presentation came two years after he presented a competitive track paper, titled “Do We Need to Rethink the Field of Services Marketing” at an earlier Frontiers conference held at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The answer to that earlier question was now a resounding “yes!”
The Frontiers presentation, which summarized the Lovelock and Gummesson article and added new material on the implications of the proposed Rental/Access paradigm, aroused great interest among the audience, which included some of the field’s most prominent scholars as well as a multinational group of researchers, not all of whom had yet read the JSR article. The readiness of participants to explore new frameworks became clear when, after a few introductory slides, Christopher asked them to write down on paper, using a 5-point Likert scale, the extent of their agreement with the existing paradigm (see Slide 9). To prevent cheating, they then had to share their response with the person next to them. A show of hands, converted to estimated percentages by a moderator, revealed: Strongly Agree (with existing paradigm) 0%
Somewhat agree 35
Neither agree nor disagree 15
Somewhat disagree 35
Disagree strongly 15 Following the presentation and positive observations by two respondents, discussion was opened to the floor and a lively discussion ensued. It would have been interesting, says Christopher, to have taken a poll at the conclusion of the session to see what further shift had taken place following presentation of the arguments for abandoning the old paradigm and adoption of the new one. |
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Last Updated ( Nov 04, 2005 at 12:41 PM )
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