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The growing service sector has experienced several revolutions that have transformed the way services are created and delivered. In parallel, services increasingly pique the interest of scholars, resulting in an expanding body of knowledge. Accordingly, it is time to reflect on extant service research, assess its boundaries, and think about its future. This paper aims to consider three research questions: How has service research evolved over the past 27 years? Which articles have most influenced the evolution of service research in the past 27 years? What are the most promising research themes for the future?

To answer these questions, the authors analyze the contents of 3,177 service research articles published in ten major academic journals between 1993 and August 2019. Multiple correspondence analysis reveals the evolution of key service research themes and their underlying relationships.

The research themes are organized in a growth–share matrix with four quadrants (stars, question marks, cash cows and pets) and also combine into four research clusters (human resource management, organizational behavior and strategy, technology, and operations and customer behavior and marketing). Together with a specified list of influential articles that have shaped the evolution of service research, these insights suggest an agenda for research.

Acknowledging the vast growth of service research, this study presents an up-to-date picture of the discipline and an agenda to stimulate continued research.

This study aims to develop a comprehensive, theoretically grounded framework of customer-to-customer interaction (CCI) management, by revisiting three older services marketing models: the servuction model, the services marketing triangle and the services marketing pyramid.

Noting the lack of theoretical frameworks of CCI management, this study adopts a problematization approach to identify foundational services marketing models, question their underlying assumptions, develop an alternative conceptual framework and evaluate its adequacy for CCI management, on the basis of a systematic literature review and content analyses.

By revisiting the assumptions underlying three relevant models in the light of the present-day, technology-infused service environment, this study proposes a four-triangle CCI management framework encompassing four specific modes of CCI management: managerial decisions by the firm; frontline employees; the design of the physical environment; and technology. Furthermore, this study emphasizes the triadic relationships involving the focal customer, other customers and the four modes of CCI management. Building on these findings, this study concludes with an extensive research agenda.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study represents the first scholarly effort in services marketing literature to provide a comprehensive, theoretically grounded framework of CCI management. With its basis in foundational models, the new framework is well-suited to address future challenges to service marketplaces too.

In a globalized world, consumers embrace mutually conflicting cultural values rather than making exclusive, either/or choices. As a result, they experience multiple tensions, a phenomenon that can be identified as the consumer cultural paradox. Despite clear interest in the influence of local/global culture on consumers, knowledge of how conflicting cultural elements shape consumer behavior remains limited. To address these issues, the current article seeks to identify higher- and lower-level tensions inherent in the consumer cultural paradox.

Using in-depth interviews, the authors investigate tensions experienced by Chinese consumers of international private education services. This study applies a paradox lens, a tension-based conceptual approach that is well suited for studying consumer paradoxes.

Ten lower-level tensions of the consumer cultural paradox arise in the focal international service context; these tensions in turn form three higher-level tensions.

The study is among the first in marketing to use a paradox lens and empirical research to delineate multiple dimensions of the consumer cultural paradox, then categorize them into lower and higher-level tensions. The findings offer theoretical and managerial implications, in that recognizing the multiple tensions experienced by consumers allows scholars and marketers to gain a better understanding of how consumers perceive and evaluate services from different cultures.

With the growth of worldwide e‐commerce, companies are increasingly targeting foreign online consumers. However, there is a dearth of evidence as to whether global consumers prefer to browse and buy from standardized global web sites or web sites adapted to their local cultures. This study provides evidence from five different countries as to whether global consumers prefer local web content or standardized web content. The study also measures how the degree of cultural adaptation on the web affects consumer perception of site effectiveness.

When customers feel that they have no choice but to stay with their current provider to obtain a service that they need, they feel captive. This study aims to investigate customer captivity as a type of vulnerability and evaluate its effects on customers’ service evaluation and word-of-mouth (WOM) behavior, as well as to identify solutions that reduce customers’ feelings of captivity and improve their well-being.

This sequential, quantitative–qualitative, mixed-methods study draws from a survey of 1,017 customers and a qualitative analysis of 20 in-depth semi-structured interviews. Moderated mediation analysis is used to test the quantitative hypotheses; a thematic analysis explores the qualitative data.

The results of the quantitative study show that captivity emotions and price unfairness perceptions are two manifestations of customer captivity, which directly and indirectly affect service evaluations and WOM behavior. The findings of the qualitative study highlight how captive customers use emotional support-seeking negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) as a solution to reduce their captivity emotions and improve their well-being, by reinforcing their social ties and regaining a sense of control.

This study advances transformative service research by demonstrating how captivity affects customers’ well-being and customer vulnerability literature by investigating captivity as a type of vulnerability. It contributes to service marketing literature by identifying customer captivity as a boundary condition for generic service evaluation models.

Captive customers seek emotional support and consequently spread NWOM. Therefore, it is critical for service providers to reduce customers’ captivity feelings and implement adequate solutions to prevent NWOM and decrease the risk of negative impacts on their profitability.

Any customer can become vulnerable, due to contextual circumstances. This study focuses on customer captivity as a type of vulnerability and proposes adapted solutions to improve customers’ well-being.

Although multi-brand loyalty (MBL) in consumer markets has been identified in previous brand loyalty research, empirical studies have not yet explored the facets of its different types. This paper aims to have a deeper understanding of MBL by investigating its different types and facets.

This study uses a sequential, qualitatively driven mixed-method design consisting of in-depth interviews and supplementary survey research.

The findings of this study suggest that mood congruence, identity enhancement, unavailability risk reduction and market competition are the most important facets that explains the two types of MBL (complementary-based and product substitutes). Furthermore, the findings show that the family factor can motivate consumers to be multi-brand loyal by adding brands to an initially family-endorsed brand.

This study advances the conceptual foundations of MBL and extends previous research on brand loyalty. Some of the findings may be limited to the economic and cultural context of relatively affluent countries with an abundance of market offers.

Marketing managers gain insights into how to manage brand loyalty and how to transition from MBL to single-brand loyalty.

The study generates novel insights into the facets of different types of MBL.

We examined the attitudes of millennial-aged business students toward economic, social and environmental corporate responsibility (CR). Currently, these individuals are of an age that they have entered the workforce and are now ascending or have ascended into roles of leadership in which they have decision-making power that influences their company’s CR agenda and implementation. Thus, following the ecological systems perspective, we tested both the macro influence of cultural values (survival/self-expression and traditional/secular-rational values) and structural forces (income inequality, welfare socialism and environmental vulnerability) on these individuals’ attitudes toward CR.

This is a multilevel study of 3,572 millennial-aged students from 28 Asian, American, Australasian and European societies. We analyzed the data collected in 2003–2009 using hierarchical linear modeling.

In our multilevel analyses, we found that survival/self-expression values were negatively related to economic CR and positively related to social CR while traditional/secular-rational values was negatively related to social CR. We also found that welfare socialism was positively related to environmental CR but negatively related to economic CR while environmental vulnerability was not related to any CR. Lastly, income equality was positively related to social CR but not economic or environment responsibilities. In sum, we found that both culture-based and structure-based macro factors, to varying extents, shape the attitudes of millennial-aged students on CR in our sample.

Our study is grounded in the ecological systems theory framework, combined with research on culture, politico-economics and environmental studies. This provides a multidisciplinary perspective for evaluating and investigating the impact that societal (macro-level) factors have on shaping attitudes toward businesses’ engagement in economic, social and environmental responsibility activities. Additionally, our multilevel research design allows for more precise findings compared to a single-level, country-by-country assessment.

Following the continued development of transformative service research and the prevalence of the service-dominant logic in services marketing literature, increased scholarly interest centers on the co-creation of service actors’ well-being. In light of this significant evolution in service research, this study aims to provide a systematic review and synthesis of the growing, fragmented body of literature on well-being co-creation in services.

The hybrid systematic review approach combines bibliometric and framework-based literature reviews to analyze a sample of 160 article obtained from the Web of Science database. To examine the conceptual structure of the research domain, VOSviewer is used for conducting a bibliometric coupling analysis and a keyword co-occurrence analysis. Next, a content analysis is used to explore how the extant literature addresses the key concepts of service actors’ participation in co-creation, their resource integration and well-being outcomes across the micro-, meso- and macro levels of service ecosystems.

Service actors’ participation and resource integration are key theoretical concepts for understanding well-being co-creation. Yet, a comprehensive overview of well-being co-creation across the different levels of service ecosystems is lacking due to the presence of various application contexts, levels of aggregation, theoretical backgrounds and methodological perspectives. A conceptual framework of well-being co-creation in service ecosystems is developed, highlighting the participation of multilevel service actors and suggesting priorities for further research.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper represents a first effort to systematically review and organize growing literature on well-being co-creation in service ecosystems.

This article explores four dimensions of frontline employee (FLE) friendliness (humorous, informal, conversational, and approachable) to propose a relevant measurement instrument of the influence of FLE friendliness on relationship quality and perceived value, as well as its indirect influence on repatronage intentions. Recent studies suggest FLE friendliness, defined as a tendency to convey an affective customer–employee social interaction, is a critical determinant of relationship marketing, but few scholars agree on its dimensionality. This study seeks a deeper understanding of FLE friendliness by investigating its different dimensions in various service contexts.

The mixed-method design, including both qualitative and quantitative research, offers a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of FLE friendliness.

The content analysis suggests FLE friendliness is multidimensional and composed of humorous, informal, conversational, and approachable behaviors. The results of a quantitative survey, conducted across four service contexts, validate this four-factor model. A second quantitative survey across two service contexts reveals the weights and relative importance of the dimensions, and then a third quantitative survey across three service contexts confirms that FLE friendliness is a significant driver of relationship quality, perceived value, and repatronage intentions (indirectly).

This study contributes to relationship marketing literature by strengthening the conceptual foundations of FLE friendliness, clarifying the dimensionality of the construct, developing a comprehensive measurement instrument, and extending previous research on the customer–employee interactions.

Negative customer-to-customer interactions (NCCI) occurring in physical service encounters can have a detrimental effect on a focal customer’s experience. This paper aims to explore how the interplay between the physical servicescape and the presence and behavior of other customers can lead to NCCI. Moreover, through an examination of customers’ responsibility attribution, the paper underlines the need for service organizations to manage this interplay.

The authors rely on a mixed approach with two studies grounded in the Stimulus–Organism–Response paradigm. In a preliminary quantitative study, the authors test a model of the effects of NCCI on customers’ attribution and behavioral outcomes using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Next, in a qualitative study, they collect and explore NCCI incidents in eight service industries relying on the critical incident technique (CIT).

When experiencing NCCI, customers attribute at least partial responsibility for their negative experience to the service provider. The findings of the CIT study reveal three interplay mechanisms leading to NCCI: when other customers’ behavior is triggered by the physical servicescape; when other customers’ behavior is incongruent with the behavioral norms set by the physical servicescape; and when the physical servicescape is altered by other customers’ misbehavior.

This paper provides a comprehensive, empirically grounded, understanding of the interplay between the physical and social servicescape, focusing on the presence and behavior of the other customers and its effect on the customer experience.