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To reinforce, clarify, illuminate and sometimes counter the findings and discussion of Deon Nel et al.'s article found elsewhere in this issue (“Eleven years of scholarly research in the Journal of Services Marketing”), the Journal's Editor aims to provide his response in this paper.

Primarily, the Editor/author's comments follow the findings and discussion of the Nel et al.'s content analysis of 417 articles published in the Journal of Services Marketing (JSM) from 1998 through 2008. Realizing that some information about JSM is not publicly available (e.g. the number and content of manuscripts submitted for publication but not published), the Editor/author provides additional analysis and discussion beyond the immediate scope of the Nel et al. article.

The findings largely reinforce the findings and discussion of the Nel et al. study, but offer some additional insights and alternative explanations for the patterns of publication in JSM.

Along with the Nel team's article, this editorial assists prospective JSM contributors with data and discussion to enhance their likelihood of publication in the Journal. For business practitioners, the articles potentially provide guidance in the search for service‐related information of particular interest.

Periodically assessing where a journal has been and where it is provides some indication of the possible future direction of the publication and of the field it represents. Coupled with the Nel et al. article, this editorial attempts such an assessment.

Considers the quality of service between internal partners within a company looking at how this can influence performance and quality. Looks at the different ways of defining the internal customer and suggests that measurement is most effective when complex procedures are broken down. States that internal marketing is a critical issue facing marketing professions, human resources and other executives. Argues that if poor service is provided between employees it is unlikely that good service will ultimately be provided to the external customer. Invites further research in this area.

The use of students as subjects in academic research is widespread. A systematic review of research‐oriented journals ranging from the behavioural sciences to pure sciences shows that a great deal of research involves student subjects. In business and management oriented research these students tend to be largely male and undergraduate. As three eminent marketing academics remarked somewhat cynically some years ago, “What we know about consumer behaviour may be too closely tied to the sociopsychological and behavioural profile of the college sophomore” (Cunningham, Anderson and Murphy, 1974). Marketing has been an area particularly prone to student‐based research, with an audit of the first 30 issues of the Journal of Marketing Research revealing that over half of the consumer behaviour experiments (48 of 81) used students as subjects (Enis, Cox and Stafford, 1972). Casual perusal of a wide variety of present day journals in other areas, such as accounting and finance, management information systems, work study, and human resources management points to the increase of this practice. This paper reviews briefly the extensive literature on the question of student surrogacy and presents a bibliographic summary of studies accepting the use of, and those rejecting, student surrogation. It also offers a decision model for consideration by researchers contemplating using students in their endeavours.

The purpose of this paper is to improve educator knowledge of the antecedents and consequences of blended learning in higher education.

A longitudinal case study approach is adopted. Three case studies each involve tracking a student evaluations of teaching (SET) measure (willingness to recommend) and grade point average for three subjects from the same business discipline over six years. The cases involve comparison of: a business subject taught solely online; a business subject where experimentation in the blend of face‐to‐face teaching and learning is involved; and a business subject where face‐to‐face teaching is primarily used, and where in the most recent iteration online content supplements the learners' experiences.

The findings suggest that there are situations where integrated use of blended learning involving face‐to‐face teaching, digital media and digital communication with simple navigation between the content items leads to positive student perceptions. This is in contrast to negative student perceptions in the situation where learners must navigate in online learning, and where there is little or no face‐to‐face instruction. While not examined in detail, nor part of the research question, it is not surprising to find no relationship between learning mode and grade point averages is evidenced.

The effects of prior computer literacy and language proficiency across the students used in this study, and potential demographic and experiential differences between on‐campus and off‐campus students are not controlled for. Additionally, only three business subjects are investigated and it is recognised that there is a need for a broader study. Finally, with response levels to the university‐controlled SET that typically range between 20‐43 per cent for these large subjects, there is possible non‐response bias that it was not possible to counter over the six years involved.

The findings in this study suggest that while blended learning offers many benefits to higher education institutions and learners alike, care needs to be taken in the manner in which such approaches are implemented in light of possible negative learner perceptions where a less traditional approach is taken.

A major contribution of this study is the fact that experimentation has taken place in terms of the degree of face‐to‐face and online learning that have been blended in at least one subject (case study two), and the fact that the SET for this subject are compared, longitudinally, with two other subjects which lie on either side of this subject in terms of the extent of online and face‐to‐face teaching and learning employed – 100 per cent online in case study one and almost 100 per cent face‐to‐face in case study three.

An investigation is described of the perceptions of general practitioners concerning the extent to which their decisions to prescribe scheduled pharmaceutical products are influenced by some of the promotion tools available to pharmaceutical marketers. Some practical implications and guidelines are offered by the results to pharmaceutical marketers, with reference to the relative effectiveness of various promotional tools and the appropriate emphasis that should be placed on them. The relationship between the effect of these prescription determinants and certain categorical variables is investigated. Some strategic implications for the marketing of pharmaceutical products are identified, as are areas for further research.

Groups and group dynamics have been areas which have received considerable attention not only in Social Psychology and Sociology, but in the last thirty years, also in the field of managerial decision‐making. Many activities within organisations are performed in a group context. Budgets are compiled by committees, new products are evaluated by marketing teams and strategic plans constructed by top management team members. Much of the confidence in the use of groups in management decision‐making has its origins in the belief that “two heads are better than one” and from early research which in fact indicates that this is so.

Celebrex became the first of a new class of drugs known as COX‐2 selective non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs. It improves treatment for arthritis sufferers without compromising the protective lining of the stomach. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how direct‐to‐consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription medicines can be used to rebuild faith in the cyclooxygenase‐2 (COX‐2) product category.

The case is developed using published sources and no input is required from company representatives. The presentation style follows the classic comprehensive case format used in postgraduate teaching programmes.

Business executives and strategic marketing students would benefit from a discussion on how external environmental factors can suddenly impose a review of marketing strategy. The reader learns how management addresses the business dilemma using DTCA.

A blockbuster rival drug Vioxx is withdrawn due to cardiovascular (CV) health safety concerns. A resulting dominant market situation soon becomes a business dilemma. The Federal Drug Administration calls for a “black box” warning label on Celebrex, the most serious type of warning.

The implications are that having a product in a class of its own is not enough. It highlights the need to communicate to different audiences, to both the medical profession and the end‐user. Getting doctors to recommend the medicine and pulling the product through the channel by stimulating patient demand after a health scare are paramount.

This is the first pharmaceutical business case where the withdrawal of a rival product leaves the dominant competitor in a monopoly situation. Contrary to expectation, market share plummets despite the absence of competition.

The rise of social media and its resultant impact on brand management has become a critical factor in guarding the reputation of the firm. Consumer‐generated content has the potential to spread rapidly over social networks and the implications are that advertising as traditionally used by brand managers, now offers little control over the communication message. Brand managers need a better tool to gauge the changing mood in social media conversations. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a powerful method, Chernoff Faces, to compare six Sauternes wine brands based on social conversation measurement.

This study describes a source of data relating to wine brand visibility in social media, and then presents a simple yet powerful graphical tool for portraying this information. This tool facilitates the communication, understanding, and assimilation of the relevant information.

The findings of this paper are presented in six social media wine faces. Facial features are allocated to eyes, facial line, hair density and others to reflect “Social Mention” data measuring brand strength, positive and negative sentiment and related elements such passion for the brand. A brief subjective interpretation of the differences between the wine brands offers a match between Chernoff faces representation and historical data on the brands being compared.

The paper has some limitations related to the dynamic nature of social media. This study provides more of a snapshot in time rather than an ultimate set of results. Future research could be done by closely monitoring the results for a set of brands over a period. A new option to overcome this by using longitudinal data is offered as a option in future research.

Since social media are multi‐dimensional and attempts to understand conversations it requires tracking different measures simultaneously. It is important to find the best way to portray and communicate this data so that wine marketing decision makers can quickly and easily compare changes in brand images. Using faces to accomplish this is an easy and novel way compared to more demanding multidimensional scaling techniques.

Discusses the utilization of an instrument – SERVQUAL – as a means of assessing patient satisfaction with service quality. Patients treated (174) for a variety of health problems in a number of departments completed the SERVQUAL questionnaire. There is a dearth of knowledge in this important field and the authors note that the results indicate the need for improvement in service quality as identified by the study population.

This paper investigates a structure of commercial Web sites, and then attempts to analyse various patterns that emerge which may be of future use as a guideline to businesses that intend establishing a Web presence. Key to the understanding of these patterns is a clearer grasp of the implications of human interaction with the new medium. The focus is on an experiential construct, namely flow, and how this might vary by Web site, and on using this to begin to unravel the secrets of good commercial Web site design and its implications for business.