“Historical Perspectives on the Development of Services Marketing Theory & Practice”

Call for Papers – Special Issue: “Historical Perspectives on the Development of Services Marketing Theory & Practice”

Journal: Journal of Services Marketing
Publisher: (Emerald Publishing)
Submission deadline: 31 July 2026

Overview

This special issue aims to reconnect the field of services marketing with its historical roots and intellectual trajectory. In an era dominated by emerging technologies, predictive analytics, and hyper‑personalized service experiences, the field risks losing sight of its foundational ideas, institutional evolution, and ethical grounding. The issue calls for reflective, historically informed work that examines how and why services marketing evolved, how it became fragmented from practice, and how it might be reoriented for a more cohesive, interdisciplinary, and socially responsible future.

Submissions are welcome from conceptual, empirical, and historiographic perspectives, targeting scholars of marketing, service research, organisational history, and policy studies.

Core Themes

1. Institutional and economic influences

   • How global economic shifts, service‑dominant economies, and institutional changes (e.g., deregulation, digitalisation) shaped the trajectory of services marketing.

   • The role of service‑dominant logic (S‑D Logic), experience‑centric models, and platform‑driven services in transforming thinking and practice.

2. Government policy and public‑sector interventions

   • How regulation, subsidies, public‑sector service reforms, and digital‑service policies have shaped service innovation, access, and trust (e.g., in healthcare, education, utilities).

3. Universities, foundations, and research bodies

   • The influence of academic institutions, funding agencies, and professional foundations in promoting or limiting service‑focused research agendas.

   • Historical analyses of key centres, labs, or programs that advanced the services‑marketing subfield.

4. Thought leaders and seminal contributions

   • Accounts of pioneers in services marketing (e.g., Gronroos, Lovelock, Gummesson, Vargo & Lusch) and how their ideas continue to shape current debates.

   • “Intellectual biography”‑style pieces or re‑readings of classic articles through a contemporary lens.

5. Critical historical incidents and turning points

   • Academic milestones: services marketing paradigm shift, adoption of service‑dominant logic, digital‑service transitions.

   • External events (e.g., major crises, wars, or policy shifts) that halted or redirected the evolution of services marketing.

6. From “goods‑dominant” to “service‑dominant”

   • The evolution from logistics‑ and distribution‑centred views of services to co‑creation, customer experience, and value‑in‑use perspectives.

   • Consequences of abandoning the traditional view of services as a “distribution mechanism.”

7. Behavioralism and over‑quantification

   • Has the push toward quantification and behavioral‑micro studies diluted the richness of service experiences, relationships, and experiential research?

   • Trade‑offs between managerial‑practitioner focus and pure‑behavioral academic research.

8. PhD training and future trajectories

   • How the design and transformation of doctoral programs in marketing and services research influence the field’s direction.

   • Proposals for curricular and methodological changes to enhance the rigor and relevance of services‑marketing PhD training.

9. Bridging research and practice

   • Analyses of the decline in practitioner engagement, CMO influence, and relevance of services‑marketing research.

   • Case studies on good practice in service design and delivery that integrate academic insights.

10. Internationalisation and cross‑cultural research

    • How cross‑cultural research and international collaborations have reshaped services‑marketing theory and practice in emerging and developed economies.

11. Philosophical and ethical grounding

    • Tracing philosophical and theoretical influences (e.g., social theory, ethics, institutional economics) on service‑marketing thinking.

    • Proposals to restore societal and ethical dimensions in services research (e.g., equity, sustainability, inclusion).

12. Repositioning services marketing in the business ecosystem

    • Why services‑marketing is central to modern marketing scholarship and to the managerial status of marketing in executive teams.

    • Strategies to increase the field’s disciplinary and managerial influence (e.g., citation impact, policy impact, practitioner adoption).

Submission Details

• Submission platform: ScholarOne Manuscripts for the Journal of Services Marketing:
  https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jsmktg

• Submission window: 9 February 2026 – 31 July 2026.

• When submitting, select the special issue title: “Historical Perspectives on the Development of Services Marketing Theory & Practice” from the dropdown menu.

• Follow the official author guidelines:
  https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/jsm#jlp_author_guidelines

• All submissions must be original and not under review elsewhere.

Guest Editors

• J. Joseph Cronin Jr, Florida State University, USA

• D. M. Nagel, Wichita State University, USA

Why This Issue Matters

• Services marketing sits at the intersection of consumer experience, operations, technology, and society, yet its identity has become diffuse and fragmented.

• By engaging history, the field can clarify its conceptual foundations, confront blind spots, and propose forward‑looking, integrative, and ethically grounded agendas that reconnect scholars with practitioners, policymakers, and broader societal goals.

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