The theme of EMAC conference this year in Groningen was Leaving Footprints. CERS footprints were left by Reza Movarrei and Jaakko Aspara when talking about gamification in prosumption, Johanna Frösén about the role of formal and informal marketing controls in enhancing market-focused learning and firm performance, and myself about measuring engagement with charitable events in social media brand and user.
At the Naples Forum on Service in Sorrento, Anu Helkkula chaired a session about resource integration in services marketing, and Christian Kowalkowski about Service and IT Platforms. Many of us also presented our ongoing research there. A few weeks later in June, CERS was represented in CBIM in Stockholm University where Annika Ravald chaired a session about servitization, and Tore Strandvik, Maria Holmlund, Christian Kowalowski and I also presented our ongoing research.
At the QUIS conference, Christian Grönroos represented CERS together with representatives from other service research centers discussing the future of service research. During the conference he also presented with his co-writers two papers with the topics ”Communication-in-use and the need for a customer-driven marketing communication approach“, and “A marketing interpretation of the value process in service”. Maria Holmlund talked about financial well-being in transformative service research, Johanna Frösén had a paper about how to design effective customer feedback systems, and Michaela Lipkin and myself had a presentation about the ordinary customer experience, just to mention few papers from our large group in Porto. Also, our own Phd student Michaela Lipkin was awarded the Emerald Literati Highly commended prize from her single authored paper published in the Journal of Service Management. Congrats, Michaela!
From Portugal our contingent continued to New York to Frontiers conference, where Maria Holmlund had the honour to hand out the Grönroos Service research award 2017 to Professor Mary Jo Bitner and Professor Emeritus Stephen W. Brown from Arizona State University. She also had a keynote speech in a PhD student workshop about the best practices to publish with different methodologies in service research. With her research group, she presented a paper ”Financial well-being in transformative service research: A conceptualization and research agenda”. My co-author Mikael Gidhagen from Uppsala University presented our joint paper titled “What can we learn from missed servitization opportunities?”, and Anu Helkkula opened an interesting view into health care marketing with a paper “Patient recovery in health care: Exploring causal attributions and implications for well-being”. Bård Tronvoll and Christian Kowalkowski talked about their research “The digital service journey – A service ecosystem perspective”.
So, a lot of travelling but all worth it! CERS, like most other research centers, searches active interaction and networking with other researchers in the same field around the world. In the academic world, co-operation is an absolute for high-quality research but it also gives joy and variation in everyday work. As a researcher and head of our research center I co-write continuously several research papers as well as seek funding to new projects with international colleagues. That would not be possible without academic conferences.
Conferences serve as a joyful opportunity to meet researchers with whom I otherwise keep contact mostly via email and Skype, even while working intensively together, and they also give an excellent overview to what is happening in the field: what are the topics and concepts in which everyone is interested at the moment. They also offer a great chance to present one’s own work and get valuable feedback, for scholars from PhD students to senior researchers, as equal members of academic community. But most importantly, meeting and spending time with academic friends at wonderful locations is certainly one of the best work benefits!
Summer greetings from CERS,
Kristina Heinonen
Ps. Hannu Tikkanen, one of our PhD students has just moved to Bergen in Norway, for a research visit at NHH Norwegian School of Economics for the academic year 2017-2018. We are waiting for his first report soon!
Karl-Jacob Mickelsson (on the left), Christian Grönroos, Kristina Heinonen and Tore Strandvik enjoying the sunset by the fabulous Douro river during the QUIS conference dinner in Porto in June.
The following research was presented at the conferences this summer:
EMAC, Groningen
- Reza Movarrei, Jaakko Aspara and Kristina Wittkowski: Gamification in prosumption; the mediating role of privacy concerns
- Xiaoning Liang, Johanna Frösén and Yuhui Gao: The role of formal and informal marketing controls in enhancing market-focused learning and firm performance
- Jos G.A.M. Lemmink, Kilian Hensens, Benjamin Lucas and Kristina Heinonen: Measuring engagement with charitable events in social media brand and user posts
Naples Forum of Service, Sorrento
- Mikael Gidhagen, Anu Helkkula, Helge Loebler, Julia Jonas, David Sörhammar and Bård Tronvoll: Human-to-nonhuman value co-creation and resource integration: parasocial actors in a service ecosystem
- David Sörhammar, Christian Kowalkowski, Bård Tronvoll and Alexey Sklyar – A service ecosystem perspective on the digital service journey
- Jos G.A.M. Lemmink, Kilian Hensens, Benjamin Lucas and Kristina Heinonen: Measuring engagement with charitable events in social media brand and user posts
CBIM, Stockholm
- Annika Ravald, Mikael Paltschik and Sören Kock: Avenues for business model transformation in SME-companies
- Tore Strandvik, Kristina Heinonen and Sanna Vollmer: Revealing business customer’s hidden value formation: a customer dominant logic perspective
- Jaana Tähtinen and Maria Holmlund: Business relationship dynamics as stability and change
- Mario Kienzler, Christian Kowalkowski, Martin Larsson and Per Carlborg: Managerial intuition in price setting: boon or bane?
QUIS, Porto
- Jonas Holmqvist, Luca Visconti, Christian Grönroos, Blandine Guais and Aurélie Kessous: A marketing interpretation of the value process in service
- Christian Grönroos and Åke Finne: Communication-in-use and the need for a customer-driven marketing communication approach
- Maria Holmlund, Tore Strandvik and Ilkka Lähteenmäki: Making sense of a disruptive market
- Tore Strandvik and Kristina Heinonen: Presence – A complement to service interaction
- Elisabeth C. Brüggen, Jens Hogreve, Maria Holmlund, Sertan Kabadayi and Martin Löfgren: Financial well-being in transformative service research: a conceptualization and research agenda
- Jochen Wirtz and Johanna Frösén: Design Of Effective Customer Feedback Systems
- Michaela Lipkin and Kristina Heinonen: Characterizing the elements of ordinary in the customer experience
- Jorge Teixeira, Lia Patrício, Jacob Mickelsson, Kristina Heinonen, and Ray Fisk: An activity-centric perspective to upframe customer experience and foster service innovation
Frontiers, New York
- Elisabeth C. Brüggen, Jens Hogreve, Maria Holmlund, Sertan Kabadayi and Martin Löfgren: Financial well-being in transformative service research: a conceptualization and research agenda
- David Sörhammar, Bård Tronvoll and Christian Kowalkowski: The Digital Service Journey – A Service Ecosystem Perspective
- Mikael Gidhagen and Kristina Heinonen: What can we learn from missed servitization opportunities?
- Andrew Gallan and Anu Helkkula: Patient recovery in health care: exploring causal attributions and implications for well-being