Dr. Rosenbaum's Retail Review

Transformative Services: A Research Agenda

2012-01-10T10:15:00.000-06:00

Latest work published in Journal of Research for ConsumersIssue: 19, 2011________________________________________________Conceptualisation and Aspirations of Transformative Service ResearchAUTHOR(S): Mark S. Rosenbaum1, Canan Corus2, Amy L. Ostrom3, Laurel Anderson4, Raymond P. Fisk5, Andrew S. Gallan6, Mario Giraldo7, Martin Mende8, Mark Mulder9, Steven W. Rayburn10, Kunio Shirahada11, and Jerome D. Williams12ABSTRACTThis article conceptualises transformative service research and encourages service researchers to engage in research activities that promote human well-being. The authors advance a new research agenda that, unlike traditional service research, treats outcomes related to consumer well-being, including quality of life issues, as important, managerially relevant, and worthy of study. Both (i) services/service systems that already possess transformational qualities through their inherent design and are intended to enhance well-being (but in actuality may not do so) and (ii) other services/service systems that do not focus on transformational qualities but could enhance or unintentionally hurt well-being are worthy of additional research and study. Although transformative service research may be challenging, we argue that both consumers and the organizations that serve them may benefit from research that examines how services can and do improve or reduce the welfare of individuals, communities, nations, and the global ecosystem.ARTICLE________________________________________________________________IntroductionImproving human welfare becomes a bigger challenge by the day. Numerous factors contribute to rising concern about the well-being of individuals around the globe including financial crises, obesity, poverty, limited food supplies, scarce clean water, inadequate healthcare, global warming, terrorism, toxins in the environment, and natural disasters. Although services can and have contributed positively to consumer well-being in the context of these issues, service organizations have also been criticized for ignoring or even harming consumer well-being in a variety of ways including underserving communities in need, their top down and patronizing style of service delivery as well as, at times, their degrading policies of segmentation and targeting (Fisk 2009; Williams and Henderson 2011). For example, economic disparities in healthcare contribute to the reinforcement of the1 Mark S. Rosenbaum - Northern Illinois University, 2 Canan Corus - St. John's University, 3 Amy L. Ostrom - Arizona State University, 4 Laurel Anderson - Arizona State University, 5 Raymond P. Fisk - Texas State University, San Marcos, 6 Andrew S. Gallan - Case Western Reserve University, 7 Mario Giraldo - Universidad del Norte, 8 Martin Mende - University of Kentucky, 9 Mark Mulder - Washington State University, 10 Steven W. Rayburn - Oklahoma State University, 11 Kunio Shirahada - Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 12 Jerome D. Williams - Rutgers University2marginalization of already underprivileged consumers (Newman and Vidler 2006; Williams and Henderson 2011). Grocery chains are often reluctant to open establishments in lower-income areas, creating food deserts, essentially urban areas in which consumers lack access to affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk, and other foods that make up the full range of a healthful diet (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2010; Mitchell 2011). In retail environments in the United States, African American consumers may be victims of service degradation or denial associated with “shopping while black” (Harris, Henderson, and Williams 2005; O'Brien 2008). Similarly, ethnic small business owners may also be treated differently and given less access to needed funds from financial institutions (Bone, Williams, and Christensen 2010). Ultimately, there is significant need to properly serve the needs of “unserved and underserved” consumers (Fisk 2009, p.1) and to improve the welfare of communities, nations, and the global ecosystem.Service research can play an important role in tackling questions that, at their core, seek to understand and improve the relationship among service systems (e.g., referring to a complex, integrated network of services such as an insurance network or, at a more macro level, healthcare and governmental services), individual service organizations and their employees, customers, and other stakeholders and well-being in ways that positively influence the future of individuals and collectives. To a considerable extent, service systems define the realities and norms in consumers’ day-to-day lives and shape societal structures that bound individuals and communities (Anderson, Ostrom, and Bitner 2011; Edvardsson, Tronvoll, and Gruber 2011; Korsten and Seider 2010). Services’ fundamental role is further evident in their significant share in the GDPs of developed countries, as well as their influence on societal outcomes such as public health and safety (Hill and Macan 1996; Ostrom et al. 2010). Moreover, the extensive use of resources required to deliver services, their political implications, and their pervasive role in citizens’ lives make services an integral element for any effort for societal change (Adkins and Corus 2009; Anderson et al. 2011; Hill and Macan 1996).Although services are a pervasive part of consumers’ lives, the fact that consumers often co-produce service and are always in the position of creating value or co-creating value in collaboration with organizations and others highlights the role that consumers also play in their own well-being (Vargo and Lusch 2008). For consumers, part of value creation may include intangible benefits such as improved mental, social, or physical well-being. For example, by engaging in full disclosure with health care professionals, asking questions, and following prescribed medication dosages, health care customers help to maximize the value potential of the resources provided by health care organizations and their employees. Unfortunately, few service researchers and practitioners to date have contemplated customer well-being, including quality of life issues, and these types of outcomes.The findings of service research focused on consumer well-being are likely to be important for both consumers and the organizations that serve them. This type of research may be able to improve organizations’ bottom line by incorporating more focused attention on the ramifications of enhancing or unintentionally hurting consumer well-being. Although outcomes such as a customer’s intention to repurchase from or to recommend a firm that are typically examined by service researchers remain worthy of exploration, so too are well-being related outcomes such as improved quality of life (Dagger and Sweeney 2006). Organizations that find ways to enhance well-being for consumers, including their own employees, or reduce unintended negative well-being outcomes may gain a happier, more productive workforce, a competitive advantage in the marketplace, and increased customer loyalty. Indeed, burgeoning service research suggests that customers may be willing to pay a price premium to service organizations that care about and support their well-being (Rosenbaum 2008). In addition, in some circumstances, organizations may be required to act due to new public policy legislation that is put into place to enhance consumer well-being.3Transformative Service Research ConceptualisedIn light of these challenges and opportunities, we encourage service academics and practitioners to engage in transformative service research and activities. Transformative service research (TSR) focuses on improving consumer and societal welfare through service. It is inspired by transformative consumer research that seeks to “solve real problems” (Mick 2006, p. 1) of consumers by applying marketing techniques and tools to enhance the lives of individuals and communities. As a research paradigm, TSR is defined as “ service research that centers on creating uplifting changes and improvements in the well-being of individuals (consumers and employees), families, social networks, communities, cities, nations, collectives, and ecosystems” (Anderson et al. 2011). Ultimately, TSR is a call for service research that relates to and advocates for personal and collective well-being of consumers and, more broadly, citizens and the entire global ecosystem. Whereas traditional service research often focuses on dependent measures such as customer satisfaction and loyalty and aims to understand factors that impact service firms’ profitability, TSR focuses on understanding the role that services and service customers themselves play in affecting consumer well-being. It builds on the notion of a transformative service economy that improves the relationships among social, economic, and environmental systems through respectful, collaborative, and sustainable interactions.Toward a Transformative Research AgendaTSR encourages researchers to explore such issues as social justice, consumer agency, and ecological stability and expands on contemporary concepts such as sustainability, green marketing, and the triple bottom line, emphasizing corporate responsibility for economic, social, and environmental outcomes of business practices (Ostrom et al. 2010). It also calls for the development of new measures of the effects of service on individuals and societies. The dynamic nature of services offers substantial transformative potential because of the direct and often dialogic interaction between the service provider and the consumer (Anderson et al. 2011). For example, TSR explores multifaceted outcomes, both positive and negative, of service interactions, including those that may be intentional and overt (e.g., physical health benefits from services at a clinic) as well as outcomes that may be unintended or overlooked by providers and consumers (e.g., the social capital provided to patients by other patients at a clinic, the physical and psychological effects of a clinic’s servicescape on patient health, or the negative health outcomes that may result from non-culturally sensitive recommendations from physicians). TSR challenges researchers to focus on mitigating consumer vulnerability and improving consumer agency because many consumers find themselves in a position of lesser knowledge and expertise during a service interaction (Adkins and Corus 2009; Anderson et al. 2011). Marginalized groups and disparities in the quality of services offered to different groups are particularly emphasized. Also of interest are the contexts and service environments that promote physical health and emotional and mental well-being (Jamner and Stokols 2001; Rosenbaum et al. 2007).Although this call to action may appear daunting, most services have transformational potential that awaits discovery by researchers. That is, many services, such as healthcare and education, have an explicit transformative mission and intent. In most instances, researchers and practitioners involved in these services may easily begin considering well-being outcomes as relevant managerial goals, although the organizations might not always be successful in achieving them and may be unintentionally engaging in activities that reduce consumer well-being. However, other services in areas, such as retailing, hospitality, and entertainment, typically do not possess clear transformative goals. These services may impact well-being in positive ways that have not been anticipated. Likewise, they may also be harming consumer or societal well-being due to unintended consequences of, among other things, employee actions, service design, and/or organizational policies. For example,4Internet services may have had an unanticipated positive result of providing consumers with access to much more information than was previously available about other consumers’ experiences with service providers as they make their own service choices. Subsequent services such as Yelp have capitalized on this positive and embraced result. In contrast, the location of retail food markets is usually based on segmentation, but might have the unintentional (although perhaps not unanticipated) result of food deserts in poorer neighbourhoods. In the sections below, we turn attention to discussing a TSR research agenda for both types of services, those that are transformational by design and those that have transformational potential.Transformational Services by DesignThere are numerous services that are designed with aspects of consumer well-being in mind, such as disaster relief services (Baker 2009), employee wellness programs (Berry, Mirabito, and Baun 2010), social services, and healthcare. Healthcare services have received the most attention with researchers in management, operations, and marketing focusing attention on this domain. However, there are still numerous issues to be addressed related to health services and the health service system as a whole (Berry and Bendapudi 2007). For example, researchers ironically know little about the role that service providers play in affecting health (either in positive or negative ways). These service providers might be explicitly tied to consumers’ well-being and include health professionals, those involved with delivering social services, and volunteers and others who work for non-government organizations, who are integral to providing medical, psychological, and spiritual support to those living at the “bottom of the pyramid.”Services that have Transformational PotentialAlthough the aforementioned services clearly affect their customers’ well-being, we argue that the majority of services that consumers experience as part of their daily routines also possess the ability to transform their customers’ lives through consumption activities. For example, sociologists, human ecologists, environmental psychologists, gerontologists, and service researchers have a history of exploring how loosely connected social relationships that naturally form in settings, such as diners, fast-food restaurants, beauty shops, and bars, often transform human well-being by providing people with support in their time of need (Cowen 1982; Rosenbaum 2006). Thus, if researchers look beyond the commercial intent of many services, they may discover these services’ transformational potential. Often, for-profit services are conceived and designed to maximize profits without explicitly considering potentially beneficial or deleterious effects on individual and/or societal well-being. Similarly, Sherry (2000) maintains that researchers have viewed places and exchanges as inert and homogeneous. Consequently, he argues that marketers have not been attentive enough to the rituals that consumers (or designers) employ to vivify consumption settings. For example, a ritual of reading the New York Times from start to finish at a local coffee shop each Sunday may endow the place with a sense of home, community, and intellectual sophistication. Thus, researchers need to explore not only the financial and economic impact of services (see Zeithaml, Bitner, and Gremler 2009), but also the subjective sense of well-being that services often confer on individuals, social groups, and communities.Transforming SocietyAlthough the well-being of individuals plays a central role when considering transformative service, we emphasize that transformative service research and its implications are hardly limited to individual issues and outcomes. Consumers’ individual actions, along with firms’ policies, often have communal outcomes. For example, increased consumer agency may have consequences beyond better personal health at the macro level. This increased agency may result in better community access to health services, competition between health care5institutions, and even revisions of organizational policies (Newman and Vidler 2006). Similarly, higher consumer financial literacy might not only enhance personal financial decisions but also improve distributive justice in a community or a nation. Moreover, consumer experiences are influenced not only at a micro level by their own agency but also at a macro level by the socioeconomic context and larger structural forces (Giddens 1984, 1990). TSR should investigate both individual and collective level issues and include analyses of micro and macro outcomes of services on consumer welfare. Indeed, recent transformative studies have begun focusing on collective service outcomes by exploring the collaboration between service providers and underprivileged communities (Ozanne and Anderson 2010). Collaboration between service researchers and those in more macro-focused disciplines, such as sociology and public health, may facilitate work examining macro level outcomes and implications of the service economy. Important research could also examine instances when individual well-being goals conflict with societal well-being, such as when an airline traveller protests federal security mandates or individuals refute public health initiatives towards safe health practices. TSR could investigate how well-being among different levels and among different groups of consumers should be prioritized.Overall, TSR represents a new area in both consumer and service research that can contribute to understanding and minimizing the challenging problems facing today’s society. By formalizing this area, we hope that it will be a catalyst for additional service research focused on these important and understudied issues related to consumer well-being.ReferencesAdkins, Natalie and Canan Corus (2009), “Health Literacy for Improved Health Outcomes: Effective Capital in the Marketplace,” Journal of Consumer Affairs, 43 (2), 199-222.Anderson, Laurel, Amy L. Ostrom, and Mary Jo Bitner (2011), “Surrounded by Services: A New Lens for Examining the Influence of Services as Social Structures on Well-being,” working paper, W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University.Baker, Stacey Menzel (2009), “Vulnerability and Resilience in Natural Disasters: A Marketing and Public Policy Perspective,” Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 28 (1), 114-123.Berry, Leonard L. and Neeli Bendapudi (2007), “Health Care: A Fertile Field for Service Research,” Journal of Service Research, 10 (2), 111-122.Berry, Leonard L., Ann M. Mirabito, and William B. Baun (2010), “What’s the Hard Return on Employee Wellness Programs,” Harvard Business Review, (December), 1-9.Bone, Sterling A., Jerome D. Williams, and Glenn L. Christensen (2010), “When Consumer Well-Being Meets Small Business Ownership: Transforming Financial Service Systems to Eradicate Disparate Treatment and Discrimination,” in Terri L. Rittenburg and Mark Peterson (Eds.), The 35th Annual Meeting of the Macromarketing Society: Exploring the Frontiers of Macromarketing, Laramie, WY: Macromarketing Society, 649-650.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2010), Food Deserts. Accessed June 9, 2011, Aavailable at www.cdc.gov/Features/FoodDeserts.Cowen, Emory L. (1982), “Help Is Where You Find It: Four Informal Helping Groups,” American Psychologist, 37 (4), 385-395.Dagger, Tracey S. and Jillian C. Sweeney (2006), “The Effect of Service Evaluations on Behavioral Intentions and Quality of Life,” Journal of Service Research, 9 (1), 3-18.Edvardsson, Bo, Bård Tronvoll, and Thorsten Gruber (2011), “Expanding Understanding of Service Exchange and Value Co-creation: A Social Construction Approach,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 39, 327-339.Fisk, Raymond (2009), “A Customer Liberation Manifesto,” Service Science, 1 (3), 135-141.Giddens, Anthony (1984), The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK.6Giddens, Anthony (1990), The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press.Harris, Anne-Marie, Geraldine R. Henderson, and Jerome D Williams (2005), "Courting Consumers: Assessing Consumer Racial Profiling and Other Marketplace Discrimination," Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 24 (1) Spring, 163-171.Hill, Ronald Paul and Sandi Macan (1996), “Consumer Survival on Welfare with an Emphasis on Medicaid and the Food Stamp Program,” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 15 (1), 118-127.Jamner, Margaret Schneider and Daniel Stokols (2001), Promoting Human Wellness: New Frontiers for Research, Practice, and Policy, Berkeley: University of California Press.Korsten, Peter and Christian Seider (2010), “The World’s 4 Trillion Dollar Challenge: Using a System-of-Systems Approach to Build a Smarter Planet,” Somers, New York: IBM Corporation.Mick, David G. (2006), “Meaning and Mattering Through Transformative Consumer Research,” Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 33, 1-4.Mitchell, Mary (2011), “Mayor Emanuel Holds City’s First ‘Food Desert Summit,’” Chicago Sun Times. Accessed June 15, 2011. Available at www/suntimes.com/news/mitchell/5983748-452/mayor-emanuel-holds-citys-first-food-desert-summit.html.Newman, Janet and Elizabeth Vidler (2006), “Discriminating Customers, Responsible Patients, Empowered Users: Consumerism and the Modernisation of Health Care,” Journal of Social Policy, 35 (2), 193–209.O'Brien, Soledad (2008), “Behind the Scenes: Black and Shopping in America,” CNN, (July 23), (accessed June 9, 2011), [available at http://articles.cnn.com/2008-07-23/us/btsc.obrien_1_officers-glenn-murphy-police-department?_s=PM:US].Ostrom, Amy L., Mary Jo Bitner, Stephen W. Brown, Kevin A. Burkhard, Michael Goul, Vicki Smith-Daniels, Haluk Demirkan, and Elliot Rabinovich (2010), “Moving Forward and Making a Difference: Research Priorities for the Science of Service,” Journal of Service Research, 13 (1), 4-36.Ozanne, Julie L. and Laurel Anderson (2010), “Community Action Research,” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 29 (1), 123-137.Rosenbaum, Mark S. (2006), “Exploring the Social Supportive Role of Third Places,” Journal of Service Research, 9 (1), 59-72.Rosenbaum, Mark S. (2008), “Return on Community for Consumers and Service Establishments,” Journal of Service Research,” 11 (2), 179-196.Rosenbaum, Mark S., James Ward, Beth A. Walker, and Amy L. Ostrom (2007), “A Cup of Coffee with a Dash of Love: An Investigation of Commercial Social Support and Third Place Attachment,” Journal of Service Research, 10 (1), 43-59.Sherry, John (2000), “Place, Technology, and Representation,” Journal of Consumer Research, 27 (2), 273-278.Vargo, Stephen L. and Robert F. Lusch (2008), “Service Dominant Logic: Continuing the Evolution,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 36 (1), 1-10.Williams, Jerome D. and Geraldine R. Henderson (2012), “Discrimination and Injustice in the Marketplace: They Come in All Sizes, Shapes, and Colors,” in David Mick, Simone Pettigrew, Connie Pechmann, and Julie Ozanne, eds. Transformative Consumer Research for Personal and Collective Well Being: Reviews and Frontiers, Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis, 171-190.Zeithaml, Valarie A., Mary Jo Bitner, and Dwayne E. Gremler (2009), Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus across the Firm, New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Uncovering Macao's Mystique

2011-12-21T12:00:00.002-06:00

Why is Macao's gambling revenues 5X that of Las Vegas? In this new article, my co-author and I debunk the myth.Casinos are important travel attractions, but they are often overshadowed by hardcore gambling behaviors. Although gambling has been found as a key tourism driver, it is unclear how casinos, as hospitality service providers, are able to fulfill other travel needs. This article highlights an emerging but under studied phenomenon in tourism and hospitality research: casino tourism. Based on empirical data collected in the world gaming capital, Macau, the results reveal that tourists’ casino excursions are primarily motivated by five factors: entertainment and novelty seeking, leisure activity, escape from pressure, casino sightseeing, and socialization. The findings suggest that although gambling is part of the casino experience tourists seek, mainland Chinese tourists are looking for assorted travel and leisure experiences. These experiences can further be classified into two segments: entertainment-for-socialization seekers and sightseeing-for-relaxation seekers. Demographic differences in addition to two- and three-way interactions of the motivational factors are also discussed.Beyond Hardcore Gambling: Understanding Why Mainland Chinese Visit Casinos in MacauIpKin Anthony Wong anthonywong@ift.edu.moInstitute for Tourism Studies, Colina de Mong-HaMark S. RosenbaumNorthern Illinois University, DeKalbFor more see: http://jht.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/10/21/1096348010380600

Tranformative Service Research: Internet Addiction

2011-12-17T13:16:00.002-06:00

The Internet is the world's most widely used service; it's on 24/7/365, and so are many Internet users. In an article that is forthcoming in Journal of Service Marketing, my co-author and I tackle the issue of Internet Addiction. We show that Americans and Chinese are addicted; unfortunately, we cannot offer solutions to this epidemic.Here is the article abstract: Purpose – This paper shows how instant-messaging (IM) service providers are helping and hindering societal mental health among young adults. That is, IM services provide users with an ability to obtain instantaneous and inexpensive support in their time of need. However, excessive Internet usage may place IM users at risk for experiencing symptoms associated with Internet addiction and Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Design/methodology/approach – We propose a framework obtained from coding qualitative data. We test the framework with structural equation methodology and latent mean analysis from data collected from younger-aged Chinese and American IM users in two studies. Findings – Younger-aged IM users in both China and the United States obtain social support from their virtual networks. However, both groups of IM users show signs of elevated levels of Internet addiction and of being at risk for experiencing symptoms associated with ADHD Research implications – Excessive IM and Internet usage may hinder young adults’ mental health, and the problem is likely to grow in the future. The work confirms recent trends in U.S. psychology to consider Internet addiction a mental health disorder. Societal implications – Both service and public health researchers are encouraged to consider the impact of technological services, including Internet usage and IM, on consumer health and well-being. People with ADHD are particularly susceptible to Internet addiction; thus, technological services may be damaging society’s mental health. Originality/value – The paper illustrates how researchers can engage in transformative service research, referring to research with implications that affect global consumer health and well-being. The work also shows a “dark side” to services and the unintended consequences of service technology on public health. Both topics have not been explored in service research. Keywords- Social support, Instant messaging, Internet addiction, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Cyber-addiction, Third placesPaper Type: Research paper

Service Nepotism: When Consumers Receive Benefits from Like-Others

2011-12-14T11:15:00.000-06:00

Service Nepotism in the Marketplace is now published in the British Journal of ManagementThis study represents the first empirical examination of a neglected phenomenon – namely, service nepotism. We propose a framework that explains a process in which customers cue service providers of potential shared commonalities, such as sexual orientation and ethnicity, in service settings in which they also represent distinct, alienated or marginalized minorities. By drawing on qualitative evidence from American gay men and ethnic Turks residing in Germany, this research proposes that customers may signal commonalities to like employees by deploying similarity-to-self cues or group markers during exchanges. Driven by ethnocentric ‘tribal’ biases, employees may respond to these cues by providing like customers with relational resources, such as upgrades, monetary discounts and enhanced service quality. We explain how these relational resources influence customers' behaviours and discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings.Authors: Mark Rosenbaum & Gianfranco Walsh

Transformative Service Research & Restorative Servicescapes

2011-12-12T09:21:00.000-06:00

Cancer resource centres: Transformational services and restorative servicescapesJournal of Marketing ManagementVolume 27, Issue 13-14, 2011Special Issue: Academy of Marketing Conference 2011 - Marketing Fields ForeverAbstractThis article illustrates how cancer resource centres transform the lives of people both living with and affected by cancer by creating restorative servicescapes. The authors link attention restoration theory with the servicescape framework to demonstrate empirically that home-like cancer resource centres may offer their members a built setting in which some members undergo restoration from symptoms associated with cancer-related fatigue. Using mediation analysis, the authors demonstrate that some cancer-centre members are attracted to these centres partially because they are able to relieve two types of fatigue from participating in activities and classes – namely, low energy and personal productivity concerns. Fatigue is the leading symptom reported by cancer patients undergoing medical treatment, and thus the ability of cancer resource services to positively influence individual and societal well-being is profound. This work supports the transformative service research paradigm by revealing that not-for-profit ‘third places’ have important public-health implications.

Services Marketing Planning Issues in Hospitality

2011-12-09T08:50:00.000-06:00

Services Marketing: Focus on Hospitality Industries Edited and Created by:Mark S. Rosenbaum, Ph.D. FulbrighterNorthern Illinois University, DeKalb IllinoisAmanda RicciResearch Assistant Northern Illinois University

Background and rationale for the listThis reading list, which was complied by myself and my research assistant Amanda Ricci, represents a set of references from Emerald journals for corresponding use in an undergraduate or graduate level services marketing course, which has a hospitality focus. More specifically, the reading list complements services courses that adopt Services Marketing 5th edition, authored by Zeithaml, Bitner, and Gremler (ZBT, 2009). Indeed, this list addresses a gap in many services marketing courses that are taught in hospitality programs. Namely, the key services marketing textbooks offer students a broad discussion of service industries, and hospitality students may fail to perceive the relevancy of this material to their applied and practical areas.Relationship MarketingThe list begins with the concept that most service relationships represent social relationships that evolve over time. Thus, the literature suggests that hospitality organizations should shift away from a customer transaction focus toward a customer retention/relationship focus. We offer hospitality academics seven titles for understanding the nuances of forming and sustaining customer relationships in hospitality settings. We encourage readers to begin with articles by Tepeci (1999), which reminds hospitality marketers that loyal customers are more profitable than single transaction customers. Rashid (2003) then focuses upon nine requirements that encourage restaurant customers to form a relationship with a focal organization. Geddie et al. (2005) offer managers a broader perspective of relationships by suggesting that relationships reside on a continuum. That is, customers may progress from maintaining weak relationships with a focal firm to maintaining intense bonds with a firm. The authors draw upon a Chinese term, guanxi, to conceptualize how customers may enter a state in which they actually forge a single cooperative unit with a hospitality firm. The remaining articles in the segment are designed to move students away from the theoretical perspectives of relationship management to practical perspectives. That is, students will learn that relationship marketing must be profitable marketing. We encourage readers to review Leong’s (2008) chapter to understand the ‘customer calculator’, which is based upon the tenets of calculating a customer’s lifetime value. Customer Expectations of ServiceNow that hospitality students realize the importance of forming customer relationships, the next six articles highlight an essential requirement for these relationships. Namely, service providers must understand their customers’ expectations before they deliver service. Further, these six articles correspond to ZBT (2009) chapter 4, which broadly discusses how customers form expectations prior to their receiving particular services. We suggest that readers begin with Nadiri and Hussain (2005), so that students can understand how ZBT’s Zone of Tolerance concept may be employed in hotel settings. Next, as students progress into a more complex understanding of how hospitality customers form expectations, Licata et al. (2008) elucidate that customers’ expectations are not static, but rather, dynamic; they change over time. While Johnson and Mathews (1997) show that while many various factors influence how customers form expectations, in the context of a fast-food restaurant, customers’ past experience with the restaurant remains the essential antecedent for understanding their future expectations. The remaining articles serve to buttress ZBT’s (2009) customer expectation frameworks that are presented in chapter 4, and which are somewhat complex for hospitality students to initially grasp. Overall, these articles provide students with hospitality examples, which make ZBT’s (2009) material clearer to comprehend. Customer Perceptions of ServiceOnce hoteliers understand their customers’ expectations, their job is to meet these expectations. Many firms rely on SERVQUAL survey (ZBT, 2009) to evaluate their ability to meet their customers’ expectations. Six articles are offered to discuss how hospitality firms may evaluate their ability to meet this challenge. We suggest that after readers first read Augustyn and Seakhoa-King’s (2005) chapter that questions the efficacy of the SERVQUAL in a rational and interesting manner. Three articles elucidate the importance of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in hospitality settings. Finally, the last two articles of this segment provide students with an international perspective, by focusing on service quality issues among hotel patrons in both New Delhi and Mauritius, respectively. Employees’ Roles in Service DeliveryThe next question that the list attempts to address is reasons why customers’ perceive inferior hotel service. This section extends ZBT’s (2009) chapter 12 material by exploring sensitive and pertinent topics such as ‘emotional labor’ and ‘emotional burnout’ on employee performance and motivation. In this section, we also highlight an international component by focusing on employee issues in hospitality firms located in India. Rosenbaum (2009) offers the restaurant industry an original framework that suggests that restaurant employees who form ‘commercial friendships’ with customers are motivated to do so because they in turn relish support from their customers. We also recommend that educators read Baron’s (2008) article that places some onus for hospitality employee performance on hospitality educators. Baron contends that many research institutions emphasize theoretical frameworks in their education pedagogy, while suggesting that students can benefit more from practical and vocation training during their education. Physical Evidence, Servicescape, Service Innovation and DesignThese sections suggest that the manner in which customers perceive a hospitality firm’s built environment, or servicescape, influences their approach, avoidance, and social interaction behaviors. This segment relates to ZBT’s (2009) chapter 11 and it provides hospitality students with a rich array of practical articles on the servicescape topic. The first four articles serve to bring Bitner’s (1992) seminal servicescape framework to the hospitality industry by illustrating how elements in a firm’s physical setting, influence, or not influence, customer behaviors and responses. In fact, Hwang’s (2007) chapter, provides an international perspective to Bitner’s work, an element that is missing from ZBT’s (2009) chapter. The remaining three chapters highlight specific elements of the servicescape framework, including customer responses to music, atmospherics, and to an appealing, yet ersatz servicescape, stereotypes a Hawaiian culture which never existed. The service innovation and design section corresponds well with ZBT’s (2009) chapter 9. In fact, the list serves to clarify the meaningfulness of topics such as service design, service innovation, and service development for hospitality students, especially those pursuing a restaurant management focus. Service Failure and RecoveryWe now turn attention to focusing on exploring how hospitality firms can adopt strategies when their service performance falls below a customer’s expectations in a many that leads to customer dissatisfaction. These seven articles buttress ZBT (2009), chapter 8, by highlighting how concepts such as service failure and service recovery apply to hospitality settings. We encourage readers to begin this section by reading Gruber (2010). Gruber’s recent findings reveal that when customers experience a service failure, they expect employees to exhibit authenticity, competency, and active listening. Educators can easily link Gruber (2010) to SERVQUAL’s empathy dimension. Two articles offer readers an international perspective on service failures and recovery strategies in both India and Turkey. Lastly, Hoffman et al. (1995) article offers hospitality managers a means to qualitatively evaluate the efficacy of their firms’ service failure recovery strategies. Listening to Customers through ResearchThe list concludes by focusing on how hospitality firms can best prevent service failures; namely, by understanding their customers’ expectations, needs, and wants via various research methods. In fact, Hoffman et al. (1995) discuss the importance of the critical incident technique, which researchers can bring into this segment. These six articles build upon ZBT (2009), chapter 6, by providing hospitality students with applicable examples. Four of the six articles focus on obtaining customer insights via questionnaire methodology, including the widely-used ‘comment card.’ The remaining articles focus on the critical incident technique and mystery shopping. ConclusionAlthough we concentrated our list on aiding hospitality educators who teach services marketing, clearly, this list is applicable to hospitality practitioners. We attempted to move the reader along a path from understanding how to form profitable customer relationships to then responding to customer failures. We specified how the list complements ZBT’s (2009) widely used textbook; however, educators will discover that this list helps to clarify how general and commonly used services marketing terms, concepts, framework, and theories, apply to contemporary hospitality settings. References Augustyn, M. M. and Seakhoa-King, A. (2005), ‘Is the SERVQUAL scale an adequate measure of quality in leisure, tourism, and hospitality’, Advances in Hospitality and Leisure, Vol. 1, pp.3 – 24.Barron, P. (2008), ‘Education and talent management: implications for the hospitality industry,’ International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 20 No. 7, pp. 730 – 742.Bitner, M. J. (1992), ‘Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees’, Journal of Marketing, 56 (April), pp. 57-71.Hoffman, K. D., Kelley, S. W., Rotalsky, H. M. (1995), ‘Tracking service failures and employee recovery efforts,’ Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp.49 – 61.Hwang, L. J. (2007), ‘The hotel servicescape for Chinese female travellers’, Advances in Hospitality and Leisure, Vol. 3, pp.231 – 241.Geddie, M. W., DeFranco, A. L., Geddie, M. F. (2005), ‘A comparison of relationship marketing and Guanxi: its implications for the hospitality industry’, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 17 No.7, pp. 614 – 632.Gruber, T. (2010), ‘I want to believe they really care - How complaining customers want to be treated by frontline employees,’ Journal of Service Management, Vol. 22 No. 1, online. Johnson, C. and Mathews, B. P. (1997), ‘The influence of experience on service expectations’, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 290 – 305.Leong, C. C. (2008), ‘Service performance measurement: Developing customer perspective calculators for the hotel industry’, in Chen, J. (ed.) Advances in Hospitality and Leisure, Volume 4, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 101-120.Licata, J. W., Chakraborty, G., and Krishnan, B. C. (2008), ‘The consumer's expectation formation process over time’, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 176 – 187.Mustafa, T. (1999), ‘Increasing brand loyalty in the hospitality industry’, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 11 No. 5, pp.223 – 230.Nadiri, H. and Hussain, K. (2005), ‘Diagnosing the zone of tolerance for hotel services’, Managing Service Quality, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 259 – 277.Rashid, T. (2003), ’Relationship marketing: case studies of personal experiences of eating out’, British Food Journal, Vol. 105 No.10, pp. 742 – 750.Rosenbaum, M. S. (2009), ‘Exploring commercial friendships from employees' perspectives’, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 57 – 66.Zeithaml, V. A., Bitner, M. J., and Gremler, D. D. (2009), Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Throughout the Firm, 5th ed., McGraw-Hill, Boston.

Holiday Retail Sales 2012

2011-12-02T07:09:00.001-06:00

Here is a personal rant:I'm so tired of listening to news updates regarding Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and how well retail sales are trending. Sales are not the primary emphasis in business. Retail organizations need to focus on maximizing gross margin and profits. As I tell my class, any fool can sell anything at a low enough price. I have yet to hear an intelligent summary of retailer gross margins or a discussion regarding profitability. I suspect that January 31 fiscal retail results will be lackluster. In the meantime, let's maintain Xmas hoopla and hope that American consumers "shop until they drop."

Restorative Servicescapes & Cancer Centers

2011-12-01T22:07:00.001-06:00

Managing Service Quality has recently published one of newest articles regarding Restorative Servicescapes in Cancer Centers.

The article summarizes literature from natural psychology and Attention Restoration Theory and applies it for the first time in marketing to cancer centers. Purpose – This article aims to illustrate how service organizations (e.g. cancer resource centers) can create restorative servicescapes. The article addresses whether cancer patients respond favorably to a cancer center's restorative servicescape and explores the reasons they might patronize the center and interact socially with others.Design/methodology/approach – This article synthesizes various streams of literature from services marketing, natural psychology, and cancer and medical research. The study defines and develops the framework's categories and advances propositions based on the framework.Findings – The model proposes that cancer patients should respond favorably to a cancer center's restorative servicescape. By spending time in the center, people living with cancer may be able to remedy four frequently experienced, negative symptoms associated with fatigue.Research limitations/implications – The study explores a not-for-profit cancer resource center that offers members an array of participatory activities within a homelike environment. However, it may be difficult for traditional medical facilities to fashion restorative servicescapes.Practical implications – The study helps inform medical practitioners about the psychosocial benefits cancer resource centers offer cancer patients. This article provides a discussion regarding a cancer center's development of its Connect-to-Care program, based on an oncologist and a cancer center representative joining together to discuss a patient's cancer diagnosis and care.Originality/value – This article proposes a theoretical understanding on how the physical and restorative qualities of an environment transform human health. It links the services domain to the health sciences and suggests a means by which cancer patients can “do more with less” by combining medical treatment with cancer resource center patronage.Title: Restorative cancer resource center servicescapesAuthor(s): Mark S. Rosenbaum, (Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA), Jillian Sweeney, (The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia), Jillian Smallwood, (LivingWell Cancer Resource Center, Geneva, Illinois, USA)Citation: Mark S. Rosenbaum, Jillian Sweeney, Jillian Smallwood, (2011) "Restorative cancer resource center servicescapes", Managing Service Quality, Vol. 21 Iss: 6, pp.599 - 616Keywords: Attention restoration theory, Cancer resource centers, Fatigue, Patient care, Social interaction, Social support, Transformative consumer research, Transformative service research

Planning Issues in Hospitality & Services Marketing

2011-04-05T12:06:00.004-05:00

I am pleased to announce that one of my students, Amanda Ricci, and I have completed a recommended Emerald List for Planning Issues in Hospitality & Services Marketing.
Congratulations to Amanda for her fine efforts regarding this project.

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/downloads/listassist/planning_issues_in_hospitality_settings_editorial.pdf

Third Places and Mental Fatigue

2011-01-06T13:24:00.001-06:00

The Role of Third Places in Reduction of Mental Fatigue
Jillian C. Sweeney, University of Western Australia, jsweeney@biz.uwa.edu.au
Mark Rosenbaum, Northern Illinois University, mrosenbaum@niu.edu

Abstract
This paper explores the role of restorative servicescapes on the reduction of mental fatigue and the personal and managerial benefits associated with this effect. Specifically, we base our arguments on Kaplan’s Attention Restorative Theory (ART) and Oldenburg’s Third Place discourse. We argue that commercial third places have restorative properties that reduce mental fatigue, also known as directed attention fatigue (DAF), a relationship that has been found in natural environments but has not been tested in commercial settings. We also explore how reduced mental fatigue impacts individual and organisation outcomes such as satisfaction with and loyalty to the organisation. If the results support our concept, this would
suggest that commercial third places offer consumers relief or restoration from the intensity of busy work or home life, through a reduction in mental fatigue. In this way, both the individual and organisation benefit from what they respectively receive and offer. Specifically, we develop a conceptual model to represent our hypotheses, and plan research in two different third places, cafés and gyms. Data collection is expected to take place later in the year.

NIU and BOSCH POWER TOOLS FORM PARTNERSHIP

2010-10-06T13:52:00.005-05:00

Bosch partnership in building brand awareness
Great News:
Pi Sigma Epsilon (Gamma Zeta Chapter, which I advise) and Bosch form a partnership to expand Bosch brand awareness within the NIU Community.

The NIU College of Business chapter of Pi Sigma Epsilon (PSE) has formed a partnership with the global market leader Bosch. Through this partnership, PSE members will gain real-world exposure to what it takes to identify and build new markets for industrial technology products. Additionally, the students will learn how to create and manage the brand awareness of a multi-billion dollar organization. The students' work will be guided by PSE faculty advisor Mark Rosenbaum, who is a Fulbright Scholar and assistant professor in the college's Department of Marketing. Founded in 1952, Pi Sigma Epsilon is a business fraternity that is recognized as the only national, professional, co-educational fraternity in marketing, sales management, and selling. Bosch is a leading global supplier of automotive, consumer goods and building, and industrial technology and services. In North America, Bosch has over 20,000 associates responsible for over $7 billion in sales.

Rosenbaum Joins Journal of Services Marketing Editorial Board!

2010-08-30T15:05:00.002-05:00

Congratulations! You've been promoted to the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Services Marketing. This decision is based on the excellent quality of insights and timeliness of the reviews you have submitted as a reviewer for the Journal. As editor, I certainly appreciate your contributions to the Journal.

The recognition of your new status as EAB member should appear on the inside cover of the next issue of the Journal.

Again, congratulations and thank you,

Charles Martin, Editor
Journal of Services Marketing

Dr. Rosenbaum on Romanian Television

2010-08-28T10:57:00.000-05:00

American Hotel Academy from Dan Terea on Vimeo.

Service Arts: New Perspectives on Serving Customers

2010-08-13T17:30:00.002-05:00

A Review of Abstracts Regarding:
Service Arts: New Perspectives on Serving Customers
Presented at AMA Summer Marketing Educator's Conference Boston Aug. 14, 2020
Chair:
Mark Rosenbaum, Northern Illinois University
Speakers:
Services Arts: An Overview of Emerging Service Research
Raymond P. Fisk, Texas State University - San Marcos
Innovation Using Forum Theatre
Aidan Daly, National University of Ireland, Galway
Connecting with Customers through Service Aesthetics: Implications and Considerations
Stephen J. Grove, Clemson University
Michael J. Dorsch, Clemson University

Services Arts: An Overview of Emerging Service Research
Raymond P. Fisk, Texas State University - San Marcos

The academic study of service phenomena has steadily broadened its reach. IBM has recently played a major role in this expansion with their Service Science, Management and Engineering Initiative. Both service science and service engineering bring unique perspectives and tool sets to understanding service phenomena. Nonetheless, there is a need to add one more services area to this creative mix, the service arts. In academe, there are many disciplines grouped under the broad category of the arts. These typically include such disciplines as architecture, dance, design, drawing, film, language, literature, music, opera, painting, photography, poetry, sculpture, and theater. Arts topics and arts scholars need to be included in the study of service phenomena. This presentation will examine the benefits contributed by the service arts, especially the performing arts and then apply arts perspectives to the many new forms of electronic services.
There are four significant benefits to developing and including service arts as a part of the burgeoning services field. First, the arts are concerned with aesthetics and creating beauty. Second, unlike science, management or engineering, the arts are focused on creativity. Third, the arts are most capable of stirring human emotions and delivering joy to the human experience and hence the service experience. Fourth, the arts are learned skills that draw on centuries of rich history for inspiration and guidance. All four of these benefits strongly distinguish the arts from science, management and engineering.
The link between the performing arts (dance, music, opera, and theater) and services is particularly interesting. Both the performing arts and services require mastering the demands of real time performance. Of course, performing arts are services themselves, but they are also rich sources of concepts and techniques that can be combined with service science, service management and service engineering knowledge. With numerous coauthors I have studied and applied concepts and techniques from theater to service (Daly 2004; Grove and Fisk 1983, 1989, 1992) and music to service (John, Grove and Fisk 2006). This presentation will summarize key service arts concepts and their application. It will also report on a recent Service Arts Workshop in Galway, Ireland.

Innovation Using Forum Theatre
Aidan Daly, National University of Ireland, Galway

A number of authors have interesting ideas about how to encourage innovation inorganisations. For example, Dave Siegel claims that the more people laugh, the greater thequality and quantity of their ideas. Ann Weimer Baumgardner speaks about the power of funand John Sweeney, writing about the value of improvisation in encouraging positive change,calls his approach innovation at the speed of laughter.
Many service academics accept the analogy between interactive marketing in servicesand theatre (Fisk, Grove and John 2008; Zeithaml, Bitner, Gremler & Wilson 2009). Forumtheatre is another imaginative means of using theatrical techniques for the benefit oforganisations and particularly to facilitate and plan innovation.
Using a variety of theatrical skills and techniques, forum theatre tells a story of anorganisations values, how it works and facilitates examination of how current work patterns,processes and behaviours could be changed to better achieve an organisations objectives. To doso, it is important that the audience change from being spectators to “spect-actors” not just bysuggesting changes to the scenes but by coming onstage to perform the roles and scenes beingplayed. This involvement is managed by a facilitator who regularly stops the play to getaudience feedback and participation. The flow of ideas, and suggestions coming from a forumtheatre audience confirm Baumgardner’s claim about the power of fun in assisting innovation.
The author’s presentation will be participative with the audience becoming “spect-actors”. It will show how forum theatre is planned and executed and will give examples of itbeing used to innovate in customer service and human relations management and in trainingmedical students appropriate “bedside manner”. Recently this author found his professorialcolleagues looking in the widows of his lecture hall and were intrigued as the students usedforum theatre to bring several aspects of service marketing theory to life and were clearlyenjoying the experience. Innovation in education can be fun too and very beneficial!

Connecting with Customers through Service Aesthetics:
Implications and Considerations
Stephen J. Grove, Clemson University
Michael J. Dorsch, Clemson University

The critical role that customer emotions and customer experience play in services has been recognized for some time. An important means to evoke desired emotions and favorable experiences from service customers can be found in how organizations recognize and design aesthetic aspects of their service system. As imparted by Postrel (2004, p. 6), aesthetics create “reactions without words through the look of people, place and things’ and accomplish this cognitive engagement prompted by narrative and word play. Aesthetics create sensory experiences that can be used to brand and differentiate one’s service as well as gain a competitive advantage (c.f. Schmitt and Simonson 1997). Service organizations can harness the power of aesthetics before, during, and after a service delivery by examining the various moments of truth (Carlzon 1987) that customers encounter and the potential to infuse them with a pleasant and appealing aesthetic character. In particular, service organizations should consider the aesthetic impact that each of the four components of service encounters—employees, setting, customers and process—may possess and how each might be modified to increase its aesthetic quotient (AQ). Key aspects of service delivery that can be enhanced aesthetically can be identified by systematically conducting an Aesthetic Audit (AA). Such efforts can enrich the customers’ experience, yet it bears noting that aesthetic appeal is of little value if the functional aspects of the service process are poor. Our presentation will present arguments underscoring the importance of service aesthetics, how aesthetics can brand a service, and considerations regarding integrating aesthetics into service design.

Service Management is Clue Management

2010-08-09T15:28:00.003-05:00

An article I wrote for the American Hotel Academy, Brasov Romania.

Service Management is Clue Management

Many of us have heard the term, marketing, and we believe that marketing involves the selling of products to consumers and to businesses. On the one hand, this definition is correct. On the other hand, the definition fails to consider that managers sell two very different types of products to end-users; which are goods and services. Consumers do not purchase goods and services in the same manner; therefore, managers need to understand these differences in order to develop effective selling strategies.

Given that the focus of this article is on hospitality management, I’ll direct my attention to this industry. Hospitality firms sell goods and services to customers. What is the difference? A good is defined as a tangible product and a service is defined as an intangible product. One may believe that I’m peddling the strange here as I conclude that one mere word, tangible vs. intangible, is significant enough to warrant a completely different marketing strategy. Yet, I remain steadfast in my conclusion that any manager who sells a good in the same manner as s/he sells a service is destined for failure.

Consider for a moment purchasing an item without the sense of touch. You could see the item, even hear, taste, or smell the item, but, you could never touch the item. I seriously doubt that anyone would purchase apparel products without the sense of touch. Would anyone purchase a large appliance or an automobile without the sense of touch? Consider the fun of the Ipod or the Ipad—isn’t it all touch related? If you still think that I’m a huckster of the odd, then consider whether you would date or marry another person without the sense of touch. Touch is critical for people, place, product, and even brand love! We love certain goods because we can handle them in some manner. The sense of touch is essential for human contact and a critical element that encourages consumption.

Here is the crux of the matter—all services are intangible. Hotel services are performances. They involve employees doing things for customers. Notice the word “doing,” implies an action; yet, a good is inherently a noun. One may consider that a hotel bed, linens, and amenities are tangible goods, and, indeed they are! Yet, a hotel does not exist to sell bed and linens to a customer; that is another type of retail outlet. A hotel sells intangible promises to customers that a room will be ready upon a confirmed date (deed). A cruise ship sells intangible promises to customers that they will enjoy the entertainment, the food, the ship, the fitness facilities; in other words, a process that may take 10 days, 14 days—the length of the cruise.

Notice the words in italics. Services are intangible, performances, doing things, promises, deeds, and processes. Do you see anything that customers can touch in these words? Not a single word implies anything material. But, customers do not want to purchase things that they cannot touch. Your job is to make the intangible, tangible, and you do this via clue management.

I often explain to students that marriage is an intangible ceremony, yet a wedding ring is a tangible clue of marriage. It sends a signal to others that one is married (not that this signal always works, but that is not the point). As a hotel manager, your job is to send signals to customers regarding intangible services. The signals should be material, or at least, be perceptible via one’s senses, such as smell, taste, and hearing.

Take a moment to walk through your hotel. Regardless of whether your hotel is a youth hostel or a 5-star resort, all customers need your assistance in helping them judge the quality of your hotel’s performances, promises, deeds, and processes.

If your hotel promises a reservation, then an emailed confirmation is tangible evidence (once the customer prints the email). When customers walk into your establishment, what should they see, hear, or smell that would help judge the quality of your promise? This is not to say that a youth hostel must smell like a fragrance counter; however, even a youth hostel promises a customer a clean setting. The smell of decaying garbage would destroy this promise.

As you walk through your hotel, consider the promises that you make to customers and to employees. Does the furniture match your promises? Do the amenities match your promises? Does the landscaping (visual and olfactory) match your promises? Does the employee rest area match your promises? Does the temperature match your promises? Your goal is to help customers (and employees) formulate positive feelings about your hotel by providing them evidence of your hotel’s service quality; evidence that customers and employees can touch (optimal), or at least smell, hear, taste, or see. A hotel manager is a clue manager who provides customers and employees with evidence regarding the promises that it makes to them. These promises may be a good night rest, an incredible excursion, or a nice place to work.

Service management is then really clue manager! Now, be a detective and search your hotel for quality clues!

Ersatz Servicescapes or the Bali Syndrome

2010-08-08T21:43:00.002-05:00

Dr. Rosenbaum and Dr. Wong's Servicescape Work cited in:
(En)Countering Social and Environmental Messages in
The Rainforest Cafe [sic], Children’s Picturebooks, and Other Visual
Culture Sites
Mira Reisberg
Independent Scholar, Sacramento, CA, USA
Sandrine Han
Northern Illinois University, USA

Citation: Reisberg, M., & Han, S. (2009). (En)Countering social and environmental
messages in The Rainforest Cafe [sic], children’s picturebooks, and other visual
culture sites. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 10(22). Retrieved
[date] from http://www.ijea.org/v10n22/.

Available:http://www.ijea.org/v10n22/v10n22.pdf

The Servicescape of the Rainforest Cafe
Marketing researchers Rosenbaum and Wong (2007) look at constructed environments within a “servicescape” context (Bitner, 1992), i.e. how elements in a space designed for consumption cause physiological, emotional, and cognitive responses. Rosenbaum and Wong note that even though this space might be appealing, it “may not always be a socially responsible servicescape” (p.161), creating an “ersatz” effect that can damage or replace the culture and environment being depicted. Beardsley (2000) echoes this, writing: “[I]nstead of being outside enjoying nature, we’re at the mall buying products that express our love of nature” (p.3). We learn in servicescapes such as the Rainforest Cafe that it is fine to consume, so long as a portion of the profits actually do something good through “feel good”
consumerism (Beardsley, 2000; Rosenbaum & Wong, 2007).

Dr. Mark Rosenbaum's Latest Book Chapter on Servicescapes

2010-08-08T21:27:00.004-05:00

My latest chapter on Servicescapes, co-authored with Carolyn Massiah (Ph.D. ASU)
Environmental Psychology: New Developments (Psychology Research Progress) [Hardcover]
Jorge Valentin (Editor), Lucila Gamez (Editor)
This book presents original research results on the leading edge of environmental psychology. Each chapter has been carefully selected in an attempt to present substantial advances across a broad spectrum.

Buy it at Amazon:http://www.amazon.com/Environmental-Psychology-Developments-Research-Progress/dp/1608769119/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1281320694&sr=8-1-fkmr2

Making a Difference in a Student's Life

2010-08-08T10:59:00.002-05:00

This is why I love being a professor:
Hello Dr. Rosenbaum,

I hope your travels and your class went well over the summer.

Now that my internship is coming to an end and the school year is starting up again, I have taken notice of my growth and what lead to it. I have had many meet and greets with co-workers about the "real world" and referenced my own experiences and concluded that your class has prepared me more for what was to come than any other class I have taken.

It was my first course that made me work without complete direction and without having any idea of what the ending result would be. This has held 100% true for every project I have done in my internship. When asking questions, I often had my boss tell me "I don't know" and we have to wait and see what strategy I come up with.

My main project was basically our final project with follow through or your preparation:
- I created a survey
- Analyzed the results (without SPSS, not knowing what is or isn't significant was hard to work with)
- Created a strategy from the results
- Implemented and carried out the strategy

Without your class, I think I would have performed miserably- and not just because of the lack of research skills I would have had.

My experience here also showed me that research is the career I want to follow. I have also been in contact with Anny Jiang and am beginning to reach out and network within Millward Brown.

Thanks for being the type of teacher you are. It can be hard to appreciate as we struggle with our hard work and your comments, but it is definitely the most maturing experience I could have had in college so far.

Best,
Thorne Washington

People as Virtual Products: A Craigslist Update

2010-07-08T04:38:00.001-05:00

Source: ACR 10th Conference on Gender, Marketing, and Consumer Behaviour June 26-June, 2010, University of Cumbria, Ambleside Campus.

People as Virtual Products:
Analyzing Human Exchanges on Craigslist and Gumtree.com

Mark S. Rosenbaum, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL
Kate L. Daunt, Cardiff Business School, Wales UK

Nearly a quarter-century ago, Hirschman (1987) investigated the question as to how people transform themselves into products in order to hawk themselves in newspaper personal advertisements. To answer this question, Hirschman developed a 10-item schema that exemplifies the “language of human consumption.” Essentially, Hirschman’s framework highlights 10 types of product characteristics, or resources, that people either provide about themselves or seek from others in newspaper personal ads.
Although Hirschman’s research remains valid, the emergence of free Internet classified sites, such as Craigslist and Gumtree (UK) have altered the way people promote themselves and respond to personal ads.
First, newspaper personal advertisements are space constrained, subject to editorial constraints, costly, and contain limits on what can be posted, such as homosexual personal ads (Coupland 1996; Merskin and Huberlie 1996). In contrast, Craigslist and Gumtree permit their users to post anonymous and long descriptions regardless of their sexual orientation and to navigate through virtual ads by using keywords, such as married, bisexual, and gay (Dawson and McIntosh 2006). In contrast to the censored, black and white words that typify newspaper advertisements, online ads are uncensored and may contain sexually provocative information and photographs.
Second, Hirschman (1987) only explored how heterosexuals provide and seek resources in print ads. Although this sample is not representative of the personal ad population. That is, lesbians (Burke 2000), gay men (Phua and Kaufman 2003), and bisexual men and women (Bolding et al. 2005) actively use online classifieds.
The goal of this work is to offer a classificatory schema that illustrates the resources that heterosexuals and homosexual offer, or seek from others, in free, online classified personal advertisements. This research contemporizes Hirschman’s people-as-product framework by applying it to online classified sites and shows the applicability of resource exchange theory (Foa and Foa 1974) to understanding the language of human consumption.

METHOD
We collected a month’s worth of personal data from Craigslist and Gumtree personal ads. To eliminate potential bias in data collection, we randomly chose the first three listings of MM, MF, MF, and FF from either Craigslist’s or Gumtree.com’s personal ads section at various times each day until we accumulated 100 postings from each sexual orientation category. Thus, the final sample included 800 postings, 400 from Craigslist and 400 from Gumtree, respectively.
Following Hirschman’s coding procedures, we randomly selected 20 additional personal ads, not drawn from in the original sample, from each sexual orientation category and Internet site to establish the content categories for the analysis. Our review of the online ads supported Hirschman, with some modifications. First, one of the greatest differences between newspaper and online classified ads were the sexual content people were providing about themselves. As a result, we created two new resource categories called “sexual information” and “sexual services.” Another difference between print and online ads was that many descriptions contained verbose and detailed information regarding the person’s personal history. Thus, we created a category called “historic information.” Thus, the 13 resource categories are:
• Love--emotional commitment, companionship, romance, long-term relationship
• Educational status—formal education, graduate/professional degree
• Financial status—wealth, financial affluence
• Intellectual status—above-average intelligence, characteristics associated with intellect
• Occupational status—occupation that is held in high regard
• Physical status-physical and subjective bodily characteristics that are valued in society (fit, hairy, healthy, washboard abs)
• Historic information--one’s life history and relationships.
• Personal trait information--statements of one’s personality
• Sexual information--sexual characteristics or preferences (bottom, top, horny, closeted, kink)
• Entertainment/companionships--non-sexual activities that require the presence or participation of another person
• Sexual services--sexual activities on the body or on the belongings of a person that require the presence or participation of another person
• Physical goods--statements about oneself that are objective, measurable, or tangible (age, marital status, height, weight)
• Money--statements regarding monetary exchanges

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION
The results reveal that heterosexual male and female Craigslist users are similar in terms of providing resource information, though heterosexual men are more likely than other groups to promote their financial prowess. Gay men emerge as a unique group in that they are more willing to provide sexual information and details regarding the sexual services they would perform; this is in contrast to heterosexuals, who refrain from providing these resources. Although fewer numbers of lesbians provided sexual information and service details than gay men, their numbers remained considerably higher than those of heterosexuals.
In terms of resource sought, female heterosexual Craigslist users are more likely than other groups to seek interested parties’ educational, financial, intellectual, and occupational status. Gay men and lesbians tend to pursue sex on Craigslist, while heterosexual men seek entertainment and companionship with women.
The Gumtree postings reveal that equal proportions of users, regardless of sexual orientation, seek love online and thus are all equally likely to provide their status and informational resources. Although homosexuals emerge as more likely than heterosexuals to provide sexual information or sexual services, their numbers are much lower than those on Craigslist. In terms of resources sought, although homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to request sexual information and sexual services from others, they are also similar to their heterosexual counterparts in seeking long-term relationships through online ads.
Craigslist and Gumtree emerge as both a promoter and hindrance of societal well-being. Although these sites help people find togetherness, researchers are attributing Craigslist to increases in the spread of HIV and STDs among men who have sex with men (Kershaw 2008). It is erroneous for heterosexuals and lesbians to believe that they are immune from risks by having unprotected sexual encounters with strangers they meet on Craigslist. In addition, the extent to which spouses, partners, or significant others may be using Craigslist for risky sexual exchanges has been underreported. Thus, this paper not only sheds light on human exchanges for marketers, but also, for public health and government agencies.

REFERENCES

Bolding, Graham, Mark Davis, Graham Hart, Lorraine Sherr, and Jonathan Elford (2005), “Gay Men Who Look for Sex on the Internet: Is There More HIV/STI Risk With Online Partners?” AIDS, 19 (9), 961–68.

Burke, Susan K. (2000), “In Search of Lesbian Community in an Electronic World,” CyberPsychology & Behavior, 3 (4), 591–604.

Coupland, Justine (1996), “Dating Advertisements: Discourses of the Commodified Self,” Discourse & Society, 7 (2), 187–207.

Dawson, Bryan L. and William D. McIntosh (2006), “Sexual Strategies Theory and Internet Personal Advertisements,” CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9 (5), 614–617.

Foa, Uriel and Edna B. Foa (1974), Societal Structures of the Mind. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.

Hirschman, Elizabeth C. (1987), “People as Products: Analysis of a Complex Marketing Exchange,” Journal of Marketing, 51 (1), 98–108.

Kershaw, Sarah (2008), “New H.I.V. Cases Drop but Rise in Young Gay Men,” New York Times, (January 2), http://www.smartsextalk.com/PDF/0802_aids.pdf.

Merskin, Debra L. and Mara Huberlie (1996), “Companionship in the Classifieds: The Adoption of Personal Advertisements by Daily Newspapers,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 73 (1), 219–29.

Phua, Voon Chin and Gayle Kaufman (2003), “The Crossroads of Race and Sexuality: Date Selection among Men in Internet “Personal Ads,” Journal of Family Issues, 24 (8), 981–94.

Contact Information:
Mark Rosenbaum, Northern Illinois University,mrosenbaum@niu.edu
Kate Daunt, Cardiff Business School, dauntk@Cardiff.ac.uk

Value Equity in Event Planning: A Macau Case Study

2010-07-03T06:21:00.003-05:00

Our article on value equity was published today!
Our special thanks of gratitude to the editor, Rodoula H. Tsiotsou, Anthony and I truly appreciated your assistance and support with this article.

We encourage all travel planners to consider the concept of value equity as important as the marketing mix.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how value equity and its subdimensions of service quality, cost, and convenience drive customer satisfaction among business and leisure travelers who are attending events (e.g. conventions, expositions, parades, cultural events) in Macau, China.

Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected through a survey of 322 leisure and 91 business travelers who were present at 40 different major events in Macau, using a questionnaire that was designed by practitioners, academics, and tourism governmental authorities. The data were used to support the structural framework, and group comparison modeling was employed to show that a respondent's leisure or business travel status serves as a moderator between value equity and customer satisfaction.

Findings – The results show that though value equity is positively related to customer satisfaction among both business and leisure travelers, some major differences exist regarding how these groups respond to an event's marketing actions that promote value and how they derive satisfaction from value. For example, leisure travelers place more emphasis on a venue's space and layout than business travelers. In terms of satisfaction, business travelers place more importance than leisure travelers on service quality but are less sensitive to an event's price.

Research limitations/implications – The paper extends the value equity literature by applying the concept to event planning. The paper suggests that event planners should consider designing and implementing marketing actions that focus on value equity, in addition to traditional planning that relies on the service marketing mix. Given that the study's scales were adapted for use at 40 different venues in Macau, event planners may need to modify the scale items for their respective locales. The authors also put forth recommendation regarding expanding the SERVQUAL survey.

Originality/value – Although value equity has been explored in hospitality/lodging, the concept is relatively unexplored in event planning. In addition, this paper shows how group consensus using the Delphi method among tourism academics and practitioners can yield a set of reliable service quality, cost, and convenience scales that may apply to a series of event venues.

Internet Addiction-The Dark Side of Services?

2010-06-24T09:26:00.002-05:00

Great news! Journal of Services Marketing accepted the following paper on Internet Addiction, forthcoming 2010.

The Effect of Instant Messaging Services on Society’s Mental Health
Mark S. Rosenbaum
Fulbrighter
Assistant Professor of Marketing
Northern Illinois University
Research Faculty Fellow
Center for Service Leadership, Arizona State University
College of Business, Department of Marketing
DeKalb, IL 60115
Office : (815) 753-7931
Fax : (815) 753-6014
mrosenbaum@niu.edu

IpKin Anthony Wong,

PhD Assistant ProfessorInstitute for Tourism Studies
Pousada P304 Colina de Mong-Há, Macau, China Office: (853) 8598-3360Fax: (853) 8506-1283anthonywong@ift.edu.mo
Abstract
Purpose – This paper shows how instant-messaging (IM) service providers are helping and hindering societal mental health among young adults. That is, IM services provide users with an ability to obtain instantaneous and inexpensive support in their time of need. However, excessive Internet usage may place IM users at risk for experiencing symptoms associated with Internet addiction and Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Design/methodology/approach – We propose a framework obtained from coding qualitative data. We test the framework with structural equation methodology and latent mean analysis from data collected from younger-aged Chinese and American IM users in two studies.
Findings – Younger-aged IM users in both China and the United States obtain social support from their virtual networks. However, both groups of IM users show signs of elevated levels of Internet addiction and of being at risk for experiencing symptoms associated with ADHD
Research implications – Excessive IM and Internet usage may hinder young adults’ mental health, and the problem is likely to grow in the future. The work confirms recent trends in U.S. psychology to consider Internet addiction a mental health disorder.
Societal implications – Both service and public health researchers are encouraged to consider the impact of technological services, including Internet usage and IM, on consumer health and well-being. People with ADHD are particularly susceptible to Internet addiction; thus, technological services may be damaging society’s mental health.
Originality/value – The paper illustrates how researchers can engage in transformative service research, referring to research with implications that affect global consumer health and well-being. The work also shows a “dark side” to services and the unintended consequences of service technology on public health. Both topics have not been explored in service research.
Keywords Third places, Social support, Instant messaging, Internet addiction, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Cyber-addiction

Paper Type: Research paper

Servicescape Stimuli: A Complete Picture by Rosenbaum & Massiah

2010-06-23T09:45:00.004-05:00

Servicescape Stimuli:
The Interplay of Physical, Social, Symbolic, and Restorative Stimuli on Customer Behavior
Forthcoming: Journal of Service Management
Mark S. Rosenbaum
Fulbright Scholar
Assistant Professor of Marketing
Northern Illinois University
Research Faculty Fellow, Center for Services Leadership, Arizona State University
College of Business Administration
Department of Marketing
DeKalb, IL 60115
(815) 753-7913 (phone)
(815) 753-6014 (fax)
mrosenbaum@niu.edu

Carolyn Massiah
Assistant Professor of Marketing
College of Business Administration
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL 32816
(407) 823-6764(phone)
cmassiah@bus.ucf.edu
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this article is to put forth an expanded servicescape framework that shows that a perceived servicescape comprises physical, social, symbolic, and naturally restorative dimensions.
Design/Methodology/Approach – This conceptual article employs an in-depth literature review on servicescape topics from a variety of disciplines, inside and outside of marketing, to organize them into a logical framework built on Bitner’s (1992) seminal article.
Findings – A servicescape comprises not only objective, measureable, and managerially controllable stimuli but also subjective, immeasurable, and often managerially uncontrollable social, symbolic, and restorative stimuli, which all influence customer approach/avoidance decisions and social interaction behaviors. Furthermore, customer responses to social, symbolic, and restorative stimuli are often the drivers of profound person–place attachments.
Research implications – The framework supports a servicescape paradigm that links marketing, environmental/natural psychology, humanistic geography, and sociology.
Practical implications – Although managers can easily control a service firm’s physical stimuli, they need to understand how other critical environmental stimuli influence consumer behavior and which may overweigh a customer’s response to a firm’s physical dimensions.
Social implications – The article shows how a servicescape’s naturally restorative dimension can promote relief from mental fatigue and improve customer health and well-being. Thus, government institutions (e.g., schools, hospitals) can improve people’s lives by creating restorative servicescapes.
Originality/value – The framework organizes more than 25 years of servicescape research in a cogent framework that has cross-disciplinary implications.
Keywords Servicescape, Attention restoration theory, Service design, Environmental psychology, Atmospherics
Paper type Literature reviewIntroduction
In her seminal article, Bitner (1992) coined the term “servicescape” to denote a physical setting in which a marketplace exchange is performed, delivered, and consumed within a service organization (see also Zeithaml, Bitner, and Gremler, 2009). In addition, Bitner conceptualized the existence of three types of objective, physical, and measureable stimuli that constitute a servicescape. These stimuli are characterized as being organizationally controllable and able to enhance or constrain employee and customer approach/avoidance decisions and to facilitate or hinder employee/customer social interaction (Parish, Berry, and Lam, 2008). Given that countless examples of physical and manufactured stimuli exist, Bitner further consolidated these three types of environmental stimuli into three dimensions: (1) ambient conditions; (2) spatial layout and functionality; and (3) signs, symbols, and artifacts (Brady and Cronin, 2001a, 2001b; Hightower, Brady, and Baker, 2002; see also Kotler, 1973; Lin, 2004).
Although Bitner’s (1992) servicescape framework remains invaluable to marketers, it contains a possible shortcoming. Namely, the servicescape framework originates from research conducted in environmental psychology (Barker, 1968), which itself emulates from ecology and is the source of theoretical weakness (Rosenbaum, 2006). Encouraged by Darwin, biologists began developing ecological theory in the early 1900s by investigating how organisms collectively respond in unison to objective, physical, and measureable stimuli that are present in a focal geographically and spatially bounded area (Stokols, 1977). Barker (1968) and other marketing researchers (e.g., Kotler, 1973; see also Grayson and McNeil, 2009) later applied these ecological perspectives to stimulus–organism–response theories by exploring how people collectively respond to objective stimuli in spatially bounded areas housed in service-oriented consumption settings, primarily department stores.
Although all service settings, including physical servicescapes, cyberscapes (Williams and Dargel, 2004), shipscapes (Kwortnik, 2008), and sportscapes (Lambrecht, Kaefer, and Ramenofsky, 2009), comprise objective, physical, or measurable stimuli that influence all consumers collectively, they also comprise stimuli that are subjective, difficult to measure objectively, and managerially uncontrollable and that influence consumers and employee approach/avoidance and social interaction decisions.
Bitner (1992) acknowledged that though her primary focus was on understanding and conceptualizing the manufactured and physical stimuli that constitute servicescapes, both customers and employees are also affected by social and natural stimuli, which are also housed within servicescapes. Bitner even proposed that a customer’s favorable response to a servicescape’s natural dimension would enhance his or her response to the locale’s physical dimension. Yet she left the exploration of the impact of environmentally contained natural and social stimuli within particular servicescapes to future researchers.
Accordingly, many researchers have heeded Bitner’s (1992) request to look beyond a consumption setting’s physical dimension to less palpable dimensions, including social, social-/group-influenced symbolic, and natural dimensions, to conceptualize a vast array of servicescape stimuli. By doing so, this research stream buttresses the existence of a cross-disciplinary servicescape paradigm, which draws on a wide variety of disciplinary research and affects several disciplines, including marketing, environmental/natural/human psychology, humanistic geography, leisure/sports and recreational sciences, public health, and sociology. Given that much of this research has not been cohesively linked to Bitner’s framework, researchers and managers may fail to understand the confluence of several environmental stimuli and their dimensions that influence approach/avoidance behavior and social interaction.
Thus, the goal of this article is to address this research void by expanding Bitner’s (1992) servicescape framework and organizing a wide range of servicescape articles. As such, we put forth a contemporary “complete” servicescape framework (see Figure 1). Figure 1 encapsulates the physical (i.e., manufactured, objective, or measurable), social, symbolic, and natural stimuli that may be contained in a servicescape and that may enhance or constrain employee and customer approach/avoidance decisions and social interaction behaviors. Similar to Bitner’s original framework, the proposed model classifies an assortment of environmental stimuli into four composite dimensions.
These four dimensions are the physical (Bitner 1992), the social (Berry, Carbone, and Haeckel, 2002; Rosenbaum and Montoya, 2005; Tombs and McColl-Kennedy, 2003; Wall and Berry, 2007), the symbolic (Rosenbaum, 2005), and the restorative (Rosenbaum, 2009a, 2009b; Rosenbaum, Sweeney, and Windhorst, 2009) dimensions. Thus, the proposed framework completes Bitner’s (1992) original assumptions regarding servicescapes and, in doing so, presents researchers and managers with a complete understanding regarding the complexity of environmental stimuli on consumer and employee behaviors within service organizations.
The plan for this paper is as follows: In the following section, we define each of the framework’s four composite dimensions and their corresponding classificatory environmental stimuli. It is worth noting here that though environmental stimuli simultaneously affect employees and customers, the majority of service-oriented servicescape research concentrates on how customers, rather than employees, respond to various environmental stimuli (see Parish et al., 2008). Therefore, the discussion focuses on how customers respond to the presence of various environmental stimuli.

The Physical Dimension
The physical dimension is probably the easiest for managers to comprehend because it encompasses manufactured, observable, or measurable stimuli that are managerially controllable and that, by and large, influence all customers within a specific servicescape in the same way. For example, ambient conditions represent background environmental stimuli, or atmospherics (Grayson and McNeil, 2009; Kotler, 1973; Turley and Milliman, 2000), that affect human sensations. These stimuli comprise visual (e.g., lighting, colors, brightness, shapes; Dijkstra, Pieterse, and Pruyn, 2008), aesthetic cleanliness, olfactory (e.g., scent, air quality, fragrance; Mattila and Wirtz, 2001), ambient (e.g., temperature; Reimer and Kuehn, 2005), and auditory (e.g., music, noises; Morin, Dubé, and Chebat, 2007; Oakes and North, 2008) elements.
Space refers to the manner in which physical machinery, equipment (e.g., electronic), furnishings, and their arrangement, as well as the lesser observable furnishings of comfort, layout, and accessibility (Bloch, 1995; Wakefield and Blodgett, 1996), influence consumer approach/avoidance decisions. Along these lines, functionality denotes the ability of all these physical items to facilitate the service exchange process (Ng, 2003) and to improve and innovate consumer support in an ergonomic manner (Aubert-Gamet, 1997).
When viewed as a dimension, both space and function can be simultaneously considered a designscape, or the loosely coherent, hegemonic network of physical items that include both realistic (e.g., manufactured) and abstract (e.g., subjective) meanings (Julier, 2005). That is, consumers evaluate a designscape to understand a locale’s place meaning or identity. By doing so, consumers are able to answer internal questions such as “What is this place?” and “Will I be able to fulfill my goals in this locale?” (Hall, 2008). Thus, commercial firms, such as retail organizations and hoteliers, can purposefully manipulate designscapes to “tell stories”; however, how consumers interpret and respond to these stories is less controllable and often quite diversionary from managerial intent (Aubert-Gamet, 1997). For example, although some consumers may applaud the ersatz designscapes that characterize tourists meccas, such as Disneyworld, Las Vegas, Hawaii, and Macau, other people may consider these servicescape “stories” culturally or racially offensive (Rosenbaum and Wong, 2007).
Along these lines, the sign, symbols, and artifacts dimension refers to physical signals that managers employ in servicescapes to communicate general meaning about the place to consumers. For example, generic signs, such as those demarcating departments, directions, rest rooms, caution (e.g., wet floors), and rules of behavior (e.g., no smoking, take a ticket), facilitate a customer’s movement through a servicescape.
Symbols, such as national and local flags, and artifacts, including artwork and decorative items, are often used by firms to create aesthetic impressions (Zeithaml et al., 2009) and to help consumers understand the place’s meaning. For example, by using reproduction Italian-themed artifacts, the popular Olive Garden chain of restaurants tries to enhance customers’ feelings of entering an Italian restaurant and momentarily experiencing Italy. When hotels in Hawaii purposefully employ reproduction Polynesian-themed artifacts, based on long-gone cultural or even imaginary cultural practices, they do so to help their guests temporarily escape quotidian reality and enter a hedonic world of pleasure (Rosenbaum and Wong, 2007). Indeed, O’Dell and Billing (2005, p. 16) coined the term “experiencescapes” to conceptualize the extent to which surroundings that people encounter in the course of their lives can “take the form of physical as well as imagined landscapes of experience.” Finally, firms may employ signs to demarcate a servicescape with corporate brands, logos, and monikers, essentially creating “brandscapes” (Thompson and Arsel, 2004) that consumers might interpret positively, ambivalently, or even negatively.
The common linkage across all these stimuli is that their presence in a consumption setting is purposively planned and they remain under managerial control during their duration within a setting. Yet, even within this realm, research shows that though managers may control a setting’s designscape, experiencescape, or brandscape and attempt to strategically influence consumer meanings, ultimately, consumers subjectively imbue a complete servicescape with personal meanings based on their “lifeworlds” (Seamon, 1979) that directly influence their approach/avoidance and social interactions decisions.
In the next section, we look beyond a servicescape’s physical dimensions and examine its social, or human, dimension. As a result, we show that while managers may control employment decisions, they are often unable to fully control the customers that patronize a consumption setting. Ironically, customer–customer social interaction, along with its resultant offshoots of intercustomer social support or discrimination, significantly influences a customer’s future patronage and his or her propensity to engage in word of mouth.
The Social Dimension
More than a quarter century ago, Bagozzi (1975) noted that most marketplace exchanges are mixed exchanges, in which consumers fulfill not only their utilitarian needs but also their social and psychological needs. Thus, customer approach/avoidance decisions are influenced not only by physical stimuli but also by social, humanistic stimuli. Indeed, Rosenbaum and Montoya (2007) conceptualize a “social servicescape” as comprising customer and employee elements that are encapsulated in a consumption setting. Furthermore, by building on both empirical and extant research, they put forth a framework that defines a servicescape’s social dimension as containing the following stimuli: employees, customers, employee–customer ethnic congruency, social density, and displayed emotions of others.
Employees
In his seminal article, Stone (1954) concludes that housewives often form friendships with retail employees, such as butchers, to help them remedy feelings associated with loneliness; more important, he argued that a consumer’s need to assuage loneliness is often a driver of consumption. Thus, Stone’s research revealed that contrary to popular beliefs, the modern marketplace is not entirely impersonal or devoid of providing extended care to consumers.
Within psychology, Cowen (1982) argued that service employees, including hair dressers, bartenders, doctors, and divorce lawyers, are often integral to mental health and represent a de facto helping mechanism that provides people with informal but highly effective social support in their time of need. Other researchers have shown that consumers often seek out and patronize commercial establishments, such as beauty salons (Price and Arnould, 1999), dating services (Adelman and Ahuvia, 1995), small retail shops (Day, 2000), and neighborhood diners (Rosenbaum, 2006), partly because of the life-enhancing, social supportive benefits they often receive from employees in these firms.
Overall, research concludes that consumers consider their social relationship with focal employees a relational benefit that affects both their perceptions of overall firm quality (Baker, Levy, and Grewal, 1992) and their future behavioral intentions, in terms of future patronage and word of mouth (Gwinner, Gremler, and Bitner, 1998; Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Gremler, 2002). Therefore, this discussion supports our contention that employees should be considered part of the environmental stimuli that influence a customer’s approach/avoidance decision and social interaction in a servicescape (Baker, Grewal, and Parasuraman, 1994). This does not mean that every employee willingly doles out relational benefits to every customer or that managers can even control their propensity to do so; however, employee relational benefits seem to represent a type of glue that adheres customers to commercial establishments (Rosenbaum, 2009a).
Customers
Urban sociologists have a history of exploring the role of relationships between customers and commercially oriented service establishments, such as pubs, laundromats, second-hand clothing stores, and coffee shops, in people’s lives (for a review, see Lofland, 1998). For example, Oldenburg (1999, p. 16) coined the term third places to denote “public places that host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond
the realms of home and work.” Third places are usually locally owned, independent, small-scale firms that are operated by people who seem to know everyone in the neighborhood. In addition, third places are usually patronized by “regular” customers who often transform them into their home away from home and view them as an escape from reality (Oldenburg, 1990, 2001).
Recent third-place research in both the commercial (Rosenbaum, 2008) and the not-for-profit (Glover and Parry, 2009) domains reveals that patrons often seek out and patronize these establishments because they are able to obtain essential, life-enhancing social supportive resources from other customers. These resources include companionship, emotional support, and, to a lesser extent, instrumental support.
For example, researchers have shown that consumers who experience the loss of human social support due to negative life events, such as bereavement, divorce/separation, chronic illness, and retirement, may actually counterbalance lost support by forming supportive relationships with non-familial, third-place customers (Rosenbaum et al., 2007). Likewise, consumers who themselves experience chronic illness, such as those diagnosed with cancer, may also seek temporary solace in third places simply to be among like-others (Glover and Parry, 2009). Notably, research suggests that social support is most effective when it is delivered not from a single source, such as a sole service provider, but rather from a broad network of people who are “in the same boat,” who have lived the same experiences, or who share the same context of meaning (Gentry and Goodwin, 1995).
The drive to be among like-others is so strong that it actually encourages, for example, a group of retired widowers to volunteer their time on behalf of a commercial third place (i.e., a local diner) to instill a sense of routine in their daily lives and experiences (Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2007), a group of mothers to assemble at McDonald’s play areas (Day, 2000), a group of Bohemian youth to linger at a coffee shop (Thompson and Arsel, 2004), or a group of senior citizens to gather at McDonald’s simply to engage in pure sociability (Cheang, 2002). Indeed, in some instances, a group’s need for light-hearted banter, in light of actual life realities, may result in members ignoring their utilitarian consumption needs and instead focusing almost exclusively on their needs for companionship (Rosenbaum, 2006).
Thus, contemporary sociologists, such as Putnam (2000), who claim that the marketplace is an anathema of community are somewhat mistaken. Small consumer groups that gather in places that promote customer connectedness and that are bonded by social contracts that represent the weakest of personal obligations often provide their members with relational benefits, including social support, which many believed was only available from traditional relationships (e.g., families, friends, coworkers). Furthermore, as consumers find that place patronage becomes increasingly cathartic, they are increasingly likely to develop a “sense of place” and to patronize the place on a daily or near-daily basis (Hay, 1998; Lewicka, 2010). That is, by maintaining customer–customer relationships within commercial settings, a person’s approach/avoidance decisions become increasingly influenced by quality-of-life reasons, such as to reduce stress and depression, to have feelings of positive well-being, and to reduce despondency (Iso-Ahola and Park, 1996; Rosenbaum et al., 2007).
This does not mean that all customer–customer interactions are constructive marketplace niceties. Unfortunately, history is replete with recounts of customers who have been physically assaulted and harmed by other customers within a service establishment. For example, although there is a presence of security officers in many shopping areas across the United States, which should promote feelings of safety among consumers, many women still remained concerned about their physical safety in and around malls, which promotes mall avoidance (Tye, 2005).
Overall, we put forth that the extant research supports the notion of customers as environmental stimuli that are housed in a servicescape’s social dimension and that significantly influence other customers’ approach/avoidance decisions and social interaction in a service establishment. Customer environmental stimuli may represent the “glue” that attaches other customers to a servicescape and, as such, are essentially outside of managerial control.
Employee–Customer Ethnic Congruency
Thus far, customers have been regarded as social participants who maintain actual and meaningful relationships with employees and other customers in service firms and who become a source of profound bond or attachment between them and specific locals (Hernández et al. 2007; Hidalgo and Hernández, 2010). Yet we speculate that consumer approach/avoidance decisions are not only influenced by their maintaining relationships in consumption settings but also by their ability to “read” employees and other customers to determine a person–place congruency.
Our contention is based on the historical discrimination in the U.S. marketplace against ethnic and marginalized consumers, such as African Americans (Crockett, Grier, and Williams, 2003), Jews (Rosenbaum, 2005), Hispanics (Tharp, 2001), and homosexuals (Walters and Curran, 1996; Walters and Moore, 2002). Although the days when commercial establishments placed placards in their windows touting “whites only” and “no Jews allowed” are gone, establishments still communicate bigoted cues to disfavored consumers through social elements. Security may follow African American shoppers for “shopping while black” (Gabbidon, 2003), or employees may deviate from organizational policies and provide inferior service quality to ethnic or marginalized customers (Wakefield and Hudley, 2005).
Rosenbaum and Montoya (2007) argue that given the reality of marketplace discrimination, ethnic and marginalized consumers have learned how to interpret cues in an establishment’s servicescape, which enables them to assess whether the place favorably corresponds with their self-identities (see Dixon and Durrheim, 2004). On the basis of qualitative and empirical evidence, they show that Hispanic and gay consumers tend to approach settings that are congruent with their self-identities and avoid settings that are dissimilar.
The data reveal that ethnic consumers evaluate their “place identity” (Proshansky, Fabian, and Kaminoff, 1983), or person–place congruency, by engaging in a term that Rosenbaum and Montoya (2007) deem as place likening. They define “place likening” as the process in which ethnic (and marginalized) consumers gauge the extent to which employees and customers in a servicescape are like-members. That is, by drawing on the homophily principle, Rosenbaum and Montoya contend that perceived similarity among unknown and unacquainted customers and employees breeds connections (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook, 2001) and encourages favorable approach decisions. Thus, the idiom “birds of a feather flock together” signifies its role in influencing consumer approach and avoidance decisions.
Beyond sensing a place congruency, Rosenbaum and Montoya (2005) further develop the place identity concept by revealing that ethnic Hispanic and marginalized gay consumers regularly respond both to negative verbal comments and to negative non-verbal cues (e.g., stares, lack of recognition) from both customers and employees in commercial settings. Importantly, although managers are able to reprimand frontline employees who verbally discriminate customers, they are essentially powerless to control employee non-verbal behaviors. Furthermore, to a larger extent, managers are completely incapable of controlling discriminatory customer-to-customer behaviors. Thus, ethnic and marginalized consumers may place more emphasis on social stimuli, including feelings of person–place congruency and customer comfort, than physical stimuli when formulating approach/avoidance decisions (Rosenbaum and Montoya, 2005). Indeed, by being in a physically attractive but “wrong place at the wrong time,” gay consumers have learned that their safety may be jeopardized not by the designscape, but rather by other customers (Moran et al., 2003).
Social Density
In addition to being influenced by genuine social actors, and their overt and covert behaviors, consumers are influenced by the perceived social density of a servicescape. To date, the majority of empirical studies on servicescape social density have shown that high densities of customers (i.e., crowding) negatively affect approach/avoidance decisions (Harrell, Hutt, and Anderson, 1980) because of the loss of perceived control (Tombs and McColl-Kennedy, 2003). However, the converse is also true; there are many situations in which high densities of customers induce positive customer responses (Eroglu, Machleit, and Barr, 2005; Foxall and Greenley, 1999; Lovelock, 1996; Turley and Milliman, 2000).
Tombs and McColl-Kennedy (2003) clarify this apparent discrepancy in the social density paradigm by positing that a customer’s approach/avoidance behavior toward a servicescape’s crowding level is influenced by whether the customer seeks private or group consumption. For example, diners sharing a romantic meal at a restaurant relish some privacy. However, customers may feel peculiar being alone in a health club or shopping mall, when being among others is considered a positive aspect of the consumption experience.
In many instances, customers are attracted to a high social density servicescape when the possibility of entering into enjoyable, light-hearted associations with others is part of their goal in the consumption setting. For example, consumers often enjoy patronizing weekend farmers markets not only to purchase fresh produce but also to engage in impromptu conversations at these markets—here, every consumer (McGrath, Sherry, and Heisley, 1993, p. 308) has the opportunity to “rub elbows” with farmers and other customers. In line with this, according to Woodruffe (1997) “retail therapy” refers to the process in which people often shop to escape loneliness.
Displayed Emotions of Others
As previously discussed, ethnic and marginalized customers often respond to negative cues and glances from employees and other customers in consumption settings. Although managers may be able to control these stimuli, they have less ability to control another social stimulus, namely, a servicescape’s emotional contagion. This concept refers to the displayed emotions of others within a servicescape.
Tombs and McColl-Kennedy (2003) propose that a customer’s consumption experience, either private or group related, influences the extent to which the displayed emotions of others cause him or her to enter into an approach/avoidance decision. That is, when customers engage in private consumption, such as using self-service technologies, they are unlikely to interpret or even care about the displayed emotions of other people in a servicescape. However, when consumers engage in group consumption, such as exercising, dining, or shopping, they might respond to the displayed emotions of others in the servicescape, both positively and negatively.
For example, given the instinctive, contagious power of laughter (Provine, 2004), other customers and employees engaged in effortless banter and laughter most likely cause emotional contagion that, in turn, positively influences a customer’s emotions and service quality perceptions (see Oldenburg 1999, 2001). Along these lines, research shows that the displayed emotions of individual baseball spectators tend to become communal emotions and, thus, play a major part in other spectators’ consumption experience (Holt, 1995). Indeed, according to Cheang (2002), even among a group of senior-aged and elderly friends who regularly meet in a McDonald’s, group members must display high spirits and engage in light banter, regardless of life’s often bitter realities, as those who are considered too depressing are soon ostracized.
The Symbolic Dimension
Bitner (1992) indicates that signs, symbols, and artifacts represent an integral servicescape dimension. Here, Bitner conceptualizes this dimension in terms of general signs (e.g., exit, bathroom, pull/push, departmental signs) and architectural designs (e.g., Chinese, Italian, and Mexican décor) that tend to be interpreted in the same way by all customers and employees. Although Bitner’s conceptualization is valid, it fails to consider that customers may interpret a servicescape’s signs, symbols, and artifacts differently because of their socio-collective memberships and that their approach/avoidance decisions are influenced by their personal meanings.
For example, African American culture abounds with examples in terms of barbershops and beauty shops representing spaces in which the confluence of black hair care, for and by black people, and small talk establishes a context for cultural exchanges and career opportunities (Alexander, 2003; Willett, 2000). Likewise, homosexuals regularly patronize service firms such as gay bars (Halkitis and Parsons, 2003) and bathhouses (Bérubé, 2003) despite patronage being associated with risks, such as heightened chances of physical assaults and sexually transmitted diseases. Finally, American Jews are increasingly patronizing delicatessens as a way to practice gastronomic Judaism, which refers to eating Jewish-style foods (e.g., lox and bagel) and equating food consumption as a kind of post-modern religious practice or a practical means of maintaining cultural linkages (Halter, 2000). Yet how do African Americans, gays, and Jews discern these types of welcoming places, which essentially connote ethnic designscapes?
Drawing on classical sociological theories, Rosenbaum (2005) suggests that ethnic and marginalized groups maintain distinct symbolic universes, which evoke common meanings among members. Again, here, managers are powerless to influence these symbolic meanings because they are created, maintained, and altered by social groups. For example, Weber (1978) posits that ethnic groups possess a revered set of symbols of “ethnic honor,” and Berger and Luckman (1966) refer to this symbolic set as a symbolic universe. Durkheim ([1912] 1995) argued that a group’s meanings are transferred to symbols during group gatherings and that images engraved within the symbols permit the group to exist beyond the gatherings.
Because a person’s consciousness is closed to other individuals, symbols become tangible intermediaries that permit a person to realize that he or she is in the presence of fellow ethnic group members. Therefore, symbols may serve to notify ethnic group members that they are in unison with like-others—that is, among members who shout the same cry, say the same words, perform the same actions, and share the same culture and historical experiences.
From data collected from gays and Jews through photo-elicitation methodology, Rosenbaum (2005) defines a symbolic servicescape as a socio-collective group’s signs, symbols, objects, and artifacts contained within a service establishment that possess a common interpretation among consumers belonging to a specific ethnic (including marginalized) group. These symbols serve to evoke similar sensations of history or utopia, danger or security, and identity or memory among ethnic group members and either encourage or hinder their desire to approach a consumption setting. For example, among gay informants, the rainbow pride flag and pink triangle evoke sensations and emotions, while photos of traditional Jewish delicatessens, with kosher signs, hanging salamis, and traditional sweets, evoke memories of family and being comfortable among one’s own kind. Indeed, ethnic symbols were found repeatedly to enhance a servicescape’s physical dimensions by evoking feelings of comfort and inclusiveness among Jews and homosexuals.
It is worth noting that a servicescape’s physical, social, and symbolic dimensions often work together in unison. For example, customers may simultaneously interpret a servicescape’s physical dimension to ascertain whether they can achieve consumption objectives, read a social dimension to gauge person–place congruency, and interpret a symbolic dimension to obtain feelings of comfort.
Thus far, the discussion has explored how servicescape stimuli influence all customers within a consumption setting at a macro or group level. In the next section, we turn attention to uncovering how servicescape stimuli may also influence approach/avoidance decisions at an individual level.
The Restorative Dimension
The biophilia hypothesis (Wilson, 1984) suggests that there is an innate bond between human beings and other living systems, including nature, pets, and wildlife. Similar to customers who seek out and patronize service establishments to obtain feelings of human togetherness, Wilson (1984) suggests that biophilia represents a driver that encourages humans to subconsciously seek connection with “the rest of life.” Thus, an ideal servicescape emerges as one that is physically appealing, socially interactive, symbolically welcoming, and naturally connective. Therefore, Clarke and Schmidt (1995) refer to most encounters as also being “natural encounters” that affect consumers unequally and at a personal, psychological level.
To date, research on natural stimuli in customer–environmental behaviors has resided in psychology and medical sciences regarding the impact of nature on human health and well-being. For example, health researchers have explored the impact of hospital gardens on patient well-being (Whitehouse et al., 2001) or the relationship between gardens and societal well-being (Frumkin, 2001). In contrast, marketing researchers are only beginning to empirically explore a servicescape’s natural stimuli and its influence on outcomes such as approach/avoidance, customer health, and subjective well-being (Rosenbaum, 2009b; Rosenbaum et al., 2009). In doing so, researchers have successfully propelled Bitner’s (1992) servicescape framework into public health by showing how commercial establishments can contribute to societal health and well-being (Frumkin, 2003).
For example, Rosenbaum (2009b) draws on attention restoration theory (ART; Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989; Kaplan, 1995 see also Berto, 2005) to explore a servicescape’s natural dimension and its corresponding stimuli. ART posits that a person’s ability to direct attention in thought and perception to challenging or unpleasant, but nonetheless extremely important, environmental stimuli is a biological mechanism that becomes fatigued with use.
More specifically, ART is based on the premise that humans do not inherently possess an ability to expend concentrated effort on strenuous tasks for extended periods. For example, people tend to become mentally fatigued, or “burned out,” after working for hours on a computer, listening to a protracted and boring lecture, or even caring for a loved one for an entire day. Regardless of how mentally taxing these tasks actually might be, people’s everyday lives often require that these tasks be performed with precision and on a regular basis. To addresses this seemingly contradictory reality, directed attention fatigue transpires when this mechanism becomes impaired. As a result of directed attention fatigue, a person experiences lower mental competence, increased risk for accidents, higher incidences of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, difficulties with focusing and planning, and irritability.
Moreover, ART posits that the negative symptoms associated with directed attention fatigue can be remedied when people restore their ability to focus on unpleasant stimuli for extended periods. This personal restoration typically occurs when people spend time in natural settings, such as parks, beach areas, gardens, or grassy areas. For example, natural psychological research shows that children as young as five report decreased symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (e.g., trouble paying attention) after playing in green landscapes, grassy backyards, and parks (Kuo and Taylor, 2004; Wells, 2000; Wells and Evans, 2003). University students whose dormitory rooms have natural views perform better on academic and attention measures than students who face manufactured settings (Iwasaki, 2003; Tennessen and Cimprich, 1995). Finally, research findings show that hospital patients recover more quickly and feel less stressed when they are exposed to visually appealing landscapes during the healing process (Velarde, Fry, and Tveit, 2007).
However, not every green space offers mentally fatigued people restorative qualities. Research shows that natural restorative environments possess three environmental stimuli (Han, 2007). The first stimulus, being away, provides people with a feeling of a break from day-after-day concerns or a feeling, albeit temporarily, of escaping to a different place. The second stimulus, fascination, refers to a setting’s ability to hold a person’s attention effortlessly. The third stimulus, coherence, suggests that a setting must be rich and coherent enough that it constitutes a whole other world from a person’s perspective. Therefore, if a commercial servicescape can offer customers these three types of environmental stimuli, it may help them alleviate their directed attention fatigue symptoms through patronage.
Working within this premise, Rosenbaum (2009b) shows that some teenage patrons of a video arcade experienced the establishment’s restorative stimuli, including feelings of being away, fascination, and coherence. Furthermore, customers who sensed the arcade’s restorative stimuli showed fewer symptoms associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder than other arcade customers.
In another restorative study, Rosenbaum et al. (2009) confirm the existence of healthy servicescapes and the effectiveness of naturally restorative stimuli within commercial establishments. They explored the influence of restorative stimuli on senior and elderly customers of a foundationally supported café located in Chicago. The café offers customers breakfast, lunch, coffee, snacks, and social activities (e.g., exercise classes, game clubs, computer classes, blood pressure screening). The researchers concluded that a positive relationship exists between customers who sense the café’s restorative dimension and their feelings of personal well-being. Although café patronage might not have been solely responsible for the customers’ well-being, given the prominent role of the café in customers’ daily lives and personal existence, the researchers concluded that this restorative servicescape offered customers the opportunity to engage in therapeutic consumption by relieving mental fatigue, along with a cup of coffee.
Other environmental psychologists and human geographers have suggested that for commercial third places to benefit human health, they must offer customers a “sense of place” (Frumkin, 2003). Tuan (1974) conceptualizes a sense of place as the spirit and personality that humans imbue on a locale and the personal connection that a person maintains with a place (Rosenbaum, 2006). That is, the ability of a customer to have fun in a servicescape (Matilla, 1999) may promote a sense of place. It is this esoteric but highly evocative spirit that encourages customers to merge patronage into their daily lives, so that patronage becomes a part of a customer’s routine or “place ballet” (Seamon and Nordin, 1980) and, more important, becomes essential to his or her health and well-being. Indeed, as Lofland (1998) notes, it is possible for a person to grieve in the same way to the loss of a favored beauty shop as to a lost home.
Conclusion
When coining the term “servicescape,” Bitner (1992) focused on conceptualizing a consumption setting’s objective, manufactured, measurable, or physical stimuli, which influence customers’ and employees’ approach/avoidance decisions and social interaction, while acknowledging the existence of lesser studied social and natural stimuli. Indeed, many researchers, both inside and outside of marketing, have looked beyond a place’s physical dimension to uncover myriad environmental stimuli that influence customer behaviors. To date, many of these disparate articles have remained unlinked to Bitner’s framework; thus, this article contributes to the literature by organizing extant person–place studies into an expanded and understandable servicescape framework.
The environmental psychologist Harold Proshansky (1978, p. 150) stated that “there is no physical setting that is not also a social, cultural, and psychological setting.” In reality, our proposed framework is in line with Proshansky’s perspective; this article looks beyond a setting’s physical dimension to show that consumption settings also comprise social, symbolic (cultural), and restorative (psychological) dimensions that act in unison to influence customer behavior. Furthermore, the connectivity between the proposed framework and environmental and natural psychology, respectively, shows that further cross-disciplinary research regarding the impact of environmental stimuli on commercial and not-for-profit exchanges is warranted.
By exploring the confluence of a service establishment’s physical, social, symbolic, and restorative dimensions on customer approach/avoidance behavior and social interaction, we can better understand how consumers immerse places into the daily lives or how they vivify built environments (Sherry, 2000). Indeed, we encourage place researchers not only to study the four servicescape dimensions in tandem on customer behavior but also to draw on place studies in architecture, natural psychology, humanistic geography, sociology, and public health to explore the existence of other realms that encourage customers and employees to form a sense of place in service firms.
We especially encourage environmental psychologists to draw on extant research streams, including place identity, place attachment (Hernández et al., 2007), and a sense of place (Hay, 1998), to understand how these concepts apply to consumer behavior within commercial third places and not-for-profit public/private places (e.g., nursing homes, hospitals, retirement villages). Doing so would help us better understand how commercial places enhance urban civility and societal well-being.
We also encourage health, natural psychology, and service marketing researchers to further explore the health potential of commercial service firms. According to Frumkin (2001, p. 234), more than half a century ago, the World Health Organization defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” This statement suggests that evocative servicescapes are those that are physically appealing, socially engaging, symbolically welcoming, and naturally restorative. Yet is it possible for managers to create consumption settings that truly and effectively encompass these four dimensions? Are all four dimensions equally important? Do customers view the dimensions equally? Research opportunities that attempt to answer these questions clearly abound.
Given that service firms may possess restorative stimuli that are analogous to those found in nature, we might surmise the extent to which a commercial structure has the potential to alter the lives of those relegated to physical structures, such schools, nursing homes, institutions, and rehabilitation centers. We encourage public health and educational researchers to explore how the qualities constituting quintessential third places can be employed in institutional service settings to benefit organizational civility and customer health and well-being.
For example, inner-city youth who lack easy access to green spaces and who are at high risk for experiencing negative symptoms related to mental fatigue, including classroom irritability and criminal behavior (Louv, 2005), may be able to remedy some of these negative symptoms by having access to subsidized restorative service establishments, such as video arcades or Starbucks (Rosenbaum, 2008). Furthermore, homosexual youth, who are at elevated risk for suicide because of feelings of ostracism from family and classmates, may find solace by coming together in a welcoming locale. The cost of subsidizing service establishments that can serve as fields of care for their patrons is less than the cost associated with teenage loitering, malfeasance, and mental health problems.
By moving beyond a place’s physical realm, perhaps we can begin to understand Relph’s (1976, p. 141) definition of places as “fusions of human and natural order [that] are the significant centers of our immediate experiences of the world” and why Oldenburg (1999) claims that third places are linked to the rise of great civilizations and great societies. For too long, marketers have considered commercial places mere homogeneous zones of exchange comprised of objective, material stimuli that appeal equally to members of a specific target market. Novel insights are emerging as to the influence of social supportive relationships, which are housed in commercial places, on customers’ well-being. Consumer researchers are uncovering how ethnic and sub-cultural consumers possess a symbolic universe that transmits messages to group members; however, knowledge regarding servicescape symbolic universes that evoke
similar sensations of history or utopia, danger or security, and identity or memory among ethnic and sub-cultural group members remains unfinished. Last, service researchers are now finding that commercial places possess natural characteristics that may help people remedy symptoms associated with mental fatigue; however, how firms create restorative servicescapes still remains unclear.
Overall, this article organizes a disparate set of environmental research and expands our understanding of Bitner’s (1992) seminal servicescape framework. Ironically, the proposed framework suggests that much remains to be explored regarding the confluence of physical, social, symbolic, and restorative stimuli on consumer and employee approach/avoidance decisions and social interaction within consumption settings. However, given the complexity of the proposed servicescape framework, we believe that servicescape is no longer a concept, but rather a multi-disciplinary paradigm that focuses on person–place relationships and has managerial, public health, governmental, and personal implications.
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Zeithaml, V. A., Bitner, M. J. and Gremler, D. D. (2009), Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus across the Firm, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, Boston, MA.

Building Customer Relationships with Dr. Mark's Research

2010-06-23T09:33:00.001-05:00

Marketing Relationships
In: Customer Relationship Management Innovation Marketing Strategy Social Marketing22 Jun 2010
Sorry to disappoint, but today I’m talking about forming relationships in a marketing context rather than marketing relationships, aka Match.com, e-Harmony, or another dating site.
Types of marketing relationships
Marketing relationships take many forms.
For instance, if you go to the same Starbucks everyday, you may form a marketing relationship with the people who work there or with other customers who stop by for their cuppa Joe at the same time you do. A colleague chronicled the evolution of such a relationship among customers who met by accident at a local restaurant simply because they were all lonely. Soon, these customers formally established the group, with meetings at the restaurant at a specified time every day. They were also doing other things together *. Marketing relationships like these are interpersonal relationships.
As a consumer, you might have a marketing relationship with a brand.
Brands have personalities, so your marketing relationship might be related to this personality. Marketing relationships like these may look a lot like interpersonal relationships. Or you might have a marketing relationship with a brand that is less emotional when you feel the brand is superior in quality or performance. Marketing relationships like these are structural relationships.
If you’re a supply chain firm, you might have a marketing relationship with a partner
These marketing relationships may be interpersonal when you have a relationship with people who also function in the interface between the organizations. Marketing relationships like these are interpersonal relationships. Business marketing relationships may also be based on the value your firm gets from being in the relationship — such as improved profitability, improved performance, easier coordination, etc. Marketing relationships like these are structural relationships.
The type of marketing relationship dictates strategic value
Interpersonal marketing relationships
Interpersonal marketing relationships generate trust between the parties, which has a variety of benefits to the organization (and the consumer). You trust the quality and performance of the products. You trust that your relationship partner will look out for your best interests.
Interpersonal marketing relationships also generate feelings of belonging, which is one of the higher elements in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – social needs. Interpersonal marketing relationships may also provide a sense of self-esteem, an even higher element in Maslow’s hierarchy.
Interpersonal marketing relationships also reduce difficulties in making decisions. Commercial friends recommend movies and restaurants, provide reviews of products, etc. Interpersonal marketing relationships also reduce decision-making difficulties by reducing the number of options to consider. Consumers have many choices and by choosing to frequent establishments and buy brands the consumer has a relationship with, it reduces difficulties in deciding between these option.
From the firm’s perspective, interpersonal marketing relationships provide loyal customer who often recommend the firm and its products. Interpersonal marketing relationships also provide customers who are willing to overlook small failures by the firm, which is especially important in service firms where failure is inevitable sometimes.
Structural Marketing Relationships
Structural marketing relationships provide many of the same benefits as interpersonal marketing relationships, except they may not provide the same belongingness and esteem benefits.
Structural marketing relationships, because they are based less on emotion and more on functional qualities of the marketing relationship, may provide important collaborative benefits. For instance, structural marketing relationships can lead to innovation when customers recommend new products or when firms work together to create new products. For instance, I interviewed a business for an article and discovered a major benefit the company got from its structural marketing relationship. The supplier found an alternative supplier when they experienced a strike a their production facility.
How to build marketing relationships
Given the benefits how having strong marketing relationships, the question is how to build them. Here are some suggestions:
be consistent – relationships don’t form when one party feels let down
put the consumer (partner) first
provide a supportive environment – comfortable settings, plenty of time for interaction
hire friendly employees and reward this behavior
create an employee environment that is stress free (or as much as possible) hurried employees don’t take the time to build relationships
respect customers, employees and partners
build a brand with personality
use social networks to build marketing relationships
Do your customers (partners) have a marketing relationship with you or your brand?
Do employees feel they have permission and are rewarded for building marketing relationships with customers and partners?
Tell me about your experiences.
*Rosenbaum, Mark S., James Ward. Beth A. Walker, and Amy L. Ostrom (2007), “A Cup of Coffee with a Dash of Love: An Investigation of Commercial Social Support and Third-Place Attachment,” Journal of Service Research, 10 (1), 43-59.

Dr. Mark at the American Hotel Academy Romania!

2010-06-14T11:40:00.003-05:00

I had an incredible time teaching services marketing in early May, 2010 at the American Hotel Academy in Romania.

It was a success!

The director wrote:

Dear Mark,
Thank you for the materials. I will make sure all students get them.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for everything – your time and dedication this past week. All students were really excited about the knowledge they got out of this course and they thought it was fantastic.

The staff also enjoyed your lecture and the innovative approach to teaching which they will definitely apply to our courses. We are all looking forward to an exciting collaboration on so many projects we discussed about.

On a personal note, it was a pleasure meeting you and sharing thoughts and ideas with you. Your approach to life is really interesting and it has been an eye opener for me in some situations. I am really looking forward to meeting you next time and am glad me and Dan have now made a friend in the Chicago area which we can visit (even if it is just for 3 days J )
Let’s keep in touch!

Warm regards,
Ada Ster
Director of Academics
American Hotel Academy Romania

Al-Aqsa Brigade: Diving in the Sea for Pearls or Planning Murder? The Press Pogroms

2010-06-08T09:14:00.005-05:00

Once again European Press shows its evil side.

Are divers from Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade simply divers who were having a fun time swimming off the shores of Israel? Perhaps, the 5 "friends" were merely enjoying a mere dive for shall we say, pearls in the Mediterranean?

The folly of it all! Sheer madness. And, yet, the awful truth is coming to fruition. When an Al-Aqsa terrorist is equated to being a "diver," and the Star of David is equated to a "swastika," well then, how does one discuss any topic in a rational matter?

In many ways, what European Presses are doing to Israel and to Jewish people around the world is tantamount to what I term, a "Press Pogrom." Europeans are once again trying to destroy innocent Jewish people not with guns, but rather, with vicious lies. I suppose that had the "divers" landed in Ashod and murdered a handful of innocent Israelis, then the terrorists would be termed "martys" (see the name of the terrorist organization) and the dead Israelis would be seen as "worthless pieces of s*** who are simply occupiers who deserve to be slaughtered en masse.

But, you see unlike the past pogroms in which people thought Europeans would be rational, we now know that the "civilized" Europeans will look askance at Jewish people being slaughtered. Further, Turkey, once a close ally of Israel, has almost gone insane in its vituperatives. Why?

For an answer, we must look to history. When capitalism comes into question, when the markets seem to be incapable of facilitating fairness, when banks are seen as harbingers of evil, when people are unemployed, they need to make the intangible, tangible. Why not blame the "Jew" for the root of all evil associated with capitalism? It's quite easy. According to the CIA World Factbook, Turkish unemployment is about 15%; this is the official CIA percentage.

Read this:

According to figures released by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TUIK) last Thursday, the official unemployment rate in Turkey reached to a new historical high of 16.1 percent.
The number of unemployed people jumped by 1,125,000 from the same period last year and now totals 3,802,000. This represents a 4.2 percentage point increase.
Jobless rates in urban areas shot up by 4.7 percent to 18.1 percent. In rural areas the official unemployment rate increased by about 3.4 percent, reaching as high as 11.9 percent.
In February, unemployment among Turkish youth was calculated as 28.6 percent—up from 21.5 percent in February 2008.
Turkey’s industrial production has been in freefall since last October. Economic growth for the fourth quarter of 2008 declined by a staggering 6.2 percent and many are predicting at least a 10 percent contraction for the first quarter of 2009.

Or this--

Contrary to positive projections for economic performance, the OECD warned Turkey against the risk of increasing unemployment. The report noted that “job creation will not be strong enough to absorb the rapidly growing labor force.” According to forecasts of the OECD, the unemployment rate will rise further in the coming years, up from 13.7 percent as of the end of 2009 to 14.9 percent this year and increasing further to 15.9 percent in 2011.

What is the cause of unemployment? Well of course, Zionism, Israelis, and the Jews are the cause of unemployment?

In my opinion, European and Arab governments consistently turn to an anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and anti-Zionist platform when their economies are in turmoil. Why? It keeps the populance diverted from the real issues. The real issue has nothing to do with Israel, but, it helps the unemployed to divert attention to a new cause de celebre. It's truly folly, irrational madness, but, we must learn from the past. Innocent Jews will be slaughtered in any economic downfall. Isn't it strange how the wealthy Persian Gulf countries remain anti-Israel; yet, why doesn't Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates, or Bahrain send flotillas of aid to Gaza?

Why doesn't the UN operate Gaza ports so that ships can freely enter Gaza, without missles and guns also reaching Gaza. The guns will enter through tunnels from Egypt, but, perhaps, a blockade can prevent missles from Syria and Iran from entering Gaza, which will end up in Ashod, Ashkelon, Sderot, Jaffa, and now even Tel-Aviv? This is the issue. Where are the rational leaders who understand that Hamas will send missles to Israel. Let me set this straight, missles are not humanitarian aid! Al-Aqsa do not dive for fun. A terrorist plans murder.

However, we must remember, in a world that can look askance at pogroms, at innocent Jews being gassed, burned, starved, deprived of all liberty, all life, then, we must understand that the world will look askance at missles being sent to Hamas.

From: Truth and Common Sense
Israel kills terrorist divers. Again, the problem with this is…?
Posted June 7th, 2010 by admin
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3002685/Israel-navy-kills-4-Gaza-divers.html
Let’s be honest with each other for a second. At some point the “We are just freedom fighters and/or victims of Israel’s own holocaust” gets a little old. The headline here screams “Israel Navy kills four Gaza divers!” Okay, are they pearl divers, wreck divers, cave divers, salvage divers? No, you have to read down a little to get to this passage-
A Palestinian militant group called the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade - claimed the four men were members of its marine unit who were training at sea.
The article goes on to say the Palestinian naval police said two people were still missing. Again, I ask the obvious. If the Palestinians are so broke and victimized how do they field, man, equip and fund a naval police force? Just saying…
Back to the issue here. Why does a terrorist organization have a marine unit with divers? Divers- terrorists-bombs-Israel ships maybe? Or maybe they are planning to off load stuff and carry it back underwater past the blockade. Either way, I’m not losing any sleep over this. If the Al-Aqsa people were training combat helicopter pilots and the Israelis blew up the choppers with the pilots in them, I figure that was the risk the pilots took when signing up for such a task.
Hey, all I’m saying is painting a target on your chest and NOT expecting something bad to happen is a fool’s errand. And it seems the Palestinians lack for nothing in the fools volunteer department.

Can we finally call anti-Israel, anti-Zionism, the truth: Anti-Semitism at its best!

2010-06-07T14:39:00.003-05:00

Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist and member of the far left. Her articles are published in Spain and throughout some of the most important newspapers in Latin America .

"Why don't we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London , Paris , Barcelona ?

Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship?

Why aren't there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection?

Why aren't there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs?

Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan ?
Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel?

Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism?

Why don't they defend Israel 's right to exist?

Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism?

And finally, the million dollar question: Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet? The two most solid democracies, who have suffered the bloodiest attacks of terrorism, and the left doesn't care.

And then, to the concept of freedom. In every pro Palestinian European forum, I hear the left yelling with fervor: "We want freedom for the people!"

Not true. They are never concerned with freedom for the people of Syria , or Yemen , or Iran , or Sudan , or other such nations. And they are never preoccupied when Hammas destroys freedom for the Palestinians. They are only concerned with using the concept of Palestinian freedom as a weapon against Israeli freedom. The resulting consequence of these ideological pathologies is the manipulation of the press.

The international press does major damage when reporting on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. On this topic they don't inform, they propagandize.

When reporting about Israel , the majority of journalists forget the reporter code of ethics. And so, any Israeli act of self-defense becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide. So many stupid things have been written about Israel , that there aren't any accusations left to level against her.

At the same time, this press never discusses Syrian and Iranian interference in propagating violence against Israel ; the indoctrination of children and the corruption of the Palestinians. And when reporting about victims, every Palestinian casualty is reported as tragedy and every Israeli victim is camouflaged, hidden or reported about with disdain.

And let me add on the topic of the Spanish left. Many are the examples that illustrate the anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli sentiments that define the Spanish left. For example, one of the leftist parties in Spain has just expelled one of its members for creating a pro-Israel website. I quote from the expulsion document: "Our friends are the people of Iran , Libya and Venezuela , oppressed by imperialism, and not a Nazi state like Israel ."

In another example, the socialist mayor of Campozuelos changed Shoah Day, commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, with Palestinian Nabka Day, which mourns the establishment of the State of Israel, thus showing contempt for the six million European Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

Or in my native city of Barcelona , the city council decided to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, by having a week of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Thus, they invited Leila Khaled, a noted terrorist from the 70's and current leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization so described by the European Union, which promotes the use of bombs against Israel .

This politically correct way of thinking has even polluted the speeches of president Zapatero. His foreign policy falls within the lunatic left, and on issues of the Middle East , he is unequivocally pro Arab. I can assure you that in private, Zapatero places on Israel the blame for the conflict in the Middle East , and the policies of foreign minister Moratinos reflect this. The fact that Zapatero chose to wear a kafiah in the midst of the Lebanon conflict is no coincidence; it is a symbol.

Spain has suffered the worst terrorist attack in Europe and it is in the crosshairs of every Islamic terrorist organization. As I wrote before, they kill us with cell phones hooked to satellites connected to the Middle Ages.
And yet the Spanish left is the most anti Israeli in the world.

And then it says it is anti Israeli because of solidarity. This is the madness I want to denounce in this conference.

Conclusion:

I am not Jewish. Ideologically I am left and by profession a journalist. Why am I not anti- Israeli like my colleagues? Because as a non-Jew I have the historical responsibility to fight against Jewish hatred and currently against the hatred for their historic homeland, Israel . To fight against anti-Semitism is not the duty of the Jews, it is the duty of the non-Jews.

As a journalist it is my duty to search for the truth beyond prejudice, lies and manipulations. The truth about Israel is not told. As a person from the left who loves progress, I am obligated to defend liberty, culture, civic education for children, coexistence and the laws that the Tablets of the Covenant made into universal principles.

Principles that Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. That is to say that as a non-Jew, journalist and lefty, I have a triple moral duty with Israel , because if Israel is destroyed, liberty, modernity and culture will be destroyed too.

Flotilla Choir presents: We Con the World

2010-06-05T13:14:00.000-05:00

What Am I Paying Taxes For? A Poem

2010-05-12T22:43:00.002-05:00

A Very Sad Poem for American Taxpayers, a delight to those who know the system!

I cross river,
poor and broke,
Take bus,
see employment folk.

Nice man
treat me good in there,
Say I need
go see Welfare.

Welfare say,
'You come no more,
We send cash
right to your door.'

Welfare checks,
they make you wealthy,
Medicaid
it keep you healthy!

By and by,
Got plenty money,
Thanks to you,
TAXPAYER dummy.

Write to friends
in motherland,
Tell them
'come, fast as you can'

They come in buses
and Ford trucks,
I buy big house
with welfare bucks.

They come here,
we live together,
More welfare checks,
it gets better!

Fourteen families,
they moving in,
But neighbor's patience
wearing thin.

Finally, white guy
moves away,
I buy his house,
and then I say,

'Find more aliens
for house to rent.'
In my yard
I put a tent.

Send for family
they just trash,
But they, too,
draw welfare cash!

Everything is
very good,
Soon we own
whole neighborhood.

We have hobby
it called breeding,
Welfare pay
for baby feeding.

Kids need dentist?
Wife need pills?
We get free!
We got no bills!

TAXPAYER crazy!
He pay all year,
To keep welfare
running here.

We think America
darn good place!
Too darn good
for white man race.

If they no like us,
they can go,
Got lots of room
in Mexico .

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

2010-04-10T15:45:00.000-05:00

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

Holiday Retailers Beware! Consumers are Abusing Retun Policies in New Ways

2009-12-29T19:34:00.001-06:00

Holiday Retailers Beware! Consumers are Abusing Retun Policies in New Ways

Posted using ShareThis

Holiday Retailers Beware! Consumers are Abusing Liberal Return Policies

2009-12-18T11:57:00.001-06:00

Holiday Retailers Beware! Consumers are Abusing Liberal Return Policies

/PRZOOM - Newswire/ - Recent research shows that retailers may want to reconsider offering customers liberal return policies as 20% of all merchandise returns may be fraudulent. Researchers offer three new reasons explaining why American consumers are practicing fraud..

Dekalb, IL, United States, 12/18/2009 – Retailers who believe that their liberal return policies create customer satisfaction and loyalty should think again. A recent study reveals that about 20% of American consumers have practiced "unethical retail disposition," or URD, at least once. Mark Rosenbaum, Professor of Marketing at Northern Illinois University and lead researcher for the study states, "URD means that customers actually purchase merchandise with the intent to use and to return the merchandise at a future point in time." However, Rosenbaum explains that consumers never disclose this fraudulent intent to retail associates. Although URD is has been researched in American since the early 1970's, Rosenbaum and colleagues from the University of Tampa and the University of Texas, reveal new reasons why Americans practice URD.

Firstly, many consumers want to rent merchandise for temporary ownership as opposed to purchasing it for permanent ownership. "Many Americans are abusing retail policies because they don't want to truly purchase a product, such as a designer handbag or jewelry item for long-term ownership, they merely want to own the item for a day or so, similar to a car rental," explains Rosenbaum. Unfortunately, traditional retailers cannot accommodate legitimate merchandise rentals, and therefore, are likely to become victims of this type of abuse.

The second reason for practicing URD is what Rosenbaum and his colleagues term, "first-time, only-time crime." Rosenbaum said, "Several consumers actually believe that they are entitled to a one-time fraudulent return. Perhaps, this is part of the sense of entitlement that prevails among many Americans. In any case, the costs to retailers of a first-time, only-time crime are enormous. Imagine consumers actually believing that they have a right to purchase a Louis Vuitton handbag from a retailer like Neiman-Marcus, use it and return it for a full refund. It's profoundly pathetic."

The study identifies the third reason as "outsmart the system." In this examples, consumers express enjoyment in abusing retail return policies because they enjoy doing so. Rosenbaum says, "We actually found consumers who state that they find enjoyment in being able to abuse retail return policies. They realize they are committing a crime; yet, they rationalize that if retailers permit them to do so, then it is fair game to take advantage of these policies." Rosenbaum further points out that the fact that customers often consider how they can outsmart a retailer by abusing their return policies almost nullifies the benefits that retailers believe they can obtain by offering customers such policies.

Rosenbaum and his colleagues hypothesize that consumer abuse of retail return policies will continue to escalate in the future. They suggest that the decline of the local and regional department store and the growth of large, organizational retailers such as Macy's, Nordstrom's, Saks, and Neiman-Marcus set the stage for abuse. "History shows us that consumers who view retailers as strangers, outsiders, or as anonymous entities who charge unfairly high prices, will place their ethics by the wayside to take revenge against the retailers," explains Rosenbaum. Perhaps, consumer abuse of liberal returns policies represents a legitimate way that consumers can engage in retaliation against large retail organizations.

Rosenbaum states, "Marshall Field once said give the lady what she wants! I seriously doubt that he would say such a quote today. After all, the lady may be a well-dressed thief."

Dr. Mark at Slobomir

2009-12-05T09:29:00.002-06:00

One-day Seminar in Marketing Services was yesterday at the University of Slobomir P Slobomir held Fulbrajtovac, dr Mark S. Fulbrajtovac, Dr. Mark S. Rosenbaum, docent iz oblasti marketinga na Northern Illinois Univerzitetu. Rosenbaum, assistant professor of marketing at Northern Illinois University. Dr Mark je naučni saradnik u Centru za uslužno liderstvo, WP Carey Poslovni koledž na Državnom Univerzitetu u Arizoni. Dr. Mark is a research associate at the Center for Service leadership, WP Carey College of Business at Arizona State University. Zahvaljujući strateškom partnerstvu koje je Slobomir P Univerzitet uspostavio sa Thanks to the strategic partnership that Slobomir P University established the Northern Northern Illinois Illinois University University , naša javnost, studenti i profesori su imali mogućnost da se upoznaju sa savremenom svjetskom praksom u ovoj oblasti. Our public, students and teachers had the opportunity to get acquainted with the modern world practice in this field. Seminaru su prisustvovali predstavnici uglednih poslovnih subjekata iz regiona, studenti, profesori, asistenti i administrativno osoblje Slobomir P Univerziteta. The seminar was attended by distinguished representatives of businesses from the region, students, professors, assistants and administrative staff Slobomir P University. Polaznici seminara su mogli da čuju šta je marketing usluga, kako razumjeti zonu tolerancije potrošača, proces formiranja očekivanja potrošača i percepcije kvaliteta u uslužnom sektoru, te kako kreirati kompaniju orijentisanu ka potrošaču. Participants of the seminar were able to hear what the marketing of services, as consumers understand tolerance zone, the process of formation of consumer expectations and perceptions of quality in the service sector, and how to create a company oriented towards the consumer. Dr Rosenbaum je seminar sa istim sadržajem održao dva dana radnije u odjeljenju Univerziteta u Doboju. Dr. Rosenbaum is a seminar with the same content delivered in two days radnije Department, University of Doboj. Fotografije sa seminara možete pogledati ovdje. Photos from the seminar can be viewed here.

Rosenbaum at Slobomir University

2009-12-05T09:19:00.002-06:00

My latest adventure had me teaching two lectures at Slobomir University in Bosnia.
What an incredible experience! Pictures are coming!
Of course, I'm busy changing my students' lives in Bosnia too.
Thanks to my classes for a great experience. Alek, Mel, and Razzia made Doboj so much fun.
My new Serbian brothers in Slobomir, friends forever.
Drinking roccio with a priest in a monastary in the mountains--a lifetime memory (probably the first Jewish person to do this).
The syngogue in Doboj with 15 Jewish families left, saddening and yet, amazing.
I'll post pics later this week.
Cheers my friends.

Dear Mr. Rosenbaum
I want to thank you for the brilliant course presentation: Executive Development Programme - Service Marketing Planning. It was for me an excellent opportunity to understand how to find ways to get satisfied clients. I think that these type of courses are necessary to be held in this part of the world - the Southeastern Europe.
Could you send me student's presentations from Cambodia?
Hope you'll have a good weather for jogging in Serbia.
Best regards.
Aleksandar Nikolic

Group Comparisons in AMOS

2009-12-05T09:16:00.002-06:00

Sorry for the delay. CRAZY BUSY THIS SEMESTER!
This is an abstract of my newest article that was just published:
Enjoy!

Using group comparisons in AMOS to explore shopping as a travel driver
Volume 3 Issue 4

Abstract: Purpose – This study seeks to achieve two objectives: first, to expand on Fodness's five-dimensional travel motivation scale by empirically demonstrating that a sixth driving force – shopping – encourages tourists to visit particular destinations; and second, to provide a clear demonstration for using AMOS structural equation modeling to analyze group comparisons, which researchers could employ in future studies.

Design/methodology/approach – The study offers and evaluates a proposed higher-order travel motivation structural model using confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis. It also explores a tourist's country of origin (the USA or Japan) as a moderator. The empirical study is supported through data from a convenient sample of 1,042 tourists (521 American and Japanese tourists, respectively) who were vacationing in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Findings – The findings demonstrate that five of the six motivational forces encourage US and Japanese tourists to vacation in Honolulu. In addition, the results reveal that a tourist's country of origin moderates three motivational factors.

Research limitations/implications – The study provides researchers and practitioners with a 22-item six-dimensional travel motivational scale. Given that travel motivation is linked to customer satisfaction and loyalty, researchers should consider the travel-quality scale (TRAVLQUAL). Although one of Fodness's five dimensions was not significant, the finding was based on tourists' motivations to visit one site, Honolulu, and thus researchers should not eliminate this dimension from future motivational studies.

Originality/value – The study links together the tourism shopping and travel motivation paradigms. Thus, it can be used as an easy-to-follow reference guide for exploring group comparisons with AMOS.

SERVQUAL in Vietnam: A New Case Study

2009-11-07T09:20:00.002-06:00

Recently published in the Journal of Service Management:
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1757-5818.htm

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how the return-on-marketing framework and its customer equity drivers (value, brand, and relationship) can be combined with service quality
(SERVQUAL) measures to help managers develop strategies for high- and low-ethnocentric
Vietnamese customers.
Design/methodology/approach – The services literature is employed to propose a framework.
The structure of the framework is evaluated from data obtained from self-administered
questionnaires, which are mailed to an automobile firm’s customers. To explore the moderating
affect of ethnocentrism, the model’s proposed relationships and fit statistics are tested by employing multi-group comparisons (high- and low-ethnocentrism) through structural equation modeling.
Findings – Ethnocentrism encourages customers to express loyalty and to spread positive word of mouth about Company X, which is a local automobile manufacturer. High-ethnocentric customers are also less reactive to Company X’s value drivers, including product quality, price, and convenience, than low-ethnocentric customers. However, high-ethnocentric customers place greater importance on dealership SERVQUAL than low-ethnocentric customers.
Practical implications – The findings indicate that Southeast Asian managers should consider
consumer ethnocentrism a factor that influences marketing planning, as well as ways they can use the return-on-marketing and SERVQUAL frameworks for strategic planning. In addition, managers should understand that ethnocentric customers counterbalance their willingness to forgo product quality with augmented expectations of dealership SERVQUAL.
Originality/value – This paper combines the product-focused return-on-marketing framework with the SERVQUAL-focused SERVQUAL framework to show how these elements influence consumers’ future behavioral intentions under the moderating influence of ethnocentrism.

Introducing Retail Nepotism-It's Alive and Well!

2009-10-29T13:20:00.003-05:00

Insights
© 2009 Smart Business Network Inc. Reprinted from the November 2009 issue of Smart Business Chicago.
Executive Education
Insights Executive Education is brought to you by Northern Illinois University College of Business

The elephant in retail
How retail nepotism can affect the marketplace Interviewed by Meredyth McKenzie
You may think that the discount you receive at a hotel or on an airplane is just pure luck or part of a special promotion, but it may instead be a form of retail nepotism. And if the practice is taking place at your business, it could be alienating your customers.
While retail nepotism is an under-
researched topic, it occurs every day in the marketplace as service providers give customers who share similar socio-collective traits — such as ethnicity, sexual orientation or club membership — unauthorized financial benefits or service improvements.
“Retail nepotism is the great elephant in retailing,” says Mark Rosenbaum, Ph.D., a Fulbright Scholar and assistant professor of marketing at Northern Illinois University who has done extensive research on the topic of retail nepotism. “Most people believe that consumers can receive discounts purely because of socio-collective bonds with providers. But consumers also don’t have their suspicions confirmed, yet they know that this type of discrimination is taking place.”
Smart Business spoke with Rosenbaum about retail nepotism and how you can stop it from occurring by educating employees.
What factors encourage retail nepotism?
One factor encouraging retail nepotism is that consumers seek community in the marketplace. There’s also a biological influence, which says that humans are inclined to display acts of favoritism toward family members.
Research has broadened the concept of nepotism to include people you like and who are similar to you. Humans have an incentive to extend favoritism to family members or preferred others.
There’s another research trend that says that consumers are looking for family or communal relationships in the marketplace. This has to do with people moving around the country and the decline of the community and traditional family. People will then form tribes based on common consumption.
For example, there are Harley Davidson rallies and Web sites based upon consumption, such as Nutella or M&Ms fans. People will form these communal bonds in diners, health clubs, gyms and other places.
Most people see these tribes as favorable and positive, but there is a negative aspect because they don’t always support the brand. For example, Apple fans don’t always support everything the company does. There’s also the idea that some tribes engage in rituals of solidarity — taking care of like-others. Quite simply, employees may be thinking, ‘Those who look like me, think like me, talk like me and act like me are probably most genetically close to me, and therefore, I should be nice to them.’
How does retail nepotism differ from market segmentation?
Market segmentation is based on objective measures. Customers are extended favoritism based upon measures that are created out of authorized managerial procedures. For example, managers will typically authorize different benefits based upon things such as loyalty status or dollars spent.
With retail nepotism, customers receive unauthorized benefits that are not approved by corporate management. Unauthorized discounts are determined by the service provider in a haphazard, almost uncontrollable manner, making retail nepotism a form of market discrimination. But sometimes these consumers receiving discounts — usually a marginalized group that dominates a specific retail setting — may turn the tables. Instead of being discriminatory victims, they can actually become discriminatory agents.
Where does retail nepotism occur, and what are the signs that it is occurring?
Retail nepotism will occur among marginalized ethnic groups in a society. When you don’t represent the majority or are a marginalized group or subculture, you actually appreciate the sense of community. This is heightened when marginalized groups are among like-others in a situation where they know they’re in the majority.
For retail nepotism to occur, the service provider must have some flexibility in either pricing or in enhancing service quality. It wouldn’t occur in situations or positions that are completely micromanaged, such as sales cashiers. It most likely will occur in hotels, airlines, bars and restaurants, health care — in other words, retail environments that still have a great deal of personal contact.
How can you prevent retail nepotism from occurring?
You need to bring it to the forefront and talk about it with employees as a form of discrimination. Employees need to understand that financial discounts must be authorized based upon customer segmentation.
You also need to be aware that like-service providers may simply enjoy working with like-customers to make it a win-win situation for both parties. For example, some banks in Germany now have Turk bankers working with the Turkish community. But because there’s a biological component to retail nepotism, where people are motivated to take care of others like them, it’s almost impossible for you to control this 100 percent.
Why is understanding retail nepotism important?
Retail nepotism is a form of marketplace discrimination. Even though the groups receiving it are satisfied and enjoy the benefits, it’s still a form of discrimination. Companies with personnel who engage in retail nepotism could receive bad press and word-of-mouth from disgruntled customers. You could also lose business from the consumers who didn’t receive a discount. The damage that could be inflicted on a company’s brand is staggering. Addressing retail nepotism through formalized employee training programs is more important than companies realize.

MARK ROSENBAUM, Ph.D., is a Fulbright Scholar and assistant marketing professor in the department of marketing at Northern Illinois University. Reach him at (815) 753-7931 or mrosenbaum@niu.edu.
Mark Rosenbaum, Ph.D.
Assistant professor of marketing
Northern Illinois University

The Heterosexual Questionnaire

2009-10-14T10:49:00.002-05:00

Friends,
I'm sorry about the delay in postings. I've been so busy this semester. In one of my research projects, I believe that I would like to understand heterosexuality better and I found a great questionnaire on the topic. You may also enjoy taking the Heterosexual Questionnaire, as we should all understand the role that heterosexuality plays in society. Given that most of our prominent government and religious leaders are heterosexuals, it's time that we probe heterosexuality on a deeper level.

HETEROSEXUALITY QUESTIONNAIRE

(Attributed to Martin Rochlin, PhD, January 1977)

1. What do you think has caused you to be heterosexual?

2. When and how did you first decide you were a heterosexual?

3. Is it possible your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of people of the same sex?

4. If you've never slept with a person of the same sex, how do you know you wouldn't prefer it?

5. Isn't it possible your heterosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of?

6. Isn't it possible that all you need is a good gay lover?

7. If heterosexuality is normal, why are a disproportionate number of mental patients heterosexual?

8. To whom have you disclosed your heterosexual tendencies? How did they react?

9. Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex? Why are they so promiscuous?

10. Do heterosexuals hate and/or distrust others of their own sex? Is that what makes them heterosexual?

11. If you were to have children, would you want them to be heterosexual knowing the problems they'd face?

12. Your heterosexuality doesn't offend me as long as you don't try to force it on me. Why do you feel compelled to seduce others into your sexual orientation?

13. The great majority of child molesters are heterosexuals. Do you really consider it safe to expose your children to heterosexual teachers?

14. Why do you insist on being so obvious, and making a public spectacle of your heterosexuality? Can't you just be who you are and keep it quiet?

15. How can you ever hope to become a whole person if you limit yourself to a compulsive, exclusively heterosexual lifestyle, and remain unwilling to explore and develop your homosexual potential?

16. Heterosexuals are noted for assigning themselves and each other to narrowly restricted, stereotyped sex-roles. Why do you cling to such unhealthy role playing?

17. Even with all the societal support marriage receives, the divorce rate is spiralling. Why are there so few stable relationships among heterosexuals?

18. How could the human race survive if everyone were heterosexual like you, considering the menace of overpopulation?

19. There seem to be very few happy heterosexuals. Techniques have been developed that could help you change if you really wanted to. Have you considered trying psychotherapy or even aversion therapy?

21. Could you really trust a heterosexual therapist/counsellor to be objective and unbiased? Don't you fear he/she might be inclined to influence you in the direction of his/her own preferences?

22. How can you enjoy a full, satisfying sexual experience or deep emotional rapport with a person of the opposite sex when the differences are so vast? How can a man understand what pleases a woman, or vice-versa?

Whence Financial Socailism?

2009-09-21T20:23:00.002-05:00

How did the financial industry capitulate into today's regulated mess. The New York Times provides readers with an excellent overview of the destruction of financial capitalism and the origins of financial socialism.

Enjoy.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/09/12/business/financial-markets-graphic.html

United Airlines Customer Service-Are They Mad?

2009-09-21T12:39:00.004-05:00

I apologize for the delay with blog updates. To say my life is crazy busy is an understatement.

I'm not sure whether you have seen this video, "United Breaks Guitars;" however, it is based on a true customer service mishap at United Airlines.

As a 1K member, I am actually loyal to United Airlines; probably due to the fact that I want to support Chicago-based firms and its monopoly at O'hare. I would surmise that the baggage handlers for United are not UA employees, but rather, employees of out-sourced firms that have taken over operations at UA. I could be wrong; yet, I often see check-in agents at ORD with uniforms that differ from traditional UA employees.

I am not going to lambast United for this customer service mishap (see www.untied.com for the company hate site). Rather, this video illustrates two problems in service marketing.

First, I call the phenomenon employee apathy; namely, employees do not care about their jobs, their employer well-being, or their customers. They are "zombie-like" employees who hold jobs but not careers. They bring their work level to a state at which they will not get fired; however, they will not get promoted (if promotions are even attainable in this economy). They work but they do not care. This is unfortunate because I recently witnessed a janitor at LA Fitness taking pride in his work. He shined the lockers as if he was a master craftsman. I recall my first job as a stockboy at Chernin's Shoes and I cleaned the bathrooms until they were spotless. I took pride in my job. However, this sense of pride is askance at United Airlines. I'm not sure whether this pride can return.

Second, this video illustrates the power of customer retaliation. The power of the Internet to champion negative word-of-mouth is simply profound, nearly breath-taking. Yet, a firm has no way to evaluate which customers will retaliate in a virtual manner. The damage of this video to United is inescapable. The firm will never maximize shareholder wealth or customer service levels, as customers will never position the firm as a quality airline in their minds. I've heard that UA wants to make a Harvard Case out of this video. I have to laugh. I taught the Shuttle by United Case years ago and then the firm launches TED. United does not learn from past practices. Imagine the challenge of moving from poor customer service to high customer service. United may try but this challenge is simply too great for any organization.

The solution then is probably no solution. United will continue to exist and customers will continue to fly UA. United is apathetic and yet, so to are its customers. We fly UA because we don't have a choice. UA flies planes because it represents a revenue stream. At this point, I am not really interested in customer service at UA. I simply want to arrive at my destinations alive. So, beat my luggage, charge me for everything, but please, maintain reliable aircraft.

Value Equity in Event Planning in Marketing Intelligence & Planning

2009-09-16T09:52:00.001-05:00

Great News!
It is a pleasure to accept your manuscript entitled "Value Equity in Event Planning:
A Case Study of Macau" in its current form for publication in Marketing Intelligence and Planning.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how value equity and its subdimensions of service quality, cost, and convenience drive customer satisfaction among business and leisure travelers who are attending events (e.g., conventions, expositions, parades, cultural events) in Macau, China.
Design/Methodology/Approach – Data were collected through a survey of 322 leisure and
91 business travelers who were present at 40 different major events in Macau, using a
questionnaire that was designed by practitioners, academics, and tourism governmental
authorities. The data were used to support the structural framework, and group comparison modeling was employed to show that a respondent’s leisure or business travel status serves as a moderator between value equity and customer satisfaction.
Findings – The results show that though value equity is positively related to customer satisfaction among both business and leisure travelers, some major differences exist regarding how these groups respond to an event’s marketing actions that promote value and how they derive satisfaction from value. For example, leisure travelers place more emphasis on a venue’s space and layout than business travelers. In terms of satisfaction, business travelers place more importance than leisure travelers on service quality but are less sensitive to an event’s price.
Research limitations/implications – This study extends the value equity literature by
applying the concept to event planning. The study suggests that event planners should
consider designing and implementing marketing actions that focus on value equity, in
addition to traditional planning that relies on the service marketing mix. Given that the study’s scales were adapted for use at 40 different venues in Macau, event planners may need to modify the scale items for their respective locales. The authors also put forth recommendation regarding expanding the SERVQUAL survey.
Originality – Although value equity has been explored in hospitality/lodging, the concept is relatively unexplored in event planning. In addition, this paper shows how group consensus using the Delphi method among tourism academics and practitioners can yield a set of reliable service quality, cost, and convenience scales that may apply to a series of event venues.
Keywords Value equity, Event planning, Event satisfaction, Customer equity, Servicescape,
SERVQUAL
Paper type Research paper

Service Quality Pays in Cambodia

2009-09-09T13:22:00.000-05:00

From one of my very best students:
Dear Dr,
Today is our graduation ceremony at IF. It was great. Mr president was over the moon and he took tons of photos hahaha. please follow us on facebook for sometimes professor. I and many of us keep missing you so much.

Is everything alright there? Anything new you have done or faced? I have an old new to tell you. I guessed you may have heard about the homework that i post on our blog about the service at ACLEDA Bank. I was surprised to hear about how Mr In Channy, the GM of ACLEDA Bank, responded to my writing. He called to the manager of the branch where i open the bank account and asked what was his standard of service providing that could make a customer like me to post praise on the web. hehehe....More amazingly many staff in that branch also had their salary increased three levels. All of the other ACLEDA Branches in Cambodia also have to take the branch that i opened my account as a role model. See? How funny. But it is great right?

Take good care Professor,

Best Regard,

Leaphea

The Stupidity of Powerpoint in Education!

2009-08-30T16:23:00.002-05:00

All-
I'm back from Cambodia! It's my first week back and I couldn't update my blog. OK, so I'm teaching Services Marketing, Marketing Research, and Marketing for Nanotechnology this semester. The Nano class is part of an NSF grant that I received.

Given all the technological problems in my Cambodian classroom, I stopped using powerpoint in Cambodia. Well, after 4 months of this, I forgot about powerpoint! So, I walked into my NIU class and started lecturing. What a pleasure! Why do professors need to employ a business-tool that was never created for education in their classrooms? How boring to sit and listen to screen captures! Or, did students rely on powerpoint to outsource note-taking? How many professor hide behind their desks and fill their slides with text?

Watch this video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid19101884001?bclid=9860075001&bctid=29848463001.

Powerpoint does not belong in a university classroom! It is not a learning tool. Let's eliminate this office productivity tool from our classes and focus on learning tools.

The Impact of the Fulbright on Cambodia Continues

2009-08-25T08:28:00.003-05:00

Some recent messages from students:
Doctoral Candidate:
Dear and Good morning Dr. Mark,
How are you doing so far ? I hope that you're doing very well.
Firstly , In name of our class , we would like to thank you very much for every thing you done for us and especially , we got very new things that we have never learnt before. Today , my President & CEO took the story of keo phallyleaphea from your mailblog about servicemarketing to all management of ACLEDA Bank Plc. for the information and consideration and so far , we do very happy to hear that they satisfied and support with our service .
Again, we really much appreciate of your valued golden time and strong effort to teaching us . and you are still our professor and stay deeply in our mind and heart.
Finally , we wish you to have a safe trip to your home and have a good luck and good health everytime and especially , success in your life all the time.
Miss you forever .
All the best,
Piseth Neth

From my undergraduates:
Good morning Sir!
Thanks you so much Dr. Mark! I really think I have learned a lot from your class and indeed, it has been an incredible class. I will never forget you and what you tough me so far. You are one of my greatest lecturer. Time fly! The class ended successfully. As I know, you are going to leave soon. If any time we have, i hope we can meet have such a class again. Wish you good luck!
Nice journey!!
Best regards,
Samrach

Dr. Mark,
I am writing to let you know that I am so sad when the course is finished, but I am still happy because I have learned many valuable things from you. I will miss you and your lecture so much. There is no more homework and tests. To tell you the truth, I really like your style of teaching, and I additionally like the way that you are strict to students. It is great if students could perform like you in the near future. Finally, I thank you again for great lectures for us at National University of Management.
I will see you on December. Good luck and Take care...!
Respectfully,
Laichea

Goodbye for now, Phnom Penh

2009-08-23T20:59:00.003-05:00

The soon to be tallest building in Phnom Penh (on Monivong St.) It is called the Canadia Bank Building.

A moto-bike driver on 102 heading towards the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia

The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. The building has a Frank Lloyd Write style

Mr. Dawa! My tuk-tuk driver for 4 months. I helped him several times with his English.

The front entrance to my apartment in Phnom Penh, it was magnificent!

It's Sunday, August 23. The Fulbright experience officially ends and I return to work at Northern Illinois University tomorrow. Clearly, I'm not the same person as I was four months ago. The culmination of experiences in Cambodia, nearly all positive and a few negative, have had an incredible influence on my outlook, my personality, my values, and my appreciation for life in America. I look forward to returning shortly to Cambodia and to keeping a link to my students, friend, and colleagues in the country.

Some thoughts about my Fulbright experience:

I left Cambodia a little better than before I arrived.
The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.
Robert Cushing

I spent countless hours teaching, grading, thinking of new classroom teaching and assessment ideas. They all worked and my students relished their newly acquired wisdom.

What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state,
than that of the man who instructs the rising generation.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

I was scared of my new surroundings at first. Perhaps, I was afraid sometimes of being the only Caucasian in an area where no one seemed to speak English. Yet, soon I began to blossom and to use my curiousity to explore my neighborhood, the city, and the surrouding countryside. I began to blossom and to grow. And, very much like a leaf on the tree, the soon time came for me to move onwards. I'll return one day.

"Beginnings are usually scary and endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts. You have to remember this when you find yourself at the beginning."
Sandra Bullock
American actress (Speed, Net, Love & War), Born Sandra Annette Bullock on b.1964

Macau, the New Las Vegas

2009-08-21T06:14:00.003-05:00

On a recent trip to Macau, I had the delight to visit casinos such as the MGM Grand, the Wynn, and I have stayed at the expansive and brand new Venetian. The new Cotai Strip is similar to Las Vegas and casinos such as the Sands and the Lisboa are huge complexes in this very tiny SAR.
I was fortunate to travel to Macau in 2004, right before many of the new casinos opened. At that time, the SAR still had a Portuguese feeling. I actually felt as though I was in Europe, while I was really in China.
The old Macau will soon disappear from peoples' memories. However, I will always think about the Macau that was a little slice of Europe in the Pearl River Delta Region.
Is modernization always productive for a society? Does a soceity lose a sense of culture in the "Disneyification" of it all? When China looks like Las Vegas and Las Vegas looks like a plastic version of famous world structures, then we have indeed created an ersatz world, a so-called marketer's dream world. It's a fake world, a homogenized world, and local culture falls by the wayside to make room for plastic dreams. An ersatz culture fueled by marketing. This is Las Vegas, this is Macau, and the traditional Portugese local culture will soon become some fake tourist attraction. A term that Anthony Wong and I call the Bali Syndrome.

The Joy of Being a Fulbright Scholar

2009-08-20T19:19:00.001-05:00

Dear Dr.Mark,
How are you ? Are u packing your stuffs, right now ? How was the party at the pizza company yesterday? I've heard that despite the fact that you are leaving for the states soon, everyone had a great time especially at the photo session..Unfortunately, I wasn't able to join it.. :(
Anyway, time flies. To me, it seems like I had just started your course yesterday but indeed, it's been 4 months already.To tell you the truth, when I first attended your course, I had no idea what a service marking is. I simply thought the content of course would be like a simple marketing class here. However, it wasn't like this at all. I could not take your class for granted not because of your strict assessment but also the course itself and your explanation are interesting. You have provided alot of knowledge. some are new to me and some are like the key to raise my awareness about the surrounding things that I had not paid much attention before. I can say I was so interested in your session that I had never been absent for any session until the day I started my work at PwC. This is the first time that I've experienced studying with American lecturer, especially Fulbright Scholar. The thing I like about your course are your ongoing assessment( there
is no excuse for it. You do it you get mark. If you don't do it, you get zero) and the interesting stories in the textbook. One more thing is before I often thought that studying abroad would be hard, but now I don't think it's that hard as long as we follow the requirement and study hard. I'm happy that I am one of those who have a good performance in your class. Your class is like an eye opener to contemporary business ideas and concepts. Finally, I'd like to say that your class is really enjoyable and I do like it..
Last, I'm sad to say goodbye to you, but still I have to. Also, wish you good luck and may you have a safe trip home.. I do hope that you 'll be back here again.. I'll never forget you and your class.

Regards

Chandalin

Blood Libel Once Again 2009: Hatred is Timeless

2009-08-20T05:12:00.000-05:00

How unfortunate life is. Once again, in 2009, Jews, or let's make the anti-Semites happy, Israelis, are being falsely accused of taking the organs out of Palestinians.
For centuries, the Jews of Europe and more recently, Arab countries (Syria), have been falsely accused of using the blood of Christians for drink or for mixture in their Passover matzoh. These horrific, false, and idiotic statements are then used to rouse a crowd to begin the murder of innocent Jews, under the pretext of Christian murder.

One of the most horrendous blood libel murders took place in 1946, in Poland, and Holocaust survivors were murdered by their Polish neighbors!
The Kielce pogrom refers to the events that occurred on July 4, 1946, in the Polish town of Kielce. Allegations of blood libel[1] following a police investigation led to a massive outbreak of violence against the Jewish community of Kielce perpetrated by the communist police[2], soldiers and an angry mob of non-Jewish locals. Violence resulted in 42[3] Polish Jews being murdered and 40 more injured, out of about 200 Holocaust survivors who after the war had returned home from the Soviet Union, German Nazi concentration camps and other places of refuge. At least two other Jews passing through the city in trains were also murdered at the time. Three Gentile Poles were killed as well, at least two by the Jews defending themselves and one Polish woman who was killed by a mob, because she helped wounded Jews. Polish courts tried and condemned nine people to death for their crimes who were later executed.

While far from the deadliest pogroms against the Jews, the incident was especially significant as it was a decisive turning point in the post-war history of Jews in Poland. The Kielce event was a major attack against the Jewish people that took place only a year after the end of World War II in Europe and the Holocaust, shocking the Jews in Poland, many Poles, as well as the international community. It is considered a catalyst for the flight of most Jewish survivors from Poland.

Today's blood libel accusations emualte from Sweden!
The blood libel that won't die
Barry Rubin, National Post
Published: Thursday, August 20, 2009
We are not talking about a Saudi newspaper or a Hamas radio station but a Swedish newspaper. We are not talking about a neo-Nazi rag, but a daily tabloid closely tied to the Swedish Social Democratic Party. And we are not just talking about an obscure item but an article that received top billing.

On Aug. 18, the newspaper Aftonbladet published an article by a man named Donald Bostrom. The editor responsible is named Asa Linderborg. She is the newspaper's cultural affairs editor. This was no random decision for her. When asked once: "What do you wish for most in life right now?" She answered: "What a simple question. What I want is a free Palestine."

And what did this article say? That Israel's army deliberately murders Palestinian civilians so that it can cut out and sell their organs to sick people needing transplants. The author is a left-wing activist for Palestinian causes, though the newspaper calls him a journalist.

The story is tied to the recent arrest of a Jewish man in Brooklyn for selling organs -- despite there being no hint of any Israeli connection to his alleged organ-trading activities. In going after Israel, Aftonbladet relies primarily on Palestinian sources (though the author also claims to have UN sources). One is reminded of the false 2002 claims of a "massacre" in Jenin, which received massive coverage in the Western media and which was also based on made-up Palestinian accounts.

At this point, readers are no doubt thinking: This is some kind of sick joke.
Yes, it is. But the newspaper published it any way -- and no, it wasn't in the style of satire.
A competitor, Svenska Dagbladet, has blasted the article, which it accurately calls an anti-Semitic blood libel without a shred of evidence. And the Swedish Embassy in Israel also has condemned it, declaring: "The article shocks the Swedes, just as it shocks the Israelis. We agree with the Israeli government, press and people that this is an unwanted article." But will the country's politicians, intellectuals and others rise up, pronounce this a national disgrace, and demonstrate (the usual response when Islam is perceived to be slighted in some way)? Will the editor be fired? Will there be serious reconsideration of how the hatred of Israel, which has so obsessed this supposedly enlightened country, has gone over the edge?

This incident tell us that there is no limit to the frothing lunacy that informs Israel's left-wing critics. It also tells us that anyone of decency and good intentions should start re-examining their credulity in accepting anti-Israel slanders and ostensibly objective "human rights" reports -- which, like this plainly fictitious article, often are based on the supposed "eyewitness" reports of anonymous Palestinians who have been trained to spout propaganda and conspiracy theories.

The hysterical misrepresentation of Israel increasingly seems to parallel the tales of well-poisonings, ritual murders and Jewish conspiracies to seize world power that plagued past eras. It is a trend that every thinking person has a duty to oppose. - Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) centre, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition) and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).

When does the hatred against innocent human beings end? When will the malicious stories and lies about Jews cease? European anti-Semitism is now couched in anti-Israel sentiment, but the roots of hatred are firmly planted. I often wonder how many Europeans cheer that Hitler and his cronies murdered 6 million European Jews. I'm sure many see that number as being too low.

Let's not be silent. Silence brings slaughter. Enough of the lies. Enough.

Some Final Comments from NUM Students

2009-08-20T04:44:00.001-05:00

Steve, Chea "Obama" Laichea, and me.
Steve, Rath, and me. Steve needs a Red Bull.

Hi, Dr.Mark
I know saying " hi " now is a little bit strange, for you leave Cambodia soon. However, i have to say " hi " , for it is an opening word in writing a message.
It is true that we do a hard job for your class, but i learn something from the class.
From Service Marketing class, what i learn is not only about Marketing but also about American lecture style.
I do want to say " thank you " to you, for you spend around four months period for the class and give us a chance to know about American lecture style. Moreover, we have pizza party for some times.
Hope to see you again and good luck with your journey back to the US.
Best regards,
Rath.

From CHEA LAICHEA:
Mark,
How are you right now? I know that you still stay in Cambodia, and you now prepare to go to America. I will miss you when I see the certificate that you give to me. Still, I just want to say that I have learned many things from you in service marketing course especially working with American people.
I like your sentence that you say that it is a business, don’t take it personally. I will remember it in my mind forever. I wish you to get successful all the things you will do in your work! Oh, don’t forget to miss me when you go to United State of America; I am not a Chia Pet. I am Chea Laichea…
Best regards,
Chea Laichea

Can I tell a Chea Laichea story? I must. I received a text message from Laichea saying that he needs to turn in his homework late because he has a party to attend! If anyone knows me, then you can imagine my response to this question. I didn't respond, but I laughed. Laichea was always the source of such humor. I'll truly miss having him in my class. Always work hard and laugh! I believe laughter leads to creativity. Laichea, thanks for some good time. As for being a Chea pet:

Chea Obama Rocks:

Laichea, you must come to America! You will be great in marketing!

Saying Goodbye to my NUM Students

2009-08-19T09:39:00.000-05:00

Thank you, Steve Paterson, Faculty Advisor at National University of Management, Phnom Penh, for hosting our last lecture at the Pizza Company. Steve and I passed out certificates for the students who survived "Services Marketing with Dr. Mark."

Phal Rida presented me with an outstanding teaching award and the class presented me with a silver dish that is embossed with the Angkor Wat temple. It is very special and I will always remember the class.

I promised to set up a Facebook for the class as we plan to remain in contact forever. We all changed each others' lives this summer. We worked hard, played hard, laughed, cried, ate pizza, did research, and yes, I did wear shorts to class one day! I discovered the lack of toilet paper in Cambodian bathrooms and Americans don't understand the bidet (I hoped I spelled this word right). We had so many tests, so many homework assignments, I graded, the students blogged, twitted, analyzed service from every aspect. Some scored high, some scored low, those who scored low were told to score high. In the end, most succeeded and they cherished their accomplishments today. We learned about service, SERVQUAL, and Dr. Mark's Service Plan. My students saw me practice what I teach in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Singapore, Siem Reap, and then I was on Chinese television! Whether I was working in public health or lecturing casino managers, my students saw my applying my service skills.

Well, it's late in Phnom Penh. I'm going to miss this city, as strange as it is. I cross the streets anywhere, I don't look at lights--I only hope I remember how to drive in the correct manner.

As my friend Mina would say, I'm bloody exhausted. Good night.

American Fulbrighters Change The World

2009-08-19T09:08:00.000-05:00

Dear Mark,
It touches my heart when I read your Shalom email. You are the best professor ever for me, as well as other students in the class. I am so proud that I have a great chance to study with you. This is the wonderful summer course that I never have. Surely, I gonna fly to visit you when I have a opportunity to the state.
I gonna miss your class and you.
Best regards,
Lalin

Dear Dr. Mark
I would like to thank you for every thing you have done for us. We got very new things that we have never learnt before. As being the lecturer, you want all students become productive and CEOs in the future. You are like our second father.
Even though you leave here, or how far you are, you are still our professor and stay deeply in our mind and heart.Here I have nice servicescape for you. Hope you enjoy reading them. Finally, I would like to give all best wishes for you. Take care your health and be happy all the times are the things I want from you.
Best Regards,
Lina

Dear Dr. Mark,
Can I say Shalom with person? If so, I would say Shalom professor. Indeed, I have learned a lot about service marketing, especial with such a great teacher like you. I could proudly say it was my accomplishment.
What I liked the best about the course was that I could get the individual feedback from you; it was one among five servqual, empathy, showing care to customers.
Also, I really much appreciate of your valuable time and effort in teaching us. Thanks so much for…for everything!!!
Shalom, shalom professor!!!!!!
Best regards,
Ou Labin

Good morning, Dr Mark
I would say that I was spending the most wonderful time with your class. I really enjoy learning this subject very much especially the way you teach us. I have learnt a lot of things from you, not only the lessons but also the american culture as you have said. However, even though i am not the top outstanding, i still can get some knowledge from you. Finally, I wish you to have a safe trip to america and have a good luck and good health everytime.
Best regards!!
Sopheak

Dear Dr.Mark,
Thanks for your wonderful teaching. Be honest, I never had an interesting and exciting class like your class before. That's why I don't want to say good-bye. My time with you in class was the happiest time, but sometimes, it's the hardest time when I performed poorly,plus your cruel recommendation through email. However, I know that your purpose is want students to study hard and smart. Finally, I have learned a lot from you. Thank again my unforgettable professor Wish you healthy and happy all time
Best regards,
Dalin

Dear sir,
I am writing to let you know that I am absolutely pleased to study with you, although your class is very hard for me. I can understand myself more when I attend marketing class, I know that my English is not good yet but I hope there is time for me to improve. I may make you disappointed because I didn't show any progress during your class, but I can say that your class is very very useful for me and I can learn a lots.
Have a nice day with successful work sir,.
Your sincerely,
samnang

Dear Dr. Mark
i'm very sad to get the word goodbye from you. I don't know how can I impress my deep thank to you for your kind and perfect lecture for me as well as the students in the class. Attending this class, I feel very happy and I have learned so many experiences from you as well as my classmate. Although it is abit difficult to me to learn, I really appreciate the knowledge that I have obtain during this class. Telling the truth, you are so seriouse to students. However, your attitude make students build more discipline and commitment as learner. The last, before saying goodbye, I wish you to be sucessful all kind of siutations. And Please have a wonderful and safe trip on the way to your home. Thank alot
Best regards,
seyha

Dear Professor Mark,
I've learnt a lot of valuable things within this four months. This is the knowledge that I cannot learn from somewhere else. I'm very gladful to learn everything from you including timing, testing, teasing, eating, and sharing..............
Thanks for giving us a wonderful lecture.I will never, ever forget such a good time that we go through together.
I'm proud of myself that I am able to learn thing from US famous professor, Dr. Mark Rosenbaum.
Keep in touch on facebook, I will spend more time on updating it.
Have a good time when going back to US Dr. Mark.
Miss you forever,
Best regards,
Vok Sophal

Good Morning Sir,
Pleased find attached a copy of our final presentation and final paper of the balacned scorecard project.
Thank you for your productive time and effort that you have spent with us so far. Honestly, I like your lectures so much. They are the innovation in Cambodian education. I have learnt a great deal of concepts and practical experiences in many projects from you. You are the most wonderful professor I have ever experienced with.
I hope I will be able to study with you for the master or doctoral degree somewhere in the near future.
Finally, I was wondering if you would be one of my references or recommenders on the job applications or in the pursuit of overseas scholarship. I also attach my CV for you to review. If you are kind to be so, could you please tell me how or what you want me to cite you my CV.
I hope we all have a wonderful time during the farewell party together.
Gratefully,
Sour Pounlok

Killing Gay Men-In the Name of Religion

2009-08-18T00:14:00.000-05:00

Once again, scores (hundreds) of gay men in Iraq have been murdered, or eradicated, under the guise of religion. Once again, radicals evoke the name of a God, to condone their slaughtering of innocent people. Their crime-to live a life of happiness. America destroyed the social fabric of Iraq and religious fanatics who employ God to justify the eradication of peoples take control. How pleased America should be with its performance in Iraq! Is this democracy? Israelis should understand their enemy too, if gays can be eradicated, so to can Jews. It's pathetically ironic how history repeats itself, as the ovens of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Soribor, and so forth, were fueld by fanatics who said that Jews and gays should be eradicated en masse.

"First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me." Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

Dr. Rosenbaum in Macau Daily

2009-08-17T22:08:00.000-05:00

Another news feature about my presentation at IFT:
See:http://www.macaodaily.com/html/2009-08/17/content_354699.htm

Thanks, Dr. Wong for all of your hard work on my presentation. Overall, it was an incredible success. I look forward to seeing you soon!

IFT Presentation a Success in Macau

2009-08-16T02:34:00.000-05:00

I spoke in Macau on Friday regarding how to create service plan. Overall, the presentation was a success. I received positive feedback from several hoteliers including the Venetian, MGM Grand, and the City of Dreams.

The presentation was also covered by Macau television and press. Here are two pictures from the presentation. The picture below features me receiving a token of appreciation from Dr. Vong Chuk Kwan (Fanny), President of the Institute for Tourism Studies. The lower picture is the incredible setting at IFT.

For a clip of the video go to:http://www.tdm.com.mo/c_news/?v=85979

Shopping with Elephants: Nepotism in Retail

2009-08-15T09:22:00.001-05:00

Shopping with Elephants: Nepotism in Retail

Posted using ShareThis

Dr. Rosenbaum in Macau Daily Times

2009-08-15T08:41:00.000-05:00

This picture is the article from the Macau Daily News (Chinese)
From the Macau Daily Times (English)

US scholar suggests branding Macau into hedonic place
Saturday, 15 August 2009
by Anni Lam

U.S. scholar Mark S. Rosenbaum, from the college of business of the Northern Illinois University, suggested the local government should develop a position in customers' minds of Macau being a “fun and hedonic” place as it is that uniqueness that attracts tourists here.
The Institution For Tourism Studies (IFT) yesterday held a public lecture on “After the Marketing plan: how to create a service plan” for which the associate professor Dr. Rosenbaum was invited to talk.
On the sidelines of the lecture, Dr. Rosenbaum said that Macau as a place established to be an entertainment area, would be better to build an image that Macau is a place “where you can have fun and relax.”
“The fun signal should be clear to tourists when they arrive the airport or the ferry station,” he added. Besides that the scholar also said he would encourage the Macau government to fill the airport with sounds.
“You do want to hear the casinos, you do want to hear the sense of excitement. We're not coming hear to rest, customers are not coming to Macau for the water of paradise. We are coming here for fun.”
“If you want tourists to maintain high energy level to come here to spend money on shopping, gambling and food and beverage, plug the sight, sound and smell to the airport. You know, when I landed at the airport, I realised the airport was quiet and yet customers are expecting sights and sounds and clues. What clues is Macau telling customers upon arrival? ... To me, the airport, is bland,” he went on to add.
In terms of service plan, Dr. Rosenbaum said that making use of the service plan can benefit any firm, whether it is retailing or hospitality or even government service. It is about planning what customers will experience at every moment filling in the service process.
“Companies set a marketing plan, but they didn't know what to do when the customers enter the hotel, they don't know what to do when the customer enters the bank or the hospital, so a service plan fills this void,” he added.
According to him, the theory resembled going to the movies as audience are expecting every details to run smoothly and that was comparable to service planning.
“Break the service into a series of moments. What's going to happening to a customer in the hotel stage, what's going to happen to a customer during the restaurant experience, and then you may have twenty segments or fifteen segments that customers experience. Bring the manger to mange the moment,” he added.

Source:http://www.macaudailytimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31152&Itemid=28

Article in Macau Daily News covers my presentation at IFT:

http://www.macaodaily.com/html/2009-08/15/content_354201.htm

Servicescape Chapter Accepted for Publication

2009-08-13T09:38:00.000-05:00

Good news,
My servicescape chapter, co-authored with Dr. Carolyn Massiah, was accepted today for publication in Environmental Psychology: New Developments.
The chapter is titled, "Beyond the Physical Servicescape:
How Social, Symbolic, and Restorative Servicescapes Influence Consumer Behavior."
Abstract
This chapter expands on Bitner’s (1992) seminal article, in which she introduces the term “servicescapes” to the marketing and environmental psychological disciplines. Bitner originally conceived the term to denote objective, physical stimuli, which are under managerial control and affect both customers and employees within a specific consumption setting. Since then, other marketing researchers have looked beyond a built environment’s physical realm to stimuli found in realms that are often uncontrollable by managers. These realms include the social, the symbolic, and the restorative. This chapter reveals how consumers are influenced by a confluence of servicescape stimuli that have social, cultural, and psychological meaning and that affect approach/avoidance behaviors. In addition, the chapter highlights how marketers, environmental and natural psychologists, humanistic geographers, gerontologists, and public health researchers can further explore the influence of servicescape stimuli on human behavior.

Dear Mark,
Good day. Thank you for your email message. This is to acknowledge receipt of and thank you for the full version of your chapter for publication. This paper is confirmed as accepted for publication.
We will be sending electronic page proofs as the chapter works its way through the production system. Tracking information concerning the editor, ISBN, page proof status and other production stages including shipping will be available at novapublishers.com within approximately 10 weeks after the volume close and updated regularly. The website has a field called status which contains the production status. As soon as a book is listed, the codes in the status field are changed to show the flow right through to publication

Follow-Up from Service Conference

2009-08-11T05:39:00.001-05:00

Concurrent session presenter Mark S. Rosenbaum from Northern Illinois University presenting his paper, Unmasking Family Allowances: A Theory of Service Nepotism

Customer Service: Smiles and Emotional Labor

2009-08-10T02:13:00.000-05:00

Does anyone recall the scene from Fantasy Island, when the little guy, says, "Da Plane, Da Plane." Then, the manager of the Island, says "Smiles everyone, smiles."
See the video:

So, today, I watched a CNN video about "encouraged" training among Japanese subway workers:

I realize the importance of smiling to enhancing customer service, but there is a caveat to all of this; namely, emotional labor. From Wikipedia:

The term "emotional labor" was first defined by the sociologist Arlie Hochschild as the
"management of feeling to create a publicly facial and bodily display".[2]

Following her piece in which she coined this term, several conceptualizations of emotional labor have been proposed. Some conceptual ambiguity persists, but each conceptualization has in common the general underlying assumption that emotional labor involves managing emotions so that they are consistent with organizational or occupational display rules, regardless of whether they are discrepant with internal feelings.[1]
According to Hochschild, jobs involving emotional labor are defined as those that:
(1) require face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact with the public;
(2) require the worker to produce an emotional state in another person;
(3) allow the employees to exercise a degree of control over their emotional activities.[2]
Display rules refer to the organizational rules about what kind of emotion to express on the job

Should smiles be managed as hard operating standards? No, but, they should be part of soft standards at the front-line. Yet, we are asking employees to manage their emotions, and this information is probably not disclosed to them during job interviews. Do companies consider emotional labor as part of wage costs? I believe the answer is no. So, in reality, service wages are even lower than the stated amount. After all, emotional labor is not free, but it is not part of the wage scheme. In essence, I put forth that organizations are obtaining emotional labor for free from employees and making it a part of job requirements.

Smile everyone smile! It's good for the shareholders! No need to consider your emotions, they really don't matter. You are merely a front-line employee. Now, smile, you're on camera.

Friendships: MSI & Me in Rural Cambodia

2009-08-08T22:51:00.000-05:00

Eating Khmer food again, "Yes, I like it."
Svapich eating fried spiders to "be strong." He needs to update us on what happened Friday night when he arrived home.
Eating rice in every form, sticky, sweet, just pass the Chili sauce.
Don't mention the word Thailand to Svapich.
Srorn talked for 5 hours non-stop!
The beer garden was great, $5.00 for great food and Angkor beer.
Eel is disgusting (in my opinion). But, I ate it.
Fried spiders--don't think so.

Indian food with Mina, great dinner and I needed some wine after a long day.

I am so happy that I had time to spend time with Mina, I hope we stay friends forever.

Svapach now understands blueprinting the Dr. Mark way! After 2 days of personal consulting.
Srorn-understands the symbolic servicescape and the importance of brand equity.

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it. Thomas Jeffeson, America's Third President

Seeing Poverty in Rural Cambodia

2009-08-08T22:21:00.000-05:00

The past week I had the opportunity to travel to the rural areas of beautiful Cambodia. I saw the incredible landscape and the rice fields after recent rains. Yet, I saw poverty unlike I have ever seen before. How can I explain this? Imagine humans living as they would have during pre-Industrialization. For example, consider living in log cabins on the plains prior to electricity, to running water, to mail services, to telephone services, and this is life today, 2009, in rural Cambodia.

I cannot be culturally insensitive and say that this living situation is uncivilized or in any way backwards. This is simply not true. Indeed, rural Cambodia is similar to the European shtetls that are featured in "Fiddler on the Roof," or to the books by Laura Ingles Wilder in "Little House on the Prairie." Perhaps, this is the crux of this blog. Until this time, scenes like rural Cambodia were simply Hollywood movies to me; they were memories of how our great grandparents lived in Europe. Isn't it humorous that Naperville has turned the "Naper Settlement," a series of original structures in Naperville, into a museum, while these same structures are employed today in rural Cambodia? Both time and industrialization are at a standstill in rural Cambodia.

I thought about my life in rural Cambodia. I could imagine giving up personal space and privacy. I could even fathom giving up modern plumbing, but, I would like some privacy regarding plumbing issues. I could give up electricity, and many modern conveniences. But, what I need more than anything is access to clean water and to an adequate water supply. At the present time, people collect rain water and store the water in large clay pots. Surely, this water supply cannot provide a consistent supply of clean water. I was told the well water in rural Cambodia is dangerous and the ground contains natural levels of arsenic. How then do people have access to clean water. I fear I know the reality; they don't have access the a steady supply of clean water. What is life without water?

I urge all of us to consider how we can help the world's poor have access to clean water:

One billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean drinking water. That’s one in six of us. charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Source: http://www.charitywater.org/

I am so blessed to have access to Lake Michigan. Yet, I hate the fact that this statement may sound like self bravado. I never conceived of this issue until I contemplated it this week in Siem Reap. All I thought about was thank goodness my great grandparents left the shtetls and headed to America. Not only did their decision save us from murder during WWII but their decision provided us with permanent access to water. How can a society industrialize without a fresh water supply? It simply cannot do so. Perhaps, this is a fundamental reason why time remains at a standstill in rural Cambodia. Further, without industrialization, even on a small scale, how can the living conditions of rural Cambodia improve?

So many questions and so few answers.

"The greatest gift is to give people your enlightenment, to share it. It has to be the greatest."
Buddha
Hindu Prince Gautama Siddhartha, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

Working with Marie Stopes in Cambodia

2009-08-08T04:51:00.000-05:00

The past week brought me to Siem Reap and to Kamptong Thom where I worked with the MSM director and the marketing team on one-on-one service training.

What can I possibly say about the past week? On Tuesday, I met a work on male transgendered sex workers. These men/women are relegated to the lowest level in Cambodian society. Why? Are we so pathetic as humans that we actually care whether a person has a body of man and a mind of a woman? At the end of the day, what difference does this matter to anyone? Why are we so obsessed by male/female gender? Are we to actually believe that some god or gods descended upon us and said everything will always be perfect? Well, the gods created a gene pool that is not static, but dynamic. Perhaps, when mankind can understand that their distorted texts are based on the assumption of fixed matter, when life is evolving, changing, and in a dynamic state, they will realize the hatred that they have caused under the so-called guise of a loving god.

In any case, many of the sex workers have been raped by local and the police look askance at the matter. The sex workers don't matter, especially the transgendered. Yet, Marie Stopes cares about their health. On Tuesday, I created a servicescape strategy, my "symbolic servicescape," for MSM in Siem Reap.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I planned the entire abortion procedure in Cambodia from the client's perspective, with the MSI team. Every woman around the world has the right to access to a safe abortion. These women are choosing between food and sex, so, once again, religious morons who invoke the bible on abortion had better be financially supporting women in developing countries. WHEN THE CHOICE IS FOOD OR SEX-WHAT WOULD ANYONE CHOOSE? It is the only occupation for many woman and poor men in Cambodia--so, those who condemn abortion had better be helping women around the world; otherwise, they too are indirectly supporting abortion.

It will be nice to return to normalcy in Phnom Penh this week.
I wish I could be more optimistic in this blog, but, reality is frightening.

I will dedicate this blog to Cambodia's transgendered male sex workers. Most will never see this blog; however, I will never forget their stories.

Making a Difference in Cambodia

2009-08-08T04:48:00.000-05:00

I shall miss my time in Cambodia. It was simply a life changing experience.

Dear Dr.. Mark,
I would like to say thanks with you also because you are the best lecturer who helps our Cambodian students, You also give many good advice to us.
Best wishes for you and your family, especially We need your good communication and our friendliness.
Best regards,
Chan

Dear Dr. Mark,

I felt very regrettable that could not participate the last session of our DBA's class.
Anyway, what we have learned from you are paramount great and a lot, despite time a bit short for us.
In the future, we will keep in touch even though you are away. Your assistance in the past is highly appreciated and grateful. However, as we all aware, the most difficult part of thesis writing in Cambodia is literature reveiew due to limited library access. Therefore, communication between us from time to time would be anticipated.
Wish you pleasant journey back to Naperville.
Best Regards,
Chhy Sokha
DBA Student
N.U.M. Phnom Penh

"Will you buy me?"" "Tell the World Not to Hate Me."

2009-08-06T19:38:00.001-05:00

A quick update to my blog. I've been working in Siem Reap since Monday. I have two memories that are engrained in my mind.

When I was speaking with a group of Cambodian male transgendered sex workers I asked them what type of educational advertisement I could create for the world to tell them of their plight. A worker said, "Please tell everyone not to hate me." My heart broke and I didn't know how to respond.

Last night I was walking with Mina to the Night Market in Siem Reap. A little Cambodian boy, perhaps 3 or 4 years old, came up to Mina and said, "Will you buy me"?"

I understand The Scream Painting, but no one is listening. Maddness prevails in a world that could be so much more.

We kill, we murder, we allow people to starve, we give birth to children and we cannot care for them.

The Scream

Retail Nepotism featured at Singapore Management University

2009-08-04T11:04:00.000-05:00

Shopping with elephants: coming to terms with nepotism in the retail space
Published: August 03, 2009 in Knowledge@SMU

Do consumers who share similarities in traits with retail employees stand to receive special benefits? This was a question that bugged Mark Rosenbaum, an assistant professor in marketing at the Northern Illinois University, after his friend had received a significantly large, unauthorised discount at the airport. It was there and then that he stumbled upon the notion of nepotism in the retail space.

To explain ‘retail nepotism’, Rosenbaum drew on group nepotism theory to show that people, when driven by in-group favouritism, can display discriminatory behaviours. A speaker at the inaugural Global Conference on Service Excellence, organised by Singapore Management University’s (SMU) Institute of Service Excellence, Rosenbaum spoke of how his survey respondents had gotten discounts, complimentary upgrades and superior service simply because they identified themselves to share similar traits with the retail staff; a socio-collective bond. He termed such benefits ‘family allowances’, because for they are dispensed with the notion of taking care of one’s own tribe.

Consumers form communities or “servicescape tribes”, according to Rosenbaum, based on shared identities shaped by similar life experiences, rituals or communal goals. Research has shown that members within these “tribes” consume goods and services that strengthen their sense of kinship to the group – a behaviour that might be described as narcissistic, because members tend to be biased towards “their own kind”.

“When I go shopping in Cambodia and I want to buy something, I’d ask a Cambodian student to come with me because I know the Cambodian student will get a better price than I would if I was alone. The Cambodian student either negotiates for me or gets me a better price by being with me; the mere fact that I have a local with me shows the employee that I’ve got a contact in Cambodia; that I’m not a typical foreigner; that I’m more like ‘family’. And why do I bring a local to go shopping with me for large items? Because I want a better price and I know retail nepotism occurs,” he said.

Members only

Within “servicescape tribes”, group nepotism theory posits that members believe they are entitled to benefits by virtue of membership. Rosenbaum noted, “People who share a common socio-collective kinship are often inclined to believe that they are entitled to aid from like-others despite their ability to reciprocate. For example, university students often solicit alumni about job prospects and expect their assistance simply because they share a similar college education.”

Such behavioural quirks can be attributed to a basic human need to cooperate. Anthropological studies label this as ‘unsolicited pro-sociality’ – the motivation for humans to collaborate with strangers and people they may never meet again. Pro-social behaviour includes the sharing of observable, physical goods, and subsequently, the sharing of emotions and intentions. In the retail space, the expression of such pro-social behaviours can come in the form of free samples, upgrades, discounts (observable and physical) or recommendations, advice and friendship (emotions and shared intentions).

To prove that retail nepotism exists, Rosenbaum, together with co-researcher Gianfranco Walsh from the University of Koblenz-Landau, interviewed two minority groups: ethnic Turks in Germany and gay men in mid-western America. Their study showed that family allowances existed 70% of the time amongst ethnic Turks and 43% of the time for gay respondents. These family allowances include perks such as free products (e.g. free accessories with a mobile phone purchase, extra food portions, and free drinks) and value-added service (e.g. unofficial discounts, hotel room upgrades, airline upgrades, and queue-jumps).

Tangible benefits aside, the respondents experienced a sense of kinship and community – feelings that comforted them, thereby facilitating the sharing of information. Respondents also said that they felt respected by retail employees who shared their same trait; which made them feel especially comfortable, compared to interactions with non-like employees. One ethnic Turk reported that she chose to speak to a financial advisor who was also an ethnic Turk because he offered better tips. A gay respondent said he received excellent service at a restaurant because a fellow gay waiter took extra efforts to attend to the table and recommend items on the menu.

Past studies have shown that when customers feel comfortable and display a willingness to share information, satisfaction, trust and commitment are likely to follow. Rosenbaum noted, however, that such behaviours are especially common where tribes face stigmatisation or discrimination in the larger environment. “I wouldn’t expect an ethnic Turk to receive benefits in Istanbul, and I wouldn’t expect a gay customer to receive discounts on a gay-inclusive cruise. It wouldn’t mean anything. I think retail nepotism means something to like-customers when they are distinct in the environment because then it signals: we’re going to take care of each other.”

Signals and cues

Before a person can begin to show favouritism towards a ‘kin’, he must first detect similarities. Rosenbaum and Walsh noted anthropological research that pointed to people’s innate “similarity-to-self mechanisms”; a means by which we inspect others so as to recognise kin. Applying this to their study, the researchers identified several signals that effectively communicated kinship within the retail setting.

For one, physical appearance was also identified as a significant cue, along with language and accent. So if, for example, an ethnic Turks were to look somewhat similar to an Albanian or Lebanese, language and accent enhanced the respondents’ abilities to discern kinship. Family allowances were also given to customers whom employees recognise as members of the community, such as friends and acquaintances of extended family members.

Amongst gay respondents, Rosenbaum and Walsh cited the presence of an internal radar, or ‘gaydar’, as a signalling mechanism. Studies have suggested that this is an “intuitive or perceptual sensibility” that enables gay people to identify one another. The researchers also found that gay respondents employed symbols and artefacts to signal kinship; such as tattoos, publications and clothing. One gay respondent claimed that a gay employee had identified him because he wore a human rights campaign sweatshirt.

Elephant in the retail store

It comes as no surprise that those on the receiving end of family allowances enjoy receiving discounts, benefits and superior service - and happy customers are good for retailers. Respondents said they felt “nice” and “special” when they receive family allowances. An ethnic Turk retail employer said that when he is friendly and gives a fellow ‘kin’ discounts, that customer leaves the store feeling happy and will likely return in the future. It’s is a win-win situation.

Upon receiving family allowances, both gay and ethnic Turkish groups of customers reported feeling heightened loyalty towards fellow retail employees. A notable finding in the study was that both groups were likely to “broadcast marketplace experiences” or spread positive word-of-mouth to their family and friends. Rosenbaum cautioned, however, that customers excluded from family allowances do not take well to such practices.

The researchers surveyed two groups of undergraduate Americans and Germans to find out how they would respond to the knowledge that other customers had access to family allowances. While most respondents registered awareness of retail nepotism, but most of them said that they would react negatively if they discovered that a store was providing like-customers with family allowances. Some would go as far as to boycott a store.

“It’s a form of discrimination, even if the customers on the receiving end enjoy it. The other customers (who are deprived of a similar treatment) are actually receiving inferior service for no other reason than the lack of a socio-collective bond,” Rosenbaum said, stressing that while most people frown upon family allowances, they will ignore such behaviour, as long as it exists covertly. The researchers liken this to an “elephant in the room” – an obvious reality ignored.

Though the notion of dispensing family allowances might be motivated by a sense of altruism towards certain customers, there are positive and negative consequences to consider. Retail organisations might receive positive word of mouth, greater customer satisfaction and enhanced loyalty from tribes that have benefited from family allowances. However, the researchers suggested that such behaviours might also breed discriminatory attitudes and environments within the organisation.

Can such behaviours be discouraged? Rosenbaum is pessimistic. “Retail nepotism is a form of discrimination. Organisations can train employees on discrimination; that favouritism to like-customers can be as bad as discrimination against un-alike customers… Biological forces encourage humans to take care of their own kind, so I don’t know if organisational policies will be powerful enough to remedy human inclinations to take care of ‘family’,” he noted. So while there is no doubt that retail nepotism is wrong, Rosenbaum is confident that it shall always remain, in essence, an elephant in the retail space.

Source: http://knowledge.smu.edu.sg/article.cfm?articleid=1229#

Clue Management at MSI Cambodia-Success

2009-08-02T08:12:00.001-05:00

I performed a one day session of analyzing the "servicescape" clues at Marie Stopes Cambodia (two centers). I want to thank my MSI-team members for permitting me to turn into a "clue guru." The task gave me an idea to expand into a new clue guru project. I'm going to develop the idea into a paper and test it out this week in Siem Reap and Kampong Thom. I'm working with MSI at its Siem Reap and Kampong Thom locations on MSM marketing, blueprinting, and of course, clue management! Dr. Mark the Clue Guru in Northern Cambodia-Making Intangible Service Quality Tangible via Clue Management. It's so much fun!

From Che Katz, Director of MSI Cambodia:
Hi Mark
The team got a huge amount out of the ‘quality clue guru’ study tour. I think it really consolidated the learning and made it more concrete. You’ve introduced a whole new speak in MSIC (eg MoT, etc). Congratulations!

Time to say goodbye to my DBA class

2009-08-02T02:03:00.000-05:00

My DBA class outside of National University of Management

As the Fulbright comes to an end, my DBA Service Marketing/Research Methodlogy course ended last week. It's nice to know that I made a difference in my students' lives. However, my Cambodian Fulbright is nearly over. I will always this experience as one of the best times in my life.
Dear Dr. Mark,
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you, Dr. Mark, for your kindness and spending much time to provide education and knowledge to our class. I don't think you need to go back home in hurry like this, however during your stay with us, I have a good memorial and keep remember you in my life.
Wish you and your family a very good luck and properous life.
Best regards,
Chan Sokunthea, Your student
Deputy Chief of International Relations Bureau
Phnom Penh Municipality

Tragic Day: Jews kills Gay Jewish Youth

2009-08-01T19:33:00.000-05:00

I hope every Jew in the diaspora realizes that today 2 Israeli gay youth in a community center were murdered not by Arab terrorists, by Neo-Nazis, by Palestinians, or even by natural causes--they were murdered by a religious Jews belonging to the Shas faction of Israel. This faction blames gays for earthquakes and disease throughout the world. Perhaps, the Shas faction needs to read the "Protocols of the Elder of Zion" or take a tour of the gas chambers. How dare these so-called religious morons murder Jews? With the ignorant, archaic thoughts Shas Jews may murder other Jews who they deem less-worthy?

The next time a Palestinian terrorist strikes a group of Shas Jews, perhaps, I will dance in the street just like the Palestinians do when Jews are murdered. However, I have moral standards, unlike some of the Shas Jews.

A tragic day for Israel and for Jews everywhere in the world. Now, we don't need others to kill us, we have the Orthodox who kill us in the name of religion or will murder those who they see as morally corrupt. FYI, in the same text that says homosexuality is corrupt, slavery is legal. And, yet, we as a nation said that G-d cannot be right, slavery is immoral. Yet, G-d must be right with those "gays." Do the hypocrites sanction slavery? Of course not! Now, the hypocrites will murder in the name of religion and people will burn. It's funny how history repeats itself. Who will the Orthodox murder next, albeit, in the name of religion?

From the Jerusalem Post:
2 killed as gunman mows down youths in Tel Aviv gay center

Aug. 1, 2009
Yaakov Lappin , THE JERUSALEM POST
Two people were killed on Saturday night and several others were injured when a gunman burst into a gay community center in the heart of Tel Aviv and opened fire with a machine gun.

The bodies of two casualties were found in the center by paramedics. The injured were rushed to the Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov hospital) in Tel Aviv. Two victims are in critical condition, while three additional people are in moderate condition, Magen David Adom paramedics said. Several more were lightly wounded in the attack.

Police launched a massive manhunt for the perpetrator, who according to eye witnesses was dressed in black. Large numbers of emergency vehicles converged on the scene, and patrol cars could be seen scouring the area for the gunman. A police crime scene investigation unit entered the building and began gathering evidence.

Hundreds of local residents gathered around police lines, and tearful members of the local gay community wandered around the scene looking shocked.

Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said police have stepped up security around other gay centers and potential targets.

"This is a most severe incident. The police are investing major resources and means to capture this murderer and his accomplices," Police Commissioner Insp.-Gen. David Cohen said, speaking from the murder scene.

"These were teenagers," Yaniv Weisman, chairman of the Israeli Gay Youth organization, told The Jerusalem Post.

With tears in his eyes, Weisman added, "they came to this center from across the country to talk to one another and receive help. This was supposed to be a safe place for them. Someone knew what they were doing when they came here. This is not a pub or a club."

"Today, someone sent a message that gays in Tel Aviv and Israel are not safe," Weisman said.

Within a couple of hours of the attack, hundreds of members of Tel Aviv's gay and lesbian community gathered with placards and candles to protest the killings. "Love is allowed, killing is forbidden," one sign read.

"I warned in a column last year that Israel is a place which, one the one hand has liberal laws, but on the other does not attempt to counter homophobia," Danny Zak, a gay activist and journalist, told the Post during the demonstration. "A murder was waiting to happen," Zak added.

"The Shas party has the blood of two innocent kids on their hands," he said. "Shas has blamed gays for earthquakes and diseases. This is incitement, but no one is put on trial for it," he said.

The Shas faction released a statement following the shooting in which it called for the attacker "to be found and tried. Murder is of course against the Torah's path and every attack is a contravention of the religion of Israel."

Meretz MK Nitzan Horovitz, who is gay, arrived at the scene of the shooting. "There has been non-stop incitement," he told the Post. "I very much hope this is not the result of comments made by public figures and Knesset members. They need to understand that some people will take action," Horovitz added.

Lior Kay, a gay activist who took part in the demonstration, said, "I just want say one thing. We will not be intimidated. We will not be frightened by this act of terrorism."

Institute for Tourism Studies Macau-Welcomes Dr. Mark!

2009-07-30T23:22:00.000-05:00

After the Marketing Plan: How to Create a Service Plan?
Time and Venue
Aug. 14 morning (11am at the Grant Hall or Auditorium)

Presentation Abstract
Marketing managers realize the importance of writing marketing plans; which focuses on a firm's value proposition to customers. Yet, why do so many companies fail even though their marketing plans appear sound? Part of the answer stems from managers failing to realize how to create service plans and their importance in strategizing a process by which customers and employees co-create value, once the customer enters the exchange process. This presentation is designed to educate students, faculty, and marketing managers on the fundamentals of service planning, using an eight-step process that I have developed around the world in health care, tourism, and financial services. Hotel, casino and restaurant managers are encouraged to attend as an example will focus on the restaurant industry. Another goal is to train the faculty and managers on the process and perhaps, encourage firms to work with IFT on research projects. I will also provide ample time for Q&A following the presentation. Given that service planning will be a new concept for many attendees, I expect extensive Q&A and the need for some type of follow-up to the presentation.

Busy day in Phnom Penh and thinking of Naperville

2009-07-29T09:09:00.000-05:00

I had a balanced scorecard lecture today and I gave the class their final group project. Then I met with Srun Srorn, Project Manager,for Marie Stopes Cambodia. I'm going to work with him on creating a web-based integrated marketing communication strategy for Marie Stopes.

Before I know it, I'll be heading home to Naperville. I'm delighted with my progress with my undergraduate students at National University of Management and I'm receiving positive feedback from MSI-Cambodia.

But, very shortly, I'll be returning home to Naperville.
Here are some pictures of my Naperville home.

Mark

Designing Servicescape Improvements for Marie Stopes Cambodia

2009-07-28T09:54:00.001-05:00

I worked with Marie Stopes Cambodia today and studied the servicescapes of two Phnom Penh Centers. The work that MSI-Cambodia is performing for women and men in Cambodia is noteworthy. MSI is committed to the nation's reproductive health for both men and women. In a world that discriminates, everyone is welcome at MSI-Cambodia.

By playing the role of the customer, female and male, I analyze every servicescape clue for evidence of quality. I found myself analyzing so many clues, and asking MSI team members, "Is this the Marie Stopes Way?"

I'm meeting with MSI-Cambodia tomorrow to help it develop its HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention programs.

Some information on Marie Stopes:
Marie Carmichael Stopes, D.Sc., Ph.D. (October 15, 1880 – October 2, 1958) was a Scottish author, palaeobotanist, campaigner for women's rights and pioneer in the field of family planning. Stopes edited the journal Birth Control News which gave anatomically explicit advice, and in addition to her enthusiasm for protests at places of worship this provoked protest from both the Church of England and the Catholic Church. Her sex manual Married Love, which was written, she claimed, while she was still a virgin, was controversial and influential.

Today, Marie Stopes International is one of the largest international family planning organisations in the world. In 2007 alone, the organisation provided over five million people in 40 countries with high quality health services, including family planning; safe abortion & post-abortion care; maternal & child health care including safe delivery and obstetrics; diagnosis & treatment of sexually transmitted infections; and HIV/AIDS prevention.

Around the world, Marie Stopes International Partners have become major players in national health systems. In Tanzania and Malawi, for example, Marie Stopes International provides nearly 20% of all family planning services in each country. In Bangladesh, Marie Stopes International has over 120 clinics and rural outreach teams throughout the country, protecting over one million women per year from unwanted pregnancy. Whilst in Afghanistan, Marie Stopes International works closely with three government ministries to provide sexual and reproductive health services to more than 435,000 people; outreach services to more than 182,000 women; train more than 1,000 health professionals and to promote the rights of women.

Marie Stopes International (MSI) values and uses evidence to develop, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness and quality of its health programmes.

Marie Stopes International is dramatically expanding health service delivery for low-income women and couples worldwide. This expansion involves adding clinics and rural outreach programmes in new countries and new regions of existing countries; creating social franchising networks of other quality service providers to further expand access; and the wide distribution of high-quality, affordably-priced contraceptives with an emphasis on long-term methods.

By 2010, Marie Stopes International aims to protect 20 million couples annually from unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortion.

Human Smoke-an Incredible Book

2009-07-26T10:57:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Nicholson Baker's book, Human Smoke. The book is a non-fiction collections of information tidbits that show the beginnings of WWII. The lessons in the book are profound and the reader is left to wonder whether WWII had to happen. Here are some of my thoughts:

1. When a party views death as a victory, then rational behavior ceases to exist. There is no point in engaging in rationalism with a party that considers death as victorious glory.

2. Crowds go mad in an instant without rational thinking or intelligence. Crowds are not intelligent. Anyone who doubts the power of a crowd is irrational.

3. Crisis and rationalism is analogous to hot and cold. You can have one, but not both.

4. Pacifists are viewed as weak and feminine. To fight is to be strong and masculine. To die is the end result.

5. War is slaughter and the innocent will parish. War will happen; it's only a matter of time.

6. The Jewish quest for rationalism and for careers that are premised on rationalism, such as medicine, law, academia, retailing, will be their demise in WWII and throughout history. Crowds are irrational, dictators are irrational, and Jews, by their very nature, tend to be rational. They did not understand the irrationality of it all; most likely, until the bullet entered their head or they breathed in Zyklon-B. Now, Israelis understand that the world is irrational; so, they also need to be irrational. After all, it's the only way that Israel will survive.

7. For the most part, humans are uncivilised tribes. The job of government is to maintain tribal neutrality. If the tribes seem restless, then governments must divert attention to another tribe that will bring their home tribes together in unison.

8. The only way to end a war is to start brutally.

9. Nonviolence may work when one party views the other face-to-face. When one party slaughters another without direct contact, such as aerial bombing, gas chambers, long-range missiles, etc. the nonviolent participants will be slaughtered en masse.

10. With one command, several nations on this planet have the power to pulverise civilization. Thus, we need to enjoy life and to prepare for our destruction.

11. Anti-Semitism is a consequence of lost confidence in rational thinking. Any crisis sets off irrational thinking. Every crisis will lead to anti-semitism, at least in countries where they still have a Jewish population.

12. War makes business sense; thus, death maximizes shareholder wealth.

Dr. Mark's Service Marketing Class on Blogger

2009-07-26T01:06:00.001-05:00

I created a blog for my services marketing class at NUM to post critical incident stories, see: http://drmarksservicemarketingclass.blogspot.com.

The class did a wonderful job and it was great to have so many students creating blogs for the first time.

I truly believe that blogging encourages freedom of speech. In addition, there is something incredibly therapeutic about keeping an online journal.

The class blog inspired me to create a lecture that summarizes the class findings. Great job!

More Good News from Marie Stopes Int'l Cambodia

2009-07-25T09:11:00.001-05:00

Hi Mark
I hope you are well. We got lots of great feedback on the training, so the clinic visit will be a great way to put it into action!
Let me know if there is anything you need from either Seaklong or myself before next week.

Cheers
Mina

Mina Barling
International Programming Support
Marie Stopes International Cambodia
#9, Street 476, Sangkat Tuol Tompoung I,
Khan Chamcar Morn, Phnom Penh,
CAMBODIA
Ph +855-23 994 083 or +855-23 994 082
Mobile: +855-92 819039
Fax +855-23 994 081
Email mina.barling@mariestopes.org.kh
www.mariestopes.org.uk
choices change lives

Singapore Arilines Loved Retail Nepotism!

2009-07-23T00:56:00.000-05:00

Great day!

Thank you to Ms. Lim Siew Lay, General Manager, Tradewinds Marketing Group, a member of Singapore Airlines Group who loved my research on Retail Nepotism!

Also, thank you to Dr. Stephen Lee, Innovatic Education Centre and Loh Su Ming, First Vice President United Overseas Bank, for their positive comments. Even Roland Rust had positive comments about retail nepotism.

I'm learning so much from Dr. Len Berry about health care marketing and V.K. Kumar about customer equity. I'm going to update my service marketing course shortly. I'll present these news ideas at NUM before I leave.

A pleasure to meet Alison Dean, Associate Professor of the University of Newcastle, Australia. Thank you for your comments about my third-place research! Alison and her Ph.D. student developed a scale for my third-place research and it worked! The power of grounded theory methodology.

As for the conference, it's excellent; however, we are upper-class professors discussing how to satisfy upper-class customers. Our models, frameworks, theories, and practices simply do not apply to consumers at the bottom-of-the-pyramid. I find it interesting to learn about the Raffles Medical Group and of course, the Mayo Clinic is profound. Yet, I'm delighted if a health care station in Viet Nam has working plumbing and MSI Cambodia has such limited funds!

Do the poor in the is world even think of service quality or do they simply think of existence? The folly of it all! As academics, we study the rich to enhance their experiences. But, what about the poor in developing countries? Can we improve service quality without proper funding?

Perhaps, the poor simply have a large zone of tolerance for service and quality is based merely on a provider's ability to solve a problem. Customers don't necessarily contemplate their experience in Cambodia--they simply want their problems solved. When service is provided for free, customers may not even fathom asking about service quality.

After working in Cambodia, I now realize that our marketing frameworks and theories have very little applicability in developing countries. Concepts such as value, customer relationship management, customer experience, and loyalty, are quite novel; however, they are unknown concepts among the poor in developing countries. The poor think of day-to-day survivability and the rich think of day-to-day pleasure. Marketing focuses on enhancing pleasure, not survivability.

MSI-Cambodia Service Quality Training Success

2009-07-20T22:03:00.000-05:00

I just received this email today from Che Katz, Director of Marie Stopes Cambodia-

Hi again Mark
Just to let you know I'm getting incredibly positive feedback on the
training. The team thought it was excellent.
Big congratulations and thanks.
Cheers
Che

Thanks-Likong, Nak, and Sieng. We accomplished success together. I am really going to miss you. Congrats to Likong and Nak for their positions at Price Waterhouse. You will both be very successful.

Sustainability in Cambodia? Is it possible?

2009-07-20T02:16:00.000-05:00

For the past few weeks, I have been surveying the streets of Phnom Penh. Granted my visions as a foreigner and as a resident of the U.S. Embassy are district are biased; however, my pictures show a daunting reality.

To be rich in Cambodia is to possess the luxury to waste. For example, driving fuel inefficient large SUVs, especially the Lexus SUV, Toyota SUVs, even Hummer's, are a tangible sign of wealth. However, traffic moves slowly in Phnom Penh, and one cannot drive more than 40 miles per hour. A typical drive is about 10-20 miles per hour. Furthermore, the Asian physique is quite different from a Westerner. I often see an Asian female professor at NUM driving a Hummer, and her head barely approaches the steering wheel. How comfortable can the drive be for this petite woman?

Truth be told, I do not see overweight Cambodians; thus, there is not a physiological need for an SUV. One may say that Cambodians live with their extended families; however, I don't see families packed into these luxury SUVs. Perhaps, the need for Ford pick-up trucks is motivated by a transport of materials; yet, the pickups are usually waxed, a so-called Beverly Hills pickup truck. The need to publicly display one's wealth, the need for conspicuous consumption, and the need to increase one's self-entitlement to public space during driving fuels the SUV purchase in Cambodia.

Who am I as an American to tell Cambodians that they are being wasteful with these cars? The Ford pickup trucks are made in America! The used cars are exported from America to Cambodia, to the extent that the American dealer sticker often remains on the cars in Phnom Penh.

When the ability to waste is an integral part of being wealthy, can we actually discuss sustainability? I seriously doubt it. When large, inefficient cars are sought by status-seekers, no one will take green marketing seriously. So, large cars will dominate the infrastructure that was not designed to handle these monolithic moving machines. Traffic will only worsen as these moving tanks consume more space. Traffic accidents will steadily increase. Yet, the rich will be safe and secure in their Hummers. A Hummer versus a moto-bike or a tuk-tuk, who will win? It's like a battle between a tank and a bicycle. So, the poor will pay the price for conspicuous automobile consumption in Phnom Penh. Yet, isn't this is the case around the world?

Service Quality Training for Marie Stopes Int'l Cambodia

2009-07-18T08:58:00.000-05:00

Likong

Likong and Seang Remember--Cover it!

I just finished working with Marie Stopes International Cambodia. I taught MSI-Cambodia's 6 center directors and marketing team how to improve service quality via Dr. Mark's 8-step blueprinting technique.

The feedback was very positive and MSI wants me to provide a follow-up on July 28!
I couldn't not have had such a wonderful course without the help of three of my NUM Services Marketing students, who acted as teaching assistants.

Likong, Seang, and Nak (Mr. President) were able to work with their tables, translate English to Khmer, and oversee the students' learning. They were all very proud to be able to now teach service marketing.

I dedicate this blog to MSI-Cambodia and to its dedication to Cambodia's reproductive health.

Seang
Likong working with her MSI team

Dr. Mark Speaks at Cambodia Mekong University

2009-07-17T09:37:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, July 15, I had a wonderful opportunity to speak to about 100 students and faculty from Cambodia Mekong University about "How to Create a Customer Driven Company." The audience was terrific!
A special thank you to:
Gay Valerie V. Salacup, Director MBA Program.
Bunny Wathanak Panha, Director Academic Affairs.
Ban Thero, Vice Chancellor
Thank you for my beautiful gifts. I will always think of CMU when I look at my silver Angkor Wat plate and the framed letter was simply beautiful. I truly appreciated the gifts and I look forward to working with CMU in the future.

Journal of Service Research Best Paper 2008 Finalist

2009-07-14T04:34:00.001-05:00

What a morning! I received the following email from Kay Lemon and Parsu regarding my nomination for Best JSR Paper 2008. I was shocked. I seriously had no idea that one of my colleagues would nominate me for best paper. I find out the results at the Frontiers in Services Conference held at the end of October in Honolulu.

I worked so hard on this article and I am honored and delighted to be a finalist. Regardless of the outcome, I am honored that my colleagues considered this article to be a top service paper for 2008. I owe my good friend Susan Fournier a hug and a thank you for naming my paper before the MSI Conference in Boston. We were at Boston College at a cocktail party and she said, "Mark, you're really talking about return on community." Given that Susan is a prolific author, I quickly changed the title of the paper to Return on Community and gave it a new emphasis.

Thanks Susan! I'll update you in October.

Dear Mark:
Attached please find a letter informing you of your selection as a finalist for the 2009 Journal of Service Research Best Article Award, sponsored by IBM. Your article is one of the five candidates for the award. Thank you for your excellent contribution to the Journal of Service Research. We hope to see you at the Frontiers in Service Conference.

Best Regards,

Kay and Parsu
Journal of Service Research

Here is the abstract:

Return on Community for Consumers and Service Establishments
Mark S. Rosenbaum
Northern Illinois University

This study introduces the concept of return on community (ROC) to the services marketing domain. The ROC represents the health outcomes to customers and financial outcomes to firms that materialize when customers receive social support from other customers in service establishments. By administering Barrera's Arizona Social Support Interview Schedule to teenagers who patronize a video arcade, to members of Gold's Gym, and to middle-aged women who exercise at Curves, the author shows that customers can obtain six types of social support from other customers: intimate interaction, social participation, physical assistance, feedback, guidance, and material aid. In terms of health benefits, intercustomer support provides customers with group cohesion and enhanced well-being. Service firms that host supportive customer networks benefit from customer satisfaction, positive intentional behaviors, and the ability to charge higher prices. By using the contingent valuation method, this article also reveals how customers value support from other customers and employees.

Key Words: commercial friendships • intercustomer support • social support • Arizona Social Support Interview Schedule • third places • return on community.

Journal of Service Research, Vol. 11, No. 2, 179-196 (2008)

A Moment of Truth Student Testimonial

2009-07-13T20:11:00.001-05:00

I received this email on Tuesday morning from a former student. Emails like this make teaching so worthwhile.

Hi Dr. Rosenbaum,

Just wanted to write you a quick email and say "hello." How is your summer going? I am currently working at a marketing research and competitive intelligence company. I was talking to one of our clients on the phone and they mentioned the "moments of truth" of a service experience they recently had. I immediately thought of you and the service marketing class! I just had to email you and let you know that material you taught me at NIU has been useful in the "real world." I hope all is well!

-Julie Fuerst
JFuerst@niu.edu

Dr. Rosenbaum Joins Center for Service Leadership as Research Faculty Fellow

2009-07-11T00:23:00.001-05:00

I received my formal invitation today from Mary Jo and Steve Brown to joing ASU as a Research Faculty Fellow. I am forever grateful to ASU for an incredible education.
CSL Faculty Network Press Release :

Phnom Penh – July 11, 2009 – Dr. Mark Rosenbaum, Fulbright Scholar, National University of Management, Cambodia, and Assistant Professor of Marketing at Northern Illinois University, has graciously accepted the invitation to join Arizona State University’s Center for Services Leadership (CSL) as one of their CSL Faculty Network Research Fellows. In this role, Dr. Rosenbaum will become part of formal community of academic thought leaders focused on advancing the field of services.

The globally recognized CSL strives to improve the business and academic understanding of the distinctive and growing role of services in organizations and with customers. In order to be a CSL Faculty Network member, faculty members must have an exceptional academic reputation, expertise within service research, and a firm commitment to advancing knowledge in the field.

The invitation-only CSL partnership provides a rare opportunity to network within this community and engage with industry executives and the CSL staff who share their commitment to advancing service. Dr. Rosenbaum joins a long list of service-oriented faculty who are already members of the CSL Faculty Network, such as Stephen W. Brown, Mary Jo Bitner, Len Berry, Valarie Zeithaml, Parsu Parasuraman, Ray Fisk, and Dwayne Gremler.

“I’m honored to remain part of the CSL and to contribute to its success. Given that NIU is one of a handful of universities that are designated by IBM to teach service science, my linkage to CSL will help ensure that NIU is at the forefront of current service marketing techniques and knowledge,” says Rosenbaum.

Dr. Rosenbaum is a Fulbright Scholar and Assistant Professor of Marketing at Northern Illinois University. His research has focused on services issues such as commercial social support, quality of life issues, commercial friendships, unethical shopping behaviors, ethnic consumption, and tourists’ shopping behaviors. His has published in Journal of Service Research, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Retail and Consumer Services, Services Marketing Quarterly, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Senior Housing & Care Journal, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Travel Research, Business Horizons, and Journal of Vacation Marketing, as well as numerous domestic and international conference proceedings. Rosenbaum also consults on service marketing with Marie Stopes International (not-for-profit NGO dedicated to women’s reproductive health) in Southeast Asia and he has taught courses in Vietnam, Bhutan, and Cambodia. He received his doctorate from Arizona State University in 2003.

The CSL was established in 1985 to pioneer the study of services when business schools were focusing primarily on products and manufacturing enterprises. By filling this void, the CSL has established itself as globally recognized authority and resource in the field. Highly successful companies and top academics turn to the CSL to understand how to compete strategically through both profitable services and through the use of customer service as a source of
distinction. For more information about the CSL, please go to http://wpcarey.asu.edu/csl.

For further information contact:
Dr. Mark Scott Rosenbaum
mrosenbaum@niu.edu
skype: marknbri
Cambodian phone: 09-777-54-323
Twitter, LinkedIn, blog: http://mark-rosenbaum.blogspot.com

Mary Jo Bitner

My Alma Mater-Arizona State University

The Center for Service Leadership

COBLAS Biz Plan Competition University of Puthisastra Host

2009-07-10T09:15:00.001-05:00

What an incredible week! Here is the update.

Monday and Wednesday taught service planning/blueprinting to the undergrads and marketing research (survey design) to DBA students. My undergrads have another test of service blueprinting on Monday, using the Dr. Mark method. It's a bit challenging to learn; however, the method has proven results around the world and students enjoy learning it.

On Thursday, I gave a presentation on service planning at the University of Puthisastra, Phnom Penh, as part of the COBLAS business plan competition. The Japanese funded not-for-profit project helps business students in the ASEAN countries work with real companies, such as SOMA farms in Cambodia, to construct actual business plans. This week, students from three universities, National University of Management, Univ. of Puthisastra, and Cambodia Mekong University, presented the first recommendations for SOMA farms, a genuine farm producer in Cambodia. I taught them how a service plan supersedes a marketing plan and on Friday, I served as a judge.

My students did very well at the competition, taking 1st and 3rd place! Congratulations to them for a fine performance. This was only a preliminary presentation on ideas and I look forward to working with the groups during my last 2 months in Cambodia.

Some new friends:

Dr. Takeru Ohe, Waseda University, and Fulbright Scholar, thank you for dinner at Le Seoul. I have never laughed so hard at dinner. Sitting on the floor Korean style was easier with laughter. Thank you for dinner and I look forward to helping the COBLAS program succeed.

Dr. Phosy Chanhming, Professor and Fulbright Scholar, UA graduate (it's ok, he spent a lot of time in Tempe at ASU), it was a pleasure meeting you. We survived judging without air-conditioning! I look forward to seeing you in Laos shortly.

Ms. Hiromi Takagi, Asia Seed, thank you for dinner and thank you for your help with the COBLAS event!

Mr. Sok Seang, Director, National University of Management, thank you for two wonderful dinners and for driving to my apartment in Phnom Penh traffic. How anyone can battle traffic in Phnom Penh still baffles my mind.

Mr. Bunny Wathanak Panha, Cambodian Mekong University, a pleasure to meet you. I'm speaking next week at your university. 7:30 presentation? The students had better be awake!

Mr. Ban Thero, Vice Chancellor, Cambodian Mekong University, I'll see you on Wednesday. I'm delighted that you liked my presentation.

Mr. Stephen Paterson-thanks for inviting me to the COBLAS event and for getting me involved. Also, thanks for dinner at TELL.

Also, thanks to my NUM students who are making my stay in Cambodia so enjoyable, even Chea Laichea. I'll miss you guys when I leave!

Cheers for now, it's getting late.

FYI, we had Pizza Company pizza on Friday for lunch and non-kosher, I think Oscar Meyer-like hot dogs were in the crust. I seriously believe that the Kosher hot dog, Chicago-style, needs to be introduced in Cambodia. The Oscar Meyer hot dog tastes like tube bologna-but this is an transgression. Thank goodness I grew up in Morton Grove/Skokie eating kosher hot dogs, the Oscar Meyer--traif version--is not the same.

The Pillage of Angkor Wat

2009-07-06T02:05:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the delay with the email, but I have been traveling in Siem Reap and have not had Internet access.

I do not believe that words can describe my experience in Siem Reap and the ruins of Angkor Wat, Angkor Tom, and Bayon. I am truly blessed to have been able to experience this trip and I could not have done it without the Fulbright.

Cambodia is so much more than Pol Pot and the genocide museum at Tuol Sleng. The country's history spans tens of thousands of years and is laden with a richness that is simply breath-taking. How can a mortal like me write words to describe ruins that transcend contemporary thought? What were the ancient Cambodians building? Are these pyramids simply city markers or do they possess secrets about mankind that we fail to comprehend? An architectural wonderment abandoned in the jungle, only be discovered by the French in the late 1880's. Something seems amiss in the ancient history of Cambodia, the Gods, the temples, and Angkor's abandonment. Why would 1 million people move the capital and permit the ancient city to return to the jungle? I cannot comprehend a facile answer to this question.

When Brian and I were touring Angkor Wat I was shocked at the magnitude of stolen relics. Nearly everywhere I looked, I saw egregious signs of theft. I realize that the French may have taken some relics but the pillage of Angkor Wat, Angkor Tom, and Bayon is saddening. The guide said to me, "have you seen any relics from Cambodia in the U.S.?" I responded no, but honestly, I have never thought about this question.

New Curriculum Developed for University of Puthisastra

2009-06-25T09:38:00.000-05:00

On Friday, May 22 2009, UP held a meeting to discuss and update the university curricula and the credit system. During the meeting, Prof. Jim McCullough from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Seattle, and Prof. Mark Rosenbaum from Northern Illinois University presented their ideas regarding how best to structure the academic program and course offerings.

List of Members participation:
Prof. Jim McCullough
University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Seattle, USA

Prof. Mark Rosenbaum
Nothern Illinois University, USA

Mr. In Viracheat
Rector

Mr. Sok Puthyvuth
Board Member of UP

Mr. Pen Ngoeun
Advisor of UP

Mr. Steve Paterson
Vice Rector in Charge of International Affairs

Ms. Ky Ravikun
Vice Rector in Charge of Student Affairs

Mr. Heng Rattana
Assistant of Vice Rector of Academic Affairs

Mr. Lon Chanborey
Head of ICT Department

Mr. Long Sopheng
Director of Foundation Year

Ms. Im Pidotevy
Director of Administration

Ms. Leung Kolthida
Chief of Academic Office