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Welcome to the Library

Hello. Why don’t you pull up one of those nice comfy chairs. Go on, settle yourself down in front of the crackling fire, with a good cup of tea (or coffee, or something stronger, the choice is yours).

This is my virtual library where I list the books and articles that have sparked my interest and thoughts. I’m not intending to give a detailed review of these books. Rather, just to highlight points of interest.

If you’re looking for the list of references, then you should try here.

I hope you find the items in the library as interesting and thought inspiring as I have! If you’ve got any comments or suggestions of other books and articles, please let me know!

Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees

Bitner, M. (1992)

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Research Paper
Early Thoughts
Abstract: A typology of service organizations is presented and a conceptual framework is advanced for the impact of physical surroundings on the behaviors of both customers and employees. The ability of the physical surroundings to facilitate achievement of orhanizational as well as marketing is explored. Literature from diverse disciplines theoretical grounding for the framework , which serves as a base for focussed propositions. By examining the multiple strategic roles that physical surroundings can exert in service organizations, the author highlights key managerial and research implications.


Defines the servicescape
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Servitization of Business: Adding Value by Adding Services

Vandermerwe, S., Rada, J. (1988)

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Research Paper
Early Thoughts
Abstract: More and more corporations throughout the world are adding value to their core corporate offerings through services. The trend is pervading almost all industries, is customer demand-driven, and perceived by corporations as sharpening their competitive edges. Modern corporations are increasingly offering fuller market packages or “bundles” of customer-focussed combinations of goods, services, support, self-service, and knowledge. But services are beginning to dominate. This movement is termed the “servitization of business” by authors Sandra Vandermerwe and Juan Rada, and is clearly a powerful new feature of total market strategy being adopted by the best companies. It is leading to new relationships between them and their customers. Giving many real-life examples, the authors assess the main motives driving corporations to servitization, and point out that its cumulative effects are changing the competitive dynamics in which managers will have to operate. The special challenge for top managers is how to blend services into the overall strategies of the company.


Defines the term "servitization" and gives a (non-exhaustive) view of why servitization happens.
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Social network thresholds in the diffusion of innovations

Valente, T. (1996)

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Research Paper
Early Thoughts
Abstract: Threshold models have been postulated as one explanation for the success or failure of collective action and the diffusion of innovations. The present paper creates a social network threshold model of the diffusion of innovations based on the Ryan and Gross (1943) adopter categories: (1) early adopters; (2) early majority; (3) late majority; (4) laggards. This new model uses social networks as a basis for adopter categorization, instead of solely relying on the system-level analysis used previously. The present paper argues that these four adopter categories can be created either with respect to the entire social system, or with respect to an individual’s personal network. This dual typology is used to analyze three diffusion datasets to show how external influence and opinion leadership channel the diffusion of innovations. Network thresholds can be used (1) to vary the definition of behavioral contagion, (2) to predict the pattern of diffusion of innovations, and (3) to identify opinion leaders and followers in order to understand the two-step flow hypothesis better.


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Steps Toward a Science of Service Systems

Spohrer, J. & Maglio, P. & Bailey, J., Gruhl, D. (2007)

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Research Paper
Abstract: The service sector – which includes government, education, medical and healthcare, banking and insurance, consulting, information technology services, retail and wholesale, tourism and hospitality, entertainment, transportation and logistics, and legal among others – accounts for most of the world’s economic activity, but is the least studied and least understood part of the economy. Innovation in service in particular is not approached as systematically as innovation in agriculture and manufacturing, which have experienced large productivity and quality gains in the last two hundred years. To remedy this, we propose developing a science of service, which aims to provide theory and practice around service innovation. In this paper, we show progress toward this, arguing that the proper basic category is the service system in which entities exchange performance of beneficial action, and that a service system can be understood as a system composed of people and technologies that adaptively computes and adjusts to the changing value of knowledge in the system.


service system = system in which entities exchange performance of beneficial action And that a service system can be understood as a system composed of people and technologies that adaptively computes and adjusts to the changing value of knowledge in the system
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Strategic Management of small firms in hostile and benign environments

Covin, J., Slevin, D. (1989)

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Research Paper
Abstract: This paper reports the results of a study designed to investigate the effective strategic responses to environmental hostility among small manufacturing firms. Data on environmental hostility, organization structure, strategic posture, competitive tactics, and financial performance were collected from 161 small manufacturers. Findings indicate that performance among small firms in hostile environments was positively related to an organic structure, an entrepreneurial strategic posture, and a competitive profile characterized by a long-term orientation, high product prices, and a concern for predicting industry trends. In benign environments, on the other hand, performance was positively related to a mechanistic structure, a conservative strategic posture, and a competitive profile characterized by conservative financial management and a short-term financial orientation, an emphasis on product refinement, and a willingness to rely heavily on single customers


Defines the Covin/Slevin questionnaire for determining Entrepreneurial Orientation of a firm. Used in article: Increasing The Innovativeness Of Organisations
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Studying customers’ resource integration by service employees in interactional value co-creation

Plé, L. (2016)

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Research Paper
Abstract: Purpose – Noting that resource integration is a pivotal dimension of value co-creation in Service-Dominant logic, this paper aims to explore how service employees engaged in co-creation processes with customers integrate the latter’s resources. Design/methodology/approach – To address the limitations of previous research on customer resources and their integration by service employees, this study turns to the concept of customer participation to identify the nature of customers’ resources. A conceptual framework of their integration by service employees underpins nine key propositions. This foundation leads to the development of theoretical contributions, managerial implications and avenues for research. Findings – Customers can use 12 types of resources in value co-creation. Contrasting with earlier findings, the conceptual framework reveals that service employees may not only integrate these customers’ resources but also either misintegrate or not integrate them. Non-integration and misintegration may be intentional or accidental. Accordingly, value co-creation or co-destruction may result from interactions. Research limitations/implications – This conceptual and exploratory text requires complementary theoretical and empirical investigations. It also does not adopt an ecosystems view of co-creation. Practical implications – Knowing the different steps of resource integration and what influences them should increase the chances of value co-creation and limit the risks of value co-destruction. Originality/value – Scant research has examined the nature of customer resources and how service employees integrate them. This paper also is the first to distinguish among resource integration, misintegration and non-integration.


Amongst other things, a list of customer resources that can be brought to the table informational resources; emotional resources; physical resources; financial resources; temporal resources; behavioral resources; relational resources; social resources; cultural resources; role-related resources (role size, role awareness and role clarity); customer ability; and customer willingness.
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The Consumer Resistance Behavior towards Innovation

Cornescua, V., Adam, C-R. (2013)

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Research Paper
Early Thoughts
Abstract: The purpose of this work is to identify and analyze consumer resistance in order to understand this concept in the area of resistant behavior. The paper converges on studying the resistance to innovation from a theoretical perspective and to show it importance in innovation process. The paper concludes by describing the complexity of resistance to innovation, its forms and effects on the behavior of consumers and market. Although most authors focus their research on positive adoption decisions, this paper instead focus on developing insight into the relatively underdeveloped area of resistant behavior literature by presenting key concepts of resistance to innovation.


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