Upcoming events 

Please keep an eye on this space as we are currently in the midst of organising more events for the future.

Recent events

June 18-19th, 2018 - 2nd Academic-Practitioner Research with Impact Workshop “Design and Decision Making for Customer Experience”

The event is a collaboration between the “Customer Management Leadership Group (CMLG)”, Executive Education and the Management Science and Marketing Division at Alliance Manchester Business School and the Centre for Service Management (CSM) at Loughborough University.

The aim of the 2-day invitational paper writing workshop is for groups of academics from different countries (11 in total) and disciplines to develop impactful research for organisations and research papers based on topics identified by 5 service companies from several service sectors (retail, logistics, public transport, and utilities). These will involve topics in the areas of customer experience design and management. The aim is that findings reported in the research emerging from the event will be impactful in that they will focus on current problems and issues faced by a range of organizations and that they should help those organizations to better understand and perhaps overcome those problems and issues.

We are delighted to be able to confirm that papers emerging from the workshop will be considered for publication in the prestigious Journal of Business Research.       

https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-business-research/

Please click on the link below for a full list of the 8 research projects with 2 academic leads per paper.

CSM Research Projects with 2 Academic leads per paper

For info on other upcoming events, please refer to the Research seminars page here.

January 30th 2018: Exploring Operating Models: SOMS Symposium

The centre would like to invite you to the SOMS Symposium where will be providing a thought provoking and inspiring forum for delegates and expert speakers to share ideas about the current state and relevance of operating models, operating model best practice, and the future directions of operating model research

Click here for event information.

June 1st 2017: CSM Transformative Service Research Symposium

CSM is hosting a symposium focusing on Transformative Service Rsearch with contributions from researchers from both the US and the UK. 

Transformative Service Research (TSR) is defined as service research that strives to create uplifting changes and improvements in the well-being of individuals (consumers and employees), families, social networks, communities, cities, nations, collectives, and ecosystems (Anderson, Ostrom, and Bitner 2010). As such, instead of focusing on profits, market share and consumer satisfaction, TSR is also interested in other (not necessarily conflicting) outcomes such as access, mitigating vulnerability, well-being, happiness, quality of life, equity, and decreasing disparity.

At the symposium, researchers with an interest in TSR will discuss their current research projects and initiatives. The event promises to be a lively and thought-provoking.

Click here for event information. 

January 25th and 26th 2017: CSM Conference on Service Innovation in Emerging Markets

CSM is running a two-day conference on ‘Service Innovation in Emerging Markets’ on January 25th and 26th. The event will include a series of workshops presenting, analysing and discussing the latest trends in service innovation both for emerging markets (EMs) and those coming out of EMs. The target audience will include researchers, practitioners and other stakeholders.

• Professor Bo Edvardsson, Karlstad University, Sweden
• Professor Heiko Gebauer, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG), Switzerland
• Professor Thorsten Gruber, Loughborough University, UK
• Professor Javier Francisco Reynoso, Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico -  Via Skype
• Professor Helen Perks, University of Nottingham, UK – Presentation and Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM) Editor
• Professor John Cadogan, Loughborough University, UK – Discussing Publishing Emerging Economy Research & International Marketing Review (IMR) Editor
• Associate Professor Nathaniel Boso, University of Leeds, UK 

About the session: By focusing on service activities within EMs across a wide spectrum of disciplines and industries, the CSM event will contribute to a deeper understanding of the issues surrounding service innovation in and from EMs through the generation of knowledge, the pooling of expertise and through a critical examination of the area to develop a coherent and impactful research agenda. In particular, the event plans to:

1.     Bring together management researchers from an international and multidisciplinary perspective to generate comprehensive and critical academic debate;

2.     Ensure doctoral students and early career researchers fully participate in this debate;

3.     Develop a clear and comprehensive research agenda;

4.     Supporting the formation/extension of research networks, such as:

1. Engaging practitioners and other stakeholders in this debate to support the outcomes of the event, and 
2. Contributing to policy-making in this research area.

Click here for event information and how to register: CSM Conference Details

November 16th 2016: Special Session on Service Robotization: Building a Collaborative Research Agenda for Interactive Service Robots

CSM, together with colleagues from the University of Manchester and Vanderbilt University, is hosting a special session at the 2016 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee (USA). The INFORMS Annual Meeting, with more than 1,000 sessions and over 5,000 papers, covers the broad landscape of OR and advanced analytics research and practice.

About the session: Increasingly, robots are moving from experimental laboratories to real world, service settings such as retail, tourism, education and healthcare. Unlike earlier robots in manufacturing or hazardous environments, this new generation of robots will exhibit humanlike characteristics and be required to perform tasks that require varying amounts of social interaction (Fong et al. 2003). When introduced to a service environment these “interactive service robots” (ISR) will be required to interact with customers and employees within a variety of service encounters (Barnett et al. 2014). 

The purpose of the special session is to identify and discuss frameworks and knowledge in order to develop a research agenda to support successful ISR development, service management and marketing strategy, and collaboration between academics, industry, policymakers and the public. We particularly seek to move beyond the static, functional applications of ISRs (e.g., robotic vacuum cleaners), and explore dynamic and social applications (e.g., robotic front-line employees). 

More information about the special session, including presentation abstracts, can be found here:

http://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/4182/session/1789

Wednesday, 16^th March 2016: Scoping the Terrain and Research Agenda for Justice Research

The Centre for Service Management invites you to an international critical symposium:  Scoping the Terrain and Research Agenda for Justice Research

This one-day workshop aims to gather international scholars together to take a reflective view on the terrain of justice research.

Thursday, 28^th January 2016: CSM Doctoral Colloquium

Welcome to the first Centre for Service Management (CSM) Doctoral Colloquium, which will be held at Loughborough University on Thursday, 28^th January, 2016.

The Colloquium offers a stimulating environment for students from across all stages of their doctoral research journeys, to share, discuss and debate current and emerging services related research. We look forward to welcoming you to Loughborough!

Themes:
Unifying Services Research: Shared interests, shared insights and shared outcomes

Friday, 11^th September 2015,  10.00am – 5.30pm

1st European Health and Social Care Service Innovation Symposium
(Organised by the CSM)

Across Europe, health and social care are facing major challenges. For example, the proportion of elderly people is growing with urgent needs of specialist care as well as primary care. Further, chronic lifestyle related diseases and mental illnesses among the young and able-bodied are increasing as well. These and other challenges drive costs throughout Europe, and indicate a strong need for service innovations that can improve the efficiency of health and social care towards positive health economic values and ethically acceptable patient-centred models. The complexity and interconnectedness of these societal challenges also make trans-disciplinary collaborations mandatory as no subject discipline can solve these pressing problems on its own.

Enlarging on this important topic, renowned researchers from across Europe who have a strong reputation in the service field will share their views at the 1^st European Health and Social Care Service Innovation Symposium before discussing and debating with the audience. This promises to be a lively and thought-provoking event with contributions from many aspects of contemporary service research.

May 27th - 29th 2015: CSM Workshop: "Publishing Scholarly Research", with Professor Dwayne D. Gremler (Bowling Green State University, USA)

A common mantra of business academics is “publish or perish.” Indeed, a large number of business schools promotion and tenure decisions are based heavily on one’s ability to publish (regularly) in academic business journals. The aim of this workshop is to have all interested academics consider issues relating to the publishing of relevant and rigorous scholarly research in business journals.

Wednesday, 15^th October: Launch of the Centre's Food for Thought Seminar Series

The Centre for Service Management (CSM) is delighted to announce a series of thought-provoking seminars featuring speakers from across the discipline of service management. The series aims to play a leading role in the development of theoretical and critical approaches to service management, and to promote a wider discussion with academics from within the School and beyond.

Sessions start at 13:00 and go on to around 14:30. In the spirit of efficient resource utilisation, we’ll provide water, tea and coffee, and you can bring your lunch and enjoy that whilst engaging with a series of lively and stimulating talks.

The first date to put in your diary is Wednesday, 15 October, between 13:00 and 14:30, when Professors Christof Backhaus and Markus Blut from Newcastle University will be discussing 'Autonomy and performance outcomes in services'.

Click here for details of the Food for Thought Seminar Series.

Thursday, 5th June: "To be Cited, or not to be Cited, that is not the Question – How to Measure and Improve Academic Impact"

CSM co-director, Professor Thorsten Gruber, will be sharing his thoughts in a provocative session on Thursday June 5th, 12:30-14:30 in the James France Building, CC.1.11.

The role of academic impact (and citations in particular) is becoming increasingly important in academia.  Academics now have to carefully plan projects and actively influence citations of their good work.  Citation scores may also be considered for recruitment, tenure and promotion decisions.  The seminar will therefore cover the following topics: Why are citations important, what are potential problems with relying on citations (only), which metrics are available, and, most importantly, how can academics improve their citation scores?  It is hoped that the seminar is of value to academics at all stages of their career.

In the spirit of efficient resource utilisation, we won’t be providing any food, but will provide some tea and coffee, so why not bring your own lunch and join the debate?

We hope you can join us for this seminar, which promises to be a stimulating talk for academics at any stage of their career, and from all disciplines across the school.

New Workshop unveiled for 6th June 2014: Improving Process Improvement: Utilising both Lean and Simulation

Friday 6^th June 2014 9.30am – 3.30pm

Venue: Sir Richard Morris Building, School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, LE11 3TU

Having demonstrated through a research project the opportunities and benefits of using lean and simulation together for healthcare (www.simlean.org), the purpose of this workshop is to further open up the debate on why Lean and Simulation are not being used or researched together more.

This one-day workshop will be run by Professor Zoe Radnor. Speakers for the workshop are Brittany Hagedorn, SIMUL8, Mark Palmer, OEE Consulting and Stewart Robinson, School of Business and Economics.

Centre for Service Management Special Session on Thursday, 15th May 2014

We would like to invite you to a special event hosted by the Research Centre for Service Management on May 15, between 1200 and 1400, with guest speaker Dr Vincent Wiegel, HAN University of Applied Sciences.

Launched in April, the Centre for Service Management (CSM) aims to develop new ideas, concepts, knowledge and practices in service management covering the private, public and third sectors.

Following a very successful opening, the CSM is putting on a series of thought-provoking events to draw together key academics from a range of backgrounds and disciplines.

The first event will be a special session with Dr. Vincent Wiegel.  He will be sharing his research on May 15 between 1200 and 1400 in the Stuart Mason Building, SMB 0.02.

Dr Wiegel’s session is titled: A Lean Contingency Framework.

Summary: Why should there be such a thing as Lean education or Lean healthcare, etc.? Lean application practices are currently very similar across different application domains, and with a marked lack of substantial progress in some. The similarity of application practices across domains implicates either a universalist claim of applicability or an undertheorizing of Lean, at least with regard to the structure of the application domains (such as education and healthcare). A contingency framework helps to better characterize various application domains and would help determine which adaptations of Lean concepts and tools are required for sustainable success.

We hope you will be able to join us for the special session with Dr Vincent Wiegel. 

Bio:

Dr. Vincent Wiegel, Professor of Lean and World Class Performance, Chair of the Lean & World Class Performance Research Group, HAN University of Applied Sciences, Arnhem, The Netherlands.

Vincent Wiegel is one of the leading experts in the field of Lean in the Netherlands and founder of and professor at the Research Group for Lean & World Class Performance. As a professor, Vincent Wiegel is involved in Lean education and initiates research into the effectiveness of Lean implementations. Besides his wide range of general knowledge and experience, his specific expertise is in Lean product development, Lean in non-manufacturing environments and use of Lean in the healthcare sector. He has and still does practice Lean in an advisory capacity to organizations in industry and public sector.

Transformative Service Research – A Cutting Edge Area for Marketing Scholars     

Transformative Service Research (TSR) is defined as service research that strives to create uplifting changes and improvements in the well-being of individuals, families, social networks, communities, cities, and nations (Anderson, Ostrom, and Bitner 2010).

CSM participates in a special session chaired by Dr Martin Mende from Florida State University. This session at the American Marketing Association (AMA) Winter Marketing Educators’ Conference challenges the established theoretical focus and extends the analytical realm of prior service research.

Participants:

• Martin Mende, Florida State University;
• Laurel Anderson, Arizona State University;
• Amy Ostrom, Arizona State University;
• Maura L. Scott, Florida State University;
• Mary Jo Bitner, Arizona State University;
• Mark S. Rosenbaum, Northern Ilinois University;
• Marianne Cirone, LivingWell Cancer Resource Center;
• Jill Smallwood, LivingWell Cancer Resource Center;
• Jane Van De Velde, Reiki Share Project;
• Linda Nasr, University of Manchester;
• Thorsten Gruber, Loughborough University;
• Jamie Burton, University of Manchester

Time and Place: Orlando, FL, Saturday, February 22^nd 2014, 03:45 PM-05:15 PM

Transformative Service Research Roundtable Discussion

CSM will also organise a Transformative Service Research (TSR) Roundtable Discussion at the 39^th Annual Macromarketing Conference in London. The aim is to critically discuss what TSR can bring to the Macromarketing community and vice versa. A lively discussion is expected.

Confirmed Roundtable participants (one or two more are expected to join):

• Professor Thorsten Gruber, Centre for Service Management, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK
• Professor Mark Rosenbaum, Northern Ilinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA
• Professor Per Skalen, CTF Service Research Center, Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden 
• Dr Robert Cluley, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
• Dr Heiko Gebauer, EAWAG, Switzerland
• Dr Johanna Gummerus, Hanken Schol of Economics, Helsinki, Finland
• Ms Linda Nasr, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Time and Place: London, July 2^nd-5^th 2014 (exact day and time of the Roundtable Discussion will be announced soon).