art%3a10.1177%2f0092070302303006

An Exploratory Investigation of User Involvement in New Service Development

lan Alam State University of New York at Geneseo

Due to major structural changes in the service sector, many service managers are recognizing the need to contin- ually develop new services that are timely and responsive to user needs. Thus, user input and involvement in new service development are an important area of inquiry. Al- though there has been a resurgence of academic and practitioner interest in new service development, there is a dearth of research on how users are involved in new service development. This study first combines insights from extant literature and exploratory interviews with practitio- ners to identify four key elements of user involvement, including objectives, stages, intensity, and modes of involvement, and then investigates these four elements in 12 service firms. Based on the findings, the author devel- ops an inventory of activities that needs to be carried out in involving users in a new service development project.

Reflecting the growing importance of services in mod- em economies, new service development has started to receive increased attention (e.g., de Brentani 1995; Johne and Storey 1998). Yet limited empirical evidence exists about how new services are developed because the literature is still embryonic in nature (Johne and Storey 1998). One reason for this lack of attention to the new services area could be that innovation has traditionally been associated only with tangible product industries (de Brentani 1995). As a result, the new tangible product development literature is rich, but this literature may not fully capture the intricacies of new service development. Service marketing is different from tangible product marketing

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Volume 30, No. 3, page 250-261. Copyright �9 2002 by Academy of Marketing Science.

because services are characterized by intangibility, hetero- geneity, perishability, and inseparability (Lovelock 1983; Shostack 1977; Thomas 1978). Therefore, the development process of a new service may be different from the development process of a new tangible product, and thus more research in the area of new services is desirable (de Brentani 1995; Storey and Easingwood 1996).

Moreover, many service industries are facing a rapidly changing market, increasing deregulation, emerging tech- nologies such as the Internet and e-commerce, shortages of skills, and more demanding customers (Lovelock, Patterson, and Walker 2001). To remain competitive in these turbulent and rapidly changing markets, many service firms are recognizing the need to develop new service offerings that are timely and responsive to user needs (Kelly and Storey 2000; Storey and Easingwood 1996). That is, it appears that there is a pressure on many service firms to interact with potential users and obtain input from them during a new service development program. Hence, user ~ involvement in new service development is important (Ennew and Binks 1996; Kelly 1992).

Indeed, several research streams have provided insights into the importance of user input and user-manufacturer interactions in facilitating marketing objectives:

1. The market orientation literature suggests that customer-oriented product development efforts yield superior innovation and greater new product success (Deshpandr, Farley, and Webster 1993; Gatignon and Xuereb 1997; Jaworski and Kohli 1993; Slater and Narvar 1994).

2. The new product/service development literature suggests that customer interaction can increase new product/service success (Gruner and Hom- burg 2000; von Hippel 1978).

Alam / USER INVOLVEMENT IN NEW SERVICE DEVELOPMENT 251

. The relationship marketing and network litera- tures provide evidence that information ex- change and collaboration with users are useful for new product development (Achrol 1997; B iemans 1991; Comer and Zirger 1997).

While the above literature provides rich insights into the role of users in several marketing functions, research specific to the process of user involvement in new product and service development still remains underdeveloped.

Against this background, the purpose of this article is to investigate the process of user involvement in new business-to-business service development in the financial services industry. The findings of this study will provide an understanding of the process and importance of user involvement and will also help service managers to cata- logue and identify a set of activities that should be under- taken in involving users in a new service development program. The article has four parts. First, the article outlines the theoretical background of the study and reviews the extant literature. Subsequently, the case research methodology is discussed. Next, the key findings, including major implications for the literature and service managers, are presented. The article concludes with a discussion of limitations and future research directions.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Before discussing the literature that deals directly with user involvement, I review the studies that have touched on this topic from a new product/service success factor perspective. Several review studies have concluded that to develop successful new products, a firm must acquire an in-depth understanding of user needs (e.g., Brown and Eisenhardt 1995; Craig and Hart 1992; Montoya-Weiss and Calantone 1994), which requires user involvement in the development process. Similarly, a few researchers have found that user involvement was an important success factor for new services as well (e.g., de Brentani 1995; de Brentani and Cooper 1992; Edgett 1994).

Although the above findings may imply that there is no difference between new service and product success factors, a comparative study shows that innovation success factors have different potencies between service and tangible product firms (Atuahene-Gima 1996). For instance, quality/advantage of an innovation is the most important factor for new tangible product success, while a firm's focus on human resources, teamwork, and user collabora-

tion are the most important factors for new service success. In addition, a recent meta-analysis of determinants of innovation performance reports that market synergy, which may include an understanding of user needs, is a much stronger success factor for new services rather than for new tangible products (Henard and Szymanski 2001).

Thus, one plausible conclusion is that user involvement in the service innovation process is more important than tangible product innovation (Sundbo 1997).

Taking a different position, some authors suggest that user input into the development process may not be necessary because users often have a limited ability to provide input into the development process (Christensen and Bower 1996; Hamel and Prahalad 1994; Leonard-Barton 1992; Martin 1995). However, Wind and Mahajan (1997) and McKenna (1995) have argued that one should not ignore users because they can provide valuable insights into a new product development project. Thus, these authors emphasized the need to explore different approaches that can be used to involve users throughout the development process of a product/service. More recently, Cooper (1999) asserted that despite 25 years of research into why new products fail, product developers have not learned their lessons and continue to make the same mistakes in product development that lead to failure. One such mistake is that the voice o f customer is still miss- ing in new products. Despite this debate on the significance of user involvement, our knowledge of the characteristics and mechanisms of the user involvement process is still incomplete; therefore, the attention is now turned to the literature that specifically deals with the issue of user involvement.

User involvement in new service/product development.

User involvement in new product or service development is a relatively new area of research, although many studies on issues related to user or customer involvement have oc- curred in other disciplines, such as management information systems (MIS) (for a review, see Ives and Olson 1984), total quality management (for a review, see Kaulio 1998), citizen participation in public policy (e.g., Glass 1979), and community care (e.g., Philpot 1994).

In the new product literature, seminal studies by von Hippel (1976, 1978), which found that users could play a dominant role in several industrial product innovations, generated some interest in user involvement. Following these seminal studies, new product scholars and practitio- ners have proposed a range of successful techniques for obtaining user input into product development processes, such as lead user analysis (von Hippel, Thomke, and Sonnack 1999), information acceleration (Urban et al. 1997), beta testing (Dolan and Mathews 1993), consumer idealized design (Cinciantelli and Magdison 1993), and quality function deployment (Griffin 1992). However, most of these techniques are engineering driven and mainly relate to user engagement in the product design and manufacturing stage of the development process and apply to specific industries such as construction, engineering, and computer systems. In addition, there is a method in which users are entrusted with the tasks of designing custom products for themselves via iterative trial and error

252 JOURNAL OF THE ACADEMY OF MARKETING SCIENCE SUMMER 2002

(von Hippel 1998, 2001). Obviously, this method is most relevant for highly customized and complex products and may be applied mainly to product design and manufacturing activities.

Besides the above techniques and methods, a number of empirical studies published mostly in the new product and R&D management literature have investigated the process of user involvement in new product development in medical equipment, machine tools, and computer software industries (e.g., Biemans 1991; Gruner and Homburg 2000; Shaw 1985). However, an extensive search of several databases of English-speaking literature failed to uncover any study of user involvement specifically for new service development. Furthermore, literature on user involvement in new product development seems frag- mented and inconclusive because studies vary widely in their elements and scopes. Nevertheless, this literature base yields some insight into various aspects of user involvement and provides the conceptual focus for this research.

For example, extensive user-manufacturer interaction at every stage of the development process of software innovations was one of the key findings of Voss (1985). Similarly, case studies by Shaw (1985) reported that users were active and played important roles in developing successful new products in the British medical equipment industry. An international comparative study by Parkinson (1982) reported that British firms did not involve customers at all the stages of the development process, whereas German firms involved users in most of the stages of the development process; as a result, the German firms developed more successful new products than British firms. In sum, the importance of various stages of the development process for user involvement was emphasized in these studies, although the nature and process of actual user involvement in those development stages were not explicit in any of these studies.

Based on a survey of 63 industrial firms, Holt (1987) proposed various methods for assessing users' needs, such as detailed user questioning and quantitative and qualitative market studies. This process of need assessment sheds some light on different modes of user involvement. In addition, Tomes, Armstrong, and Clark (1996) emphasized the importance of regular meetings with the users for developing new products and thus provided further insight into modes of involvement. Case studies of 17 new product projects in the Dutch medical equipment industry by Biemans (1991) found that there were several elements of user involvement, including intensity, stages, and objectives of involvement at various stages of new product development. However, the focus of the study was on interaction within networks, including users, competitors, universities, and other third parties, rather than interactions between manufacturers and users only. More recently, Gruner and Homburg (2000) studied the intensity

of user involvement in new product development in the German machine tools industry and reported that a high intensity of manufacturer-customer interaction during the stages of idea generation, screening, prototype testing, and launch significantly influenced the performance of new products. As one of the main objectives of this study was to quantitatively assess the relationship between intensity of interaction and new product performance, little attempt was made to conduct any comparative analysis of intensity across all the stages of the development process.

In brief, the above literature provides some insights into user involvement in tangible product development, but much of the literature has not used the complete set of user involvement practices necessary to fully describe interactions between users and producers. Nevertheless, the findings of these prior studies are useful for fostering debates about the future of user-producer 2 interactions, but there is a need to extend this debate to the new services area.

Initial exploratory interviews and research questions. Eight exploratory interviews were conducted to better un- derstand current managerial practices about user involvement in new service development and develop research questions. In particular, semistructured personal interviews were conducted with a judgment sample of service managers and service innovation experts. Each interview lasted for about 40 to 50 minutes. Besides seeking a better understanding of the phenomenon of user involvement in general, the interviews focused on identifying the important issues facing key decision makers about new service development and user involvement. The findings supported the importance of four key elements of us er involvement mentioned in the literature. Incidentally, these four elements--including involvement across development stages and purpose, intensity, and modes of involvement--have not been investigated in detail for any service-based research. Thus, based on these exploratory interviews and the above literature, four research questions were to be investigated in this research:

Objective~purpose of involvement. Why are users involved in new service development process?

Stages of involvement. At what stages of the new service development process are users involved?

Intensity of involvement. How does the intensity of user involvement vary across various stages of the development process?

Modes of involvement. What are the means through which input and information are obtained from the users?

A second objective of the exploratory interviews was to develop a stage model that represents the typical new service development stages in the relevant financial services industry investigated in this research. First I asked the respondents to describe the process and stages of new ser-


vice development, and then I compared their responses with two service development models reported in the literature (Bowers 1989; Scheuing and Johnson 1989). The purpose was to obtain a better familiarity with and check the relevance of the service development process used by the service firms relevant to this study. The findings suggest that new services can be developed over 10 sequential stages of strategic planning, idea generation, idea screening, business analysis, formation of the cross-functional team, service and process design, personnel training, service testing and pilot run, test marketing, and commercialization. The four elements of user involvement were empirically investigated in each of these 10 sequential stages.

METHOD

Case research was the main methodology for two rea- sons. First, the review of extant literature highlighted the thin understanding of the nature of user involvement in new service development, confirming the need for more theories in the area, and case studies address theory building rather than theory testing (Bonoma 1985; Wilson and Vlosky 1997). In the early stages of theory development, quantitative research methods may lead to inconclusive findings (Parkhe 1993). Second, qualitative methods such as the case method of research facilitate in-depth analysis of the complex and ill-researched activities and phenomena, such as new service development and user involvement (Bonoma 1985; Yin 1994). However, the case research methodology has been criticized for being less codified than those for theory-testing methodologies such as surveys and experiments. But case study research can be carried out rigorously, and its data collection process can be structured (Adams, Day, and Dougherty 1998). Thus, a systematic process of conducting case research was followed in this research. Within this systematic framework, the research followed a multiple case study approach, a purposive sampling procedure, and multiple data collection methods (Eisenhardt 1989; Leonard-Barton 1990; Perry 1998; Yin 1994).

Several key decisions on sample selection assisted in setting a boundary for the research. For example, to select multiple cases, I first specified a population that helped to limit extraneous variations and sharpened external validity (Wilson and Vlosky 1997). The population of interest was financial services organizations operating in Australia. Only financial services firms were chosen to control for interindustry variability. Only discontinuous innovations were considered. That is, other more minor design changes and basic innovations had been excluded from this research because respondents might not recall clearly the events during the development of those relatively unim- portant products/services (von Hippel 1976).

A sample of 12 cases was determined using the purposive sampling method (Patton 1990) because random selection of cases is inappropriate (Eisenhardt 1989). That is, to increase the likelihood of obtaining variability in the results and to gather a rich set of ideas and insights, cases were selected based on service types, the firm's ownership, and size. This is in keeping with one of the goals of the case method of research, which is to portray the range and depth of the phenomena, which in turn is important to developing theory (Bonoma 1985; Drumwright 1996). Furthermore, the variables of service/product types, the firm's ownership, and size were found to produce some variability in results in a recent meta-analysis of new product success factors (Henard and Szymanski 2001). Thus, three types of service firms within the financial services industry, including funds and investment, industrial insurance, and stock and share investment services, were considered. These included both Australian and multinational firms. Firms with at least 50 employees were selected because exploratory interviews had shown that this mini- mum firm size was necessary to ensure an established new service development process in a company. The average total revenue of the firms was A$600 million (approx. U.S.$320 million). Details of the firms were taken from the Key Business Directory of Australia, published by Dun and Bradstreet. The types of services developed by these organizations were general business insurance, cash management systems, group pension plans, novated leasing, industrial asset management, direct equity investment, money market products, mutual fund investment, and stocks and securities products. 3

This research is about new service development at the program rather than the project level. Investigating multiple projects from each case provides a more representative picture of an organization's overall new service development program and is less likely to result in a sample of exception and outlier projects (Kessler and Chakrabarti 1999). The main reason for this macro focus was that service firms often have an overarching culture that guides their service development activities. This culture often influences a firm's orientation toward its overall product/ service development programs. Thus, a product-level analysis may be less than optimum as it may provide little insight into the overall long-term user involvement practices of a firm. In addition, several previous new product development and other service-related studies have suc- cessfully used a program-level approach (e.g., Barczak 1995; Liker, Collins, and Hull 1999; Money, Gilly, and Graham 1998).

Within 12 case programs, a total of 48 new service projects were studied. That is, for each of the 12 cases, 4 recent new service projects were selected. All 4 projects in each case were the reference point for respondents when answering questions concerning user involvement in new service development. These 4 projects were purposively


chosen to ensure maximum representability as used by Katsikeas, Leonidou, and Morgan (2000) in their firm- level export research and by Patton (1990) in conducting qualitative research. For example, the respondents were requested to select only those projects that could meet two criteria: (a) fully completed within the past 3 years and (b) all developed with user involvement.

To collect data from 12 cases, a total of 36 in-depth interviews were conducted, that is, 3 interviews per case. The respondents for each case included two managers of the participating organizations and one business customer/ user. Only those users 4 who were involved in all four new service development projects in each case were interviewed. The reliance on multiple respondents meant that responses could be cross-checked and any conflicting or inconsistent responses resolved. The key-informant method was used for data collection. That is, all the respondents had two key characteristics. First, they were experienced practicing managers in service development or a related position; second, they were closely involved in the development activities and had an understanding of the entire development process and user involvement. (For details of the fieldwork and data collection, see the appendix.)

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Shortly after the completion of data collection, all the interviews were transcribed verbatim, resulting in hun- dreds of pages of transcripts. The transcripts of each interview in each case were carefully reviewed along with field notes to highlight important issues and identify patterns in data concerning the four elements of user involvement (Miles and Huberman 1994). While reviewing and analyzing the data pattern, relevant documents obtained from the respondents were also consulted for triangulation purpose. 5 The summary statements about each of these four elements were then organized in text files, and key quota- tions were noted (Patton 1990). This process resulted in the development of tables and matrices based on common themes and facilitated cross-case analysis (Miles and Huberman 1994).

Objective/purpose of user involvement. In regard to the first element of the objective of user involvement, the respondents were unanimous that the main motivation for user involvement came from an ever-growing need for developing successful new services, as aptly described by one of the respondents:

You can develop successful new services, provided you gather detailed knowledge and understanding of your customers. Obviously, that understanding should be more thorough and complete than that of your competitors. For this reason, we rely heavily on

customer involvement in the development process. When there is the slightest doubt we ask the users, since we doubt a lot, we shall ask a lot.

Although the respondents agreed on the main objective of user involvement (i.e., develop a successful new service), they somewhat diverged from each other on the means to achieve that objective. For instance, respondents described several objectives of user involvement that can be grouped into six key objectives of involvement. A brief description of each objective is given next, before a more detailed analysis is provided.

1. Superior and differentiated service. With user involvement, it is possible to develop a differentiated new service with unique benefits and better value for the users.

2. Reduced cycle time. With user involvement, the overall new service development process can be stimulated. This may result in cycle time reduction.

3. User education. With user involvement, the users can be easily educated about the use, attributes, and specifications of a new service.

4. Rapid diffusion. User involvement in the new service development process helps in rapid diffusion of innovation. This accelerates the market acceptance of a new service.

5. Improved public relations. The purpose of user involvement is to improve public relations before the introduction of a new service. This gen- erally helps in building quick support for a new service.

6. Long-term relationships. User involvement in the new service development process may improve the producer-user relationships.

In general, most of the firms involved users to achieve multiple objectives. However, developing a superior service was considered to be the most important objective of user involvement. Consider the description of one manager, who described the significance of user involvement for developing a superior service:

In this tough and competitive market you need to develop superior, differentiated and unique services; to achieve this goal we tried many options including employee reward system, use of outside consultants etc. but finally interaction and involvement of customers did the trick.

Cycle time reduction was also mentioned frequently as another important objective of user involvement. In this context, one of the managers noted,

You can speed up the development process, because the main themes and ideas come from the horse's


mouth, that is the users, therefore there is no need to be bogged down at various bureaucratic processes.

Although the other four objectives were mentioned in a lesser number of cases, these objectives were also considered crucial, as one respondent remarked,

Developing a service that meets user needs is important but educating users and building a long-term relationship with them are also important objectives of user involvement; of course educating users and maintaining a close relationship with them are critical for developing successful new services.

Besides, the respondents of one case warned about merely listening to all of what users said because sometimes user input might not be practical and far from the capability of the organizations to meet their needs. Instead, they emphasized the use of user involvement for rapid diffusion of innovation, as one of the managers remarked,

We invited our customers to provide input into the development process because we wanted to win their support and loyalty for the new product. I guess this was a useful way to accelerate our product's acceptance in the market.

User involvement at various stages of new service development. Overall, users were involved in most of the 10 stages of new service development--including strategic planning, idea generation, idea screening, business analysis, formation of the cross-functional team, service and process design, personnel training, service testing and pilot run, test marketing, and commercialization--as evident from the following comment of a respondent:

The essence of service development management is to feel what is happening at each of the phases of the development process and pick the appropriate information. If you get it right it can make your business; if you get it wrong, it can muck it up. To be successful in product development you have to be paranoid.

In particular, the three stages of the development process, including idea generation, service/process system design, and service testing/pilot run, were more important than other stages. For example, one manager expressed the importance of these three stages this way:

At the idea generation stage we investigate the customers in great depth in order to gain a better understanding of the market mechanics and then convert the service ideas into their first crude shape. This shape becomes more accurate and concrete at the service design stage when we consider customers' wish list in detail. Final modifications are made at the service testing/pilot run stage of an innovation when we watch customers' actual interaction with

the new service. Therefore, user input into these three stages of the development process is more important and critical.

To obtain a different perspective, we asked the users to describe the stages in which they were involved. Most of the user respondents reported that they participated in most of the stages of the development process. For example, one user noted,

Users are a rich source of product information and their input may technically decide success or failure of a new service. Indeed, we were involved from the day one.

Intensity of user involvement. Next the data about the intensity of user involvement at various stages of the service development are analyzed. This intensity of involvement can be described on a continuum, where passive user participation is at the least intense end of the continuum and representation (i.e., participative decision making) is at the extremely intense end of the continuum. In general, the respondents reported four levels of involvement from which the data about intensity of involvement can be analyzed.

1. Passive acquisition of input. At this level, the users take the initiative to provide input into the development process. For example, a customer approaches the service producer with a new service idea. Thus, the managers acquire input pas- sively, and the intensity of user involvement is considerably low.

2. Information and feedback on specific issues. At this level, the service developers may approach major service users to obtain information and feedback on specific issues at various stages of the development process. Thus, the intensity of involvement is somewhat high.

3. Extensive consultation with users. At this level, the service producers take the initiative and invite user input by means of a planned process governed by predetermined objectives. Com- mon examples include detailed interviews with the users, focus group research, and group discussions. Thus, the intensity of involvement is relatively high.

4. Representation. At this level, the users are invited to join a new service development team, where they contribute to the specific stages of the development process in their capacity as a team member. Hence, the intensity of involvement is considered to be extremely high.

The two most preferred levels of involvement were extensive consultation and information and feedback, and the two least preferred levels were representation and passive acquisition of input. Overall, the service firms were


proactive in user involvement and regularly consulted users for the purpose of new service development, as noted by one of the respondents:

We hardly found any instance of users coming to us with any useful idea or information, all the time we had to go to them and acquire input.

Thus, the intensity of user involvement in most firms falls in the middle of the continuum or is skewed more toward the extreme intense end of the continuum. In general, the respondents were unanimous that there should have been more representation, but they considered the other two options of information and feedback and consultation to be less expensive, less time-consuming, and much easier to manage. As one respondent put it,

Where possible, we tried our best to practice and achieve representation and consensus, but we found other involvement levels easier to manage.

In regard to various stages of the development process, involvement of users was reported to be more intense during the initial (idea generation and screening) and later stages (service design, test marketing, and commercialization) of the development process because respondents considered the beginning and end of a process to be crucial. As an example of this trend, one manager noted,

Idea generation is the starting block of a project and commercialization is the finishing line for a project. User involvement was more intense at both start and finish than those middle stages of the development process.

In contrast, the intensity of involvement was reported to be very low at the business analysis and strategic planning stages of the development process, as the remarks of a manager indicate:

Users should not be involved only for the sake of involvement or because it is a necessity or because your boss has asked for it; we must be aware of the appropriate stages where their inputs will be more effective and productive.

Modes of user involvement. Finally, I analyze data about the modes of involvement and also discuss the actual activities users have carried out while providing input at various stages of the development process. Six modes of involvement were mentioned:

. Face-to-face interviews. The service producers conducted in-depth interviews to gather user input on various aspects of the new services to be developed: users' needs, wants, preferences, likes and dislikes, gaps in the market, competitors' offerings, desired improvement in the ser-

vice delivery process, timeliness of the service delivery, comments on the marketing mixes, and service acceptance criteria.

2. User visit and meetings. The users were invited to attend several service development team meetings, where they provided input on various aspects of the development process.

3. Brainstorming. This included group creativity techniques that were designed to enable people working in groups to arrive at creative ideas or solutions.

4. Users' observation and feedback. Users were asked to observe and comment on several new service development activities: service delivery process, testing of service delivery process, and personnel training,

5. Phone, faxes, and e-mails. Producers informed the users about specific issues of new service development through phone, faxes and e-mails, brochures, and other publications.

6. Focus group discussions. The service producers conducted discussions with groups of invited users on several issues related to the development process.

A detailed analysis of the above modes of involvement suggests that in-depth interviews and user visits to the service development sites, including team meetings, were the two dominant modes of user involvement because interviews and group meetings were stated to be easier and in- expensive modes of obtaining user input. In contrast, focus group discussions were the least preferred mode because focus groups were considered to be both expensive and time-consuming. One manager expressed this concern:

Where possible we avoided focus groups because it was difficult for us to bring users together at a given time and conduct the group discussions, instead one- to-one interviews were more versatile and useful.

The brainstorming sessions were conducted only at the idea generation and screening stages, while user observation and feedback were used only at personnel training and commercialization stages. Finally, the use of phone/faxes and e-mails was another least preferred mode and was used only at strategic planning and business analysis stages.

Next, the number of modes used at various stages of the development process is considered. Four different modes were used at the idea screening and idea generation stages, while three modes were used for the test marketing stage. The main reason for the higher frequency of modes in those three stages appears to be associated with the higher intensity of user involvement at those stages. However, for the stages of formation of cross-functional teams, service design, service testing, and commercialization, only two different modes were used, although the intensity of involvement in these stages was also reasonably high. The


main reason for only two modes being used in those relatively important stages might be that these stages mostly involved teamwork, and so team meetings were sufficient to obtain required input.

In addition to the above six modes, the managers in one case used a weekend retreat to identify new service opportunities. Specifically, they invited three managers from different user firms to attend this retreat, where these users provided useful input into the development process. One manager enthusiastically remarked,

Indeed it was almost an afterthought to invite customers to our innovation retreat. We are happy that their participation stimulated our discussions about new service opportunities, as they suggested a number of new service ideas and provided guidelines to service delivery process.

On being interviewed, one of the users also supported the idea of attending the innovation retreat and commented,

I attended the retreat to find out the possibilities of new products. I found it extremely useful for syner- gies of ideas.

Thus it appears that a management retreat may be another useful means of obtaining user input.

Activities performed by service producers and users. While still probing the modes of user involvement, I asked a follow-up question in which the respondents, both users and service producers, were requested to list all the activities they had carried out at various stages of the development process. Table 1 shows a summary of the activities performed by both types of respondents. This list of activities was developed from interview responses and after an exhaustive analysis of several documents that were obtained during and after the interviews to cross-check the interview evidence. Later, the respondents checked and cross-checked each other's activity list for accuracy and for triangulation of evidence. An analysis of Table 1 shows that, overall, the users contributed to most of the stages of the new service development process. However, the number of user activities was highest during the initial two stages of idea generation and idea screening. This was followed by service design, service testing, test marketing, and commercialization stages.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Although some academic thinking on the topic of user involvement is evident, significant theory generation has not yet taken place. By conducting this investigation of user involvement, several previously unexplored elements of user involvement and their links to the new service development process have been explored. Although

subject to further testing and refinement through additional research, findings of this research yield specific insights about the four key elements of user involvement in new service development: objectives, stages, intensity, and modes of involvement. The present research contrib- utes to the services marketing and new product development literature by providing a more cogent understanding of the overall process of user involvement in the new service or product development process.

This research has identified six objectives of user involvement that were not reported in previous new service development studies. First, user involvement may facilitate the development of a better and differentiated new service that matches customer needs and wants. Sec- ond, the managers may be able to reduce the overall service development time by involving users. Third, user involvement may facilitate user education about the use and attributes of a new service. Fourth, involvement of users may allow a firm to use them as innovators for the rapid diffusion of innovations. That is, the practice of obtaining user input can speed a service's acceptance in the market. Next, user involvement may strengthen public relations, which in turn may help in winning customers' loyalty for the innovation. Finally, user involvement may assist a firm in maintaining a long-term relationship with the users.

Users could be involved at all 10 stages of the development process, including strategic planning, idea generation, idea screening, business analysis, formation of the cross-functional team, service and process design, personnel training, service testing and pilot run, test marketing, and commercialization. However, user input into the three stages of idea generation, service design, and service testing and pilot run may be more important than other stages. One explanation for this difference in importance may be that a large number of powerful new service ideas need to be generated with user contacts and interaction. Similarly, user input and interaction in the service design process are important for designing a differentiated and unique service. Finally, an efficient service testing and pilot run may be conducted more effectively with user interaction and inputs.

Although the users are involved at all the stages of the development process, the intensity of their involvement varies across different stages. For instance, user involvement is more intense at initial stages of idea generation and screening and at the later stages of test marketing and commercialization of the development process. More specifically, the highest intensity of user involvement is at the stages of idea generation and idea screening, with somewhat less intensity at the last two stages of test marketing and commercialization. One reason for this difference in intensity across stages may be that the managers seem to pay more attention to the idea generation and screening stages of the service development process because the


TABLE 1 Activities at Various Stages of the Development Process

Development Stage Activity Performed by the Producers Activity Performed by the Users

1. Strategic planning

2. Idea generation

3. Idea screening

4. Business analysis

5. Formation of cross- functional team

6. Service design and process/system design

7. Personnel training

8. Service testing and pilot run

9. Test marketing

10. Commercialization

Chart the direction; corporate objectives; mission of the business. Identify users for involvement to leverage users' expertise.

Internal and external search for the ideas. Probe customers' needs, wants, and preferences and their choice criteria, likes, and dislikes; seek competitive product ratings.

Feasibility analysis; attribute analysis; gather users' problems and their solutions; elimination of weak concepts by analyzing how these meet users' needs; assess customers' purchase intent; look for patent legal and regulatory issues.

Economic analysis to justify the project, that is, payback analysis and net present value; market assessment, profitability analysis; drafting of budget for each concept; commitment of resources by top management; detailed competitive analysis.

Adopt a team approach and select a team leader; induct users into the team; ask each team member to adopt a role he or she would prefer to play in the development process.

Combine the service attributes identified earlier with their delivery process, including service delivery personnel; map this process jointly with the users; develop documentation and final service design blueprinting; find out service delivery time; install, refine, and debug the service delivery mechanism.

Train the service delivery workforce; prepare them for encounters; manners and attentiveness are the key criteria; ensure consistent service quality.

Test the blueprint; implement design change and refine- ments; test to prove the service under real-life conditions; determine users' acceptance of the service.

Develop marketing plan and test with the users; examine the salability of the new service; examine the marketing mix options in different markets; limited rollout in the selected market.

Plan promotional campaign; appoint distributors and bro- kers; roll out in the market; look for potholes; modify according to the market conditions.

Limited feedback on proposed plan for new service development.

State needs, problems, and their solution; criticize existing service; identify gaps in the market; provide a wish list (service requirements); state new service adoption criteria.

Suggest rough grade to sales and market size; suggest desired features, benefits, and attributes; provide reactions to the concepts; liking, preference, and purchase intent of all the concepts. Help the producer in go/no-go decision.

Limited feedback on financial data, including profitability of the concepts, competitors' data.

Join top management in selecting team members.

Review and jointly develop the blueprints; suggest improvements by identifying fail points; observe the service delivery trial by the finn personnel. Compare their wish list with the proposed blueprints of the service.

Observe and participate in mock service delivery process; suggest improvements.

Participate in a simulated service delivery processes; suggest final improvements and design change.

Comments and feedback on various aspects of the marketing plan; detail comments about their satisfaction with marketing mixes; suggest desired improvements.

Adopt the service as a trial; feedback about overall performance of the service along with desired improvements, if any; word-of-mouth communications to other potential users.

financial services are basically ideas or concepts rather than a tangible entity. The more ideas a firm can generate, the greater the probability of pursuing a successful one.

Next, the findings of this study suggest that a firm may obtain user input through a variety of modes, including the following: interview; user visit and team meeting; brainstorming; user observation and feedback; phone, faxes, and e-mails; focus group interview; and the interaction with users in management retreats. Of these modes, in- depth interviews and user visit and team meetings seem to be the two dominant modes of user involvement, while phone, faxes, and e-mails and focus groups appear to be the least used modes. In addition, multiple modes of involvement can be used at various stages of the development process. In particular, at the idea generation and idea

screening stages, multiple modes of interviews, user visits, and brainstorming can be used. One reason for the use of multiple modes at these stages may be that the intensity of user involvement is high in these two service development stages. Besides, a combination of in-depth interviews and user visits may be useful for most other stages of new service development.

Finally, as shown in Table 1, this research has provided a list of actual activities performed by both users and service producers at various stages of the development process. According to this list, users may contribute to nearly all the stages of new service development, although the extent of their contribution varies across various stages of the process. In particular, users perform most activities at the idea generation and idea screening stages, followed by


service design, service testing, test marketing, and commercialization stages of the development process.

Managerial Implications

The findings of this research should assist managers of service firms in five ways. First, managers need to be more proactive in collaborating with the potential users from idea generation to launch of their new services. Second, managers should be aware of several benefits that can be gained from the process of user involvement in a new service development program, as highlighted in this research. For instance, the process of user involvement would be useful for firms seeking to develop more superior and differentiated services (as opposed to me-too services) or to reduce development cycle time. Similarly, firms may use the techniques of user involvement to educate users about the new service or to develop a long-term relationship with them. Third, this research provides specific insights into the stages in which users should be involved because involvement of users in some of the stages may be more useful and more intense than others. In particular, service managers should pay more attention to the idea generation and idea screening stages because these stages are more important than other stages for the purpose of user involvement. For instance, they need to interact with the users intensely at the idea generation stage to work out a users' wish list that contains details of user problems and areas of dissatisfaction and apply it for developing powerful and meritorious new service ideas. Fourth, effective techniques of user involvement have been detailed in this research, which managers should consider for obtaining user input into their new service development projects. Although service firms can obtain user input through several means discussed in this research, they should consider in-depth interviews and user visits and team meetings as the two most useful modes of user involvement. Last, on the basis of the results, I provide a detailed list of activities that potential users and managers themselves may be able to perform at various stages of the development process (see Table 1). It is recommended that service managers use this detailed list of user activities as a checklist of the user involvement activities for their new service development projects.

LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Several limitations arising from the nature of the research and industry involved deserve attention. These limitations also point to opportunities for further research in this area. First, the study described here focused only on business- to-business financial services. Therefore, more studies are

needed to investigate the process of user involvement in other business-to business services, consumer services, professional services, and tangible products. Second, due to the theory-building nature of this research, in-depth field interviews were used in a small number of service firms; therefore, the findings presented here should be considered tentative. Future studies may attempt to test the theory and variables developed in this research through a large-scale quantitative survey or through further in-depth qualitative studies. Third, this research has been done in the Australian context. Although no Australian-specific aspects were included in the research design, an international replication of the research may provide interesting insights. Fourth, by the use of retrospective data, I have relied on managerial perceptions of user involvement. Although this method is common in the extant literature, the problem of bias effect is always present. Nevertheless, throughout the interviews, the respondents were asked for names of participants and dates of events to keep them grounded in the particulars and thus to aid their recall (Adams et al. 1998). This problem of bias was also addressed by the process of triangulation of evidence noted above. Fifth, the managers were free to choose the new services they reported on. This process of project selection again created the problem of bias because they might choose only those services that they thought would make their firm "look good." However, this concern about respondent reliability was addressed by using key informants for data collection because senior-level key informants might provide reliable and valid data (Kumar, Stern, and Anderson 1993; Phillips 1981). Finally, this research did not measure success or failure of new services developed with user involvement because the main purpose of the research was to develop theory about the process of user involvement. Therefore, further empirical research is needed to investigate the relationship between user involvement and new service success.

APPENDIX Description of Fieldwork and Data Collection

Fieldwork for data collection was conducted in four phases. In the first phase, interviews with the managers were conducted. First, the interviewees were asked to tell the story about user involvement and new service development in their own words (Adams et al. 1998). Then the interview became more structured when a number of predetermined questions based on four research questions in the interview protocol 6 developed for this research were asked (Yin 1994). Each interview lasted about 2 hours. All the interviews were tape-recorded, and detailed notes were taken during the interviews. During and after the interviews, several documents and archival records were consulted to triangulate the data provided by the respondents.


In the second phase, the results of the interviews were written down in comprehensive reports and given back to the respondents, inviting them to correct errors of fact and supply additional information. Given the depth of the questionnaire, a follow-up interview was required to complete the protocol questions and to further probe new issues that emerged during the interview process. That is, several follow-up questions were asked to explore the overall process of user involvement. The use of follow-up questions is consistent with the "laddering approach" (Durgee 1986) and the "narrative approach" (Mishler 1986) in qualitative research. During the interviews with the managers, I identified those business users who contributed significantly to the development process. With the support of the managers, one of such user organizations for each case was contacted for interviews. While discussing the selection of user organizations with the managers, I found that nearly all the user organizations appeared to be key customers of the firms. Thus, in the third phase, for each case, one main user was interviewed to triangulate the evidence provided by the managers. In thefinal phase--that is, after the completion of all three interviews and analysis of documentation and archival records--all the reports were integrated into one comprehensive written case description. The managers of the participating firms finally reviewed these descriptions, including a summary conclusion.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author thanks Chad Perry, Peter Markulis, Rajan Varadarajan, and three anonymous JAMS reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article.

NOTES

1. In this article, the terms user and customer are used inter- changeably.

2. The term service producers means service firms and thelr managers who participated in this research.

3. One of the conditions of the interview was that any specific details of the new services investigated in this research and the names of the participating firms would not be revealed. Therefore, to satisfy this stipula- tion, I did not divulge much information about the new services in this article.

4. I interviewed only those user respondents who were involved in the development process of all four new service projects investigated in each of the 12 cases.

5. As part of data collection, several documents and records were consulted. These documents included reports, letters, memoranda, minutes of meetings, proposals, progress reports, schematic representations of the development process, test marketing reports, service blueprints, market introduction brochures, service information leaflets, and development manuals. Analysis of these documents facilitated triangulation of evxdence and improved the reliability of this research.

6. Interview protocol is available from the author.

REFERENCES

Achrol, Ravi S. 1997. "Changes in the Theory of Interorganizational Re- lations in Marketing: Toward a Network Paradigm." Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 25 (Winter): 56-71.

Adams, Marjorie E., George S. Day, and Deborah Dougherty. 1998. "En- hancing New Product Development Performance: An Organizational Learning Perspective." Journal of Product Innovation Management 15 (5): 403-422.

Atuahene-Gima, Kwaku. 1996. "Differential Potency Factors Affecting Innovation Performance in Manufacturing and Services Firms in Australia." Journal of Product Innovation Management 13:35-52.

Barczak, Gloria. 1995. "New Product Strategy, Structure, Process and Performance in the Telecommunication Industry." Journal of Prod- uct Innovation Management, 12: 224-34.

Biemans, Wim G. 1991. "User and Third Party Involvement in Developing Medical Equipment Innovations." Technovation 11 (3): 163-182.

Bonoma, Thomas. 1985. "Case Research in Marketing: Opportunities, Problems and Process." Journal of Marketing Research 12:199-208.

Bowers, Michael R. 1989. "Developing New Services: Improving the Process Makes It Better." Journal of Services Marketing 3 ( 1 ): 15-20.

Brown, Shona L. and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt. 1995. "Product Develop- ment: Past Research, Present Findings and Future Directions."Acad- emy of Management Review 20 (2): 343-378.

Christensen, Clayton M. and Joseph L. Bower. 1996. "Customer Power, Strategic Investment, and the Failure of Leading Firms." Strategic Management Journal 17 (March): 197-218.

Cicianntelli, Susan and Jason Magdison. 1993. "Consumer Idealized De- sign: Involving Consumers in the Product Development Process." Journal of Product Innovation Management 10:341-347.

Comer, James M. and Billie J Zirger. 1997. "Building a Supplier- Customer Relationship Using Joint New Product Development." In- dustrial Marketing Management 26:203-211.

Cooper, Robert G. 1999. "The Invisible Success Factors in Product Inno- vation." Journal of Product Innovation Management 16 (2): 115-133.

Craig, Angle and Susan Hart. 1992. "Where to Now in New Product De- velopment Research?" European Journal of Marketing 26 (11): 1-49.

de Brentani, Ulrike. 1995. "New Industrial Service Development: Sce- narios for Success and Failure." Journal of Business Research 32:93-103.

- - and Robert Cooper. 1992. "Developing Successful New Financial Services for Business." Industrial Marketing Management 21:231-241.

Deshpandr, Rohit, John U. Farley, and Fredrick E. Webster. 1993. "Cor- porate Culture, Customer Orientation and Innovatweness in Japanese Firms: A Quadrad Analysis." Journal of Marketing 57 (January): 23-27.

Dolan, D. and M. Mathews. 1993. "Maximizing the Utility of Customer Product Testing: Beta Test Design and Management." Journal of Product Innovation Management 10:318-330.

Drumwright, Minnete E. 1996. "Company Advertising With a Social Di- mension: The Role of Noneconomic Criteria." Journal of Marketing 60 (4): 71-86.

Durgee, Jeffery E 1986. "Depth-Interview Techniques for Creative Ad- vertising." Journal of Advertising Research 26 (January): 29-37.

Edgett, Scott J. 1994. "The Traits of Successful New Service Develop- ment." Journal of Services Marketing 8 (3): 40-49.

Eisenhardt, Kathleen M. 1989. "Building Theories From Case Studies." Academy of Management Review 14 (4): 532-550.

Ennew, Christine T. and Martin R. Binks. 1996. "Good and Bad Cus- tomers: The Benefits of Participating in Banking Relationship." In- ternational Journal of Bank Marketing 14 (2): 5-13.

Gatignon, Hubert and Jean-Marc Xuereb. 1997. "Strategic Orientation of the Firm and New Product Performance." Journal of Marketing Re- search 34 (February): 77-90.

Glass, John J. 1979. "Citizen Participation in Planning: The Relationship Between Objectives and Techniques." Journal of the American Planning Association, April, 180-189.

Griffin, Abbie. 1992. "Evaluating QFD's Use in US Firms as a Process for Developing Products." Journal of Product Innovation Manage- ment9 (3): 171-187.

Gruner, Kjell and Christian Homburg. 2000. "Does Customer Interaction Enhance New Product Success?" Journal of Business Research 49 (1): 1-14.


Hamel, Gary and C. K. Prahalad. 1994. Competing for the Future. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Henard, David H. and David M. Szymanski. 2001. "Why Some New Products Are More Successful Than Others," Journal of Marketing Research 38 (August): 362-375�9

Holt, Knut. 1987. "User-Oriented Product Innovation m Theory and Practice." Technovation 6:37-45.

Ives, Blake and Margrethe H. Olson. 1984. "User Involvement and MIS Success: A Review of Research" Management Science 30 (5): 586-603.

Jaworski, Bernard J. and Ajay K. Kohli. 1993. "Market Orientation: An- tecedents and Consequences." Journal of Marketing 57 (July): 53-70.

Johne, Axel and Christopher Storey�9 1998. "New Service Development: A Review of the Literature and Annotated Bibliography?' European Journal of Marketing 32 (3/4): 184-251.

Katsikeas, Constantine S., Leonidas C. Leonidou, and Neil A. Morgan. 2000. "Firm-Level Export Performance Assessment: Review, Evalu- ation and Development�9 Journal of the Academy of Marketing Sci- ence 28 (4): 493-511.

Kaulio, M�9 A. 1998. "Customer, Consumer and User Involvement in Product Development: A Framework and a Review of Selected Methods." Total Quality Management 9 (1): 141-150.

Kelly, David and Christopher Storey. 2000. "New Service Development: Initiation Strategies,' International Journal of Services Industry Management 11 (1): 45-62.

Kelly, Scott W. 1992. "Developing Customer Orientation Among Service Employees." Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 20 (Win- ter): 27-36.

Kessler, Eric H. and Aloke K. Chakrabarti. 1999. "Speeding Up the Pace of New Product Development." Journal of Product Innovation Man- agement 16 (3): 231-247.

Kumar, N�9 L�9 W. Stern, and J. C. Anderson. 1993. "Conducting Inter- organizational Research Using Key Informants." Academy of Man- agement Journal 36:1633-1651.

Leonard-Barton, Dorothy�9 1990. "A Dual Methodology for Case Studies: Synergistic Use of Longitudinal Single Site With Replicated Multi- ple Sites,' Organization Science 1 (3): 248-266.

�9 1992. "Core Capabilities and Core Rigidities: A Paradox in Managing New Product Development." Strategic Management Jour- nal 13 (February): 111-125�9

Liker, Jeffrey K., Paul D. Collins, and Frank M. Hull. 1999. "Flexibility and Standardization: Test of a Contingency Model of Product De- sign-Manufacturing Integration." Journal of Product Innovation Management 16 (3): 248-267.

Lovelock, Christopher H. 1983. "Classifying Services to Gain Strategic Insight." Journal of Marketing 47 (Summer): 9-20.

, Paul G. Patterson, and Rhett H. Walker. 2001. Semces Mar- keting: Asia and Pacific Perspective, 2nd ed. Sydney: Prentice Hall.

Martin, Justine. 1995. "Ignore Your Customers." Fortune, May 1, 123-126. McKenna, Regis�9 1995. "Real-Time Marketing." Harvard Business Re-

view, July-August, 87-95. Males, Mathew B. and Michael A. Huberman. 1994. Qualitative Data

Analysts: A Source Book of New Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mishler, Elliot G. 1986. Research Interviewing: Context and Narrative.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Money, Bruce R., Mary C. Gilly, and John L. Graham. 1998. "Explora-

tions of National Culture and Word-of-Mouth Referral Behawor in the Purchase of Industrial Services in the United States and Japan." Journal of Marketing 62 (4): 76-87�9

Montoya-Weiss, Mintzi M. and Roger J. Calantone. 1994. "Determinants of New Product Performance: A Review and Meta-Analysis." Jour- nal of Product Innovation Management 11:397-417.

Parkhe, Arvind�9 1993. "Messy Research, Methodological Pre- dispositions and Theory Development in International Joint Ven- tures." Academy of Management Review 18 (2): 227-268�9

Parkinson, Stephen T. 1982. "The Role of the User in Successful New Product Development." R&D Management 12 (3): 123-131.

Patton, Michael Q. 1990. Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Perry, Chad. 1998. "Processes of a Case Study Methodology for Post- graduate Research in Marketing." European Journal of Marketing 32 (9/10): 785-802�9

Phillips, Lynn W. 1981. "Assessing Measurement Error in Key Infor- mants Report: A Methodological Note on Organizational Analysis in Markelmg,' Journal of Marketing Research 18 (November): 395-415.

Philpot, Terry. 1994. "Listen Who Cares: User Involvement Is Part of the Rhetoric of Community Care,' Community Care 14 (1025): 32-34.

Scheuing, Eberhard and Eugene M. Johnson. 1989. "A Proposed Model for New Service Development?' Journal of Services Marketing 3 (2): 25-35.

Shaw, Brian. 1985. "The Role of the Interaction Between the User and the Manufacturer in Medical Equipment Innovation,' R&D Manage- ment 15 (4): 283-292�9

Shostack, G. Lynn. 1977. "Breaking Free From Product Marketing." Journal of Marketing 41 (April): 73-80.

Slater, Stanley E and John C. Narvar. 1994. "Does Competitive Environ- ment Moderate the Marketing Orientation-Performance Relation- ship?" Journal of Marketing 58 (January): 46-55.

Storey, Christopher and Christopher J�9 Easingwood. 1996. "Determi- nants of New Product Performance: A Study in the Financial Service Sector." International Journal of Services Industry Management 7 (1): 32-55.

Sundbo, Jon�9 1997. "Management of Innovation in Services." The Ser- vice Industries Journal 17 (3): 432-455.

Thomas, Dan R. E. 1978. "Strategy Is Different in Service Business." Harvard Business Review 56 (July-August): 158-165�9

Tomes, Anne, Peter Armstrong, and Murray Clark. 1996. "User Group in Action: The Management of User Inputs in NPD Process." Technovation 16 (10): 541-551.

Urban, Glen L., John R. Hauser, William J. Quails, Bruce D. Weinberg, Jonathan D. Bohlmann, and Roberta A. Chicos. 1997. "Information Acceleration: Validation and Lessons From the Field." Journal of Marketing Research 34 (February): 143-153.

von Hippel, Eric. 1976. "The Dominant Role of Users in the Scientific In- strument Innovation Process�9 Research Policy 5:212-239.

�9 1978. "Successful Industrial Products From Customers' Ideas, Presentation of a New Customer-Active Paradigm With Evidence and Implications." Journal of Marketing 42 (1): 39-49.

-. 1998. "Economic of Product Development by Users: The Impact of Sticky Local Information." Management Science 44 (5): 629-644.

-. 2001. "User Toolkits for Innovation." Journal of Product Inno- vation Management 18 (4): 247-257�9

, Stefan Thomke, and Mary Sonnack. 1999. "Creating Break- throughs at 3M." Harvard Business Review, September-October, 3-9.

Voss, Christopher A�9 1985. "The Role of Users in the Development of Application Software,' Journal of Product Innovation Management 2:113-121.

Wilson, Elizabeth J. and Richard P. Vlosky�9 1997. "Partnering Relation- ship Activities: Building Theory From Case Study Research." Jour- nal of Business Research 39:59-70.

Wind, Jerry and Vijay Mahajan. 1997. "Issues and Opportunities in New Product Development: An Introduction to the Special Issue." Journal of Marketing Research 34 (February): 1-13.

Yin, Robert K. 1994. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Thou- sand Oaks, CA: Sage.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I n t e k h a b (Ian) A lam is an assistant professor of marketing in the Jones School of Business, State University of New York (SUNY) at Geneseo. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Southern Queensland in Australia and a master's of business

in marketing (by research) from the Queensland University of

Technology in Brisbane, Australia. He conducts research in the

area of new product and service development and international

marketing. His research has been published (or is forthcoming) in the Journal of lnternational Marketing and Exporting, Jour- nal of Services Marketing, American Marketing Association-- Marketing Educator's Conference Proceedings, and several other international conference proceedings. He also has extensive consulting experience in the areas of new product/service development.

art%3a10.1177%2f0092070302303006

Documents

new service offerings

new services area

area of new services

service firms

new ser vice development

service industries

service sector

service managers