APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2014/2015

GRA 6419 Service Marketing

Responsible for the course
Line L Olsen

Department
Department of Marketing

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
Services dominate the global economy and are becoming critical for competitive advantage in companies across the globe and industry sectors. Thus, an understanding of the field of service marketing and its most recent advances is a prerequisite today for those who want to successfully pursue careers and manage businesses both in the private and public sector. The rapid infusion of technology into various industries has created new kinds of services that offer opportunities for service- and manufacturing organizations to enhance their relationships with customers. So has social media. Consequently, customers’ demands have changed. Customers now expect to interact with service providers in a multitude of ways in different channels posing new challenges on service marketing and its management.

Learning outcome

In this course students will learn how to deal with the challenges faced by service- and manufacturing organizations. In order to do so, the course provides in-depth knowledge about the key issues in service marketing, frameworks, strategies and tools to address the challenges of marketing and managing services, whether in a manufacturing or service context. How these concepts apply to social media and how social media will affect service marketing will be addressed throughout the course. Central to this course is critical thinking and reflection. The course builds on the key concepts taught in service management and similar bachelor level courses, but it does not require this particular background as a prerequisite.

Prerequisites
Bachelor degree qualifying for admission to the MSc Programme. Course in marketing management or equivalent from Bachelor level is recommended.

Compulsory reading

Collection of articles:
Articles will be selected from journals like the Journal of Service Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Service Management, etc.. Course pack with selected articles and cases

Other:
During the course there may be hand-outs and other material on additional topics relevant for the course and the examination.


Recommended reading
Books:
Oliver, Richard L. 2010. Satisfaction : a behavioral perspective on the consumer. 2nd ed. M.E. Sharpe
Wilson, Alan ... [et al.]. 2012. Services marketing : integrating customer focus across the firm. 2nd European ed. McGraw-Hill

Course outline

New paradigms in service marketing

Understanding the service marketing stakeholders

Designing the service performance and the service setting

Social media and service marketing

The role of customer loyalty and customer equity management

Computer-based tools
It's learning will be used for distribution of course material. Cases for discussion in class are available from Harvard Business Review's web page: http://hbr.org/ at the cost of approximately 7 USD each.

Learning process and workload
A course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of 160-180 hours.

The course will require the students to particpate actively as it is based on lectures, discussions, case analyses and presentations. Students need to be well-prepared for each session.

Please note that it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/It's learning or text book.

Examination
The course grade will be based on the following activities and weights:
Individual performance and work:
Class participation: 15 %
Service watch presentation: 15%
Service encounter journal, written report: 20 %

Group projects:
Case presentation: 20 %
Term paper: Service Audit: 30 %

The individual performance will be evaluate in terms of participation (15 %), presentation of service watch (15%) and a written service encounter journal (20%).

The group projects consist of case presentation (20%) and a written term paper (30%) where the purpose is to conduct a service audit. The term paper has to be written in groups of 2-3 students.

To get a final grade in the course, students need to complete and achieve a passing grade in all parts of the evaluation.

In this course class attendence is mandatory. Absences can result in a lower score. Specific information regarding student evaluation beyond the information given in the course description will be provided in class. This information may be relevant for requirements for term papers or other hand-ins, and/or where class participation can be one of several elements of the overall evaluation.

This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam elements) and one final exam code. Each exam element will be graded using points on a scale (e.g. 0-100). The elements will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the course. All elements have to be passed in order to obtain the final grade. You will find detailed information about the point system and the cut off points with reference to the letter grades on the course site in It’s learning.

Examination code(s)
GRA 64191 continuous assessment accounts for 100 % of the final grade in the course GRA 6419.

Examination support materials
A bilingual dictionary.
Examination support materials at written examiniations are explained under examination information in the student portal @bi. Please note use of calculator and dictionary in the section on support materials.

Re-sit examination
It is only possible to retake an examination when the course is next taught.
The assessment in some courses is based on more than one exam code.
Where this is the case, you may retake only the assessed components of one of these exam codes.
Where this is not the case, all of the assessed components of the course must be retaken.
All retaken examinations will incur an additional fee.

Additional information
Honor Code
Academic honesty and trust are important to all of us as individuals, and represent values that are encouraged and promoted by the honor code system. This is a most significant university tradition. Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the ideals of the honor code system, to which the faculty are also deeply committed.

Any violation of the honor code will be dealt with in accordance with BI’s procedures for cheating. These issues are a serious matter to everyone associated with the programs at BI and are at the heart of the honor code and academic integrity. If you have any questions about your responsibilities under the honor code, please ask.