Services Management Research: Review, Integration, and Future Directions

Several streams of management research have focused on the relationship between organizations, employees, and customers within the context of services. However, this body of work lacks integration and requires an internally consistent framework encompassing critical constructs, causal mechanisms, and levels of analyses. To address these gaps, we reviewed empirical studies with service-related outcomes published in management and organizational behavior journals as well as critical summative and theoretical works within the fields of management and marketing, and constructed an integrative framework for services management theory and research. This framework incorporates constructs and relationships within (individual and unit levels) and across (multilevel and microfoundations) levels of analyses and highlights areas that are ripe for future theoretical development and empirical inquiry.