Service Management and Operations Management (2nd Edition)

Author: Hacksever Guobao Yan Shiqiliang, etc.
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-02-01
Features: For a long time, we have been more inclined to research management issues in industrial and manufacturing fields, while the research on the management of service industries has been relatively weak. On one hand, it is because the service industry in our country is not yet developed enough; on the other hand, it is due to the lack of research on the service industry, which is also one of the reasons restricting the better development of our service industry. Therefore, I believe it is timely and meaningful to introduce this work. – Honorary Dean, Professor, School of Management, Fudan University, Zheng Shaoliang, Vice Chairman of the National Master of Business Administration (MBA) Education Guidance Committee
This book not only provides theoretical and knowledge-based guidance on how to construct an effective service management system but also offers practical and quantitative methods as well as application examples. I believe this book will provide targeted and practical help for the development of service industries in various fields across the country. – Professor Guobao Yan, Shanghai University of Technology
Preface to Service Management and Operations Shanghai University of Technology, Professor Guobao Yan
I was asked by Professor Guobao Yan to write a preface for his translated work, "Service Management and Operations." Since the reform and opening-up, many excellent foreign management books have been published in Chinese to support the development of management education. However, there are still relatively few translated works on service management in general. The existing translated book is "Service Management: Operations, Strategy, and Information Technology" by Zhang Quancheng, Fan Xiucheng, and others from Nankai University. This book, "Service Management and Operations," is another excellent work in this field.
Today, the service industry has permeated all aspects of our society, and its importance in the coordinated development of the national economy, social progress, and overall economic construction has become increasingly evident in practice. As introduced in this book, in the United States, the service industry provides 80% of employment opportunities and creates 75% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Among the new enterprises that have emerged like bamboo shoots after rain, 70% are in the service industry, and service exports have also become an important part of global international trade.
For a long time, we have been more focused on management issues in industrial and manufacturing fields, while the research on the management of service industries has been relatively weak. The reasons are on one hand that the service industry in our country is not yet developed enough, and on the other hand, the lack of research on the service industry, which is also one of the reasons restricting the better development of our service industry. Therefore, I believe it is timely and meaningful to introduce this work.
Since the Industrial Revolution, the economic activities of industrial societies have been characterized by the provision of goods manufactured by machines, with machines and energy being the main factors restricting production, and manufacturing has become the dominant industry. In the future, the economic activities of industrial societies will be characterized by the provision of various social services, with information and knowledge becoming the main content of competition. The service industry has always been aimed at "serving people," and managing people is much more difficult and complex than managing things. The difficulty of researching the service industry also lies in its wide and diverse scope of industry fields, as it is not as clear as the boundaries of industries such as mining, manufacturing, and construction. The service industry not only includes economic industries such as commerce, transportation, communication, finance, insurance, entertainment, and hospitality but also includes non-economic public administrative and service institutions such as government departments.
For both manufacturing and service industries, management is very important, and this is even more true for the service industry. This is because the circumstances and challenges faced by the service industry are more difficult and complex than those faced by the manufacturing industry. Therefore, exploring the development, growth patterns, and characteristics of management in the service industry has become an urgent research topic.
Both qualitative and quantitative research are emphasized in this book. For a long time, I have believed that achieving a balance and combination between qualitative and quantitative research is a very important issue in management science research. Any bias toward either one is extremely detrimental to the development of management science. Although each scholar's research focus and expertise may vary, a comprehensive understanding of management science must combine both, with neither being indispensable. A lack of qualitative research may lead to mistakes in direction, while a lack of quantitative research may make some ideas empty talk that cannot be put into practice. The development of China's service industry needs to shift from an extensive to an intensive model, and strengthening the combination of qualitative and quantitative research can be said to be an urgent task.
This book not only provides theoretical knowledge in this regard but also offers many interesting and enlightening cases, which I believe will be very valuable for my peers in China's management academia. Currently, in universities, many research topics under the disciplines of Management Science and Engineering and Business Administration within the field of management are increasingly intersecting, permeating, integrating, and becoming inseparable, which also indicates that the management academia in China is gradually forming a consensus on this issue.
In the research of management science, it is not only important to introduce advanced management theories and methods from abroad but also to explore the achievements and theories of China's management experience. The conditions, history, and culture of countries around the world are all different, and even within the country, there are imbalances between regions. Globalization and international alignment do not mean "global uniformity," quite the opposite. The fundamental point is based on the complementarity built on the differences between countries and regions. We hope not only to see the introduction of excellent foreign works but also to expect the emergence of management works based on China's management practice. In this regard, the "Library of Management Science" led by Vice Chairman Cheng Siwei has been making efforts and has published a series of excellent management works written by Chinese management scholars. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the research on China's service industry practice, especially the expectation of early publication of excellent management works on service management based on China's management practice.
Of course, every work has its limitations. If there are any shortcomings in the service management and operations discussed in this translated work, it is that it lacks an in-depth discussion on service culture and global cooperation in the service industry.
China's MBA education has undergone more than ten years of effort, and now 87 universities across the country have become training institutions for Business Administration Master's degrees. To adapt to the strategic goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, China's MBA education will have significant growth in both school size and student size, and there will also be new improvements in educational quality and curriculum structure. In MBA education, strengthening the curriculum on service management and operations should also be a noteworthy important direction.
Finally, I am grateful to Professor Guobao Yan and Professor Shi Qiliang for providing us with such an excellent translated work. I also hope that our peers in China's management academia can work together to continuously make new contributions to the development of China's management discipline. This is the preface.
Zheng Shaoliang
Honorary Dean, Professor, School of Management, Fudan University
Vice Chairman of the National Master of Business Administration (MBA) Education Guidance Committee
May 2004
English Preface to Service Management and Operations
The first edition of "Service Management and Operations" was published ten years ago, and compared to the first edition, this book has many significant changes. We have made major revisions to 7 chapters and added 7 new chapters. The book is divided into 4 parts, with many new cases added. The new content includes various objects in service management, the globalization of services, the design and development of services, and research on service productivity, among others. These topics have become important subjects for both operators and scholars and are worth further discussion. The additional 3 new chapters cover service management centered on customers, competition and strategy in services, and the management of government and private non-profit organizations.
Part I, from Chapter 1 to Chapter 6, is on service introduction. It introduces students to the general concept of services and provides background information on several important fields. Chapter 1 introduces the role of services in society. Chapter 2 introduces the characteristics of services and discusses the importance of service objects. Chapter 3 introduces the status of consumers as service objects and the motivations behind consumer demand and purchase of services. Chapter 4 examines services from a global perspective and discusses the challenges brought by economic globalization. Chapter 5 briefly touches on three major themes: service quality, customer satisfaction, and value creation, and introduces the impact of service strategy on competition. Chapter 6 studies the interrelationship between marketing activities and operational activities in service organizations.
Part II focuses on how to create customer value and enhance customer satisfaction through first-class services and how to establish a service management system. Chapter 7 elaborates on the role of technology in service management. Chapter 8 showcases the principles of service design and discusses how to apply effective technologies from manufacturing to ensure quality and create value in the service industry. Chapter 9 focuses on how to develop human resources to create customer value and enhance customer satisfaction. This chapter also includes a supplement on evaluating work and labor. Chapter 10 covers two important topics on service system establishment: how to allocate service facilities and how to position service locations.
Part III focuses on the operation of service systems and the challenges faced by service organization managers, as well as how to address the demand and supply of services. This includes the management of supply-demand matching, queuing and simulation methods, service quality management, service productivity, and performance evaluation. The final part of this section discusses an important branch of the service industry: government agencies and non-profit service organizations. We will discuss the nature of these organizations and the challenges faced by their managers.
Part IV provides a comprehensive and detailed introduction to the technology and methods of service management and operations. Managers in service management who need to focus on quantitative control should pay special attention to this part.
This book is written from an interdisciplinary perspective. The discussion of each topic involves theories from multiple fields, including economics, psychology, marketing, international management, decision science, human resource management, and management science, among others. This book can be used as a textbook for service management courses. In teaching, instructors can use econometric methods or not. Of course, this book can also be used in a traditional manner, emphasizing service as a textbook for management and operations courses.
The content of this book cannot be completed within a semester with conventional teaching arrangements. However, each chapter is relatively independent, so instructors can freely choose chapters for teaching or arrange the order of chapters to suit different teaching objectives. Some instructors place great emphasis on case studies and allocate a significant amount of time for students to discuss cases. They prefer textbooks with more cases, especially those with very detailed cases. Some instructors, although they use cases, allocate little time to them. They prefer textbooks with short cases. We have tried to take a balanced approach by including a short case and a long case at the end of most chapters that do not involve econometric analysis. At the end of each chapter, we have also designed discussion questions. For chapters that require econometric analysis, we have prepared some exercises. This arrangement is similar to the first edition.
Sengiz Hacksever, Barry Rendel, Robert S. Russell, Robert G. Meredith
Our service industry is in a critical period of vigorous development. This book explores service management from a multidisciplinary perspective, such as economics, psychology, operations management, marketing management, international management, strategic management, and human resource management, and integrates the latest international concepts, theories, skills, and methods of service management and operations. This is an excellent textbook on service management, and the issues it discusses are urgently needed in the development of China's service industry. The understanding, digestion, mastery, and application of this knowledge will undoubtedly help promote the rapid development of China's service industry.
This book is divided into 4 parts and 19 chapters. Part I is on service introduction, mainly introducing the concept and characteristics of the service industry and its strategic significance. From a global perspective, it focuses on the three major themes of service quality, customer satisfaction, and value creation, as well as the impact of service strategy on competitiveness. Part II introduces how to create customer value and enhance customer satisfaction through first-class services and how to construct a service management system, with a concentrated discussion on the overall design of the service system, including technical design, organizational design, and location design, as well as service market positioning. Part III mainly discusses the operation of service systems and the challenges faced by service organization managers, as well as how to address the demand and supply of services, including the management of supply-demand matching, queuing and simulation methods, service quality management, service productivity, and performance evaluation. Part IV provides a comprehensive and detailed introduction to the technology and methods of service management and operations.
This book can be used as a teaching and reference book for teachers, senior undergraduate students, graduate students, and MBA students in management departments across various universities and colleges in China. It can also be used as a training textbook for service industry management personnel, as well as a must-read reference book for consultants, service management researchers, and the general public interested in service management.
This book can be used as a textbook for service management courses, as well as for service industry management with a quantitative or non-quantitative orientation, and for courses that particularly emphasize traditional service operations management.