Anette Svingstedt

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Servicemötets praktik

THE PRACTICE OF service encounters in a district court, a home for the elderly, and a hotel Service management research places the service encounter in a central position. It is highlighted as a key event that involves the simultaneous production, consumption, and marketing of the services produced by the operation. However, in this research there is a tendency to discuss the service encounter in overly general terms, and to consider it independent of its operation-specific context. I have studied the practice of service encounters in three disparate operations—a district court, a home for the elderly, and a hotel. These are three operations whose specific characteristics—service logics—are entirely different. Each type of operation involves a specific service logic that is shaped by the operation's purposes, mission, tasks, and regulations. Within service management research, there is a search for the good service encounter and a service-dominant logic that could be applied to all types of service operations, despite the fact that there is a wide spectrum of service encounters and service operations, with highly varied service logics. Consequently, research concerning service encounters needs to be opened up to a greater extent, to provide a better understanding of how an operation’s service logic influences what happens in the service encounter. The aim of the thesis is to investigate different service operations, and thus deepen knowledge and increase understanding of the significance of operational service logic for the content and design of the service encounter. The question that forms the study’s point of departure is: How is the service logic of the operation expressed in the practice of service encounters? Through interviews, observation, and document studies, empirical data were gathered to illustrate the variation in practice and the multitude of ingredients that form such a practice. All of these ingredients have a part to play and they interact in various ways with respect to the content and structure of the service encounter. This thesis reveals the ways in which an operation’s service logic can impact the practice of the service encounter. The service logic manifests itself in how employees speak and move, in how material artefacts are used, and in the shaping of day-to-day routines. The thesis shows how service encounters and service logics vary as a result of the operation's specific logic. It is therefore more reasonable and relevant to think in terms of service encounters and service logics, in plural than in terms of the service encounter and a service-dominant logic, in singular.