Introduction

A recent special edition of the Journal of Retailing was devoted entirely to ‘Services Marketing’.1 In it, the Guest Editors state that ‘findings show that services marketing developed academically because it filled a need in marketing practice’. They add that the needs of executives in the service industries persuaded academics that a different approach was required to understand the marketing of services from that used for the marketing of goods. Services marketing has since developed into ‘a fast growing subdiscipline of the broader marketing discipline’. So, by the 1990s there is an acquired body of knowledge about services, and services marketing, which is recognised as being extremely important by academics and managers alike.