Forty years of The Service Industries Journal: a bibliometric review

ABSTRACT

Established in 1981, the Service Industries Journal (SIJ) has over 40 years of history. This study presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the journal. The bibliographic coupling of the journal reveals that major themes in the journal are service management, service innovation, service adoption and service experience, service quality and customer satisfaction, management of service quality, consumer behavior, service firms, and service and relationship marketing. The research published in the journal has gone from primarily being of conceptual-qualitative nature to an empirical-quantitative one, with a collaboration network that has become more global over time.

摘要

服务业杂志》（SIJ）成立于1981年，至今已有40多年的历史。本研究对该期刊进行了全面的文献计量分析。该期刊的书目耦合显示，该期刊的主要主题是服务管理、服务创新、服务采用和服务体验、服务质量和客户满意度、服务质量管理、消费者行为、服务企业以及服务和关系营销。该期刊发表的研究从主要是概念性的定性研究变成了经验性的定量研究，其合作网络也随着时间的推移变得更加全球化。

KEYWORDS:

• Bibliometric analysis
• Service Industries Journal
• performance analysis
• bibliographic coupling
• service management

关键词。:

• 书目计量分析、服务产业杂志、绩效分析、书目耦合、服务管理

Introduction

Established in 1981, the Service Industries Journal (SIJ) was the first journal devoted to the service sector and service firms. The journal was founded with the objective of promoting research in services (Akehurst, 1983). It focused on topics related to management best practice, entrepreneurship best practice, innovation best practice, and financial management’s best practice.

As highlighted by Clarivate Analytics, the journal has an impact factor of 6.539, meaning that its publications between 2018 and 2019 received an average of 6.539 citations in 2020. The CiteScore is 6.40, meaning that the publications between 2017 and 2020 received an average of 6.40 citations. The journal’s source normalized impact per paper (SNIP) 1.375, implying that the average citations received by the journal are 1.375 times the average citations of other journals in its area. The journal is listed in the Academic Journal Guide (2021) of Chartered Association Business School (CABS) and rated ‘2’.

The journal completes its 40th anniversary in 2020. To commemorate this event, we conduct a bibliometric review of the journal. It is not uncommon for journals to publish special issues or reviews in their milestone year (Baker et al., 2021b; Schwert, 1993). The bibliometric analysis approach has been applied to journals from a variety of subject areas, including entrepreneurship (Baker et al., 2021a; Dana et al., 2021; Kumar et al., 2021a), finance (Baker, Kumar, Goyal, et al. 2021; Baker et al. 2021b; Baker, Kumar, & Pattnaik, 2021c; Burton et al., 2020; Goodell et al., 2021), marketing (Donthu, Kumar, & Pandey, 2021; Donthu, Kumar, & Pattnaik 2020; Donthu, Kumar, Pattnaik, et al., 2021), and strategic management (Kumar et al., 2021b). Such studies often use the advantages offered by bibliometric analysis to present a retrospective view of the journal and its various aspects. These aspects include major themes, citations patterns, and methodological approaches chosen by the authors. The research questions for this study are as follows

• RQ1. What are the publication and citation patterns in SIJ?

• RQ2. What are the major themes in SIJ?

• RQ3. What are the methodological approaches in SIJ articles?

The rest of the article is organized as follows: We first present an overview of past bibliometric studies on service journals, followed by the methodological overview. We then analyze the performance of the journal, followed by an overview of the bibliographic coupling analysis of the journal, followed by the study of the chosen methodological approaches in SIJ articles. Recent developments in SIJ are presented, followed by a conclusion of the article with avenues for the future research.

Overview of bibliometrics in service journals

Bibliometric analysis often focuses on different aspects of the journal, such as its citation patterns and themes. Donthu, Gremler, et al. (2020) conducted a review of the Journal of Service Research on its 22nd anniversary. The study focused on 1998–2019 on customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and service quality. The study used performance analysis and keyword co-occurrence. A different analytical strategy was utilized by Donthu, Kumar, Ranaweera, et al. (2020) in their bibliometric analysis on the 30th anniversary of the Journal of Service Theory and Practice. In addition to presenting the analysis of publication and citation patterns, the authors investigated the thematic analysis using keyword co-occurrence and bibliographic coupling. Another analytical strategy was followed by Sigala et al. (2021) who – in their analysis of the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management – use negative binomial regression to analyze the drivers of the journal’s citations. The authors in that study also present an analysis of publication and citation patterns and the analysis of themes using bibliographic coupling. Finally, some studies focus on the performance analysis of the journal using a single analytical tool. Martorell Cunill et al. (2019) focus on the performance analysis of the International Journal of Hospitality Management on its 25th anniversary. This study draws from these existing studies to present a thorough analysis of SIJ, showing the convergence of different approaches.

Methodology

Bibliometric analysis applies quantitative techniques on bibliographic data (Donthu, Kumar, Mukherjee, et al., 2021). Its main advantage is processing a large amount of bibliographic data (Ramos-Rodrígue & Ruíz-Navarro, 2004).

To answer our first research question, we have conducted a performance analysis of the journal. This includes an analysis of publication and citation patterns. To answer our second research question – and discern the major themes in SIJ – we used bibliographic coupling. The tool is based on the assumption that documents sharing literature references share themes (Kessler, 1963). The degree of similarity is based on the number of shared literature references (Wallin, 2005). The document clusters were constructed based on thematic similarity using a variant Newman and Girvan’s (2004). Each cluster with a substantial number of articles was reviewed to discern major themes in the journal, with each significant cluster representing a magnificient theme. The ordering of clusters is based on the number of articles in each one of them.

To answer our third research question, we classified each article based on its methodological approach. Previous research has found the methodological approach to be a driver of impact (Dang & Li, 2020; Mukherjee et al., 2021; Stremersch et al., 2007; Valtakoski, 2019). To identify methodological choices, two authors independently read and classified the articles based on research methods (empirical, conceptual, Literature Review, and analytical), research design (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed), data collection (case study, interview, focus groups and observations, archival, survey, or experiment) and data analytics methods.

The search was conducted in June 2021 using the source search by name ‘Service Industries Journal’ on Scopus. After limiting the year range to 1981 and 2020, removing notes, erratum, and duplicate entries, 2111 articles remained. The bibliographic data were fetched from Scopus and used as an input for VOSviewer (van Eck & Waltman, 2010), while Gephi (Bastian et al., 2009) was used for network visualization.

Performance analysis

Figure 1 shows that the publications in SIJ have grown since its foundation (RQ1) from 12 in 1981 to –152 in 2011 and 63 in 2020. The growth in publications per year has not been consistent. Here it seems that the journal has focused more on the quality of contributions than their quantity, as the citation’s trend has been much more consistent. Since 2009 the journal has received more than 1000 citations each year, reaching 4430 citations in 2020.

Figure 1. Annual publications and citation trend in SIJ during 1981–2020. This figure represents the annual publications and citations of SIJ.

Bibliographic coupling

A bibliographic coupling has been used to find the major themes in the SIJ corpus (RQ2). Bibliographic coupling assumes that the degree of similarity between two documents is determined by the number of shared literature references (Donthu, Kumar, Mukherjee, et al., 2021; Donthu, Kumar, Pattnaik, et al., 2021; Kessler, 1963; Weinberg, 1974). Extending such analysis to the entire corpus results in articles discussing similar themes. The analysis presented here is robust to time. It means that the application of bibliographic coupling at two different time points will yield the same results, which may not be the case with a similar analysis like co-citation analysis, as the relationships between articles may change based on the amount of time they are cited on other texts. This analytical tool has been widely applied in various research domains (Baker, Kumar, & Pandey, 2020; Donthu, Reinartz, et al., 2021; Khan et al., 2020, 2021).

Using bibliographic coupling, the SIJ corpus was divided into 223 clusters. Out of these, eight clusters covered nearly 89% of the corpus, with major clusters being Cluster 1 (Theme: ‘Service Management’, Coverage of Corpus: 35.91%), Cluster 2 (‘Service Innovation’, 15.16%), Cluster 3 (‘Service Adoption and Service Experience’, 11.08%), Cluster 4 (‘Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction’, 8.25%), Cluster 5 (‘Management of Service Quality’, 5.78%), Cluster 6 (‘Consumer Behavior’, 5.59%), Cluster 7 (‘Service Firms’, 4.12%), and Cluster 8 (‘Service and Relationship Marketing’, 3.46%). These major clusters are summarized in Table 1, while their publication patterns are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Publications in each major cluster. This figure represents the period-wise publications in each of the major cluster.

Table 1. Summary of Cluster 1 and proposed future directions.

	Author(s)	Title	Year	TC
Cluster 1: Service Management (TP: 758, TC: 12,509)
Most Cited Articles	Edvardsson B., Olsson J.	Key concepts for new service development	1996	446
	Warhurst C., Nickson D., Witz A., Cullen A.M.	Aesthetic labor in interactive service work: Some case study evidence from the ‘new’ Glasgow	2000	202
	Öǧüt H., Onur Taş B.K.	The influence of internet customer reviews on the online sales and prices in hotel industry	2012	201
	Baggio R., Cooper C.	Knowledge transfer in a tourism destination: The effects of a network structure	2010	178
	Carmona-Moreno E., Céspedes-Lorente J., de Burgos-Jiménez J.	Environmental strategies in Spanish hotels: Contextual factors and performance	2004	155
Key Themes	1981–1990	1991–2000	2001–2010	2011–2020
	• Hospitality Industry • Customer Service • Services Marketing • Labor Productivity	• Service Development • Knowledge Transfer • Hospitality Industry • Management of Services • Internationalization in the Service Industry	• Knowledge Transfer • Environment Strategies • Internationalization of Service SMEs • Country Image • Service Innovation • Knowledge Management • System Failure	• Hospitality Industry • Internationalization in Service Firms • Social Responsibility • Service Marketing • Franchising in the Service Industry • Internet reviews
Potential Future Directions	• What is the effect of policy response to Covid 19 on service management? • What is the effect of labor policies of firms on their service management? • How do factors such as globalization and immigration affect service management?
Cluster 2: Service Innovation (TP: 320, TC: 6,895)
Most Cited Articles	Sundbo J.	Management of innovation in services	1997	495
	Toivonen M., Tuominen T.	Emergence of innovations in services	2009	239
	Carlborg P., Kindström D., Kowalkowski C.	The evolution of service innovation research: A critical review and synthesis	2014	162
	Arnould E.J., Price L.L., Tierney P.	Communicative staging of the wilderness servicescape	1998	139
	Amara N., Landry R., Doloreux D.	Patterns of innovation in knowledge-intensive business services	2009	124
Key Themes	1981–1990	1991–2000	2001–2010	2011–2020
	• NA	• Management of service innovation • Communication of services • New product development • Costing of services	• Knowledge- intensive business services • Communication of Services • Effect of service innovation of economic performance • New service development	• Measurement of Service Innovation • Use of AI in services • Value co-creation of services
Potential Future Directions	• What is the effect of AI on service performance? • How can co-competition strategies affect new service development?
Cluster 3: Service Adoption and Service Experience (TP: 234, TC: 3,877)
Most Cited Articles	Yousafzai S., Pallister J., Foxall G.	Multi-dimensional role of trust in Internet banking adoption	2009	124
	Koenig-Lewis N., Marquet M., Palmer A., Zhao A.L.	Enjoyment and social influence: predicting mobile payment adoption	2015	101
	Cran D.J.	Towards Validation of the Service Orientation Construct	1994	82
	Ekinci Y., Dawes P.L.	Consumer perceptions of frontline service employee personality traits, interaction quality, and consumer satisfaction	2009	77
	Chen K.-Y., Chang M.-L.	User acceptance of ‘near field communication’ mobile phone service: an investigation based on the ‘unified theory of acceptance and use of technology’ model	2013	75
Key Themes	1981–1990	1991–2000	2001–2010	2011–2020
	• NA	• NA	• Internet Banking Adoption • Service orientation • Market orientation • Behavior of service providers	• Technology adoption • Wellbeing of Service Providers • Service Experience
Potential Future Directions	• What is the effect of the workplace environment on the wellbeing of service providers? • How does the wellbeing of the service provider affect the customer experience and intention to adopt a service?
Cluster 4: Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction (TP: 174, TC: 5,412)
Most Cited Articles	Hu H.-H., Kandampully J., Juwaheer D.D.	Relationships and impacts of service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, and image: An empirical study	2009	340
	Matzler K., Sauerwein E., Heischmidt K.A.	Importance-performance analysis revisited: The role of the factor structure of customer satisfaction	2003	237
	Sampson S.E., Showalter M.J.	The performance-importance response function: Observations and implications	1999	170
	Shamdasani P., Mukherjee A., Malhotra N.	Antecedents and consequences of service quality in consumer evaluation of self-service internet technologies	2008	124
	Chadee D.D., Mattsson J.	An empirical assessment of customer satisfaction in tourism	1996	115
Key Themes	1981–1990	1991–2000	2001–2010	2011–2020
	• NA	• Customer Satisfaction • Service Recovery • Service Quality • Management of Customer Expectations	• Customer Satisfaction • Service Quality • Customer evaluation • Measurement of customer expectation • Perception gaps in customer satisfaction	• Effect of service quality on customer satisfaction • Measurement customer experience • Service failure and service recovery
Potential Future Directions	• How does e-service quality affect customer loyalty?
Cluster 5: Management of Service Quality (TP: 122 TC: 3,259)
Most Cited Articles	Saleh F.	Analysing service quality in the hospitality industry using the servqual model	1991	360
	Lehtinen U.	Two approaches to service quality dimensions	1991	315
	Baltacioglu T., Ada E., Kaplan M.D., Yurt O., Kaplan Y.C.	A new framework for service supply chains	2007	204
	Vandermerwe S., Chadwick M.	The Internationalisation of Services	1989	162
	Mitchell V.-W.	Problems and Risks in the Purchasing of Consultancy Services	1994	115
Key Themes	1981–1990	1991–2000	2001–2010	2011–2020
	• Service Quality • Service in Hospitality • Service Encounters	• Service Quality • Service Encounter • Internationalization of Services • Financial Services • Pricing of Services	• Service Supply Chain • Differentiation of Services • Customer-to-Customer Interaction	• Service Strategy • Service Quality Evaluation • E-Commerce Services
Potential Future Directions	• What are the dynamics of e-commerce service quality?
Cluster 6: Consumer Behaviour (TP: 118 TC: 2,629)
Most Cited Articles	Mitchell V.-W., Greatorex M.	Risk Perception and Reduction in the Purchase of Consumer Services	1993	237
	Chang H.H., Liu Y.M.	The impact of brand equity on brand preference and purchase intentions in the service industries	2009	135
	Dabholkar P.A., Sheng X.	Consumer participation in using online recommendation agents: Effects on satisfaction, trust, and purchase intentions	2012	117
	Mari M., Poggesi S.	Servicescape cues and customer behavior: a systematic literature review and research agenda	2013	116
	File K.M., Cermak D.S.P., Prince R.A.	Word-of-Mouth Effects in Professional Services Buyer Behaviour	1994	98
Key Themes	1981–1990	1991–2000	2001–2010	2011–2020
	• NA	• Risk Perception • Word of Mouth • Purchase behavior • Relationship marketing	• Purchase intention • Consumer re-patronage intention • Brand performance • Consumer emotion	• Online recommendation system • Hedonistic service consumption • Online consumer behavior • Purchase intention during the Covid-19 pandemic
Potential Future Directions	• How has Covid-19 pandemic shaped online consumer behavior?
Cluster 7: Service Firms (TP: 87 TC: 1,258)
Most Cited Articles	Bartikowski B., Llosa S.	Customer satisfaction measurement: Comparing four methods of attribute categorizations	2004	69
	Akehurst G., Simarro E., Mas-Tur A.	Women entrepreneurship in small service firms: Motivations, barriers and performance	2012	60
	Alves H.	Co-creation and innovation in public services	2013	54
	Lynch P.A.	Networking in the homestay sector	2000	48
	Eid R., El-Gohary H.	The impact of E-marketing use on small business enterprises’ marketing success	2013	46
Key Themes	1981–1990	1991–2000	2001–2010	2011–2020
	• NA	• NA	• Customer Satisfaction • Marketing Strategy	• Public Services • Entrepreneurial Orientation in Service Firms • Service Innovation and firm performance
Potential Future Directions	• What is the effect of Work-Family conflict on service firm performance? • How does stakeholder engagement affect service-firm performance?
Cluster 8: Service and Relationship Marketing (TP: 73 TC: 1,836)
Most Cited Articles	Holmlund M., Kock S.	Relationship marketing: The importance of customer-perceived service quality in retail banking	1996	93
	Liang C.-J., Chen H.-J., Wang W.-H.	Does online relationship marketing enhance customer retention and cross-buying?	2008	85
	Lin N.-P., Weng J.C.M., Hsieh Y.-C.	Relational bonds and customer's trust and commitment – A study on the moderating effects of web site usage	2003	83
	Aldas-Manzano J., Ruiz-Mafe C., Sanz-Blas S., Lassala-Navarré C.	Internet banking loyalty: Evaluating the role of trust, satisfaction, perceived risk and frequency of use	2011	82
	Beatson A., Lee N., Coote L.V.	Self-Service technology and the service encounter	2007	79
Key Themes	1981–1990	1991–2000	2001–2010	2011–2020
	• NA	• NA	• Relationship Marketing • Customer Retention • Customer Trust	• Customer Trust • Customer Loyalty • Corporate Reputation
Potential Future Directions	• What is the effect of service security on customer relations?

Note: Here, TP: total publications, and TC: total citations.

Cluster 1: service management

This cluster contains 758 articles that have been cited 12,509 times. The most cited articles in this cluster revolve around service development, service work, the effect of review on the service industry, knowledge transfer, and strategies in the hospitality industry. The major focus of cluster 1 is the hospitality industry, with attention given to topics such as customer service, knowledge management, service innovation, service marketing, internationalization of service firms, and social responsibility in service firms. Figure 2 shows that the interest in the cluster peaked between 2001 and 2010. The topic has seen a decline recently. However, it remains one of the major areas of interest for SIJ authors.

As Table 1 suggests, between 1981 and 1990, the themes in this cluster revolved around central themes such as hospitality industry, customer service, service marketing, and labor productivity. The focus on hospitality is expected given the definition of the ‘service industry’ was synonymous with hospitality during that time. Between 1991 and 2000, the focus was on the topics of service development, interactive service work, provider-customer interface, the internationalization of business services, and knowledge transfer, while the industry focus during this time remained hospitality. In the following period (2001–2010) the focus of the cluster did not change, while the topical focus remained on knowledge transfer in the service industry, environment strategies, service innovation, and service system failure. Between 2011 and 2020, the topical focus was on internationalization in service firms, service marketing, social responsibility, franchising and internet review, while industry focus expanded to include financial services in addition to hospitality. More recently, the cluster has focused on the policy, labor market and globalization on service management. In the future, authors can explore the topics related to the impact of policy responses to Covid 19 on the service industry, the effect of labor policies of firms on service management, and the effect of factors such as immigration and globalization on service management.

Cluster 2: service innovation

This cluster contains 320 articles that have been cited 6895 times. The central theme of this cluster is service innovation. The authors have focused on the management of innovation of services, the emergence of service innovation research, servicescape, and the use of knowledge-intensive business service. The cluster had the highest share between 2011 and 2020.

As per Table 1, the temporal analysis of the cluster shows that between 1981 and 1990, the cluster was dormient. Between 1991 and 2000, the focus was on topics such as management of service innovation, communication of service, new product development projects, strategic planning of services, and costing of financial services. In the following period (2001–2010), the focus solidified on the topic of service innovation with authors focusing on topics such as knowledge-intensive business services, the impact of service innovation on the performance of services, communication of services, new service development, and strategies for building a service brand. In the latest period (2011–2020), service innovation has become a major one in the journal with themes such as measurement of service innovation, value co-creation in services, sustainable service innovation, and implementation of artificial intelligence in services. In the future, authors may explore the implementation of AI in service and its impact on performance and/or the use of co-competition strategies in the development of new services.

Cluster 3: service adoption and service experience

This cluster contains 234 articles that have been cited 3877 times. The central themes of this cluster are service adoption and customer experience. The most cited articles in the cluster revolve around internet banking adoption, mobile payment adoption, service orientation, customer perception of services, and user acceptance of technology. The cluster has seen a consistent rise in publication, having the second-highest share in the publication between 2011 and 2020.

According to Table 1, in the first two periods i.e. 1981–1990 and 1991–2000, the cluster presented only two publications. Therefore, the temporal development in the cluster can only be traced from the third period (2001–2010). During this time, the authors focused on topics such as internet banking adoption, consumer perception of services, turnover intention, adoption of technologies by banks, service orientation, customer participation in services, market orientation, and behavior of service providers. In the latest period (2011–2020), the focus has been on service adoption and the related issue of experience. The authors have focused on the adoption of technologies such as mobile payment services. More recently, the cluster dealt with such issues as the service provider's wellbeing and its relationship with customer experience. In the future, the authors can focus on topics such as the effect of the workplace environment on the mental wellbeing of service providers and the effect of service provider’s wellbeing on customer satisfaction and motivation to adopt a service.

Cluster 4: service quality and customer satisfaction

This cluster contains 174 articles that have been cited 5412 times. The themes in this cluster seem very closely related to those in Cluster 3. The most cited articles in the cluster focus on the topics of service quality and customer satisfaction. The publications between 2011 and 2020 were fewer than those of the previous one (2001–2010).

According to Table 1 and Figure 2, the development in this cluster didn’t begin until the second decade (1991–2000). During this period, the cluster's focus was on the topics related to customer satisfaction, service recovery, management of customer expectations, customer retention, and customer perception. In the following period (2001–2010), customer satisfaction and service quality have been studied with a focus on various topics such as customer evaluation service, measurement of experience quality, and perception gaps in customer satisfaction. In the latest period (2011–2020), the authors have focused on the topics such as customer satisfaction, service quality, service failure and service recovery, the effect of service quality on customer loyalty, and measurement of customer experience. In more recent times, the authors have focused on the topics related to e-service quality and prediction of loyalty based on service quality. These themes can be extended in the future with a focus on the service quality in internet environments.

Cluster 5: management of service quality

The articles in this cluster focus on the management of service quality. The number of articles in the cluster saw consistency in the first two decades (1981–1990 and 1991–2000) but then a consistent decrease in the next two decades (2001–2010 and 2011–2020). This cluster contains 122 articles that have been cited 3259 times. The most cited articles in this cluster focus on the topics such as approaches to service quality, service quality models, risks related to the integration of services, service supply chains, and internationalization of services.

The temporal analysis (Table 1) of the cluster shows that between 1981 and 1990, the authors in this cluster focused on the topics such as service quality in the hotel industry, service quality in the customer relationship, service marketing encounters, and professionalism in services. In the following period (1991–200), the authors in this cluster focused in the topics such as service quality, service encounter, internationalization of services, financial services, in-house employee training and development, and pricing of services. The focus of the cluster during the last period is indicative of a developing emphasis on the management of service quality. In this cluster, the focus is on the topic and different factors that affect it. In the following period between 2001 and 2010, the focus of the cluster has been on the service supply chain, differentiation of services, customer view of technologies, and customer-to-customer interaction. In the following period between 2011 and 2020, the cluster saw has the least number of publications with authors focusing on service strategy, service quality evaluation, and e-commerce services. In the future, the authors can explore the topics mainly e-commerce service quality.

Cluster 6: consumer behavior

This is closely related to Cluster 4, with authors focusing on the topic of consumer behavior. This is one of the smaller clusters covering 5.58% of the total corpus. Major clusters cover 62.09% of the corpus for the first three clusters, while the next five clusters cover 27.17%. The cluster has seen a consistent rise in publication over the last three periods in terms of temporal trends,. The most cited articles in the cluster focus on the topics, such as risk perception in the purchase of consumer services, purchase intention and factors affecting it, consumer participation, serviscape and its relationship with customer behavior, and word of mouth.

The temporal analysis (Table 1) of clusters reveals that between 1981 and 1990, only one publication was there. The publications began to rise in the following periods (1991–2000), with authors focusing on the topics such as risk perception, word of mouth, purchase behavior, consumer price cognition, relationship marketing, and factors that affect consumer behavior and purchase intention. The theme of consumer behavior was further explored in the following period (2001–2010), with authors exploring topics such as the effect of brand equity on purchase intention, consumer re-patronage intention, developing brand performance, and consumer emotion. During this period the authors’ focus was more toward the behavioral aspects of the topics with more emphasis on emotional and demographic aspects. The theme was further developed in the following period (2011–2020), in which the cluster saw its highest publication. Here the authors explored the topics such as consumer participation in online recommendation systems, online consumer intention and loyalty, hedonistic service consumption, and consumer behavior towards the purchase of protective equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic. The topics in this cluster primarily focus on online consumer behavior, with more recent publications focusing on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. This topic has the potential for further exploration, with authors focusing on the impacts of such events on consumer behavior.

Cluster 7: service firms

This cluster focuses on topics related to service firms. The cluster contains 87 articles that have been cited 1258 times. Most cited articles in the cluster focus on the topics such as female entrepreneurship in services, co-creation and innovation in public services, the role of networking in hospitality, and customer satisfaction. The publication patterns in this cluster show that the growth in this topic is a more recent phenomenon with the overwhelming majority of its publication coming between 2011 and 2020.

During the first two periods (1981–1990 and 1991–2000), this cluster had only eight publications (Table 1). However, between 2001 and 2010, the cluster had 12 publications which were more than the total publications in two decades. During this time the authors focused on the topics related to customer satisfaction, marketing strategy, and factors affecting customer satisfaction. Between 2011 and 2020, the authors' focus was on the topics such as female entrepreneurship, co-creation and innovation in public services, entrepreneurial orientation in service firms, and service innovation and firm performance. In more recent times the authors have focused on the topics such as work-family conflicts and stakeholder engagement. In the future the authors can further explore the topics such as work-family conflicts and stakeholder engagement.

Cluster 8: customer relations and relationship marketing

This cluster contains 73 articles that have been cited 1836 times. The cluster focuses on the topics of customer relations and relationship marketing. The most cited articles in this cluster focus on relationship marketing perceived quality, online relationship marketing, customer trust and commitment, perceived risk, and service encounter. The temporal trend of the publication in the cluster shows that the cluster generated interest from the authors till the third decade (2001–2010), with publication declining in the latest decade.

The thematic patterns in the journal show that in the first two decades (1981–1990 and 1991–2000) the journal saw only three publications combined (Table 1). In the third decade the cluster has its highest share in publication. During this time the authors focused on the topics such as online relationship marketing and customer retention, customer trust, service encounter, and other topics related to the application of relationship marketing in services. In the latest decade (2011–2020), the authors explored the topics such as customer loyalty, customer trust, corporate reputation, and customer relations in the context of social media. In more recent times the authors have focused on the topics related to service security and customer loyalty. In the future the authors can explore this topic further, researching the topics such as the effect of service security on customer loyalty.

Methodological choices of SIJ authors

Figures 3 through 6 show the methodological choices of SIJ authors (RQ3). The research published in the journal consists of conceptual and empirical studies, with some literature reviews and analytical studies. Figure 3 shows that the most popular research design with SIJ authors – with 49.7% of the article – is empirical. The conceptual articles have a substantial share, with 47.3% of the articles being conceptual. According to Figure 4, qualitative studies have a share of 47.3%, while quantitative studies have a share of 48.6%. According to Figure 5, the most popular data collection techniques are surveys and qualitative enquires (interview, observation, and focus groups). Their combined share is 80.4%. Archival sources also have a substantial share at 11.8%, with articles with multiple data collection techniques having a share of 4.6%.

Figure 3. Share of different research designs in SIJ research during 1981–2020. This figure presents the share of different research designs in SIJ research between 1981 and 2020. Others include the research designs not classified under other four categories, like using more than one research design, among others.

Figure 4. Share of different research methods in SIJ research during 1981–2020. This figure represents the share of different research methods in SIJ research between 1981 and 2020. Here not mentioned category includes the articles which did not mention their method of analysis (primarily conceptual articles). The share presented is below names of each category.

Figure 5. Share of different data collection methods in SIJ research during 1981–2020. This figure represents the share of different data collection methods in SIJ research between 1981 and 2020. Here no data reported/collected includes articles that did not mention their data sources. The qualitative category includes interviews, observations, and focus groups. The multi-method category includes studies that used combination of one or more data collection techniques. The share presented is below names of each category.

Figure 6 shows that the hospitality and travel sector is the most studied one in the journal, with the studies based on it forming around 20% of the corpus. Financial services are one of the most studied sectors with a share of 16.1%, while retail, IT services, and healthcare have a share of 9.9%, 7.6%, and 3.8%, respectively. While none of the remaining service areas count more than 1% of the corpus, their collective share is substantial.

Figure 6. The sectoral focus of SIJ research during 1981–2020. This figure represents the share of different sectors in research published in SIJ between 1981 and 2020. Others represent all the sectors with less than 1% share in the research. Some examples include manufacturing, fashion etc. The unmentioned category represents the articles that did not mention their industry focus. The share presented is below names of each category.

Recent developments in SIJ

This section presents an overview of the journal in the last five years. The journal has averaged nearly 59 articles a year. The citations during this time averaged at 3270.8. The focus of the journal on quality of publication than on its quantity is given that the number of publications in these five years decreased compared to the previous five years i.e. 2011–2015 (from 103.8 to –58.6), while citations increased (from 2388.60 to –3270.80). Moreover, the average yearly citations of articles published between 2016 and 2020 have been 3.8 (approx.), which is a significant improvement over the previous five years (1.8 between 2011 and 2015). Furthermore, the impact of a journal factor has grown from 1.5 in Journal Citation Report (2016) to 6.539 in Journal Citation Report (2021).

Apart from the citations, the journal has also seen a shift in its focus. The industry focus of the journal between 2011 and 2020 was on the hospitality industry. This trend is more pronounced during the last five years, with more than 30% of all publications focusing on hospitality alone. Figure 7 shows the keyword network in the last five years. During this time the most occurring keyword has been Customer Satisfaction, followed by Service Innovation, Customer Loyalty, Trust, and Value Co-Creation. Such themes have been studied with a focus primarily on the hospitality industry. These are in line with the themes discussed in the bibliographic coupling section. The journal, in its early days, focused on the service management and internationalization of service. The topics studied indicated a focus on the firm side of service. In the last five years, the focus has shifted to the customer side of services and topics such as customer satisfaction and value co-creation have become more prevalent in the journal. Also, in these last few years, the journal has been addressing lingering societal issues, as can be seen from the recent special issue published during 2018–2021. As evident from Table 2, the journal is publishing articles on contemporary themes such as transformative services and Covid-19; socio-cultural, economic, political, environmental, and technological complexities and challenges of service trade within the silk road; service industries and informal economy; wellbeing and service industries; the role of services in global refugee crisis; innovations and advance sustainability behaviors; and customer engagement and design issues in the hospitality and tourism industry. This indicates that the focus of the journal is publishing cutting-edge research in service. Given its focus on attraction related to societal issues (practice), the journal will continue to be the most preferred outlet for service scholars and industry professionals.

Figure 7. The keyword co-occurrence network of the last five years (2016–2020). The network presents a keyword network in the last five years. Here the size of bubbles represents the connectivity of a keyword with other keywords, and the thickness of links represent the co-occurrence of keywords.

Table 2. List of special issues published in SIJ during the 2018–2021 period.

S.no	Theme of the Special Issue	Guest Editor(s)	Publication Year	Volume and Issue
1.	The Silk Road and the service industries	Dogan Gursoy and Levent Altinay	2021	Vol. 41, Issue 7–8
2.	Transformative service research and COVID-19	Catherine Prentice, Levent Altinay, and Arch G. Woodside	2021	Vol. 41, Issue 1–2
3.	Well-being Research in the Service Industries	Muzaffer Uysal, M. Joseph Sirgy & Hyelin (Lina) Kim	2020	Vol. 40, Issue 1–2
4.	Innovations to Advance Sustainability Behaviours	Janine Dermody, JinHyo Joseph Yun & Valentina Della Corte	2020	Vol. 39, Issue 15–16
5.	Global refugee crisis and the service industries	Alexandros Paraskevas, Maureen Brookes & Levent Altinay	2020	Vol. 39, Issue 9–10
6.	Consumer Engagement in the Tourism Industry: New Trends and Implications for Research	Babak Taheri, Sameer Hosany & Levent Altinay	2020	Vol. 39, Issue 7–8
7.	Services industries and the informal economy: an introduction	Abbi M. Kedir, Colin Williams & Levent Altinay	2019	Vol. 38, Issue 11–12
8.	Hospitality, Healthcare, and Design	Mark S. Rosenbaum	2018	Vol. 38, Issue 1–2

Conclusion

This study presents a comprehensive view of SIJ using a bibliometric analysis. This retrospective analysis looks at a range of perspectives, including the publication and citation patterns, major themes and methodological approaches. To this end we use various bibliometric tools. For publication and citation patterns we use performance analysis. Significant themes are analyzed using bibliographic coupling. The methodologies are analyzed using descriptive analysis, and the collaboration patterns are analyzed using co-authorship analysis.

Our first research question deals with the publication citation and collaboration patterns of the journal. The performance analysis of the journal suggests that the citations of the journal have grown consistently during the last 40 years, while patterns of publications have been uneven (RQ1).

Bibliographic coupling finds that the major themes in the SIJ corpus are service management, service innovation, service adoption and service experience, service quality and customer satisfaction, management of service quality, consumer behavior, service firms, and service and relationship marketing (RQ2). We find that with time the focus of the journal has drifted more toward the customer side of services from its business side.

The descriptive analysis of the methodologies suggests that the journal has empirical and conceptual studies articles. We find that SIJ authors have focused on hospitality (RQ3).

Using a range of tools, we present a thorough retrospection of SIJ. Our findings are helpful for the editors of the journal (as we present the current trajectory of the journal in terms of citations and contribution base) and the scholarly community (as we present several major themes and future research directions).

The service industry has gone through a significant upheaval in the last two years, with issues arising at the service provider level and the consumer level. The covid 19 pandemic has highlighted problems with employee welfare and customer trust. These issues will be at the forefront of the research in the service area. This pandemic has also presented an opportunity to bring in new ways to interact. In this study we provide several potential future directions for the research. In addition to these, researchers can explore the field to develop new paradigms and present measures to avoid the industry’s setbacks. Academics, managers, and policymakers should work together to shape the future of service research for good.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).