Improvisation in service performances: Lessons from jazz

Managing Service Quality

Volumn 16, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 247-268

  John, Joby ^a   Grove, Stephen J ^b   Fisk, Raymond P ^c  

^a BENTLEY COLLEGE   (United States)

^b CLEMSON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF NEW ORLEANS   (United States)

Author keywords

Customer services quality; Metaphors; Music; Services

Indexed keywords

EID: 33744815269     PISSN: 09604529     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1108/09604520610663480     Document Type: Review

References (49)

1. Amabile, T.M. (1988), "A model of organizational innovation", in Shaw, B.M. and Cummings, L.L. (Eds), Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 10, JAI Press, Greenwich, CT.
2. Barrett, F.J. (1998), "Creativity and improvisation in jazz and organizations: Implications for organizational learning", Organization Science, Vol. 9 No. 5, pp. 605-22.
3. Bastien, D. and Hostagier, T. (1988), "Jazz as a process of organizational innovation", Communication Research, Vol. 15 No. 5, pp. 582-602.
4. Berliner, P.F. (1994), Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
5. Berry, L.L. (1980), "Services marketing is different", Business, Vol. 30, May-June, pp. 24-39.
6. Berry, L.L., Zeithaml, V. and Parasuraman, A. (1985), "Quality counts in services, too", Business Horizons, Vol. 28, May-June, pp. 44-52.
7. Bettencourt, L. (1997), "Customer voluntary performance: Customers as partners in service delivery", Journal of Retailing, Vol. 73 No. 3, pp. 383-406.
8. Bettencourt, L. and Brown, S.W. (1997), "Customer-contact employees; relationships among workplace fairness, job satisfaction and pro-social behaviors", Journal of Retailing, Vol. 73 No. 1, pp. 39-61.
9. Bettencourt, L. and Gwinner, K. (1996), "Customization or the service experience: The role of the frontline employee", International of Service Industry Management, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 3-20.
10. Bitner, M.J. (1992), "Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees", Journal of Marketing, Vol. 56, April, pp. 57-71.
11. Bitner, M.J., Booms, B.H. and Tetreault, M.S. (1990), "The service encounter: Diagnosing favorable and unfavorable incidents", Journal of Marketing, Vol. 54, January, pp. 71-84.
12. Boshoff, C. and Allen, J. (2000), "The influence of selected antecedents on frontline staff's perceptions of service recovery performance", International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 63-90.
13. Bowen, D.E. and Lawler, E.E. (1992), "The empowerment of service workers: What, why, how and when", Sloan Management Review, Spring, pp. 31-9.
14. Bowen, D.E., Schneider, B. and Kim, S.S. (2000), "Shaping service cultures through strategic human resource management", in Swartz, T. and Iacobucci, D. (Eds), Handbook of Services Marketing and Management, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 439-54.
15. Brown, R.H. (1977), A Poetic for Sociology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
16. Brown, S.L. and Eisenhardt, K.M. (1998), Strategy as Structured Chaos, HBS Press, Cambridge, MA.
17. Chase, R.B. (1978), "Where does the customer fit in a service operation?", Harvard Business Review, Vol. 56, November/December, pp. 137-42.
18. Clancy, J.J. (1989), The Invisible Powers: The Language of Business, Lexington Books, Lexington, MA.
19. Clow, K.H. and Kurtz, D.L. (2004), Services Marketing, 2nd ed., Atomic Dog Publishing, Cincinnati, OH.
20. Fisk, R.P., Grove, S.J. and John, J. (2004), Interactive Services Marketing, 2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA.
21. Gold, M. and Hirshfeld, S. (2005), "The behaviors of jazz as a catalyst for strategic renewal and growth", Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 26 No. 5, pp. 40-7.
22. Grönroos, C. (1985), "Internal marketing - theory and practice", in Bloch, T., Upah, G. and Zeithaml, V. (Eds), Services Marketing in a Changing Environment, American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 41-7.
23. Grove, S.J. and Fisk, R.P. (1983), "The dramaturgy of services exchange; an analytical framework for services marketing", in Berry, L.L., Shostack, G.L. and Upah, G.D. (Eds), Emerging Perspectives on Services Marketing, American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 45-9.
24. Grove, S.J., Fisk, R.P. and John, J. (2000), "Services as theater: guidelines and implications", in Swartz, T. and Iacobucci, D. (Eds), Handbook of Services Marketing and Management, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 21-35.
25. Hargreaves, D.J., Cork, A.C. and Setton, T. (1991), "Cognitive strategies in jazz improvisation", Canadian Journal of Research in Music Education, Vol. 33, December, pp. 47-54.
26. Harris, R., Harris, K. and Baron, S. (2003), "Theatrical experiences: Dramatic script development with employees", International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 184-99.
27. Hughes, L. (1982), The First Book of Jazz, Ecco Press, Hopewell, NJ.
28. Jennings, K. (2004), "What jazz taught marketing (or should have)", Marketing Profs Newsletter, September 21, available at: www.marketingprofs.com.
29. Johnson-Laird, P.N. (2002), "How jazz musicians improvise", Music Perception, Vol. 19 No. 3, Spring, pp. 415-42.
30. Kelley, S.W., Donnelly, J.H. and Skinner, S.J. (1990), "Customer participation in service production and delivery", Journal of Retailing, Vol. 66 No. 3, pp. 315-35.
31. Kelley, S.W., Donnelly, J.H. and Skinner, S.J. (1993), "Discretion and the service employee", Journal of Retailing, Vol. 69 No. 1, pp. 104-25.
32. King, J. (1997), What Jazz Is: An Insider's Guide to Understanding and Listening to Jazz, Walker and Company, New York, NY.
33. Lovelock, C. (1994), Product Plus, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
34. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (2005a), available at: http://webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=improvising.
35. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (2005b), available at: http://webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=jazz.
36. Mohr, L. and Bitner, M.J. (1991), "Mutual understanding between customers and employees in service encounters", in Holman, R.H. and Solomon, M.R. (Eds), Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 18, Association for Consumer Research, Provo, UT, pp. 611-6.
37. Organ, D.W. (1988), Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Soldier Syndrome, Lexington Books, Lexington, MA.
38. Ortony, A. (1975), "Why metaphors are necessary and not just nice", Educational Theory, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 45-53.
39. Parasuraman, A., Berry, L.L. and Zeithaml, V.A. (1988), "SERVQUAL: a multi-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality", Journal of Retailing, Vol. 64, Spring, pp. 12-37.
40. Peplowski, K. (1998), "The process of improvisation", Organization Science, Vol. 9 No. 5, pp. 560-1.
41. Rathmell, J. (1966), "What is meant by services", Journal of Marketing, Vol. 30, October, pp. 32-6.
42. Shostack, G.L. (1987), "Service positioning through structural change", Journal of Marketing, Vol. 51, January, pp. 34-43.
43. Silpakit, P. and Fisk, R.P. (1984), "Participatizing the service encounter: A theoretical framework", in Bloch, T.M., Upah, G.D. and Zeithaml, V.A. (Eds), AMA Services Marketing Proceedings, Service Marketing in a Changing Environment, American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 117-21.
44. Sureshchandar, G.S., Rajendran, C. and Anantharaman, R.N. (2001), "A holistic model for total quality service", International of Service Industry Management, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 378-412.
45. Tax, S.S. and Brown, S.W. (1998), "Recovering and learning from service failure", Sloan Management Review, Vol. 40, Fall, pp. 75-88.
46. Weick, K. (1992), "Agenda setting in organizational behavior", Journal of Management Inquiry, Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 171-82.
47. Yagil, D. (2002), "The relationship of customer satisfaction and service workers perceived control: Examination of three models", International of Service Industry Management, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 382-98.
48. Zeithaml, V.A. (1981), "How consumer evaluation processes differ between goods and services", in Donnelly, J. and George, W. (Eds), Marketing of Services, American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 186-90.
49. Zikmund, W.G. (1982), "Metaphors as methodology", in Bush, R.F. and Hunt, S.D. (Eds), Marketing Theory: Philosophy of Science Perspectives, American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 75-7.