To give a sense of the chronological progression of research in international
services marketing, Figure 1 presents the number of articles published in
each of the years from 1980 to 1998. Figure 1 implies that research on
international services marketing did not begin to appear significantly in
scholarly journals until the mid- to late-1980s. This is perhaps not surprising
given that research on the broad field of services itself did not materially
emerge in the marketing literature until the early-1980s. Moreover, several
of the searched journals were founded during the 1980s, resulting in a larger
number of outlets available for services research. This has undoubtedly
affected the increase in international services research during the past two
decades. It should be noted that the upsurge in articles in 1992 and 1995 is
partially the result of the publication in those years of special issues on
international services by the Service Industries Journal and the European
Journal of Marketing, events in themselves indicative of the emerging field
of international services marketing. Overall, the trendline reflected in
Figure 1 indicates the development of a new and growing field.
Earlier it was noted that international services research has focused largely
on specific industries, undoubtedly reflecting the early, exploratory phase of
the emerging research field. Table III presents a breakdown of the industries
represented in each of the articles considered here. In Table III, an article is
termed ``general'' if it covers three or more industries, or where specific
industries are not identified. As shown, broad-based articles on international
Journal Number
Service Industries Journal 38
Journal of International Business Studies 13
European Journal of Marketing 12
Journal of Services Marketing 10
Columbia Journal of World Business/Journal of World Business 9
Management International Review 8
International Journal of Service Industry Management 6
Journal of International Marketing 5
International Marketing Review 5
Advances in International Marketing 4
Journal of Business Research 3
Harvard Business Review 2
Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing 2
Journal of Retailing 2
Industrial Marketing Management 1
International Journal of Research in Marketing 1
International Journal of Retailing 1
Journal of Marketing 1
(Scandinavian) International Business Review 1
Table II. Journal outlets ranked by number of International Services Marketing
articles published, 1980-1998
A new and growing field
JOURNAL OF SERVICES MARKETING, VOL. 13 NO. 4/5 1999 351