Center for Services Leadership

Laurel Anderson is Associate Professor of Marketing at Arizona State University. She has degrees in both marketing and community health. Her expertise is in cultures, service and transformative consumer research. She focuses on creativity and innovation, going between cultural worlds, health well being, and challenges and strengths related to poverty, culture and immigration. In her research, she utilizes predominantly interpretive and community participatory action research methods.

Her current research projects include a community action research project on diabetes with Hispanic immigrants and an indigenous population, consumer-centric service innovation in the United States, Italy and China, a physiological study of the socio-emotive aspects of patient-provider interaction with Mayo Clinic, adolescent socialization on the internet, Hispanic consumers going between different cultural worlds, broad and narrow socialization in computer literacy in India, consumer activism and the reclamation of public space. Her research has appeared in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Consumer Behavior, among others and at numerous academic conferences.

Previously, she was Director of Institute for International Management at Arizona State University. And prior to academics, she developed community health programs focused on children and families, including a crisis intervention center for children.

She has lived and worked mainly in the United States, Italy, Japan, Thailand, and Iran.

Seigyoung ‘s research interests are in the areas of frontline employee’s customer orientation diversity, fit in climate and its impact on frontline employee attitude and performance, service innovation, service leadership, knowledge sharing/transfer in sales teams, sales team learning and conflict.

His work has been published in journals such as Journal of Retailing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Sloan Management Review, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Marketing Letters, Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, and Journal of Business Research, among others. Seigyoung has worked as a marketing scientist before entering academia and has taught in Australia, Canada, and Korea, before joining Thunderbird. He is also the recipient of the Best Reviewer Award for Journal of Service Research in 2013.

Seigyoung has executive education experience with leading global firms such as Samsung Electronics Company and Hyundai Motors. He also served as the co-director for the CEO franchise program in Korea before joining Thunderbird.

He is currently the Associate Editor at Journal of International Marketing and European Journal of Marketing. He is also on the editorial boards of several journals including Journal of Service Research, International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management among others.

Mary Jo Bitner is the Co-Executive Director of the Center for Services Leadership, Edward M. Carson Chair in Service Marketing, and Professor of Marketing at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University (ASU). In her more than 25-year career as a professor and researcher, Dr. Bitner has been recognized as one of the pioneers in the field of service marketing and management worldwide. At ASU she was a founding faculty member of the Center for Services Leadership and has been a leader in its emergence as a premier university-based center for the study of services marketing and management. She also served on the Board of the American Marketing Association (AMA) (2011-2014) and as the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Service Research (2013-2017).

Dr. Bitner is co-author of a leading textbook in services: Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm, McGraw-Hill, 7th edition, 2017. The book is used at the undergraduate and graduate levels at universities around the world, and has been translated into more than eight different languages. Dr. Bitner led the development of the W. P. Carey MBA marketing and service leadership specialization, a unique full-year focus within the nationally ranked W. P. Carey MBA. Alumni of this ongoing program work in companies worldwide, leading the implementation of service and customer-focused strategies.

In 2003, Dr. Bitner was awarded the Career Contributions to the Service Discipline Award presented by the American Marketing Association. She was also named an IBM Faculty Fellow and received the inaugural ISSIP Fellow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Service Science, from the International Society for Service Innovation Professionals in 2013. At ASU, Dr. Bitner has received the W. P. Carey School of Business Graduate Teaching Excellence Award and the award for Outstanding Professor, PhD Programs. She served as a Distinguished Faculty member at Fudan University, Shanghai, China and taught for many years in ASU’s EMBA program in China.

Dr. Bitner’s current research is concerned with service infusion strategies in goods-dominant companies and the strategic roles of technology and contact employees in shaping customer experiences in service contexts. She has published articles relevant to service marketing and management in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Sloan Management Review, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Service Management, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and others. She holds a BA in Political Science and MBA and PhD degrees in Marketing, all from the University of Washington, Seattle.

Ruth N. Bolton is Professor of Marketing at Arizona State University. She previously served as 2009-11 Executive Director of the Marketing Science Institute (www.msi.org). Dr. Bolton’s research considers how organizations can improve business performance over time by creating, maintaining and enhancing relationships with customers. She is currently studying multi-channel retailing strategies and tactics in global markets. She previously held academic positions at Vanderbilt University, the University of Oklahoma, Harvard University, University of Maryland, and the University of Alberta. She also spent eight years with Verizon, working on projects in the telecommunications and information services industries. Dr. Bolton’s earlier published articles focus on how to grow high technology, interactive services sold in global business-to-business markets. She has also investigated how organizations’ service and pricing strategies influence consumer satisfaction, loyalty and revenues. Dr. Bolton has published articles in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Service Research, Management Science, Marketing Science, and other leading journals. She previously served as editor of the Journal of Marketing (2002-2005) and Area Editor of the Journal of Marketing Research (2005-2007), as well as serving on the Editorial Review Boards of other leading marketing journals. She has also served on the Board of Trustees of the Marketing Science Institute, the Board of Directors of the Sheth Foundation and the Board of Directors of the American Marketing Association. She received her B.Comm., with honors, from Queen’s University (Canada), and her M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Tom received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and his A.B. from University of California, Berkeley. He is Professor of Supply Chain Management and Harold E. Fearon Chair of Purchasing Management at W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. He is also Executive Director of CAPS Research and Director of Center for Supply Networks (CaSN).

His research focuses on the upstream side of supply chain management including services outsourcing. His research areas are: supply networks as a complex adaptive system, social network analysis of supply networks, service outsourcing triads, non-linear buyer-supplier relationships, supply base management, supplier-supplier relationships, supply chain disintermediation, structural embeddedness in supply networks, and multi-tier supply chain management.

Tom’s recent industry projects have been in cloud-based services outsourcing, nexus supplier index, and supply chain financing through CAPS Research.

Kathryn Karnos Eaton (Kate) is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Arizona State University. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Business Administration, Marketing in the W. P. Carey School of Business in 2012. She also received undergraduate degrees in Finance and Management, with an International Business Certificate, from the W.P. Carey School of Business. Kate’s research interests include healthcare innovation, product and service design, and transformative services research. Before returning to teaching, Kate served as Principal Strategist for Obesity Solutions under a joint appointment with Arizona State University and Mayo Clinic. In this role she studied the efficacy of health messaging, education, and interventions.

John W. Fowler is the Motorola Professor and Chair of the Supply Chain Management department at ASU. He is also a Professor of Industrial Engineering (IE) and was previously the program chair for IE at ASU. Professor Fowler’s research interests include discrete event simulation, deterministic scheduling, and multi-criteria decision making. He has published over 100 journal articles and over 100 conference papers. He was the Program Chair for the 2002 and 2008 Industrial Engineering Research Conferences and the 2008 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC).

He is currently serving as Editor-in-Chief for a new Institute of Industrial Engineers’ journal focused on health care delivery systems entitled IIE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering. He is also an Editor of the Journal of Simulation. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) and currently serves as the IIE Vice President for Continuing Education, is a former INFORMS Vice President, and is an SCS representative on the Winter Simulation Conference Board of Directors.

He has taught short courses on the relationship between capacity and cycle time to leading semiconductor companies in the US, Europe, and Asia.

Nancy is an energetic, exceptionally experienced professional whose verifiable results demonstrate ingenuity in delivering strategic brand, marketing communication, and design initiatives. Her work has built visibility, recognition, and positive market presence for diverse organizations across multiple industries and services – from pharmaceutical and biotechnology to banking and consumer products.

Working for large multi-national organizations for a decade then establishing GrayMatter in 1996 has provided Nancy perspective into what is necessary to succeed in both established and entrepreneurial environments. This broad professional background complements her academic work within Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business. It is a great joy for Nancy to practice what Albert Einstein described as the supreme art of the teacher – awakening joy in creative expression and knowledge. Nancy has worked with the Center for Services Leadership in designing their Executive Education program and currently leads the Department of Marketing’s Integrated Brand and Marketing Communication offerings. Other courses Nancy has developed and taught include Applied Design Research, Design Thinking, Design History, and Consumer Behavior.

Nancy Gray earned her PhD in Design, Environment, and the Arts and her Master of Science in Design Degree (Industrial Design) from Arizona State University and her Bachelor of Arts Degree from Valparaiso University. Her primary research centers on exploring how creative design endeavors by both volitional (non-professional) and vocational designers contribute to firm performance, cultural vibrancy, and individual well-being. Her managerial and practice implications offer specific suggestions for building and nurturing people in their design endeavors, how this benefits the firm, and the thresholds for engagement. Other ongoing research offers firms a means for understanding which tangible and intangible elements combine to form a bond between a brand and their customer. This knowledge creates pathways to both strengthening existing brands, and building new ones.

Thomas Hollmann is a Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing and the Executive Director of the Center for Services Leadership at Arizona State University. Thomas’ work experience spans four countries and over 10 years in Fortune 100 companies, including Black & Decker, Xerox, and as an executive at Sun Life Financial. His research interests include Services Science, with a focus on B2B, service analytics, and Relationship Marketing, with a particular interest in relationship outcomes (profitability, customer equity, defection, retention, satisfaction, etc.). His research has appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing and several leading marketing and services conferences. He has received research grants and awards from the Center for Innovation Management Studies, Xerox, IBM, and the Center for Services Leadership. Thomas has consulted with a range of Fortune 500 firms and he received awards for his teaching at Arizona State University and at NC State. Thomas earned a Ph.D. in Marketing from Arizona State University.

Gerry Keim is a Professor of Management Department in the W. P. Carey School of Business. From 2004-2009 he was the Associate Dean for MBA programs where he led the Fulltime and Executive MBA programs to their first top 25 and top 15 rankings respectively. He also served as Associate Dean for International Programs (2009-2012) and Chair of the Management Department (2010-2014) in the WPC School of Business.

His research, teaching and consulting focus on strategy formation and implementation particularly how organizations respond to changes in their environment. His research has been published in the leading management and public policy journals. He has won awards for outstanding teaching and research. In 2004 he was honored by the W. P. Carey MBA students with the John W. Teets award as the outstanding graduate teacher.

He previously taught at the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario, the Mays Graduate School of Business at Texas A&M University and at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Keim was a Senior Fulbright Professor in Germany (1990-91) where he studied business and government relations in Germany and the European Union. From1991-93 he lead a team of US and Austrian faculty on a USIS grant working in the Czech Republic to help Czech managers learn about managing in a market setting. From 1994 through 2004 he was a regular visiting professor in the International Management Institute at Johannes Kepler University in Linn, Austria.

He has worked with numerous corporations including, ARCO, Arizona Public Service, Bayer, Entergy, Exxon, Dow Chemical, Pacific Gas and Electric, State Farm Insurance, and Upjohn, as well as business associations such as the Business Roundtable, the American Council of Life Insurance, the Edison Electric Institute, and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. He served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Washington Campus (2011-2014) and continues as a board member. He also served as a Trustee of the Foundation for Public Affairs of the Public Affairs Council in Washington, DC.

Dr. Kumar’s research interests include statistical modeling & analysis of marketing data. He has published articles in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Retailing and other journals. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Business Research.

Monika Lisjak is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. She received her Ph.D. in Marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Prior to joining Arizona State University, she was an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University.

She has two streams of research. One stream is on symbolic consumption, which is the idea that people are often motivated to buy products with symbolic value to communicate information about themselves. Monika examines 1) what are the factors that motivate consumers to buy products that are imbued with symbolic benefits, and 2) what are the effects of symbolic consumption on consumer well-being. The second stream of research is on how companies can use marketing tactics, such as rewards, to foster consumer-brand relationships and loyalty.

Her research has been published in a number of leading academic journals, including the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and has been featured in several media outlets, such as Forbes, Huffington Post, New York magazine, The Economist, Time Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune, among others. Monika was also the recipient of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research VENI grant (€ 250,000).

Mauricio Mejía is an Associate Professor of Design and Assistant Director of Research and Knowledge Enterprise for The Design School at Arizona State University. His current work is about strategic design and theories of change. He often collaborates with practitioners and researchers in other fields, such as health, sustainability, business, and education. Dr. Mejía studies and works with diverse design practices and approaches such as design research, service design, experience design, co-design, and design futures. He received a Ph.D. in Design from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and a Master of Design degree from the University of Cincinnati.

Michael Mokwa is the Pat Tillman Foundation Distinguished Professor in Leadership and Marketing and the former Department Chair and Faculty Director of ASU’s acclaimed MBA Sports Business Program. His research interests include Strategic Marketing, Strategic Management and Sports Business. He has published articles in the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Business Research, Journal of Retailing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Education, and other business journals.

Detra Y. Montoya is a Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing in W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. She has a B.S. degree from the University of Arizona, and M.B.A. and Ph.D from Arizona State University. Prior to receiving her Ph.D., she held numerous positions in Procter & Gamble’s Customer Business Development and Multicultural Business Development organizations.

Dr. Montoya’s research interests include multicultural consumer behavior and retail display effects on product choice. Her research has been published in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Business Research, European Retail Digest, and America’s Pharmacist. She is co-author of a textbook, Business Consulting in a Multicultural America. She has received research grants from the University of Washington Institute of Ethnic Studies in the United States, State Farm Insurance, and the Michael G. Foster School of Business Consulting and Business Development Center to conduct research on multicultural consumer behavior.

Dr. Montoya serves as the Faculty Director of the W. P. Carey School of Business Professional Sales Program, and she is the former Faculty Director for the Master of Science in Management program. She won the 2016 Huizingh Outstanding Service to Undergraduate Students Award. Dr. Montoya serves as Course Lead for the W. P. Carey Center for Services Leadership Executive online programs. She specializes in teaching student consulting courses to assist small/medium-sized businesses with branding strategies. Dr. Montoya is a 2012 fellow of the National Hispana Leadership Institute’s Executive Leadership Program.

Douglas Olsen, B.Sc., MBA, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Marketing in W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. Prior to joining ASU, he served both as a professor and as the Associate Dean of MBA Programs at the University of Alberta. Douglas has been active in both graduate and undergraduate programs and teaches marketing strategy, research methodology and marketing communication. He has been an instructor in a broad range of executive development programs related to business strategy as well as public consultation. Over the past two decades, his dedication to teaching has been recognized with numerous awards for instructional excellence. On a pragmatic level, Douglas has been actively involved in consultation to both government and private enterprise and currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Committee for Leger Research. His research has been presented at over 30 conferences in Canada, the United States, Europe, South America and Australia. He is a member of the Association for Consumer Research and the American Marketing Association.

Amy L. Ostrom is the PetSmart Chair in Services Leadership and Marketing Department Chair at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University. Her research focuses on issues related to services marketing including customers’ evaluation and adoption of services, customers’ roles in creating service outcomes, and transformative service. Her work has appeared in a number of journals including the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Consumer Research, and the Journal of Service Research. Ostrom, who was selected as the 2004 Arizona Professor of the Year and the 2007 ASU Parents Association Professor of the Year, has supervised numerous undergraduate Honors theses. She has shared the service blueprinting technique with small start-ups to Fortune 500 companies to help improve their service processes and develop new service offerings.

Dr. Pei received his Ph.D. degree in Accounting from University of North Texas in 1986. Professor Pei’s current research interests include strategic cost management, strategic information systems, performance measurement on supply-chain, and behavioral decision-making. His current teaching interests are in the areas of strategic innovations in cost management, supply-chain, and E-business. He is currently the Director of ASU MBA program in China that delivers a high-tech MBA curriculum to managers of US multinational firms such as Motorola, and the Coordinator of MSIM/MBA and MAIS programs at Arizona State University.

Antony Peloso (Ph.D, Queensland University of Technology, Australia) is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Marketing. Antony’s teaching interests include Marketing Management, Marketing Research, International Marketing, and Strategic Marketing. He teaches in the ASU W. P. Carey School of Business undergraduate marketing program and the Evening MBA program. His research and professional interests include investigating and developing strategies that drive employee and customer loyalty in service firms, and the individual achievement of long-term goals. Antony also works with not-for-profit organizations that focus on the development of life skills among youth.

Elliot Rabinovich (Ph.D., University of Maryland 2001) is the John G. and Barbara A. Bebbling Professor of Business at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University and the Co-Director of the Internet-edge Supply Chain Management Lab. His research centers on the role of electronic commerce in the definition of strategies and performance in supply chain management and operations and on the implementation of decisions involving information systems and inventory management. As part of his research, he has worked with companies such as Baker and Taylor, Cartbound, Cooking.com, eBags.com, Intel, PetSmart, and Twitter. His research has been recognized by the University of Maryland (his alma mater) with the Nash Outstanding Doctoral Alumni Award, with fellowships from the Institute of Supply Management, and with awards from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals and from numerous academic conferences and journals. He has recently published a book with some of his research (Internet Retail Operations: Integrating Theory and Practice for Managers, Taylor & Francis). Moreover, his research has been published in over 30 articles in California Management Review, Decision Sciences, Journal of Business Logistics, Journal of Operations Management, MIT Sloan Management Review, Production and Operations Management, and others.

Adriana Samper (Ph.D, Duke University) is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. Prior to earning her doctorate, she worked in management consulting for the pharmaceutical sector. Dr. Samper studies interventions to improve consumer welfare in the areas of health and product use. In health, she examines how health-related information (e.g., price, messaging) can impact consumer risk perceptions and prevention intentions. In product use, she examines consumer perceptions of how products may help or hurt performance, and their actual effects on behavior. She has presented her work at the Association for Consumer Research and the Society of Consumer Psychology. Her work has been published in Psychological Science and the Journal of Consumer Research.

Raghu Santanam is Professor and Chair of the Department of Information Systems in the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. His current research focuses on Cloud Computing, Analytics, information assurance, and mobile platforms. His recent research has focused on understanding how consumers behave and interact in online and mobile platforms. Professor Santanam has also been an active researcher in the Health Information Technology area for a number of years. He has published a number of scholarly articles on Electronic Medical Records (EMR) impacts on hospitals, Personal Health Records (PHR) adoption by consumers and technology based decision support for public health. Prof. Santanam is a visiting scientist at Mayo Clinic since 2012.

Prof. Santanam has helped a number of organizations on data intensive decision-making contexts. He has authored researched case studies on business transformations at Pinnacle West, Pearson and Game Colab. Prof. Santanam has co-guest edited a number of special issues of peer reviewed academic journals. He has served as or currently serves on the editorial boards for Information Systems Research, Decision Support Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Information Systems Frontier and Journal of Electronic Commerce Research. He is an advisory editor of the Elsevier series on “Handbooks in Information Systems.” He recently served as the Program Co-Chair for Workshop on E-Business, 2009 and was the Program Co-Chair for INFORMS Conference on Information Systems and Technology (CIST), 2012.

Nancy J. Stephens is Associate Professor of Marketing Emeritus at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. She is a member of the Center for Services Leadership faculty network and regularly conducts workshops on services blueprinting.

Nancy taught marketing management to working adult MBA students in the evening, on weekends, and online, as well as in ASU’s partner schools in Shanghai, Sweden, France and Mexico City.  Her latest research publication was entitled, “Beliefs of Chinese Buyers of Pirated Goods” (Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 2013).

Nancy received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and her B.S. (with Honors) and M.S. degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana.

Michael Wiles is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. He also serves as the Faculty Director for Research for the Center for Services Leadership. He received his Ph.D. from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and his B.A. from Dartmouth College. His research investigates how financial markets evaluate firm marketing actions and service-related resource deployments and issues pertaining to new product development in the consumer packaged goods industry. His work has been published in Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research, Harvard Business Review, and the Journal of Operations Management. Prior to earning his Ph.D., Michael worked as a consultant for Monitor Company, where he advised clients on marketing strategy issues in the pharmaceutical and consumer packaged goods industries.