The objective of the Journal of Service Research is to publish articles in service marketing, service operations, service human resources and organizational design, service information systems, service innovation, customer satisfaction and service quality, electronic commerce, and the economics of service. Its purpose is to serve as a medium through which those with research interests can exchange ideas and keep abreast of the latest developments pertaining to service research.
The journal strives to be international in scope, in keeping with the increased globalization of business; multidisciplinary, in keeping with how the best management is done; and relevant to the business world in a majority of its articles.
Articles are encouraged from industry practitioners as well as academics. No particular research ideology is preferred, and quantitative, qualitative, managerial, and behavioral approaches are welcome. Articles of any length will be considered, as long as the contribution to length ratio remains high.
The procedures guiding the selection of articles for publication in the journal require that no manuscript be accepted until it has been reviewed in a double-blind review process and sent to three reviewers. The editor’s decision to publish a manuscript is influenced considerably by the judgments of these reviewers, who are experts in their respective fields of travel. It is journal policy to remove the author’s name and credentials prior to forwarding a manuscript to a reviewer to maximize objectivity and ensure that manuscripts are judged solely on the basis of their content.
Two principal criteria are used by the editor and reviewers in the judgment of a manuscript: (a) Does it make a significant and substantive contribution to the literature of service research? and (b) Does it convey its message clearly and concisely? Does it communicate technical information so that it is easily understood by most readers?
Manuscript Preparation
Manuscripts should be created in MS Word format and should be typed double-spaced, including references. Do not use single spacing anywhere. Page numbers are to be placed in the upper right-hand corner of every page. A tab indent should begin each paragraph.
Please group all sections of the article in one file; do not use separate files for tables, references or figures. The author’s name should not appear anywhere except on the cover page. The author should keep an extra exact copy for future reference. Manuscripts are reviewed simultaneously by several different reviewers who are geographically separated.
For details of manuscript preparation not covered in the following sections, see The Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition), Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
1. What Goes Where?
· First Page. Name of author(s), title, and 4-5 keywords; author(s) note, including present position, complete address, telephone/fax numbers, e-mail address, and any acknowledgment of financial or technical assistance. (This page will not be sent to the reviewers.)
· Second Page. Title of paper (without author’s name) and a brief abstract of no more than 150 words substantively summarizing the article. This should be informative, giving the reader a “taste” of the article.
· Body. The text, with major headings centered on the page and subheadings flush with the left margin. Major headings should use all uppercase letters; side subheadings should be typed in upper and lowercase letters. The percent sign (%) should be used.
· Tables and Figures. Each table or figure should be prepared on a separate page and grouped together at the end of the manuscript. The data in tables should be arranged so that columns of like materials read down, not across. Nonsignificant decimal places in tabular data should be omitted. The tables and figures should be numbered in Arabic numerals, followed by brief descriptive titles. Additional details should be footnoted under the table, not in the title. In the text, all illustrations and charts should be referred to as figures. Figures must be clean, crisp, black-and-white, camera-ready copies. Please avoid the use of gray-scale shading; use hatch marks, dots, or lines instead.
· References. References should be typed double-spaced in alphabetical order by author’s last name (see 3).
2. Reference Citations Within Text
Citations in the text should include the author’s last name, and year of publication enclosed in parentheses without punctuation, for example (Kinsey 1960). If practical, the citation should be placed immediately before a punctuation mark. Otherwise, insert it in a logical sentence break.
If a particular page, section, or equation is cited, it should be placed within the parentheses, for example, (Kinsey 1960, p.112). For multiple authors, use the full, formal citation for up to three authors, but for four or more use the first author’s name with “et al.” For example, use (White and Smith 1977) and (Brown, Green, and Stone 1984). For more than three authors, use (Hunt et al. 1975) unless another work published in that year would also be identified as (Hunt et al. 1975); in that case, list all authors, for example, (Hunt, Bent, Marks, and West 1975).
3. Reference List Style
Journal Article
Dwyer, F. Robert (1989), “Customer Lifetime Valuation to Support Marketing Decision Making,” Journal of Direct Marketing, 3 (Autumn), 8-15.
Schneider, Benjamin and David E. Bowen (1985), “Employee and Customer Perceptions of Service in Banks: Replication and Extension,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 423-33.
------, Jill K. Wheeler, and Jonathan F. Cox (1992), “A Passion for Service: Using Content Analysis to Explicate Service Climate Themes,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 77 (October), 705-16.
Wensley, Jim (1988), “Analyzing the Effect of Strategic Marketing,” Journal of Marketing, 42 (Fall), 173-88.
Newspaper Article, Magazine Article
Schwartz, J. (1993), “Obesity Affects Economic, Social Status,” The Washington Post, September 30, A1.
Book
Becker, H. (1964), Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Specific Reference to Education. New York: Columbia University Press.
Donnelly, James H. and Brad P. Jones (1982), Marketing of Services. New York: American Marketing Association.
Book, Edition
Corey, Raymond E. (1991), Industrial Marketing Cases and Concepts, 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Chapter in an Edited Book
Isen, Alice M. (1984), “Toward Understanding the Role of Affect in Cognition,” in Handbook of Social Cognition, Vol. 3, R. S. Wyer and Thomas K. Srull, eds. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 101-9.
Unpublished Manuscripts, Doctoral Dissertations, Working Papers
Berger, A. and G. Humphrey (1997), “Efficiency of Financial Institutions: International Survey and Directions for Future Research,” working paper, Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC.
Roos, Inger (1998), “Customer Switching Behavior in Retailing,” doctoral dissertation, Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsingfors, Finland.
Manuscript Submission
Manuscripts should be submitted electronically in MS Word format to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/journsr. Authors will be required to set up an online account on the SAGETRACK system powered by ScholarOne.
All published material is copyrighted by Sage Publications, Inc. Every author and co-author must sign a contract before an article can be published.
Authors who want to refine the use of English in their manuscripts might consider utilizing the services of SPi, a non-affiliated company that offers Professional Editing Services to authors of journal articles in the areas of science, technology, medicine or the social sciences. SPi specializes in editing and correcting English-language manuscripts written by authors with a primary language other than English. Visit http://www.prof-editing.com for more information about SPi’s Professional Editing Services, pricing, and turn-around times, or to obtain a free quote or submit a manuscript for language polishing.
Please be aware that SAGE has no affiliation with SPi and makes no endorsement of the company. An author’s use of SPi’s services in no way guarantees that his or her submission will ultimately be accepted. Any arrangement an author enters into will be exclusively between the author and SPi, and any costs incurred are the sole responsibility of the author.
