Ebook: Service Quality : Crossing Boundaries

The 8th Quality in Services Conference(QUIS 8) hosted by the Faculty of Business atthe University of Victoria had as its coretheme Service Quality: Crossing Boundaries.This theme was chosen for the followingreasons: . This edition of the conference reflectedfor the first time in QUIS’s rich historythat the conference was held outside of itsUS and Swedish roots. This recognizedthe emerging worldwide research inservice management. The University ofVictoria with its MBA concentration inservice management and hiring of a teamof faculty with research programs inservice management issues is indicative ofthis trend. . The authors of the papers reside in 21countries across six continents. Many ofthe papers are co-authored by facultybased in different countries. This is asolid indication of the importance ofcollaboration that spans borders. . The papers are cross disciplinary coveringa broad array of management fieldsincluding, marketing, human resources,operations, strategy, finance andinformation systems. This is consistentwith the leadership role that the servicesfield has taken in breaking free fromdisciplinary based research. . Once again the conference committee hasacted on the premise that good theoryand practice go hand in hand. Plenaryspeakers included both leading academicsas well as thoughtful practitioners comingtogether to advance our understanding ofservice management. In addition to ouracademic colleagues, over 50 practicingmanagers attended portions of theconference. The papers were selected for this specialissue by the QUIS 8 Conference Committee:Steve Brown (Arizona State University),Bo Edvardsson (Karlstad University),Bob Johnston (University of Warwick) andIan Stuart and Steve Tax (University ofVictoria). We are indebted to the authors ofthe papers and thank them for accepting ouroffer of developing them further for thispublication. Guest Editor Steve Tax Previously published in: Managing Service Quality, Volume 13, Number 2, 2003