Building A New Academic Field In India: The Case Of Services Marketing | Mohan Lal Agrawal

Inventorying a discipline at any time serves three main purposes: One, it offers an account (although by an individual, and therefore, subjective to that extent) of what has been achieved so far. Two, a whole new range of issues emerges that could re-energize researchers, practitioners and policymakers. Third and finally, a review is inescapable if it involves a new academic field, like Services Marketing in India. This paper describes evolution of teaching services marketing in India. Set against the backdrop of emerging service scenario, it divides itself in two parts. The first part deals with the current convergence between services and goods. It argues that the convergent view of services (viz. goods as well as services) is preferable to the dichotomous view (viz. services versus s. goods) especially at the nascent stage of the discipline in India. The paper goes on to analyze the 1973 framework of Fisk, Brown and Bitner for mapping evolution of the discipline. The latter half of the paper identifies the key challenges to the discipline of service marketing in the east with a special focus on India. It tracks how deep has the teaching of services marketing penetrated in business schools and outlines an action plan for further diffusion. In so doing, the paper raises several issues that may enter the future research agenda.