| In her career as a professor and researcher in services marketing, Mary Jo Bitner has been recognized as one of the founders and leaders of this field of study worldwide. At Arizona State University (ASU) she was a founding faculty member of the Center for Services Leadership and has been a leader in its emergence as the premier university-based center for the study of services marketing and management. In 2003, she was awarded the “Career Contributions to the Service Discipline Award” presented by the Services Marketing group of the American Marketing Association. In the mid 1990s Bitner led the development of the W. P. Carey MBA services marketing and management specialization, a unique full-year focus within the nationally ranked W. P. Carey MBA. Alumni of this program now work in companies across the United States, leading the implementation of services and customer-focused strategies. Bitner is co-author of Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm (McGraw-Hill, Fourth Edition, 2006), a leading text in services marketing used at universities across the U.S. and worldwide. She was the recipient of W. P. Carey School of Business Graduate Teaching Excellence Award, and has consulted with numerous businesses including AT&T, Ford Motor Company, Yellow Corporation, Mayo Clinic, TriWest Healthcare Alliance and RR Donnelley on service quality and customer satisfaction topics. Bitner’s current research is concerned with how customers evaluate service encounters and the strategic roles of technology and contact employees in determining customer satisfaction with services. She has published articles relevant to service industry management in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Retailing,Journal of Service Research, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science and the Academy of Management Executive. |
