Call for Papers for a Special Issue: “Service Triads”

Guest-editors: Finn Wynstra (Erasmus University),

Martin Spring (Lancaster University), Tobias Schoenherr (Michigan State University)

Background and Motivation The rise in outsourcing and specialization among firms has led to an operations and supply landscape increasingly

based on networks rather than large, vertically-integrated firms. Consequently, business-to-business (B2B) and business-

to-government (B2G) services now account for the majority of services in developed economies. A large share of these

B2B and B2G services becomes part of the buying organization’s value proposition to its customers. In other words, they

are purchased by one organization from another, but delivered to a third party (see the diagram). These services are being

referred to as “front-end” services (Balakrishnan et al., 2008) or “component” services (Van der Valk et al., 2009).

For example, if a software company outsources its helpdesk services to a third-party call-

center, the service interaction is between the customer and the call-center, not between the

customer and the software company, even though the customer has a contractual relationship

with the software company. Other instances include manufacturers of capital equipment

using maintenance service providers to work directly with end-users, as well as many third-

party logistics settings. Public transportation services are provided to citizens by service

providers under specific government contracts (concessions). In these examples, the research

focus is often on the buying organization as the active player, initiating the triad. Similar

configurations exist when customers play an active role, using buying organizations

(intermediaries), e.g. project management or market-making firms, to facilitate access to

suppliers.

The ensuing relationships between buying organization, service provider and the buying organization’s customer can

be viewed as a “service triad”, in which the buying organization contracts a provider to deliver services directly to the

buyer’s customer (Li and Choi, 2009; Niranjan and Metri, 2008), or where the buying organization serves as an

intermediary between customers and service providers. Importantly, such service triads entail a structure of inter-

organizational relationships that is fundamentally different to that encountered in the linear supply chains often studied in

Operations and Supply Management (OSM). Service triads offer the opportunity to study phenomena that are relatively new to OSM and of widespread relevance.

They have been studied using social network theory (Li and Choi, 2009), drawing attention to the dynamics of

relationships between the three triad members as an outsourcing arrangement is established. However, recent discussions

suggest there are opportunities to extend the study of triads using other theoretical approaches, from within OSM and

from outside our discipline (Choi and Wu, 2009). For instance, transaction cost, resource-based view, management

control and agency literatures have been applied extensively to dyadic relationships, but not to service triads.

Topic Areas Researchers who are studying B2B services can most likely use a ‘triad lens’ to view their theoretical or empirical

work anew, and generate new insights. We are interested in submissions dealing with topics such as the following:

1. Service Risk Management

Risks from external factors (e.g. disasters, terrorism) also exist in service triads, but what risks arise from

outsourcing and intermediation, i.e. from the very structural and dynamic properties of the triad?

2. Service Capacity Management

Often, services are outsourced to specialist contractors who may provide similar services to multiple buying firms.

In such situations, how can the pooled service capacity be managed so that adequate service levels are provided?

3. Service Quality and Human Resource Management

The activities of the third party provider have a direct effect on the service quality experienced by the end

customer, and human resource management is critical in this. But in service triads, multiple lines of authority and

various forms of separation and co-location present new challenges. How can operations managers of front-line

services reconcile these?

4. New Service Development

The emerging field of new service development (NSD) draws attention to the interactive nature of service

innovation; interactive between supplier and customer in a dyad, that is. What happens to the locus and control of

NSD when the day-to-day contact is between service provider and end-customer?

5. Services Intermediation on the Supply Side

Service triads can exist on the supply side as well as on the customer side. Take for example the value-added

services provided by customs brokers and trade advisory firms. While customers have been outsourcing these

activities to third parties, another trend is the disintermediation of these activities again. How do customers manage

this transition, and how do intermediaries reinvent themselves to continue to offer valuable services?

Submissions and Deadline In line with JOM Editorial Philosophy, we welcome papers that are theory-driven and empirically-based, using theoretical

approaches from within OSM and from outside our discipline. The deadline for submissions is 1 April 2013. This should

allow authors to carry out original empirical work, when desired. Please submit manuscripts to fwynstra@rsm.nl.

Submissions should conform in all respects to JOM style guidelines.

References Balakrishnan, K., Mohan, U., Seshadri, S. 2008. Outsourcing of front-end business processes: quality, information, and customer

contact. Journal of Operations Management 26 (2), 288-302.

Choi, T.Y., Wu, Z. 2009. Taking the leap from dyads to triads: buyer-supplier relationships in supply networks. Journal of Purchasing

and Supply Management, 15 (4), 263-266.

Li, M., Choi, T., 2009. Triads in services outsourcing: bridge, bridge decay and bridge transfer. Journal of Supply Chain Management,

45 (3), pp. 27-39.

Niranjan, T., Metri, B. 2008. Client-vendor-end user triad: a service quality model for IS/ITES outsourcing. Journal of Services

Research, 8 (1), 123-138.

Van der Valk, W., Wynstra, F., Axelsson, B. 2009. Effective buyer-supplier interaction patterns in ongoing service exchange.

International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 29 (8), 807-833.

Biographies of the Guest Editors: Finn Wynstra is a Professor of Purchasing and Supply Management at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus

University (Netherlands). His work has appeared in Journal of Operations Management, International Journal of

Research in Marketing, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, and Journal of Product

Innovation Management, among others. He is a past Editor of the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, and is

currently on the Editorial Review Boards of the Journal of Operations Management and the Journal of Business-to-

Business Marketing. Finn Wynstra has been conducting research on service triads mainly from the perspective of the

buying organization, with a focus on sourcing, contracting and buyer-supplier interaction.

Martin Spring is Senior Lecturer in Operations Management at Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster,

UK, and holder of an AIM Services Fellowship on Business-to-Business Services. His work has appeared in International

Journal of Operations and Production Management, Industrial Marketing Management, and Journal of Purchasing and

Supply Management, among others. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Supply Chain Management, and a past co-

Editor of the International Journal of Operations and Production Management. Martin Spring’s research centers on

business-to-business operations and supply, particularly in settings involving knowledge-intensive services or product-

service combinations.

Tobias Schoenherr is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Supply Chain Management in the Eli Broad

Graduate School of Management at Michigan State University. His work has appeared in Management Science, Journal

of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, and Decision Sciences, among others. He serves as

an Associate Editor for the Journal of Operations Management, and is on the Editorial Review Boards of several journals,

including the Journal of Business Logistics and the Journal of Supply Chain Management. Tobias Schoenherr has been

conducting research in service triads primarily from the perspective of online reverse auction providers facilitating the

business between buyers and suppliers. He researched the intermediating role of the service provider, and reported on the

phenomenon of disintermediation.