Course aim and content
Students learn about service management and relationship oriented marketing management and research implications from them in the consumer and industrial market. Emphasis is given to familiarising the students with research publications/articles dealing with service and relationship management from different perspectives as well as analysing and discussing the evolvement and fundamental assumptions. Students read, analyse, and discuss research publications that have had or are assumed to have a major impact and develop skills in reading and analysing them. This ability strengthens the students’ research skills and facilitates the design and writing of a doctoral thesis. Methodological issues are also addressed since they are closely linked to the students’ doctoral theses. The course should give a good platform to formulate research problems and it supports doctoral students’ own research.

Learning objectives
After the course you are expected to have an overview over service and relationship management research and a deeper understanding of selected core concepts and issues.

After completing this course, students shall be able to

• analyse and synthesise core literature/concepts in service and relationshipmanagement research,
• discuss and critically evaluate academic work,
• apply service and relationship management research to your own research and doctoral thesis