Highly Commended Paper Award to Professor Anders Gustafsson

Professor Anders Gustafsson has been awarded the “Highly Commended Paper Award” for the article “Small details that make big differences: A radical approach to consumption experience as a firm’s differentiating strategy” by the publisher Emerald. The article is published in the Journal of Service Management and is co-authored by researchers Ruth Bolton, Janet McColl-Kennedy, Nancy Sirianni, and David Tse.

-This article has got a lot of attention and has been widely adopted, and now that it also is rewarded in this way is incredibly nice. The competition was tough so this was unexpected, but very gratifying.

What is the article about and what does the results show?
- It’s about how companies and service organizations with the right focus and limited resources can enhance the customer experience, and thus differentiate themselves from the competition. For a long time the focus has been on major changes and radical innovations. Companies have become increasingly good at following the development and providing customers with what they want. Never before have there been such a good range of quality on services and products as now. The question is, how can companies differentiate themselves in a market where the customers can find good solutions to their needs and problems almost regardless of where they go? Our argument for a solution is to focus on the details and individual solutions; the human touch and emotional connections are underdeveloped in today’s business operations. This in turn places very different demands on organizations compared to how it looks today.

Every year Emerald awards the most impressive articles from each of their journals from previous year with the price “Highly Commended Paper Award” as well as numerous other awards.