| According
to Alan Greenspan (April 15, 2001), trade across national borders has increased
far faster than world GDP. World economies are inextricably linked. The
international marketing of services is assuming greater importance in the
global economy. Advancements in technology have revolutionized the scope
and range of services that can be traded across borders. The service sector
has subsequently displaced manufacturing as the largest element of the
economies of virtually all advanced nations. For instance, in the U.S.
the trade deficit for goods increased to $449.5 billion in the year 2000.
During the same time period, the U.S. trade surplus in services increased
slightly to $81 billion. Services' share in employment and GDP has grown
in most countries during the last two decades. In particular, services
account for about two-thirds of GDP in developed countries and for almost
half of GDP in developing countries. With more and more services being
transacted internationally, the internationalization of services is at
the very core of the global economic milieu.
Since services play an increasing role in the
economies of the nations of the world, it is not surprising that international
growth and competition in services is intensifying. The rapid growth of
the service sector in the world economy, and the growing level of international
trade in this area, has fostered a significant need for research on international
services marketing. Despite the importance of the service sector in international
markets, the amount of empirical research addressing international services
marketing remains relatively low. A review of three American Marketing
Association publications (Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research,
and Journal of International Marketing) for the period 1999-present offers
mixed signals regarding the importance of international services marketing
to marketing scholars. While the number of services marketing articles
has increased dramatically in the Journal of Marketing and the Journal
of Marketing Research in recent years, none of the articles focus on the
importance of marketing services internationally. Most of the articles
focus on measuring service quality or on measuring customer satisfaction
with service exchanges. The Journal of International Marketing contains
only two articles on international services marketing during the 1999-present
period. So, although more articles regarding services marketing are making
it into the top mainstream marketing journals, international services marketing
remains under researched and under-represented.
It is up to us, marketing scholars with an
interest in global marketing, to bring international services marketing
to the forefront of the global marketing research agenda. No longer can
we afford to focus solely on the internationalization of manufactured goods
– to do so marginalizes our credibility as contemporary scholars.
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