| The research is directed at knowledge- and hypothesis-generation in order to advance the field toward establishing a unifying theory of services marketing. From the literature five service concepts were identified that appear to be common to service enterprises: customer expectations and perceptions of service quality, internal marketing practices, service delivery (encounter) process, new service design and development, and integration of these for strategic planning. Three of these (quality, internal marketing, and strategic integration) were the focus of the research.;The research question examined whether small, independent service firms in the private sector are aware of, understand, and make use of three of the most common concepts advanced in the services marketing research literature. The service industries included in the research were: professional services, lodging establishments, and nonprofit organizations. Inductive, exploratory research was undertaken utilizing focus groups as a method for gathering data.;The conclusions are: (1) formal, scholarly research results that might benefit small service organizations are not reaching them. Despite this lack of awareness, (2) small service organizations intuitively understand the concept of internal marketing; they understand less well the concept of service quality (because they are unable to separate service quality issues from closely related ones such as satisfaction, value, and external cues); and they have little understanding of how to integrate what is known into a successful strategic marketing plan for the long-term success of the firm. Finally, (3) service quality and internal marketing practices are used to market the organization, but strategic integration of services concepts is generally unplanned, haphazard, or nonexistent.;Hypotheses are developed as a guide for future research investigations in developing a unifying theory in services marketing, and recommendations aimed at increasing the flow of information to the small service organization are made. |
