Katrin Scherschel
My research project
Katrin Scherschel is a doctorate candidate at the Department of Marketing and Retail Management at Surrey Business School. I joined the University of Surrey in September 2016 after achieving a double degree in Business Management from Edinburgh Napier University and University of Heilbronn. Having previously been a research assistant and lecturer at University of Roehampton, I am since March 2016 managing editor of the journal Human Resource Development International.
My research focuses primarily on marketing communication and sales. In particular I am interested in customers’ perception of the communication style of sellers and how verbatim cues within the sales communication influence customers’ decisions.
Prior to my academic life I worked as market researcher for financial services for the research agency YouGov in Cologne, Germany and as complain manager for the airlines Lufthansa and Eurowings in Dublin, UK. I have ten years’ personal trainer experience through my work for the fitness club Robinson WellFit where I was not only responsible for group fitness but also for quality management and the implementations of marketing strategies.
Supervisors
My publications
Publications
This study aims to make two main contributions: (1) showcase
the diversity of service research in terms of the variety of used theories and methods
and (2) explain (post publication) success of articles operationalized as interest in an
article (downloads), usage (citations), and awards (best paper nomination). From
there, three sub-contributions are derived: (1) stimulate a dialogue about existing
norms and practices in the service field, (2) enable and encourage openness amongst
service scholars, and (3) motivate scholars to join the field.
Method:
A mixed method approach is used in combining quantitative and qualitative
research methods while analyzing 158 Journal of Service Management articles on
several criteria such as their theory, methodology, and main descriptive elements
(e.g., number of authors or references) and then using automated text analysis (e.g.
investigating the readability of articles, etc.).
Findings:
The results show that the Journal of Service Management publishes a large
variety of articles with regards to theories, methods of data collection, and types of
data analysis. For example, JOSM has published a mixture of qualitative and
quantitative articles and papers containing firm-level and customer-level data.
Further, the results show that even though conceptual articles create the same amount
of interest (downloads), they are used more (citations).
Limitations:
This article presents many descriptive results which do not allow for
making inferences toward the entire service research discipline. Further, it is only
based on one service research journal (Journal of Service Management) through a 5
year span of publication.
Implications:
The results have a number of implications for the discipline that are
presented and discussed. Amongst them are that: (1) the discipline should be more
open towards conceptual articles, (2) service research shows an imbalance towards
theory testing, (3) there is more potential to work with transactional data, and (4)
writing style should be more accessible (i.e. readable).
Originality: This article is the first to conduct an in-depth analysis of service research
articles to stimulate dialogue about common publishing practices in the Journal of
Service Management and to increase the openness of the field.
Additional publications
Scherschel, K. (2016). Product Placement in Online Music Videos, Analysis and Comparison between the Actual Product Placement in Music Videos and the Expectations of Generation Y. AV AkademikerVerlag, Saarbrücken.