Dr Matthew Alexander
Reader
Marketing
Personal statement
I am Professor of Service Research in the Department of Marketing where I have been based since 2009. My research interests are focused on opportunities and challenges associated with an increasingly knowledgeable and proactive customer base. A principal focus is research on engagement, a concept capturing the blurring of boundaries between firms, customers, and other external actors and where the aggregation of behaviours beyond transactions influence organisations, change institutions and shape markets.
My research is award winning and includes one of the most cited papers in Marketing in recent years. I have published widely in a range of Marketing, Service and Tourism journals including Journal of Service Research, Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel Research, Tourism Management, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of Service Management.
My research has a strong practical focus, exemplified in projects with ScotRail and on Ancestral Tourism in Scotland. Current projects recognise the key role marketing researchers have in finding ways for societal actors to become more responsive to environmental challenges. Engaging individuals and communities around sustainability initiatives to support wider climate change goals is vital. Projects focussed on food waste, textiles and rewilding seek to understand how marketing can impact on sustainable behaviors and make marginal activities more mainstream.
In my spare time I am an Elder within the Church of Scotland, enjoy singing, running, walking the dog and spending time with my family.
Area of Expertise
-
- Service Research (in particular Service-Dominant Logic; Customer Experience; Customer Participation; Customer Journeys; Transformative Service Research; Co-Production; Relationship Marketing)
- Engagement Research (in particular customer engagement (behaviors)/actor engagement and engagement in service ecosystems).
- Ancestral Tourism
- Community Based Tourism
Prize And Awards
- 'Highly Commended' award
- Recipient
- 4/6/2025
- Nominated for 'Dedicated Practitioner' award
- Recipient
- 2025
- Nominated for 'Most Enthusiastic' Teacher Award
- Recipient
- 2019
- Nominated for 'Most Innovative' Teacher
- Recipient
- 2019
- Best Paper in Track
- Recipient
- 3/12/2018
- Nominated for Researcher Development Programme Supervisor of 2017/18
- Recipient
- 19/6/2018
Qualifications
PhD
- “Value Cocreation: Exploring the Effects of Collaborating with a Proactive Generation of Customers”; Department of Marketing, University of Strathclyde (Passed no corrections, Oct 2008 - Feb 2012)
MPhil
- “An Evaluation of Operations Education in Hospitality Management Higher Education Programmes”; Master of Philosophy – Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, (Passed no corrections, 2005 – 2007)
Postgraduate Diploma/Certificate
- Postgraduate Diploma – Advanced Academic Studies, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 2004 – 2006
- Postgraduate Certificate – Research Methodology in Business and Management, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 2005– 2007
Professional memberships:
- Fellow of The Higher Education Academy (Achieved 2007)
- Member of the Institute of Hospitality (Member since 2006)
Publications
- Genuine, fake, or does it matter? Exploring engagement behavior driven by self-presentation
- Alexander Matthew, Jaakkola Elina, Thanvarachorn Archareeporn, Doherty Anne Marie
- Journal of Business Research (2026)
- Actor engagement behaviors as forms of institutional work : insights from a food waste setting
- Ozgen Genc Tugce, Wilson Juliette, Alexander Matthew, Conduit Jodie
- Journal of Service Management Vol 36, pp. 661-689 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-03-2023-0105
- Exploring platform dynamic roles through customer engagement behaviors : a conceptual perspective
- Thongborisute Juthawan (Janice), Blasco Lorena, Alexander Matthew, Kastanakis Minas
- Naples Forum on Service (2025)
- Faked engagement behaviors within health and fitness platforms : when self-presentation takes over wellbeing
- Baiwir Lisa, Alexander Matthew, Dessart Laurence, Delcourt Cecile
- QUIS19 (2025)
- Editorial: Reshaping the world through customer and actor engagement
- Alexander Matthew, Azer Jaylan, Conduit Jodie
- Journal of Service Theory and Practice Vol 35, pp. 165-170 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTP-03-2025-329
- Human–machine engagement (HME) : conceptualization, typology of forms, antecedents, and consequences
- Azer Jaylan, Alexander Matthew
- Journal of Service Research Vol 28, pp. 112-130 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1177/10946705241296782
Teaching
I have been nominated seven times by students as part of Strathclyde's Teaching Excellence awards across all categories (best overall, most passionate, most innovative, most supportive). I teach classes at both undergraduate and postgraduate taught level with current classes including ‘Managing Customer Relationships’ (4th year) and ‘International Services Marketing’ (MSc). At postgraduate research level I teach on the core ‘Research Methods’ module for the MRes in Research Methodology in Business and Management.
I have considerable overseas teaching experience having delivered classes for the Business School in both Hong Kong and Iran. I have been a visiting academic at Turku School of Economics in Finland, University of Paderborn in Germany, Aston Business School and Heriot-Watt University in the UK.
I have externally examined PhD students at Nottingham University, Deakin University (Melbourne, Australia), Cranfield University, Heriot-Watt University and Nottingham Trent University. I am currently also external examiner for the MSc in International Marketing at University of Glasgow.
Research Interests
My research interests are focused on opportunities and challenges associated with an increasingly knowledgeable and proactive customer base. A principal focus is research on engagement, a concept capturing the blurring of boundaries between firms, customers, and other external actors and where the aggregation of behaviours beyond transactions influence organisations, change institutions and shape markets. Significant successes include:
A best paper nomination (2014) in the Journal of Service Research for the paper: Jaakkola, E., & Alexander, M. (2014). The Role of Customer Engagement Behavior in Value Co-Creation: A Service System Perspective. Journal of Service Research, 17(3), 247-261.
Best paper in track awards at ANZMAC and Winter AMA conferences.
An Emerald ‘Citation of Excellence’ Award (2017)
Principal Investigator on an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award worth (£57,597). The project “Cultural Heritage and Ancestral Tourism: reclaiming Scottish identity from "Highlandisation" is a collaboration with Glasgow Life.
Current active projects include investigating the relationship between engagement and customer journeys; actor engagement management; ‘from margin to mainstream’ using engagement to change entrenched consumption practices.
I have published widely in a range of Marketing, Service and Tourism journals including Journal of Service Research, Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel Research, Tourism Management, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of Service Management.
I serve on the editorial review board for: Journal of Service Research; The Journal of Business Research; and Journal of Service Theory and Practice.
Professional Activities
- 14th AMA SERVSIG Conference
- Participant
- 10/2026
- Invited to serve as External Jury Member for PhD Thesis
- Examiner
- 9/2026
- Turen går til stamtræet (The journey goes to the family tree)
- Recipient
- 15/7/2025
- Customer Engagement: The Revolution That’s More Complex (and Riskier) Than We Thought
- Speaker
- 14/5/2025
- Journal of Service Management (Journal)
- Associate Editor
- 16/4/2025
- America is obsessed with its ancestry – and Scotland is cashing in
- Recipient
- 17/2/2025
Projects
- Tackling Toxic Engagement: Investigating Adolescent Well-being in Digital Spaces
- Alexander, Matthew (Principal Investigator)
- 01-Jan-2025 - 31-Jan-2026
- Beavering away: Nature Restoration and the Community
- Alexander, Matthew (Principal Investigator) Johnstone, Jane (Co-investigator)
- 05-Jan-2025 - 01-Jan-2027
- An investigation into the role of 'Time-Of-Day' Marketing in enhancing experiential value in service customer journeys
- Alexander, Matthew (Principal Investigator) McLean, Graeme (Principal Investigator) Young, Nefertari (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2018 - 01-Jan-2021
- Delivering Integrated and Customised Service Experiences within a Heterogeneous Cultural Organisation
- Johnstone, Jane (Principal Investigator) Alexander, Matthew (Principal Investigator) Bryce, Derek (Principal Investigator)
- SERVSIG 2018 Conference, Paris: Opportunities for Services in a Challenging World.
- 11-Jan-2018
- Investigating the Role of Proactivity in Managing Service Failures
- Nazifi, Amin (Academic) Gelbrich, Katja (Academic) Grégoire, Yany (Academic) El-Manstrly, Dahlia (Academic) Wirtz, Jochen (Academic) Koch, Sebastian (Academic) Raki, Amir (Academic) Nayer, Daud (Academic) Alexander, Matthew (Academic) Seyfi, Siamak (Academic)
- Prior research on service failure and recovery predominantly focus on reactive strategies to reduce customers’ negative reactions (e.g. offering compensation, apology or an explanation why the failure has occurred) and there is a lack of research on more proactive strategies in dealing with service failures. In broad terms, proactivity is defined as anticipating and preventing problems before they materialize (Bateman and Crant 1999). In a service failure context, proactivity is defined as firms anticipating potential service failures and acting prior to customer reactions to control or minimize the impact of these failures. Combining the concept of proactivity with service recovery and the transformative service research framework, the research aims to examine its effects on firms (e.g. profitability, employee attrition, and negative word of mouth) as well as on customers (e.g. customer satisfaction and well-being).
- 01-Jan-2017 - 01-Jan-2022
- Organisational Convergence, Ancestral Tourism and Provision of Cultural Heritage.
- Johnstone, Jane (Principal Investigator) Bryce, Derek (Principal Investigator) Alexander, Matthew (Principal Investigator)
- Tourism and Leisure Studies Conference, Vancouver, Canada.
- 03-Jan-2017