Personal statement
I am a Reader in the Department of Marketing where I have been based since 2009. My research interests are focused around the opportunities and challenges associated with an increasingly knowledgeable and proactive customer base. A key focus is research on engagement, a concept which captures the blurring of boundaries between firms and customers, and aggregates the multiple ways customer behaviours beyond transactions influence firms 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 in recent years, work on Ancestral Tourism in Scotland. Research with colleagues in Marketing in this area revealed an exciting new business opportunity and he is currently working on a potential spin-out company which was the first from SBS to receive endorsement funding from the University.
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.
Expertise
Has expertise in:
- Service Research (in particular Service-Dominant Logic; Customer Participation; Customer Journeys; Transformative Service Research; Co-Production; Relationships)
Prizes and awards
- Best Paper in Track
- Recipient
- 3/12/2018
- Nominated for Researcher Development Programme Supervisor of 2017/18
- Recipient
- 19/6/2018
- Best Paper Award
- Recipient
- 23/2/2018
- Commercial Development Fund - awarded £30,000
- Recipient
- 2018
- Emerald Citation of Excellence Award
- Recipient
- 2017
- Knowledge Exchange Development Fund - awarded £9,876
- Recipient
- 2016
More prizes and awards
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)
Teaching
I have been nominated seven time 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 level. Current classes centre around relationship marketing (Managing Customer Relationships) and I also contribute to the faculties award winning ‘Breaking Barriers’ programme. At postgraduate level I am the course leader for the MRes in Research Methodology in Business and Management where I teach Research Methods and run the Doctoral Colloquium.
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 external examiner experience at Heriot-Watt University and Nottingham Trent.
Research interests
My research focuses around the opportunities and challenges associated with an increasingly knowledgeable and proactive customer base. A key focus is research on engagement, a concept which captures the blurring of boundaries between firms and customers, and aggregates the multiple ways customer behaviours beyond transactions influence firms and shape markets. Signifancy 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.
- 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; the transformative potential of mundane service settings; 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; Journal of Service Management; Journal of Service Theory and Practice.
Professional activities
- Industrial Marketing Management (Journal)
- Editor
- 1/6/2023
- Journal of Service Theory and Practice (Journal)
- Editor
- 2/2023
- Genuine, fake or does it matter? Exploring engagement behaviour for self-presentation
- Speaker
- 26/12/2022
- Journal of Business Research (Journal)
- Editor
- 30/11/2022
- University of Adelaide
- Visiting researcher
- 25/11/2022
- External Examiner for PhD Thesis
- Examiner
- 12/9/2022
More professional activities
Projects
- Investigating the use of marketing automation on customer relationships within the Scottish financial industry
- Alexander, Matthew (Principal Investigator) McLean, Graeme (Principal Investigator) Lehto, Sissi (Co-investigator)
- This research will explore the role, and the potential of marketing automation software within the Scottish financial industry. More specifically, the aim of this research is to explore the use of marketing automation and assess if it increases transparency, allowing for a more accurate analysis of the effects of various digital marketing efforts on customer relationships.
Marketing automation can be defined as a computerized technology that aids marketers and managers reach their objectives. It consists of a software platform that enables the automation of various marketing tasks, including for example e-mail marketing or database management. Additionally, it allows marketers to track customer online behaviour, such as the number of site visits per customer, through the use of cookies, login information recognition and IP address recognition, enabling marketers to collect a more holistic picture of the potential customer over time. The main idea is to send the potential customer the right message at the right time, in other words, to respond to a prospects action, for example signing up for a newsletter, by specific communications. Such activity can be suggested to influence the customer experience, which in turn impacts the overall customer relationships. This study will aim to enhance understanding on marketing automation and its impact on service delivery in the context of the financial services sector within the Scottish economy. The financial services sector was chosen for scrutiny, as customer loyalty has been recognized as an important organizational goal due to the complex and dynamic nature of the retail banking, suggesting that the management of these relationships is important.
Funding: ESRC Doctorial Studentship Full Award £59,470
- 01-Jan-2018 - 01-Jan-2021
- 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
- Delivering ancestral tourism in an urban, heritage organisation
- Johnstone, Jane (Principal Investigator) Alexander, Matthew (Principal Investigator) Bryce, Derek (Principal Investigator)
- PhD Studentship on Ancestral Tourism in Collaboration with Glasgow Life
- 01-Jan-2015 - 01-Jan-2020
More projects