Personal statement
My research and teaching focus on services marketing, corporate branding and reputation, digital marketing, customer experience management and marketing research.
Before joining the Department, I was a senior consultant within a London-based marketing consultancy practice and prior to that an Associate Director of a leading London-based marketing research agency. Whilst at Strathclyde, I have been a Vice Dean of the Strathclyde Business School and have also served as Head of the Department of Marketing during the periods 2007-2010 and 2013-2014. Since then I have had responsibilities for our Doctoral Programme, our Executive Masters in Hospitality and Tourism Leadership Programme, the Department's research activities as well as our Business & Community Engagement. I was a Visiting Professor of Services Marketing at Ecole Hoteliere Lausanne, Switzerland from 2010 to 2019.
I was Board Director and Chairman of Culture Republic (an arts marketing and audience development agency, whose aim was to improve accessibility to arts and cultural events in Scotland). I currently serve as a trustee on the board of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. I also act as a marketing and marketing research advisor and trainer for a number of Scottish and UK based organisations.
I have been invited to deliver lectures and seminars throughout the world in countries such as Pakistan, Poland, Australia, Portugal, Spain, Malaysia, Singapore, France, Italy, Romania, Dubai, Switzerland, Japan, South Africa and the USA.
Teaching
I lecture in the areas of services marketing, marketing research, marketing management and branding. I have also delivered executive programmes in customer experience management, marketing management, customer service, luxury branding, social media marketing and hospitality marketing.
Research interests
My research interests relate to the linkages between corporate culture, performance measurement, service delivery personnel, digital marketing and customer experience. In particular the critical role that both actual and virtual service delivery has in the development of corporate reputation, service branding, customer experience management and the levels of customer satisfaction and the differentiation of a service organisation.
I am also involved in research relating to the role and application of marketing research which has resulted in my textbook Marketing Research: Delivering Customer Insight, 4th Edition. In addition, I am co-author of: Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm (4th European Edition), written with Valarie Zeithaml, Mary Jo Bitner and Dwayne Gremler.
I have been a member of a number of Editorial Boards and Editorial Advisory Boards of business and marketing academic journals. I was also the Academic Programme Director for the European Marketing Academy Conference in 2003 and Services Track Chair in 2018.
Doctoral Students Supervised and Graduated
- Alame, F. Exploring Leaders' Strategies for Managing Negative Emotions of Sales People
- Barhorst, J. Reputation Interupted: Microblog eWOM Brand Image Disruptions in a Shareworthy World
- Brodbeck, H. A New Model of Living the Brand: The Emergence and Impact of Brand Value Aligned Behaviour in Social Banks
- Caemmerer, B. The Management of Customer Feedback in the Development of Service Orientation in the Public Sector
- Dammann, S. Willingness to Pay for Customised Solutions in a B2B Environment
- Frimpong, K. Relative Contribution of Satisfaction Dimensions to Employee Service Orientation
- Goddard, T. An Investigation of Antecedents to Social Media Engagement Behaviours
- Gotsi, D. Corporate Brand Reputation Management: An Intraorganisational Study on the Role of Service Employees and On-brand Corporate Culture
- Grougiou, V. The Grey Market and the Service Encounter: An Investigation of Satisfiers, Dissatisfiers and Complaining Behaviour
- Katsaridou, I. Customers' Behavioural Contribution to the Service Encounter
- McLean, G. Examining the Online Customer Experience during a Utilitarian Search for Online Business Advisory Information and Services
- Mawson, S. High Growth Firms in Scotland: Customer Perceived Value Creation and Rapid Firm Growth
- Morrison, R. Drawing the Line: Understanding Privacy Concern, Privacy Literacy and Trust Influences on Online Social Network Privacy Boundaries
- Ney, J. Evaluating the Credibility of Online Customer Reviews During a Simulation of an Active Purchase Decision
- Osei-Frimpong K. An Examination of Value Co-creation at the Micro Level in a Healthcare Setting: a Dyadic Approach
- Punjaisri, K. Brand Promise Delivery from the Customer Interface Employees' Perspective
- Sagmanli, S. An Investigation of Consumer Engagement with Internet of Things in the Context of Smart Meter In-home Displays
- Stanovic, T. The Influence of Social eWoM Information on Attitude Formation for Aesthetic Products: The Case of Fine Art
Professional activities
- The Japanese Society of Serviceology Webinar
- Invited speaker
- 14/11/2022
- Marketing from Information to Decision
- Keynote/plenary speaker
- 19/11/2020
- WE COULD HAVE A BUTE OF A HIGH STREET TOO;
- Interviewee
- 2/2/2020
- Expert Comment on the 9 TV News (BBC Scotland Channel)
- Contributor
- 30/10/2019
- Enhancing User Experiences in the Public Sector
- Speaker
- 16/10/2019
- University of Mauritius
- Visiting researcher
- 12/9/2019
More professional activities
Projects
- An Empirical Examination of the Effectiveness of Gamification in a Service Recovery Context
- Nazifi, Amin (Principal Investigator) Wilson, Alan (Co-investigator)
- When customers experience a service failure (e.g. an overcooked meal or a flight delay), they try to seek redress. Organisations may use different service recovery tools such as monetary or psychological compensation (Roschk & Gelbrich, 2014) to address customers’ complaints. Prior research shows that such measures can improve customers’ fairness perception and satisfaction (Tax, Brown, & Chandrashekaran, 1998), and also reduce customers’ anger and negative word of mouth behaviours (Gelbrich, 2010).
A large body of research on service failure and recovery has often focused on the effectiveness of conventional tools such as compensation. But despite recent technological advancements, the service recovery literature has still not looked beyond traditional recovery tools. Gamification has gained increased popularity in the marketing domain over the past few years (Larivière et al., 2017). Specifically, Van Vaerenbergh, Varga, De Keyser, and Orsingher (2018) call for research on the role of gamification in service recovery. Accordingly, the aim of this research is to examine the effects of gamification as an alternative recovery tool. Further, this research will shed light on the mechanism that explains customers’ reactions to a gamified service recovery and will also explore different boundary conditions. The research ultimately offers insights to managers on how to deal with service failures more efficiently by capitalising on modern technologies to deliver a gamified recovery.
- 10-Jan-2020 - 04-Jan-2022
- Witness statement on behalf of Apple Inc. in a European trademark case
- Wilson, Alan (Principal Investigator)
- Contribution to a witness statement on behalf of Apple in relation to a European trademark case
- 11-Jan-2018 - 11-Jan-2018
- Luxury Branding - Milan
- Wilson, Alan (Academic)
- 07-Jan-2018 - 11-Jan-2018
- Post-Retirement Volunteer Expectations: an Anglo-Japanese Comparison
- Wilson, Alan (Principal Investigator)
- Visit to start exploratory research project in Kanazawa Japan
- 01-Jan-2017 - 30-Jan-2017
- Mobile Applications and the Customer Experience
- McLean, Graeme (Principal Investigator) Wilson, Alan (Co-investigator) Al Nabhani, Khalid Talib Sulaiman (Co-investigator)
- Mobile applications (apps) continue to emerge as a powerful and
ubiquitous service delivery channel enabling retailers to offer consumers
a variety of products and services on the go. The rapid advancement of mobile technology and the subsequent service innovation deriving from it is causing consumer behaviour to evolve in terms of how consumers interact and utilise service delivery channels that are accessible to consumers anytime, anywhere. The number of smartphone users is expected to continuously grow with 5.5 billion people expected to be using smartphone devices by 2022, while at the same time, consumers' willingness to use mobile commerce (m-commerce) is witnessing rapid growth beyond expectations.This project aims to examine the customer experience in relation to retailers' m-commerce mobile applications. The research aims to understand the variables capable of influencing the customer experience during use of retailers' m-commerce mobile applications, resulting in the development of a Mobile Application Customer Experience Model (MACE). - 01-Jan-2016 - 08-Jan-2018
- Standard Life - Marketing Training Programme - Emerging Leaders
- Wilson, Alan (Principal Investigator)
- 05-Jan-2015 - 06-Jan-2015
More projects