A Tale of Two Journals : A Bibliometric Study of the Evolution of Journal of Service Management and Journal of Service Research (1998-2010)

The aim of this project is to explore the evolution of service research in two leading service journals – Journal of Service Management and Journal of Service Research. Using bibliometric techniques such as citation and co-citation analysis, this paper study a 13-year period, from 1998 (i.e. the start of JSR) to 2010. The overall period is then further broken down into the First (1998-2005) and the Second (2006-2010) period, in order to observe the changes that the journals have gone through over time. Firstly, this paper studied the changes in influence of the top citations in JOSM and JSR. Overall, the research of service quality and customer satisfaction decreases in influences, while topics such as service-dominant logic, customer relationship management and information technology infusion in service gain popularity from the First to Second period. Co-citation analysis is then conducted to reveal the relationships between the citations and the interaction within the service field. In addition, factor analyses of the co-citations are conducted for both JOSM and JSR, to reveal the knowledge groups for the overall period as well as the sub-periods. The co-citations are also presented graphically; colour-coded by the factors they belong in. Lastly, after studying the ideas (i.e. citations) that went into JOSM and JSR, an additional study is also carried out to find out the influences of JOSM and JSR on other journals. The journals citing JOSM are diverse; from service journals, quality management journals and tourism management journals, to operation management journals. The journals citing JSR, on the hand, are mostly marketing journals. In conclusion, the main contribution of this paper is to employ the combination of factor analysis and network analysis to visualize the intellectual structure for two of the top journals in service research. Through this, we are able to analyze the relationships between each area of service research and observe how they evolve over time. This paper also hopes to provide service scholars ideas of potential areas of research in service