Symposium: Service-Dominant Logic and The Market as a Service System
----------------- (half-day)
Leaders: Steve Vargo and Robert Lusch

Recently, service-dominant (S-D) logic has been suggested as an alternative to the traditional goods-dominant (G-D) logic as the foundational logic of exchange and markets. This symposium will provide an introduction to S-D logic and explore meta-theoretical issues concerned with the understanding of markets as service systems, and will link S-D logic and a theory of the market to service science. While much of S-D logic thought has developed from within marketing, the symposium will draw on diverse disciplines, especially the system sciences.

We will draw from the work developed particularly from the Forum on Markets and Marketing: Extending Service-Dominant Logic (FMM) to be held in Sydney, Australia in December 2008. FMM will address a trinity of meta-issues centered on marketing and market systems, general or grand theory of markets and marketing, and the interface between marketing, markets and value(s), using a cross-disciplinary perspective wherever relevant.

The session will include a brief tutorial on the framework and foundational premises of S-D logic, using a cross-disciplinary exploration of relevant issues from diverse disciplines, especially the system sciences. We will also invite presentations on S-D logic as a foundation for a theory of the market, and markets as service systems.

Submissions may be sent directly to svargo@hawaii.edu by October 1, 2008. For more information on S-D logic please refer to www.sdlogic.net

Stephen L. Vargo (svargo@hawaii.edu) is a Shidler Distinguished Professor at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. His primary areas of research are marketing theory and thought and consumers' evaluative reference scales. He has had articles published in the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , the Journal of Service Research , the Journal of Retailing, and IBM Systems Journal , and other major journals, in various disciplines. Professor Vargo has been awarded the Harold H. Maynard Award by the American Marketing Association for "significant contribution to marketing theory and thought."

Robert F. Lusch (rlusch@eller.arizona.edu) is the Lisle & Roslyn Payne Professor of Marketing and Head of the Marketing Department at the University of Arizona. He is the author of over 150 scholarly articles and 18 books. He previously has served as editor of the Journal of Marketing and Chairperson of the American Marketing Association. The AMA has awarded him with several awards including the Louis Stern Award for Contributions to the Marketing Channels Literature and on two occasions the Harold H. Maynard Award for significant contributions to marketing theory and thought.