Submissions

Submissions

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Author Guidelines

SMR – Journal of Service Management Research is a Diamond Open Access journal. All articles are published free of charge for authors and are immediately available to readers worldwide. The journal welcomes interdisciplinary contributions in service management, including empirical, conceptual, and methodological work. Authors are invited to submit original manuscripts that are not under consideration elsewhere. All submissions are initially assessed by an editor for fit with the journal’s aims and scope. Suitable manuscripts will be sent for double-blind peer review. Submissions that do not meet basic quality or scope requirements may be desk rejected. Accepted papers are published rapidly and continuously online (no issue-based delays due to the continuous OA publishing model).

Scope and Contributions
:


  • Empirical studies (qualitative and quantitative)

  • Methodological contributions

  • Conceptual papers

  • Literature reviews
  • Special issues on emerging topics

  • “Special Research Topics” collections with short contributions

Before submission, authors must ensure that:

  • The manuscript is is formatted according to the SMR template
  • The manuscript is clearly structured and academically sound
  • The title is concise and informative
  • The abstract is self-contained and summarizes the contribution
  • All co-authors have approved the submission
  • Necessary permissions for third-party materials (e.g., figures, datasets) have been obtained
  • Research complies with applicable ethical standards and approvals
  • Be submitted exclusively to SMR

  • Not be under review elsewhere

During the submission process, you will be asked to:

  • Upload your manuscript and any supplementary files
  • Add all contributing authors
  • Provide metadata such as title, abstract, and keywords

You may save your submission at any time and return to it later. Before final submission, you will have the opportunity to review and edit all entered information. Please ensure that you have read the Author Guidelines and prepared all required materials before starting your submission.

SMR follows COPE guidelines and commits to:

For Authors


  • Original work only (no plagiarism)

  • Proper citation and permissions

  • Disclosure of:
 
    • Funding sources

    • Conflicts of interest

    • All co-authors must approve submission

For Editors & Reviewers


  • Fair, unbiased, confidential review process

  • No discrimination

  • Strict conflict-of-interest handling

Submission Preparation Checklist

All submissions must meet the following requirements:

  • The submission complies with the Author Guidelines and the SMR template
  • The manuscript has not been published or submitted elsewhere
  • All references are complete and accurate
  • Tables and figures are properly numbered and labeled
  • Permissions have been obtained for all third-party materials

Articles

Section default policy

Servitization as a Multilevel Transformation: Business Models, People, Organisations, and Ecosystems

Call for papers for the special issue of the

Journal of Service Management Research (SMR)

on the theme

Servitization as a Multilevel Transformation: Business Models, People, Organisations, and Ecosystems

 

Servitization, i.e., the transition of manufacturing firms from selling product-centric transactional offerings to delivering integrated product-service systems (PSS) and customised outcome-based solutions, is no longer a novel phenomenon. However, the complexity of this journey has increased exponentially alongside other organisational transformations like digitalisation and a stronger focus on sustainability. It is now widely acknowledged that successful servitization is not a simple strategic pivot but a highly complex, multilevel transformation. Servitization reshapes organisations and job profiles and redefines how organisations interact with other actors within ecosystems. To fully understand why some firms succeed in capturing value from services while others succumb to the "service paradox," we must bridge the micro (people), meso (organisations and their business models), and macro levels (ecosystems) of this transformation.

With this special issue, we would like to continue the discussion that sparked at the 2026 Spring Servitization Conference in Bochum, Germany (https://www.advancedservicesgroup.co.uk/events/ssc2026/). We cordially invite conference participants to submit extended versions of their works but also ask the wider service research community to join the discussion on servitization as a multilevel transformation. Hence, we welcome contributions from a multitude of academic disciplines, including industrial engineering, marketing, strategic management, operations management, economics, information systems, psychology, work science, and others, to facilitate a truly interdisciplinary discourse on servitization. We are looking forward to receiving original research articles, conceptual papers, design science research, and qualitative and quantitative empirical studies that address servitization as a multilevel transformation from individuals across organisations to wider ecosystems.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

·       Servitizing in ecosystems, supply chains, value networks, and platforms.

·       Organising for servitization, overcoming internal silos, change management and participatory change in the context of servitization.

·       Development of individual mindsets, professional identities, motivation and competences for servitization.

·       Analysis of leadership styles, human resource practices, and sales capabilities critical for servitization.

·       Frontline employees in servitized business-to-business relationships.

·       Territorial servitization as a pathway for regional and sectoral change.

·       Country-specific issues, international comparisons, trade, economic and meta-study.

·       Technologies and capabilities enabling services and servitization (e.g. data analytics, digital twins, industrial Internet-of-Things, artificial intelligence and agents, blockchain, digital platforms, additive manufacturing).

·       Human factors in service design and delivery.

·       Systemic and ecosystem theory of servitization (e.g. service-dominant logic).

·       Orchestration and governance of complex service ecosystems.

·       Services marketing, solution selling, value-based selling, pricing and revenue models.

·       Services finance, risk management of services, and legal contracts.

·       Engineering, innovation and design aspects of advanced services and servitization.

·       Twin transition/transformation and its relationship to multilevel servitization.

We welcome contributions that explore these topics from different disciplinary perspectives and use a variety of methodological approaches. All submissions will undergo a double-blind peer-review process to ensure the highest quality standards.

The SMR – Journal of Service Management Research is a Diamond Open Access journal. All articles are published free of charge for authors and are immediately available to readers worldwide.

Key Dates:

·       Manuscript Submission Deadline: September 30, 2026

·       First Round of Reviews (Feedback): November 9, 2026

·       Expected Publication Date: Late 2026 / Early 2027

Submission Guidelines:

·       Manuscripts should be submitted in English

·       Manuscripts should be prepared according to SMR's formatting guidelines

·       Manuscripts should be submitted via SMR's online submission system  

For more information about SMR and our submission guidelines, please visit the SMR website (https://journal-smr.com/index.php/smr/about/submissions).

We look forward to receiving your submissions and continuing the interdisciplinary dialogue on servitization. For informal inquiries regarding the suitability of a topic or draft paper, please contact Jens Poeppelbuss at jens.poeppelbuss@isse.rub.de .

 

Best regards,

Special Issue Guest Editors

Tim Baines, Ali Z. Bigdeli, and Jens Poeppelbuss

Copyright Notice

SMR is a Diamond Open Access journal:


  • No publication fees (APCs) for authors

  • Immediate open access to all published articles

  • Articles are freely available to readers worldwide without subscription
  • All content is published under the open license Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en
  • Free distribution and reuse with proper attribution

  • Maximum visibility and impact of research
  • The journal receives the right to publish and distribute the work
  • The work will be made freely available as part of SMR’s Diamond Open Access model

  • Authors retain copyright of their work

  • Authors grant SMR a non-exclusive right to publish

  • Authors may share preprints and postprints immediately
  • Authors may upload the final published version (publisher PDF) to repositories, websites, or academic platforms
  • Authors need to complete and sign an author agreement 

 

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