Evert Gummesson Outstanding Research Award – 2011

Professor Christian Grönroos, Hanken School of Economics

For original and sustainable contributions to service and marketing theory and dedicated efforts to disseminate Nordic School research to a global community.

Christian Gronroos is Professor of Service and Relationship Marketing at the Hanken Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Finland. He is also the Chairman of the board of its research and knowledge centre CERS – Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management. Professor Gronroos' visiting professor or visiting scholar associations include Arizona State University, Stanford University, Lund University and Karlstad University, Sweden, University of Auckland, New Zealand, Nankai University, P.R.China, and Thammasat University, Thailand.

Professor Håkan Håkansson, BI Norwegian School of Management

For sustainable and inspiring work in business-to-business marketing based on relationships, networks and interaction and for reaching out globally through the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group.

Håkan Håkansson is Professor in International Management at BI Norwegian School of Management in Oslo. He has also been Professor in Marketing and in Business Studies. His main research fields are Business Networks and Relationships. He has had articles published in the Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Marketing and European Management Journal. Among his several awards, Professor Håkansson received the Business Administrators Research Award for research in business administration and the Royal Society of Sciences Award for his research in technical development, and was finally awarded by the Swedish Trade Organizations for marketing research.

Professor Robert F. Lusch, University of Arizona

For co-creating, with Stephen L. Vargo, service-dominant (S-D) logic as a synthesis of extant and new service knowledge, adding momentum to service research and keeping an open code thus stimulating scholars world-wide to contribute to the generation of higher level service theory.

Robert F. Lusch (second from the right) is Professor Marketing in the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona; (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin — Madison) he is the executive director of the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, and holds the James and Pamela Muzzy Chair in Entrepreneurship, at the University of Arizona in Tucson. His research interests include service marketing, retail strategy, inter-organizational management and marketing theory. Currently, he is working on the development of theoretical foundations for a service-dominant logic system for marketing. Dr. Lusch is the past editor of the Journal of Marketing, and twice has won the AMA Harold Maynard Award for theoretical contributions in marketing published in that journal (1996, 2004).

Professor Stephen L. Vargo, University of Hawaii

For co-creating, with Robert F. Lusch, service-dominant (S-D) logic as a synthesis of extant and new service knowledge, adding momentum to service research and keeping an open code thus stimulating scholars world-wide to contribute to the generation of higher level service theory.

Stephen L. Vargo (second from the left) is a Shidler Distinguished Professor and Professor of Marketing at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His primary research areas 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, and other major marketing journals. He serves on six editorial review boards, including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and the Journal of Service Research. Professor Vargo has been awarded the Best Article of the Year Award by the Australia and New Zealand Marketing Academy and the Harold H. Maynard Award by the American Marketing Association for “significant contribution to marketing theory and thought.” His 2004 article with Robert Lusch in the Journal of Marketing, “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing,” is the most-cited marketing article published in the last 10 years