Marketing Professor Keiningham Honored with Highest Academic Award in Service Research

Timothy L. Keiningham of the Peter J. Tobin College of Business is the recipient of the American Marketing Association’s 2017 Christopher Lovelock Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award.

This international award, the highest award presented in the field of service marketing, is given to the individual whose teaching, research, and service have had the greatest long-term impact on the development of the services discipline.  This award is given to only a select few marketing academics; only one award is given per year.

Keiningham received his award at the Awards Dinner held during the Frontiers in Service Conference in New York City on June 23.

“It is humbling to be included among the esteemed previous honorees, and the weight of this honor is only beginning to sink in,” he said. “As service researchers, our fundamental task is to show managers how they can win by doing the right thing for their customers, and for society. 

“I chose service research because I wanted to in some small way make the world better through my work,” he continued. “Over the years, however, I have come to realize that the collective impact of our work together as service researchers isn’t small.  It is vital to maintaining a civil society and to enhancing human happiness. My career and my research have had many twists and turns over the years, but my passion for what we service researchers do and why we do it remains unchanged.”

The author or co-author of half a dozen books, and numerous scholarly articles and papers, Keiningham came to Tobin in 2016 after a long career in service marketing. He spent more than 17 years at Ipsos Loyalty, a division of the world’s third largest market research firm, rising to the position of global chief strategy office and executive vice president. He left Ipsos in 2015 to join Rockbridge Associates as chief strategy and client officer. 

Keiningham currently holds the J. Donald Kennedy Endowed Chair in E-Commerce, continuing to pursue his research interests and teaching courses in service marketing, marketing strategy, and marketing analytics.

“One of the most compelling aspects of joining St. John’s University is that service is in its DNA. In fact, it is explicitly stated in its mission,” he said. “Being able to help instill in my students the idea that business done right is ultimately about service has been incredibly rewarding.

“As a service researcher who chose this discipline specifically because at its core it is about serving others, I feel blessed to be a part of an institution that believes service is its reason for existence.”