Study on service profit chain: review and prospect

Based on the review of previous researches both on isolated linkages and the complete service profit chain, this paper points out that three dimensions need to be paid attention to in the future empirical researches on the service profit chain in China. First one is the expansion of the original framework of the service profit chain. Two possible modifications including inserting market orientation as a mediating variable between the internal and external component of the service profit chain and incorporating firm size, industry type, competitive strategy, ownership type and economic openness level as moderating variables are suggested by the author in order to testify the cross industry validity of the theory. The second one involves the measurement and data collection. The third one relates to the analytical methodology. Structural equation modeling and specifically, the multi-groups analysis using nested model approach is suggested to be a suitable analytical method to be employed to test the moderating effects.