Service Operations Management: Improving Service Delivery, 5th edition

Published by Pearson (November 2, 2020) © 2025
  • Robert Johnston
  • Michael Shulver
  • Nigel Slack
  • Graham Clark

Title overview

Analyse and address organisational challenges using real world examples

Service Operations Management, 5th Edition, by Robert Johnston et al. is a market-leading text on service operations management and provides a clear understanding of how service performance can be improved in organisations. This textbook applies underlying theories to the real world challenges faced by service operations managers on a daily basis, by providing a diverse range of examples and illustrations. Each chapter provides a range of tools, frameworks and techniques designed to help you better analyse existing operations and understand ways to deal with operational challenges.

Hallmark features of this title

A comprehensive textbook with a series of theoretical features and practical applications

  • The learning objectives point your students towards the right learning direction in each chapter.
  • Summaries at the end of each chapter help your students understand the basic themes discussed and organise their studying.
  • End-of-chapter questions and exercises encourage students to practice what they have learned and check their understanding of the content.
  • End-of-chapter case studies offer the practical understanding your students need to cement their learning of the most essential concepts.
  • Suggestions for further reading support your students as they explore additional resources that will help them better understand the learning material.

Introducing the Instructor's Companion website

UPDATED! Servops.net is the instructor’s companion website and manual for this textbook. Key features include:

  • a range of presentations in PowerPoint and Keynote formats to suit a range of teaching styles, experiences and time constraints
  • an available series of video screencasts in which the authors explain their approach to teaching each topic
  • a series of lesson plans and handout designs useful for your lectures
  • detailed questions to go with the cases, followed by bullet-point answers to the question

New and updated features of this title

Relevant, real-world understanding of concepts

  • Real-world, up-to-date illustrations: Operations management is an applied subject, so each chapter includes a range of short illustrations and case examples from around the world showing how organisations have identified or dealt with the particular issues being discussed
  • International, real-world illustrations – examples in the text, case examples and case exercises – are drawn from many countries to show the diversity and international nature of operations issues and activities. (We have included a list of the case examples later.)
  • State-of-the-art ideas and information cover world-class service, performance management, service concepts, customer experience and service processes.
  • Introducing Professor Nigel Slack, who has joined the author team for this latest edition of the book! Nigel Slack brings a wealth of experience in authoring his market-leading texts in Operations Management and Operations Strategy.
  • NEW! Increased coverage of the growth in the service sector and the various types of service organisations.

From theory to practice

  • NEW! A new chapter on service innovation has been included in the Improving Service Operations section.
  • UPDATED! Discussion questions and exercises at the end of each chapter are available - aimed both at students and practising managers. These questions will encourage readers to test their understanding and apply the material in the chapter.
  • UPDATED! Suggestions for further readings allow topics to keep developing, to help students develop their basic understanding of the topic further and extend its scope.
  • UPDATED! Each chapter concludes with a case exercise suitable for class discussion. The cases are short but focused on the topic and are a rich source of material for debate and development.

Backed by effective learning design principles

  • NEW! Significantly revised chapter order to reflect a new structure based on four parts – Framing service operations, Understanding customers, Delivering service, and Improving service operations
  • NEW! "Counterpoint" features in most chapters provide comments or criticisms of conventional theory and/or practice
  • UPDATED! Frameworks, tools and techniques provided in each chapter

Key features

Features of Pearson eBook for the 5th Edition

Improve your students' learning experience with a range of digital tools.

Analyse and address organisational challenges using real-world examples with this market-leading text on service operations management.

From fully online delivery to blended learning, this is a digital textbook with integrated resources designed to keep your students engaged and support their learning.

With eBooks your students can:

  • Customise how they study and add their own notes, bookmarks, and highlights directly in their eBook.
  • Organise study time and read online or offline, anytime, anywhere.
  • Optimise their studying and access learning content with their computer, mobile, and Android apps.
  • Study for their course with an environmentally friendly learning resource.

Find out more about the teaching benefits of Pearson eBooks.

Table of contents

  • Preface
  • New features for this edition
  • Case examples and exercises
  • About the authors

PART I: FRAMING SERVICE OPERATIONS

  1. Introduction to service operations
  2. The world of service
  3. Service strategy
  4. The service concept

PART II: SERVICE PEOPLE

  1. Customer relationships
  2. Service quality
  3. Designing customer experience
  4. People in the service operation
  5. Service culture

PART III: DELIVERING SERVICE

  1. Service supply networks
  2. Designing the service process
  3. Managing service performance
  4. Service resources and capacity

PART IV: IMPROVING SERVICE OPERATIONS

  1. Service innovation
  2. Service improvement
  3. Learning from problems
  4. Learning from other operations
  • Index
  • Publisher acknowledgements

Author bios

Robert Johnston was Professor of Operations Management at Warwick Business School. He had a management degree from the University of Aston and a Ph.D. from the University of Warwick. Before moving to academia Bob held several line management and senior management posts in a number of service organisations in both the public and private sectors.

Michael Shulver is a Senior Lecturer in the Information, Decision and Operations Division at Bath School of Management. Michael has MBA and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Warwick. Before his time in academia Michael was an aircraft engineer and he has also worked as a consultant in performance management.

Nigel Slack is Emeritus Professor of Operations Management and Strategy at Warwick Business School, an Honorary Professor at Bath University and 'Honorary Fellow of the European Operations Management Association'. He is an educator, consultant and writer with wide experience in many sectors.

Graham Clark is Senior Lecturer in Operations Management at Cranfield School of Management and Director of the Executive MBA Programme. He has a degree in mechanical engineering from Leeds University and a master’s degree in management from Imperial College, London University. He is a non-executive director of the Institute of Customer Service and a member of the leadership team of the UK chapter of the Association for Service Management.

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