Christian Gronroos

Christian Gronroos is Professor of Service and Relationship Marketing since 1999 (prior to that, in 1984-99, Professor of International and Industrial Marketing) at Hanken School of Economics, Finland (Svenska handelshogskolan) and initiator and past chair of the board of the research and knowledge centre, Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management (CERS) of this business university. He is Honorary Professor at Nankai University and Tianjin Normal University, P.R. China as well as at Oslo School of Management, Norway. Between 2002 and 2007, he served as Guest Professor of Service Management at Lund University (Campus Helsingborg), Sweden. Earlier in his career, he was Visiting Professor at Arizona State University.

He is a pioneer and leading scholar developing modern service marketing and service logic as well as relationship marketing and customer relationship management. He is also one of the earliest proponents of the term-service management to describe customer-oriented or market-oriented management based on service logic in service and manufacturing firms.

He is a CSL Distinguished Faculty at Center for Services Leadership, Arizona State University, USA and an International Fellow at Service Research Centre (Centrum for tjansteforskning), University of Karlstad, Sweden. In Finland he is scholarly affiliated (docent) with Åbo Academy University, Helsinki University of Technology (now part of Aalto University) and University of Tampere. He is also Honourary Member of the Italian Marketing Association and Guest Professor at Marketing Research Center of China.

He is a distinguished member of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters and since 2008 a member of the board of the Society. Among his current academic administrative positions are member and chair of the university council as well as member of the academic council of Hanken School of Economics Finland.

You are here

Legends in Marketing: Christian Gronroos