Servicescapes: From modern non-places to postmodern common places

Of the many questions confronting services management and marketing in the 1990s, one seems characteristic of the European thought and linked with the emergent postmodern condition: is it possible to push the boundaries of services marketing beyond the individual level of analysis in order to increase our understanding of consumer behavior? In this article, it is advocated that modem consumption has emphasized essentially the use-value of services. Postmodern consumption can be said, on the contrary, to crown a forgotten element: the social link. Thus, it emphasizes the linking value of services. The ability of the physical environment, or servicescape, to influence consumer behavior is stressed: it can assume a facilitator role by encouraging and nurturing particular forms of social interaction among customers; it has a linking value. Consequently, it is proposed that companies have to manage servicescapes not only as nonplaces of economic servuction but also as common places qi societal ritualization. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.