An evaluation of the expanded servicescape in the context of town and city place making

Abstract

The sustainable development of town and city environments is important to improving wider economic and social development of a region. The overall aim of this research study is to develop a theoretical framework of place making that encapsulates and defines what a best practice public servicescape should be, taking account of the need to reposition public servicescapes as physical, natural, social and socially symbolic places.

The research sought to underpin a dual perspective of public servicescapes from a user and provider perspective to investigate the factors causing town and city environments to change. Services marketing, place marketing and retail marketing literatures were interlinked to develop a theoretical understanding of public servicescapes. These literature strands allowed an approach of connecting people and place to provide a holistic evaluation of town and city environments beyond place promotion. This led to the development of a public servicescape theoretical framework. The public servicescape theoretical framework recognises that the provider’s role within the public servicescape is to communicate meaning of the area and create third place stimuli. The user’s response to the public servicescape is embedded within the establishment of community networks.

To achieve the research aims and objectives a qualitative approach to data collection was adopted. This was underpinned by a multiple case methodology. Six case locations from Europe were purposefully selected to collect data. The case locations were selected because of an operating partnership between the towns and cities to develop best practice town and city environments. The data collection stage of the research involved a five-stage research design. Data collection consisted of content analysis of documents, in depth interviews with respondents from the public, private and voluntary sectors, participant as observer workshops and pictorial evidence. Insights gained from the empirical research informed the development of an applied public servicescape framework.

This research proposes that sustainable physical, natural, social and socially symbolic public servicescapes can only be repositioned as sustainable environments if providers recognise each of the expanded servicescape dimensions equally. Each dimension must be recognised and interpreted by the user to create a familiar sense of place. The research highlights the role of local citizens as important for the future of co-creating sustainable spaces. Local citizens have been found to help create uniqueidentities for the public servicescape as well as create a social entrepreneurial culture.

Date of Award	Nov 2016
Original language	English
Supervisor	Karise Hutchinson (Supervisor), Audrey Gilmore (Supervisor) & Andrea Reid (Supervisor)